constab writes "ActiveState, the Sophos-owned company that makes free distributions and commercial programming tools for programming languages like Perl, Python, PHP, Tcl and Ruby, has been sold to a Canadian VC firm. According to the article, ActiveState will go back to its open-source roots and continue development of ActivePerl, ActivePython and ActiveTcl. A full set of Mac OS X on Intel downloads is also in the works."

Anml4ixoye writes "I recently got sent a copy of Bruce Tate's newest book Beyond Java - A Glimpse at the Future of Programming Languages. Having read Bruce's Bitter Java and Better, Faster, Lighter Java, I was intrigued to see what he would have to say about moving beyond Java. In short: If you're a hard-core Java (or to a lesser extent, C#) developer who thinks Ruby is something that goes on a ring, Pythons will bite you, and Smalltalk is something you have to do at parties, you are in for a rude awakening." Read the rest of Cory's review.

fwc asks: "Over the past few years, I've been fortunate to be able to avoid writing a Windows GUI application, however this good luck is coming to an end. In the next few weeks, I need to write a fairly simple application which will need to display data received from a serial port in a decoded (and graphical) form via a Windows GUI. Unfortunately, my skills in this area are out of date, since I haven't written any GUI apps for close to 10 years. Because this program needs to be fairly small and easy to install, the use of Perl/tk isn't a valid option. What options do I have to build a small application on Windows, without a large learning curve?"

You posted a lot of great questions for Mike Nash last week, and he put a lot of time into answering them. As promised, his answers were not laundered by PR people, which is all too common with "executive" interviews with people from any company. Still, he boosts Microsoft, as you'd expect, since he's a VP there. And obviously, going along with that, he says he likes Microsoft products better than he likes competing ones. But this is still a great look into the way Microsoft views security problems with their products, and what the company is trying to do about them.

chromatic writes "Perl.com has a new article entitled What is Perl 6?. It analyzes the changes to the language in light of the good and bad points of Perl 5 and provides new information about the current state of the project: Perl 6 exists, you can write code in it today, and it's more consistent and easier to use than Perl 5."

nazarijo writes "Python seems to be devouring everything these days, with more and more people using it for serious projects. It's quickly supplanting Perl in some circles, and with good reason. It's a powerful, richly featured language with boatloads of extensions. And, unlike Perl, it's very easy to do complicated things in simple, legible code. Python books are still only a small part of the shelf at your local bookstore when you compare it to the popularity of Perl, but which ones are the gems and which ones are fluff? Having looked at a lot of Python books in the past couple of years, I think that Beginning Python: From Novice to Professional is the one that I'll most recommend to people." Read on for the rest of Jose's review.

Nate writes "Linux Format magazine has an interview with Larry Wall, the eccentric linguist and coder behind Perl. Larry discusses some of the new Perl 6 features ready to rock the world, and if you're not planning to move from Perl 5.8, he has a few musings on that too."

jsuda writes "Core Web Application Development with PHP and MySQL is an intermediate to advanced-level guide for programmers and developers. It bills itself as >everything one needs to know about building robust database applications. That is a bit of puffery but this is a comprehensive practical guide for designing and building production-quality, database-enabled applications." Read the rest of John's review.

smilingbandit2 asks: "For the past several months, I've wanted to dive into the world of webpage design. I'm not looking to creative anything cutting edge or even terribly useful, just hobby pages and weblogs that look professionally made. Unfortunately, my knowledge of website design consists of one basic HTML class I took in highschool, about 8 years ago. I feel comfortable enough coding in HTML, but it doesn't give me the results I want, and I know nothing about any other coding languages. Now, I'm not scared of learning new software or languages - in fact, I'm eager to expand my skillsets - but I don't know what to study. XML, Perl, AJAX - nothing but alphabet soup to me. I don't about anything beyond HTML. I'm completely uninitiated in advanced web design. Now, I turn to Slashdot for help. Where should I begin on the path to design enlightenment? What're the languages, programs, or whatever that are worth knowing? Are there good guidebooks, useful websites, or insightful forums? Are formal classes worth a damn? What do you frequently use on your websites? Any helpful advice, generally?"

