ActiveState development tools ship simultaneously with Microsoft Visual
Studio .NET:
Perl, Python, & XSLT Programmers get Seamless Tool Integration

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, FEBRUARY 13, 2002 - ActiveState, the leader in open
source programming languages, today announced the 1.2 release of Visual
Perl, Visual Python, and Visual XSLT for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.
Perl, Python, and XSLT programmers can now leverage the power of the
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
and rapidly create, edit, debug and run programs with Visual Perl,
Visual Python, and Visual XSLT.  These releases now include full
IntelliSense and source code control support.

"These plug-ins are ideal tools for programmers using powerful languages
such as Perl, Python, and XSLT," said Dick Hardt, Founder & CEO,
ActiveState.  "Programmers can now use the language that best maps to
the problem at hand and can leverage the advanced features in the
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET IDE; such as the integrated help which
makes online help of Perl and Python keywords and modules literally a
single click away.  As well, the graphical debugger makes drilling down
into complex data structures trivially easy."

"Visual Perl, Visual Python, and Visual XSLT fit ideally into the Visual
Studio .NET model of allowing projects written in multiple languages to
be developed at the same time," said Marie Huwe, General Manager for the
Developer and Platform Evangelism Division at Microsoft Corp.
"Microsoft is delighted to be working with ActiveState to provide a
comprehensive programming solution that enables customers to use the
languages that best fit their needs all within one integrated
development environment."

ActiveState's plug-ins provide a suite of development and deployment
tools, including an editor, graphical debugger, dynamic help, and code
completion (IntelliSense).  Other key features include:

* Regular Expression debugger - a unique, visual interface for almost
effortless debugging of powerful regular expressions
* XSLT debugger - takes the pain out of XSLT by making it simple to find
problems in both input data and code
* XSLT automatic output preview - eliminates time-consuming steps so
transformation results can be viewed immediately
* Source Code Control - industry-standard change management through
SCC-compliant source code control
* XML Web services – consume XML Web services with Visual Perl

"Visual Perl is the best IDE I have seen for coding in Perl.
ActiveState has greatly simplified regular expression development.  What
was once a time consuming process of writing then debugging a regular
expression has been turned into a fast and efficient process with the Rx
Toolkit,” said John Menke, Oracle Consultant, CSC Corporation.  "Visual
Perl's remote debugging feature is also great.  I can write code on my
development box, then deploy and continue to debug on my Oracle staging
machine.  I'd like to thank the Visual Perl development team for
designing what has quickly become indispensable in my Perl toolkit."

"A new feature in the 1.2 releases is support for source code control,"
said Eric Promislow, Technical Lead, ActiveState.  "Programmers can now
easily track and control changes to their programs with the leading
version control systems such as Perforce, CVS, and Microsoft Visual
SourceSafe."

"XSLT is a newer language, and while it has extremely powerful features
for transforming XML, it offers few diagnostic capabilities to let the
developer know what the transformation is doing," said Paul Prescod, XML
Technical Advisor, ActiveState.  "The Visual XSLT debugger shows the
developer exactly what the program is doing, and leverages features
found throughout the Visual Studio .NET IDE, such as call stacks and
variable display windows to explain why."

Visual Perl, Visual Python, and Visual XSLT are $295 each.  The upgrade
is free to existing customers.  Educational licenses are also available.
Additional details, free evaluation copies and downloads are at
ActiveState.com/VisualPerl, ActiveState.com/VisualPython and
ActiveState.com/VisualXSLT.

About ActiveState:
ActiveState is the leading provider of open source based programming
products and services for cross-platform development.  ActiveState's key
technologies are Perl, the internet's most popular programming language;
Python and Tcl, user-friendly scripting languages; PHP, the dynamic web
programming language; and XSLT, the XML transformation language.

Media & Analyst Contact:
Lori Pike, ActiveState
604.808.6655
LoriP@[...].com

© ActiveState Corporation 2002.

ActiveState, Visual Perl, Visual Python, and Visual XSLT are trademarks
of ActiveState Corp.  All other product and company names herein may be
trademarks of their respective owners.

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