Perl is one of the most popular languages out there, and is used for everything from mission-critical projects to Web applications to "glue." It is not, however, often used for GUI programming and prototyping. Philipp K. Janert thinks it should be, and you probably will too -- after this look at some of the more complex widgets available for Perl/Tk.

What are the best choices when designing the schema for a relational database? What is the rationale in deciding in favor of one and against some other alternative? Given the amount of vendor-specific recommendations, it is all too easy to overlook basic relational database fundamentals. In this second of two parts, author Philipp K. Janert presents an introduction to database normalization and to the five Normal Forms. He also discusses other possible uses for a database in a project, for example as a repository for configurational or logging data.

What are the best choices when designing the schema for a relational database? What is the rationale in deciding in favor of one and against some other alternative? Given the amount of vendor-specific recommendations, it is all too easy to overlook basic relational database fundamentals. In this first of two parts, author Philipp K. Janert talks about simple and complex datatypes, and about primary and foreign keys -- the plumbing that holds the entire database together.