[LWN Logo]
[LWN.net]

Sections:
 Main page
 Linux in the news
 Security
 Kernel
 Distributions
 Development
 Commerce
 Announcements
 Back page
All in one big page

See also: last week's Development page.

Development tools


Gcc/egcs

Joe Buck, a member of the egcs steering committee confirmed the rumors that egcs and gcc would be merging in this post to Slashdot. This is excellent news for the development community. Pgcc (pentium-optimized gcc) will continue as a separate variant. If you're interested in more comments and information, you can check out the entire slashdot thread.

Guile

The next stable version of Guile, version 1.3.2, is scheduled to be out near the end of this month, along with first real release of the Guile Object-Oriented Programming System (GOOPS), for which little information is currently available on the website. For those of you that haven't run into Guile before, it is the GNU Ubiquitous Intelligent Language for Extension, a library implementation of the Scheme language. You can find out more information on Guile at the Guile website.

For the most up-to-date information on Guile, check this automatically generated status page.

Java

What are the chances that IBM's just released JVM for Win32 will be ported to Linux? That is the question asked by Shafiek Savahl on the java-linux mailing list. Reports are that it is 30% faster. He got a response to check the mailing list again in about a week ... so consider it an official rumor! We'll be checking up on this next week.

Perl

A new perl mailing list, perl-announce, has been created. It will carry only announcements of new stable versions of perl. For information on development versions, stable versions and other news, continue to watch Perl News.

Meanwhile, on comp.lang.perl.misc, Tom Christiansen has been posting entries from the Perl FAQ one at a time ... it is an interesting way of getting people to notice what they don't know yet and maybe take the time to learn just one thing, as opposed to putting off a full read of the FAQ for later. Sometimes the entries generate some discussion and sometimes they don't. It will be interesting to see if there is any measurable change in the postings to the newsgroup as a result.

Perl training courses in Melbourne, Sydney and Darwin, Australia are being held by Netizen, with discounts to members of any local Linux User Groups.

Larry Wall can be found on the cover of this month's Linux Journal, which features a story on Larry which is not yet available on-line.

The Mod Perl Developer's Guide has been been updated.

Python

Python 1.5.2, the final version, was announced on April 13th.

The preliminary Call-For-Papers for the Eighth International Python Conference, to be tentatively held December 1st through the 4th, 1999, in Washington, D.C., has been released.

Here's a press release from O'Reilly saying that the new Python book (for beginners) is available.

For kicks and grins, check out this controversial banner.

The program for "La Journee Python France", ("The First French Python Day"), an event scheduled for May 28th, 1999, is now available (in French and some English). Guido will present the introduction for the day and the program looks excellent, so if you have a chance to stop by, please do so! Members of the community are invited to present their projects as well.

The Python mailing lists are moving! If you are currently receiving or would like to receive the comp.lang.python.* groups via mail instead of newsgroup, check out this announcement.

Tcl/tk

A Request for Comments on the first draft specification of TkGS, the Tk Graphics System, was posted by Frederic BONNET. Here is the current TkGS specification.

The first beta of AGNI, a multi-threaded middleware for scripting distributed, event-oriented applications, has been announced.

Blitz.Tcl, a CGI script accelerator for ISAPI enabled web servers, was announced in its first beta form in this press release from /n software inc.

Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh


April 22, 1999

   

 

Development projects


Gnome

Miguel de Icaza posted a note exploring the need for a truly powerful mail client, one that can keep up with high-volume mailing lists, track important people, specific conversations, archival based on multiple criteria, handle MIME messages correctly and connect up with other tools such as address books and calendars. Discussion was (improperly) spawned on gnome-announce as a result, talking about all the features of the "perfect" mail client. Some interesting ideas were mentioned, such as eliminating folders and replacing them by indexed archives and search capabilities. Further discussion should be moving to gnome-mailer-list@nuclecu.unam.mx (this note included instructions for getting signed up).

The Gnome Bug Tracking system may have gone down temporarily due to a possible strike at the University hosting it, but plans were made to guarantee the downtime would be short.

GNU

The second issue of Brave GNU World is now on-line. Features this month include Electric, a circuit layout program from Steven Rubin and the Free Delphi project, a Hamburg-based group of free programmers which is creating a whole ensemble of business solutions under the GPL, among other topics.

KDE

KDE-1.1.1 beta is now available. Barring the discovery of any serious problems, KDE-1.1.1 should follow shortly.

Lothar

Easier hardware configuration is the goal of the Lothar project, the open source project (GPL) sponsored by MandrakeSoft, the company behind the Mandrake distribution. To reach their goal, they are developing a graphical interface and automated hardware detection using the "detect" library. Ethernet and sound configuration modules are in progress and screen shots are available on the project web site. Linux kernel 2.2.X and GTK+ 1.2.X are required.

This announcement from Gael Duval provides pointers to the Lothar mailing list. They have room for lots of people to help out, so if this is the type of project that would interest you, be sure and check it out!

Mozilla/Netscape

Mozilla M4 was released on April 15th. There are still a lot of bugs, as is to be expected with pre-release software, but the response to the latest beta appears to be favorable.

Documentation on building Mozilla has been completed, after weeks of hard labor. Instructions cover OS/2, Linux and Windows platforms and the fruits of their labor are now available.

The Instant Messaging Project was a new Mozilla project, announced on Monday, April 19th, and then quickly pulled from the Mozilla site per Netscape's request, who had contributed the Instant Messaging API document. As an indication that the media spotlight on Mozilla is not yet gone, news.com quickly followed up with an article on the action. Speculation runs the gamut from a political move by AOL to protect their position as leader in the Instant Messaging arena, to a result of negative feedback to the project as a potential distraction from the main goal of getting a working browser out the door. All of it remains speculation for now, until Netscape or someone within Mozilla chooses to speak more.

BusinessWeek ran a more positive article on the Mozilla project, having taken the time to talk to a number of people directly involved in the project. Chris Nelson, editor of MozillaZine, is heavily quoted.

Zope

This week's Zope Weekly News covers, as major news, the release of ZServer beta 1, followed immediately by a couple of bug fixes. ZServer "integrates Zope with the Medusa internet server framework, and allows Zope to speak multiple internet Protocols".

Also included are a number of pointers to spontaneous and elicited testimonials from people currently using Zope, including the implementation of the IDG Now! Brazilian website.

Section Editor: Liz Coolbaugh

 
 

Next: Commerce

 
Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright © 1999 Eklektix, Inc., all rights reserved
Linux ® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds