www.perl.com update -------------------------------------- The Email for www.perl.com Subscribers ============================================================ Sponsored by Macromedia, Creators of ColdFusion Problems meeting tight deadlines? ColdFusion 4.5, the leading Web app server, has the solution with an integrated suite of visual tools, powerful server technology, and an open language environment. Download your FREE evaluation copy today at http://www.oreillynet.com/nlr/network/04/allaire/coldfusion ============================================================ Hello, world. This is Simon Cozens, www.perl.com managing editor, bringing you the latest goings on from the world of Perl and our own site. * Perl at large. It's been quite a quiet week for Perl, as everyone's been getting ready for the conference season. YAPC starts in a week's time, and TPC is coming up July 23. If you haven't heard already, the Open Source Convention, TPC's sister conference, has announced a rather unexpected keynote speaker: Craig Mundie from Microsoft who will be telling us about Shared Source, Open Source and the GPL. http://yapc.org/America/ http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/ http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2001/view/e_sess/1834 The Perl CD Bookshelf has been updated: this version contains the latest text of the "Camel Book", Programming Perl Third Edition; Perl for System Administration; Perl in a Nutshell; The Perl Cookbook, and Advanced Perl Programming. Pretty much everything you need to know about Perl on a handy CD. Neat, eh? And if you're still hankering after dead trees, they've thrown in a paper copy of Perl In A Nutshell as well. Who could ask for anything more? http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlcdbs2 After a brief beta period, Ask Bjorn Hansen has provided an invaluable resource for those Perl hackers who have recently become or are likely to be, shall we say, occupationally challenged. The all new Perl Jobs Site is open to employers and job seekers alike, and can be found at... http://jobs.perl.org/ *** What's new on www.perl.com? *** The Perl 5 Porters summary this week comes once again courtesy of Leon Brocard, who tells us all about the latest developments in the Perl test suite, experiments with -Wall, and the push to introduce libnet into the Perl core. http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/06/p5pdigest/THISWEEK-20010604.html Once again, Bryan Warnock brings us his summary of the Perl 6 mailing lists, detailing the results of the discussion on virtual machine architecture, another attempt at codifying some coding conventions, a brief look at .NET, and the suggestion of an "it" variable. Read all about it at: http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/06/p6pdigest/THISWEEK-20010601.html Our feature article this week is one I'm personally very glad to see. Have you ever written any CGI applications? I've been maintaining one recently which browses the Perl source repository, and it's really, really boring. Why? Because most CGI programs end up with the same basic design - take in some parameters which represent the state, one of which will tell you which "action" to perform; then a big switch statement to select the possible actions; then code to perform the actions. Once you've done it 10 times, you really, really don't want to do it again. When faced with a recurring design scenario like that, Jesse Erlbaum took the obvious but innovative move - abstract it away! He brings us a tutorial introduction to his "CGI::Application" module, which allows you to create CGI Web applications just like object-oriented modules, including inheritance and, if you want, distributing them on CPAN. Well worth a look if you do anything to do with CGI - it may even save you a bunch of time! http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/06/05/cgi.html Enjoy! SC ============================================================ The 3rd O'Reilly Open Source Convention, July 23-27, 2001 Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina Fueling the Open Source Alternative The Perl Conference 5, XTech2001 Conference on XML (in association with GCA), the 8th Tcl/Tk Conference, the 1st Conference on PHP - 14 tracks keep you informed on the latest innovations - Register by June 22 and Save http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/ ============================================================ Using CGI::Application http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/06/05/cgi.html?wwwrrr_20010605.txt The Common Gateway Interface may well be the backbone of many Web applications, but sometimes it can feel dry and monotonous to work with. If you're fed up with "my $query = CGI->new()", Jesse Erlbaum presents a kinder, gentler alternative. Turning the Tides on Perl's Attitude Toward Beginners http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/05/29/tides.html?wwwrrr_20010605.txt Casey West is taking a stand against elitism in the Perl community and seems to be making progress. He has launched several new services for the Perl beginner that are being enthusiastically received. Taking Lessons From Traffic Lights http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/05/22/trafficlights.html?wwwrrr_20010605.txt Michael Schwern examines traffic lights and shows what lessons applied to the development of Perl 6. Exegesis 2 http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/05/08/exegesis2.html?wwwrrr_20010605.txt Having trouble visualizing how the approved RFC's for Perl 6 will translate into actual Perl code? Damian Conway provides and exegesis to Larry Wall's Apocalypse 2 and reveals what the code will look like. ============================================================ Sponsored by Thawte ** FREE Apache SSL Guide from Thawte ** Planning Web Server Security? Find out how to implement SSL! Get the free Thawte Apache SSL Guide and find the answers to all your Apache SSL security issues and more at: http://www.thawte.com/ucgi/gothawte.cgi?a=n122531080018000 ============================================================ Sister Sites: --------------------------------- O'Reilly Network http://www.oreillynet.com The Source for Open and Emerging Technologies XML.com http://xml.com/ XML from the inside out. ONLamp.com http://onlamp.com O'Reilly Network's High Performance Web Development site O'Reilly and Associates http://www.oreilly.com/ O'Reilly computer books, software and online publishing. -- For information on unsubscribing from this list, please visit http://rochester.pm.org