broken77 asks: "At the company I'm working for now, we're starting a new project, and at the same time are looking to find some kind of "standard" method of making our CGI-like perl programs. CGI.pm and cgi-lib.pl have been used in the past, but we're investigating some kind of embedded perl solution similar to ASP or PHP. I should mention that Unix-ASP and PHP are not options (I don't really need to go into the reasons). Also, Perl is definitely the language we will be using. We're looking mainly at ePerl, HTML::Embperl and PerlMagic Lightning. Does anyone have experience with any or all of these? Are there some benchmarks I can find? Are there any products that you've found to be better than these three that I've listed?"

Dionysus asks: "We have some internal utilities running on Windows NT (using Visual C++) that we would like to port to Linux. The problem is, Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom has extended the language and introduced new types (like CHAR, WCHAR, TCHAR), and new functions (like MultiByteToWideChar()), which makes it impossible to do a straight compile. Note, we are not using WIN32 specific stuff (like MFC, COM etc). Are there any libraries out there that would make the porting easier?"

Porthop points out this "interesting developer.com story regarding the security of open source software, in regards to theories that many eyes looking at the source will alleviate security problems." It ain't necessarily so, emphasis on necessarily. Last week it was discovered that, in some (uncommon) cases, a really stupid brainfart bug makes PGP5 key generation not very random. The bug lived for a year in open-source code before being found. If you generated a key pair non-interactively with PGP5 on a unix machine, don't panic and read carefully; you may want to invalidate your key. Update, next day: several people have pointed out that although PGP5's code is available (crypto requires code review), it can't be used for any product without permission. Incentive for code review is therefore less than for other projects of its importance, and I really shouldn't have called PGP "open-source." Mea culpa.

kbh3rd writes: "A couple of my kids are starting to make noises about learning to program computers, just like their old man. 8^D I'm totally unsure how to start out. I'm a *nix geek, but I don't know if they'd keep interest if started with 'main () { printf ("Hello, world!\n") ; }' and command-line gcc. They almost exclusively use Win98 because that's where their games run. I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe they should start with something where they could get some Windows programs going, like VB (shudder) or Delphi? What language/development environment would be best for kids aged 11-13 who think they want to learn some programming over the summer? And what are some good books they might start with, too? "

djmagic writes "SourceForge has opened it's IA-64 portal for porting projects to Linux running on (surprise) IA-64. " It's still a tad sparse, but you should be able to compile on the Compilefarm if you're interested in porting something. There's also a news.com story on the thing.

WhyteRabbyt writes: "ActiveState have announced Komodo, an open-source IDE for Perl, Python and Javascript. The application framework is to be based on Mozilla. The press release is here." tenchiken contributed a bit more information about the project, writing: "More information is here , including the announcement a few days ago that they would be writing python and perl bindings to XPCOM. Like Perl? How 'bout client side perl!" No, it's not out yet -- but it's cool to see Mozilla as the engine behind yet another project.

Naeem Bari asks: "I wanted to find out if Slashdot readers have a favorite Application Server. I want to compare products like Sun's iPlanet, IBM's WebSphere, BEA's Weblogic, Sybase's Jaguar et al. I am looking for comments from people who have experience using any of these products. What kind of features do they support (EJB 1.1, CORBA 2.3, XML etc.)? And whether they do these features really well or just pay them lip service? How about usability? Vendor support? Performance? Scalability? Failover abilities?"

Crutcher asks: "I've been walking the murky path to one day becoming a Systems Programmer, and I was wondering what other not-yet-gurus like myself saw as their ultimate goals, and why they choose those fields? Do we all want to hack kernels, or do more want to be UI Gurus, or Deamonic Masters? It would help if we (the proto-gurus) had clearer understandings of where we could go, and what it takes to get there." This is an interesting question. I've discovered however, that the more I learn about coding (including new paradigms and languages), the more my goals have changed. What are your thoughts on this?

Yousef asks: "We're trying to develop a WAP enabled Webserver, that can work with Java (Servlets). Currently the only working option is M$ IIS running the New Atlanta plugin. Now I'd rather NOT run IIS, so if anyone else has a solution to this, it would be much appreciated. We've tried Inprise IAS and Apache JServ (We're deploying to a Sun Solaris box). Any help would be nice. Getting the servlets to run is quite easy -- The problem is getting them to work with WAP!"

Jeff Evarts writes: " This article in Fast Company talks about the process the Shuttle Group uses to make software. At first it seems too predictable: a very cool project but no hacks, no pizza-and-coke all-nighters, etc. Then, however, it goes on to talk about why: They have an informed customer, they talk to that customer until they have a very clear idea of what is wanted, they have a budget focused on prevention, and they focus on fixing the process and not blaming the individual."