An anonymous reader writes "The Xooglers blog is running an interesting article on how big businesses may start out running free software but there is always the continued question of 'Should we go with something "real"?' at some point in their evolution. How often are technologies like PHP, Perl, and MySQL being pushed out once startups get managers who know nothing about the technology and only worry about name brands?"

Michael J. Ross writes "The typical computer program has more bugs than there are ants at a picnic -- except ants are usually easier to find. Programs written in Perl are no exception, because the compactness of the language does not make any existent bugs easier to spot; they can simply be packed into fewer lines of code. To help remedy this problem, Richard Foley and Andy Lester, two seasoned Perl programmers, offer a new book, Pro Perl Debugging: From Professional to Expert." Read the rest of Michael's review.

Slim Devices recently sent us the latest version of their Squeezebox MP3 player. It was snatched up and reviewed by Patrick Schoonveld (the poor guy responsible for making ads work on Slashdot and other OSTG sites). His review of the thing follows.

x-blackout-x writes "Ian C. Blenke writes "The primary goal of the video keg was to build a reliable video box that was easy to transport with enough space to store 3 days worth of Anime fan-subs. The secondary goal of the video keg was to make a home PVR system for video playback and time-shifting, along with a video arcade and perhaps a web browser. The tertiary goal of the video keg was to find an affordable hardware platform so that we could buy 4 of them immmediately to service the primary goal's need for 4 separate video rooms. For a PVR, the machine neeed to be small, quiet, low-heat, and still fast enough to run the software video player and arcade games." You can read the full scoop on this project on his blog Ians Blog "

jsuda writes "Podcasting appears to be one of the more interesting developments in current culture and technology. It is one of the earliest nonbusiness representations of the value and power of XML (Extensible Markup Language). XML is subtly and quietly being used to link digital documents together, and more significantly, databases, much like the Internet itself linked individual computers into a global network." Read on for the rest of Jsuda's review.

Spencerian writes "The surge of Unix-derived operating systems such as Mac OS X, Linux, and the now-free Solaris is not slowing against the fortified but embattled breakwaters of the Microsoft operating system family. But new power users of other operating systems, including those just starting with Unix as well as the graphical interface of the operating system (such as the Mac OS Finder, or the navigators of KDE or Gnome), remain in need of a comprehensive primer for Unix that complements their previous knowledge. The fourth edition of Dave Taylor's "Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours" should remain on the top of the buy list for computer users in need of a strong Unix reference where they may find themselves managing or using the subtle variants of Unix flavors." Read the rest of Spencerians' review.

An anonymous reader asks: "Ok, so here is the scenario: my company has some software that is used internally and it is written in Perl. We now need to put this code on a server that has 'public' access (it's a university machine). We provide root access to the system for the purpose of learning, but we need to keep the code from being viewed or edited. Is there anything to do besides the 'perl2exe' and the ActiveState compiler? How effective are those really at protecting code?"

jsuda writes "The Definitive Guide to MYSQL 3rd Edition certainly deserves its title. It is a large, dense, complete guide to MySQL and updates its predecessor edition by covering new MySQL5 and new auxiliary software including database administration tools and interfaces. MySQL is the open-source database software which has become very popular for web-based database applications now being used by Yahoo, NASA, Slashdot, and other entities. Read on for the rest of Jsudas' review

Andy Lester writes to tell us that the Perl foundation has named a new president and steering committee members. Bill Odom landed the seat of president, replacing Allison Randal who has occupied the seat since 2002. From the article: "Founded in 2000, The Perl Foundation (TPF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation based in Holland, Michigan, established to advance the use and development of the Perl programming language through open discussion, collaboration, design, and code."

chromatic writes "Geoff Broadwell has written an analysis of optimizing an open source project for fun, specifically the Pugs project. Broadwell argues that making development fun and easy leads to higher quality code and a faster velocity of development, even when implementing a frivolous project (a toy Perl 6 interpreter) in an uncommon language (Haskell). The Pugs leader, Autrijus Tang, will speak about both Pugs and Haskell at EuroOSCON."

dogma01 writes "Parrot the virtual machine for Perl6 and other dynamic languages has released version 0.3.0. If interested you can also help support Parrot development by donating to The Perl Foundation or by getting involved with development."