gh0ul asks: "I've come across a large and seemingly unspoken problem when it comes to webhosting: a multi-user shell service in which any of the hundreds of users can view any file for my website, including my SQL passwords and PHP scripts. I've tried many times talking to the admins but have run out of luck trying to find a way to have my scripts run as they should without anyone being able to just view the source at will or view the passwords for my MySQL databases. Apache runs as nobody, therefore the files have to be readable by nobody, I've heard about wrappers, but the admins refuse to install them.. So how would a normal user go about securing his web files and passwords for this purpose on a heavily populated machine?" When dealing with adminstrators who aren't willing to handle even the basics of web security for their customers, consider moving somewhere else. In the meantime, for Perl users concerned about leaving passwords in scripts, consider using DBIx::Password. I would be interested in knowing of alternatives for DBIx::Password in other languages, as well. It's a useful idea especially if your scripts find themselves in hostile environments.

Chris Johnson writes: "Recently I've been doing some heavy analysis of actual RIAA sales data, from the entire history of Platinum-certified albums. I've worked out a methodology that compensates for the explosion in CD sales and highlights ability to drive sustained sales over years. There's a top 10 list of albums and a top 10 list of the most commercially important artists in history with definite surprises- and the full lists as well, downloadable as text files, with Perl-friendly index numbering, so the analysis can continue with the annoying work already done! Perl folk, go nuts! The actual analysis takes this data and attempts to extrapolate from it and explain the competitive situation the music industry is in relative to Internet music in general, and what they are missing in their assumptions and plans. Should be interesting to see what people make of the Evergreens project! -Chris Johnson" Nice analysis of the history and future of music promotion.

Daniel Ashton asks: "AltaVista Discovery was a wonderful tool for indexing files on one's own hard drive. I have most of O'Reilly's CD Bookshelves copied to my hard drive, along with other documentation in HTML or PDF format, and AltaVista Discovery indexes it all. Finding information on Perl syntax or Unix utilities or Java APIs is as easy as entering the keywords in Discovery's search toolbar. A web browser opens with a list of hits and summaries. Unfortunately, Discovery was both 1) single-platform and 2) discontinued. As I anticipate installing a new OS on my machine, I dread loosing this functionality. What alternatives exist? Are such tools available for Linux? For Win2K? Is there a file-format-reading toolkit that could be used to write a new indexer?"

zby queries: "I've been using the 'Perl Cookbook' extensively for 2 years already and have found the book to be really helpful. Recently I've been learning about Ruby and I really miss that kind of resource. That gave me the idea to build that kind of knowlege base as an free project. I believe it just fits ideally, and could be run on a Slash or Scoop based system without any modifications from the beginning." It sounds like a grand idea, however are there any other such resources on the web?

coffii writes "I have just spent the last two days learning perl thanks to devshed. They have a set of eight well-written tutorials here and an introduction to OOP in perl. Why not learn a new language today, its a bit more productive than trying to get fp on ./ ;). I think I'll be going back for a dose of python next week." Even if you're not planning to specialize, this series look like a good way to at least get an overview of a few different languages. Can anyone recommend other interesting online tutorials, especially ones for unusual languages that might never find shelf space at the local MegaBooks?

AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Napster. These four "web properties" account for 50 percent of the time people spend online. Check out the trend: at the 60-percent level, the number of companies shrank from 110, two years ago, to fourteen today. Hello, I'm with Mergers & Acquisitions, can I borrow your mouse please?

jdavidb writes: "Dr. John Conway (author of the famous "Game of Life") has a wonderful algorithm for finding the day of the week for any year in history that you can do in your head. It's so easy and elegant, in fact, that someone has decided to write a poem about it. Shades of DeCSS haikus! What a marvelous example of how mathematics is a form of (free and protected) speech. As if to further illustrate that computer code is just another form of speech, there is an implementation of this algorithm (in Perl of course)!"

An AC sent in this article at perl.com which discusses new perl mailing lists set up especially to answer beginners' questions. Hopefully they're not all being answered with "Go buy Learning Perl" or something like that.

willmurat writes: "I read about Rebol in an article in UnixInsider months ago. It seems to me a very interesting language, with new features and trying to bring new paradigms in programming. But (always there is a but ...), it isn't Open Source and no institution is responsible to maintain that language. The only responsible party is Rebol Technologies. I'm not saying this is the right way to failure; there are examples of success following this way (Visual Basic and Delphi, for example), but I think a business strategy like that isn't good anymore. See the current developing of Perl version 6 for a very good example of language discussion. Seems to me the owners of Rebol language are limitating the popularization of that language choosing that way of dealing in this issue ... Is there any future to popularize a language that way?"

jimiUK asks: "I've been working for a while on my streaming mp3 server, using Apache:MP3 running on FreeBSD to start with but now running on RedHat Linux. It all runs smoothky, but what I'm trying to do is automate the ripping process so I can just insert cd's and have them ripped and classified automatically. This box is a dedicated server without a keyboard or moniter connected so I'd rather have no user input whatsoever. I've solved all of the initial problems, and now have the box set to login automatically on boot up, but I still can't find the right script. The most useful has been autorip, and I've also tried ripit (although it requires user intervention). My main problem is that if autorip cant find the cd information, it just stalls. My Perl skills are non-existent really so i'm not sure how to alter the script to instruct it to rip away if it doesnt find track info, which I could add in later. Does anyone have any other suggestions for alternative script front ends, or can point me in the right direction on altering autorip to get it over this hurdle." For those of you running MP3 servers, this idea might be a huge timesaver. Has anyone implemented such a system?

