VANCOUVER, USA: ActiveState, the dynamic languages company has announced the release of Perl Dev Kit 8.0. Perl Dev Kit (PDK) provides essential tools for Perl programmers, making it simple to build and deploy applications.

PDK 8.0 now features cross-platform wrapping in PerlApp, allowing ease of deployment to any platform regardless of development platform. PerlApp is the industry-standard tool for creating and deploying Perl executables to all major platforms, and is one of the powerful tools included in PDK.

The release of PDK 8.0 also introduces to the newest feature for team development: PerlCritic.

PerlCritic allows developers to run coding policies against source code to ensure their work conforms to either industry standards or user-based personalized standards. Designed specifically for small development teams, PDK 8.0 includes both predefined and configurable policies.

The newest PDK includes the complete suite of tools for creating and deploying Perl applications. PDK 8.0's comprehensive feature set includes tools to build code filters, convert VBScript programs or snippets to Perl, analyze code coverage and hotspots, make .NET applications with Perl, create ActiveX controls, convert Perl programs into Windows services, create MSI Windows installers for Perl applications, and more,
plus a graphical debugger.

Jan Dubois, senior Perl developer at ActiveState, says, "Cross-platform wrapping is undoubtedly our most requested feature, and PDK 8.0 is the only Perl tool that offers it." 

Jeff Hobbs, languages director at ActiveState added, "Developers will really like PerlCritic because it allows teams to focus on their work and ensures everyone on a team is coding to the same standards. It's really simple to run PerlCritic against source code, and we find it an invaluable tool for our team."

ActiveState also distributes ActivePerl, the industry-standard Perl distribution, available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and AIX. Millions of developers worldwide rely on ActivePerl's completeness and ease-of-use, while ActiveState's Enterprise Distributions offer support and maintenance packages for companies that rely on Perl, and ActivePerl OEM Licensing provides companies that rely on Perl with redistribution rights, plus optional support and co-marketing packages.