markmcb asks: "I help design a LAMP web site and I'm constantly plagued by trying to decide on what level should I separate functional code and markup. Depending on what you read, some say embedding HTML in your PHP scripts [or Perl, or Java, or Ruby, or Python, etc] is bad while others say it's no big deal. However, seldom are any practical applications of such code cited. How is your site built? Do you mix HTML with your code? If not, how do you overcome the simple and easy method of doing so? Lastly, what performance gains/losses have you noticed by doing so?"

capt turnpike writes "According to eWEEK.com, there's an internal debate going on at Sun whether to open-source Java. (Insert typical response: "It's about time!") Company spokespersons have no official comment, as might be expected, but perhaps we could hear confirmation or denial as early as May 16, at the JavaOne conference. One commentator said, "Sun should endorse PHP and go one step forward and make sure the 'P' languages run great on the JVM [Java virtual machine] by open-sourcing Java." Would this move Java up the desirability scale in your eyes? Could this be a way to help improve what's lacking in Java?"

lelitsch asks: "Does anyone have first hand experience with Groovy? I am just coming off implementing a Plone-based intranet CMS and got hooked on scripting languages and Python all over again. Since most of my projects in the near future are going to be in Java or have large Java components, I was wondering if it's time to trade Jython--which seems to be falling further behind the Python release cycle--for something else. Groovy sounds like a fun thing to look at, but it seems a bit new and thin. Also, what are other languages (JRuby and Rhino, for example) you have used to script in Java?"

flexatone writes "Composer Christopher Ariza, author of the first algorithmic, computer-generated podcast, announces the next phase of his experimental political-media-mashup project: the babelcast-zoetrope. The babelcast-zoetrope employs the subscription model of the vodcast (RSS feed, iTMS subscription) to deliver timely multi-media artifacts of the contemporary media landscape. Generated with free, open-source software tools (such as athenaCL, Python, Csound, and ffmpeg), babelcast-zoetrope is an experimental, algorithmic, computer-generated video podcast. Sounds and images of U.S. and World leaders and commentators are algorithmically fragmented, distorted, and recombined into a media tapestry. New episodes are defined by a time period: audio and video sequences are constructed only with materials collected during this period, lasting from days to weeks."

Kevin Young wrote to mention a ZDNet article which goes into some detail on new results from a Department of Homeland security initiative. It's called the 'Open Source Hardening Project', and (funded to the tune of $1.24 Million) the goals of the initiative are to use a commercial tool for source code analysis to buck up the security base of many OSS projects. LAMP (the conglomeration of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python) was a 'winner' in the eyes of the project. From the article: "In the analysis, more than 17.5 million lines of code from 32 open-source projects were scanned. On average, 0.434 bugs per 1,000 lines of code were found, Coverity said. The LAMP stack, however, 'showed significantly better software quality," with an average of 0.29 defects per 1,000 lines of code, the technology company said.'"

Dmitry Dvoinikov writes "Just released is a conceptual middleware development environment in (and for) Python called Pythomnic ("Pitomnik" is a Russian for "breeding nursery, reserve"). Recognizing the building as a process in time, Pythomnic focuses on creating an environment in which fault tolerant redundant services can be built. Pythomnic is designed so that source code updates, releases and reconfigurations are made at runtime without any visible service interruption. Likewise, external systems (ex. databases) can be switched at will, with no request lost. Multiple Pythomnic instances running on different machines call each other transparently, thus provoking distribution and redundancy. To complete the picture, a handful of syntactically transparent fault tolerance templates make easy to write fault-tolerant code. "

Freshly Exhumed wrote to mention a PBS release with good news for BritCom Fans. The Public Broadcasting Service is planning to air six new Monty Python specials. From the article: "Each of the exclusive-to-PBS six one-hour programs will focus on one member of the original Monty Python troupe - Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Terry Jones - and showcase favorite clips from the group's television series and movies, mixed with new footage. The five living Pythons - Cleese, Idle, Gilliam, Palin and Jones - will each produce and write their own episode, with the five collaborating on a sixth special to honor deceased member Chapman."