A nameless mouse slipped this one under the door a bit ago: "Just a quick question ... If Mac OS X is based on Unix, and Microsoft creates applications eg IE for Mac OS X, how much work is involved in getting those applications working in *nix??" Y'know, I hadn't thought about it this way before, but I bet you Microsoft has. What do you think?

pi_rules asks: "I'm by no means an expert on EDI software (stuff used to communicate purchase orders, invoices, ship notices, etc., electronically) but from a programmer's point of view I'm dismayed at what the market for this stuff looks like right now. Looking at the specs to the documents it doesn't seem like an overly daunting task to implement a solution on a business-by-business basis; however the only commercial solutions out there are huge, expensive products. I'd like to know what other people who have worked with EDI software can tell me about what they need their software to do; and if they have a solution if they could give me a general over-view of how it even works. My intention here isn't to beat up on existing EDI solution providers really; it's just that I want to see a solution that's 'geek-friendly', and beneficial to businesses by setting up a system that will provide them software that not only functions, but does the job lickety split."

Craig Miskell asks: "Bought a magazine today (PC Authority - Australian magazine). It contained Borland C++ Builder 3, and the licence contained the following, which I read to mean that you can't release the source code to your programs that you create using C++Builder: 'GENERAL TERMS THAT APPLY TO COMPILED PROGRAMS AND REDISTRIBUTABLES You may write and compile (including byte-code compile) your own application programs using the Software, including any libraries and source code included for such purpose with the Software. You may reproduce and distribute, in executable form only, programs which you create using the Software without additional license or fees, subject to all of the conditions in this statement.' What dya think about that? Seems odd to me." Me, too. Borland better bandage that foot before it stains the carpet... Updated Sorry. There seems to nothing to worry about. Read on for a statement direct from Inprise.

Penguin_99 asks: "I was asked to create two GUI's, in Solaris, in order to compare the speed of a C++ GUI versus a Java GUI. Right now, the GUI builder of choice is Teleuse (which is made by Telesoft), however this tool is hard to use and there is little documentation for it (not to mention the company no longer supports it). I would like to know if anyone in the Slashdot community has experience with Teleuse and knows of any on-line documentation or do you know of a better GUI builder that works with Solaris?"

chromatic has brought us yet another pithy programming-book review, this time of Damien Conway's Object Oriented Perl. This sounds like a good book for those interested in not only an overview, but a book that pushes them into at least a few practical applications -- but not one too intimidating to learn from.

JabberWokky asks a question that (intentionally or not) ties in to the one asked on Sunday: "My company is ready to hire several developers. Of course, the VC's lawyers say that there must be confidentiality agreements, non-disclosure agreements and non-complete agreements, to the point that the company would own private Web sites, or anything else written on your own time. I have one week to come up with something that will satisfy the lawyers, and still allow some freedom for the to-be-hired developers to work on side projects of their own, which I think is ultimately beneficial to everybody, including the company. Any ideas?" Certainly there must be some happy middle ground that can be agreed upon!

Rob Kaper asks: "When being assigned to make changes to the Web site statistics program for one of the sites our company hosts, I was suprised to find that the site was using my own (open source and GPL-ed) program, which I had written long before I started to work at the company. Between my employment and the assignment to update the program for work I have been working on a new, improved version in my spare time. Many of the changes I am implementing or have planned to implement are the same as the ones the company would like as well. I am kind of puzzled and not sure how to continue. What will happen to the copyrights when I start working on the program during work time? Could I include those changes into my open source project? Would I have to reimplement them in my spare time?" Updated (Read on...)

OneWindCat asks: "I wonder how tough it will be to port i386-targeted apps to StrongARM. I have Linux server from Rebel.com and it has StrongARM processor (low-power consuption, ~12 Wt in running mode) based architecture. I wanted to know if anyone has gone through the pain of compiling source code for such a machine and what the outcome was. Or better yet, is there an i386 emulator written for StrongARM? Performance is not an issue, since I plan to use i386 machine as an Xterminal."

M asks: "I've recently been trying to think lots about O/S's and UI's and what would make a good one. But rather than reinventing the wheel I thought I'd start by reading up on what clever people before me have thought. So does anyone know of a definitive guide to O/S theory?"

Reviewer Greg Smith here dissects a book aimed at programmers who want to add Perl to their stable of languages, but also useful to the Perl connoisseur. If your interest in Perl is more than casual -- especially if you're seeking practical code examples more substantial then in more introductory texts -- The Perl Black Book may be for you. (Read more.)