sumengen writes: "Damian's writing a series of articles parallel to Larry's Apocalypses. These 'Exegesis' articles will show full perl6 programs, with commentary exlaining the new features. The first Exegesis (numbered 2, to keep in sync with Larry) shows a perl6 version of a binary tree program from the Perl Cookbook. Get excited to see things like:
my int ($pre, $in, $post) are constant = (0..2);"

The Llama King asks: "Our group has an interesting idea for being able to rate different items, then receiving preferences for similar items, a feature found at sites such as NetFlix and Amazon. Unfortunately, we have big ideas and a small budget. I've searched high and low for an open-source version of this kind of algorithm, with no success. Are there any out there worth compiling?" Update: 05/16 10:30PM EDT by C :As it turns out, Jamie has some words on the subject, click below for more.

tadghin pointed out this Newsweek article on bioinformatics, and also notes: "At O'Reilly, we just published our first bioinformatics book last week, Learning Bioinformatics Computer Skills, by Cynthia Gibas and Per Jambeck, and it immediately rocketed to the top of the Amazon Computer bestseller list. This definitely appears to be a new area for the computer industry that's just starting to hit people's radar big time. I've also made the point to VCs looking at distributed computation startups that what I see on sites like slashdot is a lot of movement by hackers towards new and interesting problems. And science looks a lot more interesting than some of the business computing that's been front and center the past couple of years. And the Biological Open Source Computing Conference I spoke at last year was definitely popping with ideas and excitement. Unfortunately, this year's conference is in Copenhagen, right before the O'Reilly open source convention, but I definitely urge slashdotters to check out this area. Demand for perl expertise is especially high."

An Anonymous Coward with thoughts of rapid CGI deployment, asks: "My manager has asked me for something that would show the differences in development time between ASP/VBScript and CGI/Perl. He is trying to gauge time schedules for web projects, but I don't have a clue as to where such information would be documented. I am familiar with both architectures and know the differences, but I think he's hoping for white papers of comparisons. Can anyone tell me where to look?"

DonJ writes: "This is a good article that explains a lot about how Perl can play a big part in developing Web Services. It will show you a no-nonsense approach to using SOAP::Lite, Perl's window into SOAP Web services. The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is the basic messaging protocol for Web services, so this is a need to know."

Adam Attarian writes "And do we really need to answer the question? Apparently so, because OSOpinion asked, and they got an answer. It's not a surprising answer, is Mac OS X's 'UNIX' core is Darwin, which is based on NeXT Step, which is based on some wacky derivitive of BSD, which in itself isn't a registered UNIX system (nor is Linux). Even with this, I'm not sure I know too many people who would directly compare Linux/BSD with standard UNIX Systems like Irix, Solaris, etc. The article is short and sweet, and provides some good links."

duffbeer703 asks: "I'm a computer consultant who is currently working on a project to enhance computing and network resources in Central Asian universities. One of the problems that we have encountered is a lack of documentation and manuals written in local dialects. Most of these countries (Kazakstan, Tadjikistan, Mongolia) were former Soviet republics and have signifigant numbers of people who speak Russian or English. Other, more remote scohols primarily speak local languages. Does anyone know of places that reprint technical books (mainly C, Perl, Unix and TCP/IP) into less-common languages?"

Larry Wall has written the second article in his "Apocalypse" series about Perl6. If you missed the first article, you might want to read that one first, or see the previous discussion.

MadCow42 asks: "Back in 1996, I created a point-and-click Virtual Tour of my apartment, and updated it a few times over the years. I ended up with 180 separate hand-written HTML pages, and a pretty cool tour, which won many web awards. The problem is, hand-coded individual pages are not very efficient (or exciting) way to present such a thing, today. When I started out, it was pretty unique and exciting, but now I'd like to create a new tour that is much more dynamic and 'fluid'. Having my own webserver, I am thinking of doing it mostly through Perl CGI scripting and a database. Are there any 'Virtual Tour Toolkits' out there? If I created one, would others be interested in it? I'd hate to reinvent the wheel, but if I do, I'd like any feedback as to how to most efficiently design for such a 'walk-through' system so that it is quick and complete."

Yesterday in a toasty courtroom in lower Manhattan, Stanford Law School dean Kathleen Sullivan faced off against lawyers for the world's biggest movie companies and a lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department with oral arguments in the appeal of the 2600 case. One of the three judges hearing the case -- Jon Newman -- appeared to be the designated questioner. He asked nearly all of the questions in both this case and the ones heard earlier in the day. He probed both sides about equally, trying to find flaws in the arguments of whoever was speaking at the time. I'll cover the hearing below, and there's possibly a few areas where the Slashdot crowd could assist in the case.