RMX asks: "In our company, we're currently going through the debate of standardizing on a computer language for our next set of products. The pro-standardization guys say that a single language (like Java) will save everyone time. The anti-standardization guys are advocating a mixed environment (of languages like Python, Ruby, and C#), and argue that the whole discussion is as silly as a manufacturing firm standardizing on screwdrivers for all their screw/nail/glue fastening needs. Have any of your companies standardized on a language? How well did it go?"

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.

Mad_Rain asks: "I saw over on Make Magazine an article about using your cell phone on the Internet, except instead of browsing the web from your cell, you can serve webpages from your phone. Of course, it uses Apache, Python and a Nokia S60 series cell phone. I can imagine a couple of creative applications for webservers in strange places, but what else can be done with this?"

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.

benbranch asks: "I am presently learning the Python programming language. The language itself is brilliant and seems very easy to pick up, however my problem is finding a decent IDE. I use Mac OS X (as Windows is excruciating), and though I love Linux (Debian/Ubuntu) all my work computers are Mac's. Can anyone advise me as too a good open source IDE for Mac? If there are any Python programmers out there using Macs, I would love to hear from you."

revividus writes "It seems that Python creator Guido van Rossum has received an offer from Google, and accepted it. Here is also some confirmation."

TomH writes "Bruce Eckel has an article at Aritma, where he posits that 'The Java hyper-enthusiasts have left the building, leaving a significant contingent of Java programmers behind, blinking in the bright lights without the constant drumbeat of boosterism.' Has the previous hype of Java and J2EE moved on to Ruby (on Rails) and Python?"

kale77in asks: "I've become a big fan of Ruby over the past few months, but I'm not at all sure about Ruby On Rails. Automatic code generation sets of alarm bells in my mind; so that, to RoR's promise of 'Web Development that Doesn't Hurt', I automatically add '...until you have to maintain it'. On the other hand, some writers and coders I respect (like the Pragmatic Programming mob) seem to be fans. I've mainly written generators in Python, to produce PHP/SQL/Java from SQL files, but I've always gone back to well-constructed objects, where extension and overloading offers more precise and maintainable customization than auto-generation allows. So is Rails just a nice RAD tool for disposable, cookie-cutter apps (which have a place, of course)? Is high-level generation just a bad OO substitute? And what has your experience of Rails' maintainability been?"

Noiser writes "ActiveState discontinues VisualPerl and VisualPython for Windows. Demand doesn't justify further development, they say. No, they don't mean to open-source these products, due to licensing problems with the inseparable MS Visual Studio integration code. Back to vi/Notepad/Komodo, then..."

Hemos writes "Most of the books sent to Slashdot for review have words like "Java", "hacks", or "802.11b" in the title, but occasionally an odd general book arrives after a publicist hits the wrong button on the keyboard. At first, I thought that John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise , was a mistake, but now I'm not sure. Because this is Slashdot, I'll spend the rest of the review wondering whether the Internet is really changing jokes, humor in general, and even all narrative form. But before that, I can tell you now that there's something sly, odd, and very funny about the book even though it is little more than a disconnected collection of lists and details. It's a coredump from a mind filled with 700 names of Hobos, the ways to use a ferret to rob a bank, the secret to winning every fight (use henchmen!), and the first draft of T.R. Roosevelt's famous command: speak softly and pierce their eyes with a golden hook." Read on for Peter Wayner's review.

Simon P. Chappell writes "Much as a certain large software company located in the North-West of the United States of America might wish otherwise, there are many different operating systems and platforms in use in the world today. Software these days needs to able to operate in a disparate environment, either by communicating with these other platforms or by running on them or, increasingly, doing both. The Information Systems industry is making good progress with the communication half of the problem (even if a lot of it seems to involve large amounts of XML), but it is still struggling with the issues inherent with writing portable code. Brian Hook's contribution to all of this is Write Portable Code , which according to it's subtitle is an introduction to developing software for multiple platforms." Read on for the rest of Simon's review.

X-Fade writes "Nokia launched OpenSource.nokia.com today. It is the first place to look for information concerning Nokia involvement in the Open Source community. The Projects page lists all Nokia developed downloadable code including: Maemo (Development platform for Linux based handhelds), MobileNews (Mobile NNTP reader), Python for S60, Sofia-SIP (SIP User-Agent library) and more. The website also features a list of all projects Nokia contributed to."