We have a lot of exciting updates for you this week. In our last edition, we got the release of Apache Kafka® 3.6, and this week brings us Apache Flink® 1.18! A new and improved version of librdkafka is also joining our resource list, as well as news on the upcoming Kafka Summit London and first-ever Kafka Summit Bangalore! We’re also sending along a guide for running Kafka on Windows, a list of Kafka debugging and troubleshooting essentials, and a handy CLI tip.

Apache Kafka® Resources:

• Interested in trying out Kafka on Windows? Jim Galasyn’s popular getting started guide was recently fully updated with the latest best practices.
• v2.3.0 of librdkafka, the Apache Kafka C/C++ client library, is now available! See the release notes for a full list of improvements and fixes.
• Resiliency is crucial when working on distributed systems. Learn key configurations to consider in Apache Kafka that will help your system withstand disruptions and changing conditions in this article by Amandeep Midha.
• Squash all your Kafka bugs with these essential resources for debugging and troubleshooting.

Apache Flink® Resources:

• Apache Flink 1.18 is here! Read the highlights in the announcement blog post from the release managers, get the full list of changes in the release notes, or download the latest version.
• Managing state in a distributed streaming pipeline can be tricky! Wade Waldron’s latest video shows how to use Flink's Keyed State feature to manage state in a distributed cluster.
• Learn step-by-step how to use Flink SQL to join event streams in two different Kafka topics and create a new topic based on a common identifying attribute in the How to join a stream and a stream tutorial. And check out this list of other Flink SQL tutorials while you’re at it!
• If you’re looking to use Flink with Python, installing PyFlink is probably going to be one of your first steps. Robin Moffatt’s blog post walks you through installation and notes his own experience with complications you might experience.

Terminal Tip of the Week:

If you've been running Confluent CLI commands against a cluster in the Cloud and you need to verify which organization you've been running them under, you can use this command:

❯ confluent organization list
  Current |                  ID                  |   Name     
----------+--------------------------------------+------------
  *       | 6e0269cd71b4b4cc5fd382387eef43f88691d | My_Org 

and your needed info will surface!

Links From Around the Web:

• Figure out exactly where the day is going.
• Interesting reads on sustainability on a solar-powered website.
• Who knew URLs could be so poetic? The URL Poetry Club did!

In Other News:

• Kafka Summit London is returning in 2024 on March 19-20, and for the first time ever, Kafka Summit is coming to Bangalore on May 2, 2024!! The call for papers for both events is now open, so submit your abstracts to speak in London or Bangalore (or both!) before Nov 27, 2023 for London and January 10, 2024 for Bangalore. Need help writing a winning abstract? Check out Robin Moffatt's guide or attend the speaker office hours on the Confluent Community Slack. Times for the office hours for Kafka Summit London are Nov 8 and Nov 22 at 8 a.m. PST and 4 p.m. PST for both dates. Times for Kafka Summit Bangalore office hours are coming soon. They will be announced on the Sessionize page.
• Community Over Code EU is also coming in 2024! The event will be in Bratislava, Slovakia on June 3-5. The call for speakers is open through January 12, 2024.
• Flink Forward is coming up next week (Nov 6-8) in Seattle! If you’ll be attending, Confluent is hosting an in-person meetup on Nov 7 where several Flink contributors will share their experience and insights for the future of Flink. There will also be a post-event in-person social mixer on Nov 9 where you can chat and ask questions with other Kafka and Flink enthusiasts. We hope to meet you there!
• In-person meetup in Vancouver (Nov 7): A Kafka Client’s Request: Or, There and Back Again
• Online event in Portuguese (Nov 22): Flink integrado com o Kafka/Agregar dados em tempo real/Transformando dados

By the way…

We hope you enjoyed our curated assortment of resources! If you’d like to provide feedback, suggest ideas for content you’d like to see, or you want to submit your own resource for consideration, send us an email at devx_newsletter@confluent.io!

If you’d like to view previous editions of the newsletter, visit our archive.

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P.S. If you want to learn more about Kafka, Flink, or Confluent Cloud, visit our developer site at Confluent Developer.