djKing wrote to us with the news that Sun will be releasing a "Java2-compliant JVM for Linux that brings the performance, functions, and Java HotSpot features of the latest Java specifications to the Linux community", which will be announced at the Java Developers' Conference. As well, IBM will be announcing the free general availability of a JSDK 1.18-compliant JVM, with performance better then that of Windows NT JVMs.

jamiemccarthy writes "A rewrite of Perl in C++ is underway. The audacious plan, now called Topaz, will become Perl6 if and when it's successful. Its author, Chip Salzenberg, will tell you all about it. " Wow. That's quite a project - you can also listen to Chip's talk given at the OpenSource Convention. For those you unaware, Chip is one of the Perl core developers.

mypointofview wrote to us with an interesting interview with James Gosling ^[?] . It's an interesting interview format, similar to Slashdot's style. Good questions about Java, but also the problems of getting Java and Linux to *ahem* play nicely with each other.

geophile writes "This Boston Globe article starts out talking about Java's failure to take over the world, and then questions whether Linux will suffer the same fate. " Interesting question, and perhaps I'm being partial, but I feel as though Java promised that it was going to change the world-right then and there. Linux has been building for quite sometime, and continues to develop.

Thanks to chromatic, who has returned with another book review. This time around it's O'Reilly's Programming Web Graphics with Perl & GNU Software. Excellent book for prospective Webmasters - give it a look.

Geoff Eldridge writes " Larry Wall has made available a copy of his 3rd State of the Perl Onion which he recently delivered. You will need a basic grounding in molecular chemistry to understand this year's onion." Larry is (as always) pretty dang wierd. But it is nice to know that the end of cobol is iminent.

Yussef ElSirgany writes "Does anyone one out there know how to dynamicaly serve graphics from fields in a database which are being accessed from a perl script? I know how to access the database and generate the html just not how to serve the graphics. ODBC(Text+Graphics) --> Perl --> Dynamic HTML Thanks!" Let's make this one interesting and cover not just ODBC, but Oracle, PostgreSQL, mSQL and mySQL as well. What databases worh the best for serving images to the web?

The first White Camel awards were presented to some well-deserving folks at the Perl Conference 3.0. Tom Christiansen, Kevin Lenzo and Adam Turoff were the three winners. Click below for details.

Will in Seattle writes "A new InfoWorld story on a court annullment of the Sun injunction against Microsoft over Java. Arr, matey, the seas be choppy right now, first to port, than starboard, then port, then starboard. Abandon ship, all ye Java geeks!"

Robin Smidsrød asks: I'm planning on making a full multimedia system with my Linux-box. In this process I need to make a GUI for selecting which files to insert into a playlist for my mp3-player. Since I've done a lot of coding in Perl, and both QT and GTK-bindings are available, I'd like to program my GUI in perl and GTK/QT. The program isn't really very advanced, but are there any tools available for (at least) setting up the GUI, or maybe a complete IDE? I've done several queries on Altavista, and I've searched Freshmeat too, but no luck. Can anybody help me?" Heck! Microsoft has Visual Basic, why can't we have "Visual Perl"?

QuantumG asks: "I'm retargeting GCC (EGCS) to the Java Virtual Machine so that you can compile C to Java bytecode. I've been inserting System.out messages in my bytecode and hacking the output to get it past the verifier but I'm getting kinda annoyed at the fantastic error messages I get from the JVM (most the time it just bombs with an assert error). Does anyone know of a bytecode level debugger for Linux? The only one I've seen is a commercial package for the Mac."

bryan schwab writes "Perl 5.6 is in development, here is a list of all the new features" The article is an interview with the "Patch Pumpkin" - one of the guys from ActiveState in charge of putting together the development release. Seems there is a lot planned for the next release.

An anonymous reader sent us a little JavaSoft PR Bit about Java integrated into a concept car. It's mostly full of your usual "Ra-Ra Change the World" kinda stuff you might expect, but it has a few interesting notes (Using wireless ether, Ricochet, and a cel modem to provide different bandwidth streams depending on location, the fact that the machine could be ported to Linux, the fact that it could download MP3s to cars) so its actually kinda interesting.

babbage writes "Chris Nandor tried to help out the Red Sox by stuffing the MLB All Star Ballot. Baseball says they were on to him all along. He says he'll be back next year. " Ah, yes, that wonderful point where sports and computer connect, probably sans changing IPs, but with the mis-use of "hacker".

Idmat writes "Nominate the Perl community's unsung heroes for the first White Camel awards. Three awards--for outstanding contributions to Perl Advocacy, Perl User Groups, and the Perl Community--will be awarded at O'Reilly's Perl Conference 3.0 on August 24, 1999. Nominate the folks who have made these important non-technical contributions to Perl at perl.com All nominations must be in by August 2. The White Camel awards are sponsored by Perl Mongers, O'Reilly & Associates, and sourceXchange. See the press release for more info " Anyone want to share their ideas?

MistaBobDobalina asks: I am looking at three open-source Java application servers for the purpose of building a database-driven website: Locomotive , Protomatter, and Enhydra. I am curious if anyone has experience with these or any other open source middleware solutions. I am also looking at commercial products but prefer an open product. I am making this query because three-tiered sites are now the norm for E-commerce and this is an area that the Open Source world hasn't addressed as well as operating systems, web servers, and databases have been."

killbill writes "3Com and Sun have agreed to put a Sun Java virtual machine inside the Palm Pilot. Attenders of the JavaOne Developer Conference can purchase a Palm V with the Java VM already installed as of today, and I assume it will be available to the general public as soon as you can tap your "beam" button. "

Thomas Charron wrote to us with the latest Microsoft-Java ">news. Transvirtual, a "closely held start-up funded by Microsoft" has cloned aspects of Java. This new software called "Kaffe" will let programmers write Java that will run only on Windows. What's interesting is that on their homepage, Transvirtual seems committed to working with the Open Source idea - partnering with Cygnus. Does anyone have details clearing up these seeming contradictions? Update: 06/14 08:51 by H : Click below: Tim Wilkinson from Transvirtual e-mailed me. Here's the salient points: Everything they are doing with MS is Open Source, and runs all platforms it can, and they are not funded by Microsoft. They were incredibly misquoted by the Wall Street Journal.

Jeff N Roberts from IBM wrote in to announce that IBM is releasing a JDK for Linux which incorporates the same IBM Just-In-Time technology found in IBM's JVMs for OS/2 and Windows. Dave Whitinger has HTMLized the FAQ we were sent. (If the IBM link does not work, it should be active shortly)

feeder sent us a recent Techweb story purporting to talk about the Open Source community reaction to the announcement from Microsoft and ActiveState about ActiveState being funded to extend Perl support under Windows. The story is indicative of some of the standard concerns-but how much do we have fear - what does everyone think?