On the 18th December 1987, the initial version of the programming language Perl was announced by Larry Wall on the news group comp.sources.mis. During the years Perl has become one of the most popular programming languages and is especially known for its great ability to process text.

Perl is often included in the standard set-up for both Unix and Linux systems, and is widely used for executing local applications and as scripts in various web solutions.

The last main update from Perl, Perl 5, came back in 1994, but the language is still maintained. The latest version is 5.8.8, but Perl 6 is currently under development.

Perl is one of few languages that can do a lot from only a few lines of code. This again can make it difficult for anyone but the author to interpret what a piece of code actually does.

Perl supports modules, which is used extensively. CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) is a collection of alomost 13.000 Perl modules that offers tons of pre constructed routines available for other Perl developers.

Once again, Happy Birthday and best of luck!

When browsing through sites you are most likely going to hit an error page from time to time due to broken links, site changes etc. Most new sites (or the server) will then throw you an error page stating something like Error 404 Page not found.

Could these pages be a bit more innovative and actually prove useful? Yes they can! Take a look at the post “404 Error Pages: Reloaded” from Smashingmagazine.com and get inspired…

Help4j is the largest, most comprehensive source of knowledge about the Java^tm programming language with more than 25 000 code examples, thousands of utility functions, tips and links. It seamlessly integrates with the standard API documentation. A click on a method or class and up to 20 code examples are at your fingertips.

Help4j greatly reduces the time spent searching for the right way to solve thousands of programming problems; it allows you to learn from other developers’ code and keeps developers from reinventing the wheel. Help4j is unique because it is based on an extensive analysis of millions of lines of source code from hundreds of open source projects. If someone else has solved your problem before, it is most likely that Help4j has the solution for you!

Download Help4j Standard now (Free for non-commercial use) or browse the online version at http://www.help4j.org.

In April 2007, A List Apart and An Event Apart conducted a survey of people who make websites. Close to 33,000 web professionals answered the survey’s 37 questions, providing the first data ever collected on the business of web design and development as practised in the U.S. and worldwide.

33,000 responses is a lot of data. To make sense of it, An Event Apart commissioned statisticians Alan Brickman and Larry Yu to translate raw data into meaningful findings. The findings are now nicely presented in a 80+ pages PDF presentation.

The findings we present here have never been seen before, because until now, no one has ever conducted public research to learn the facts of our profession. This report is not the last word on web work; it is only the beginning of a long conversation. Read, reflect, and let us hear from you.

Read the full story or skip directly to the download.

SyncServer is an utility that makes an exact replica of files on a machine via the network to another machine. It was designed for load-sharing situations where all the servers need to have a copy of all the files, but can also be used for other situations, for example to publish files from a development machine to a production machine, or to have a backup server standing by that can immediately take over without first having to restore from a backup.

The utility uses it’s own protocol on TCP/IP port 9577 and is totally independent, you don’t need things like an FTP server or Microsoft Networking (disk sharing). Traffic is one-way only, files are only sent from the master to the slave. The program uses passwords (challenge/response) to protect the access and an MD5 hash to make sure the files on the slave are exactly the same as on the master.

There are two components, a “SyncUpload” program that runs on the master (for example once per day), and a “SyncServer” program that runs continuously in the background on the slave. The SyncUpload program contacts the slave, asks which files it has, sends new and changed files, and sends instructions to delete old files. The result is an exact copy on the slave of all the files, even the date/time is the same.

Files (including source) and instructions are available at Kessel’s own website.