RE: Improving the Quality of Our Beginners was Re: Write permissions and other rights

[Ron Goral]

I have only recently started using Perl and the *NIX environment.  I am
grounded in C++ using MFC in a Windows NT environment.  Up until a few weeks
ago, the idea of having to set file permissions in order to execute a bit 'o
code was foreign to me as well.  In fact, there are many aspects of Perl
coding (whether for cgi or whatever) that just do not strike me in a
"natural" way.  I have not been raised on *NIX, therefore I don't know how
*NIX operates.

Yes, I can read the perldocs and the manpages, but, incredibly, these are
written with the notion that I have a half a clue about how to interpret
what "chmod" means.  And yes, yes, yes, reading more and more documents
means that eventually, you will come to understand a word or two here or
there.  However, the plain and simple fact is that until there is a document
written that assumes the reader knows NOTHING AT ALL about the *NIX
environment or what an "awk" is (yes, I finally know that awk is a shell
language), there is an incredible need for a forum where a potential coder
can come ask the obvious.  Since this list is called "Beginners" and not
"Intermediate" or "Have half a clue", this is as good a place as any to ask
those kind of questions.  If it bothers you to see those kind of questions,
then move up the food chain and find a more advanced list.  If it bothers
you to answer those questions, then don't!!!

Notice the word "potential" above.  That is important.  Most of us reading
and writing to this list are beginners.  We are therefore "potential"
coders.  If the Perl community is such that it will flame a FNG for asking a
question, then I'd rather spend my time learning VB.  I can certainly make
more money and there is a very good IDE for it.

Besides, we all know the adage, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for the
day.  Teach him to fish and you feed him for life."  They always leave off
the part that says "But, smack him upside the head for asking a "stupid"
question and the world will loose a potential fisherman.  And you will gain
a potential enemy."

Well, I've said more than enough and I have better things to do.  "Kudos" to
drieux and those like him who know better than most of us here and take the
time to explain how and why.

BTB drieux, I was one of those "90 day wonders" who was lucky enough to have
had excellent NCOs to teach me what life was really like.  I should write a
book entitled "All I Really Needed To Know I Learned From My Platoon
Sergeant".

Peace In Christ -
Ron Goral
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 



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RE: Improving the Quality of Our Beginners was Re: Write permissions and other rights

[Timothy Johnson]

 
I agree with you completely.  Beginners have enough problems without being
flamed for asking questions.  This also goes for people that feel that they
have the answers to others' questions.  Don't be afraid to speak up.  If
there is a flaw in your answer and someone points it out, you still learned
something in the process.  I think that's one of the real strengths of a
peer list like this one.

There is one thing that people should keep in mind.  Be as specific as
possible.  Whenever possible try to include both the error message or
incorrect output AND what you did to get it.  This will make the whole
process go faster and get you more accurate responses.  

-Original Message-
From: Ron Goral
To: Perl Beginners
Sent: 4/24/02 7:17 AM
Subject: RE: Improving the Quality of Our Beginners was Re: Write
permissions and other rights

I have only recently started using Perl and the *NIX environment.  I am
grounded in C++ using MFC in a Windows NT environment.  Up until a few
weeks
ago, the idea of having to set file permissions in order to execute a
bit 'o
code was foreign to me as well.  In fact, there are many aspects of Perl
coding (whether for cgi or whatever) that just do not strike me in a
"natural" way.  I have not been raised on *NIX, therefore I don't know
how
*NIX operates.

Yes, I can read the perldocs and the manpages, but, incredibly, these
are
written with the notion that I have a half a clue about how to interpret
what "chmod" means.  And yes, yes, yes, reading more and more documents
means that eventually, you will come to understand a word or two here or
there.  However, the plain and simple fact is that until there is a
document
written that assumes the reader knows NOTHING AT ALL about the *NIX
environment or what an "awk" is (yes, I finally know that awk is a shell
language), there is an incredible need for a forum where a potential
coder
can come ask the obvious.  Since this list is called "Beginners" and not
"Intermediate" or "Have half a clue", this is as good a place as any to
ask
those kind of questions.  If it bothers you to see those kind of
questions,
then move up the food chain and find a more advanced list.  If it
bothers
you to answer those questions, then don't!!!

Notice the word "potential" above.  That is important.  Most of us
reading
and writing to this list are beginners.  We are therefore "potential"
coders.  If the Perl community is such that it will flame a FNG for
asking a
question, then I'd rather spend my time learning VB.  I can certainly
make
more money and there is a very good IDE for it.

Besides, we all know the adage, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for
the
day.  Teach him to fish and you feed him for life."  They always leave
off
the part that says "But, smack him upside the head for asking a "stupid"
question and the world will loose a potential fisherman.  And you will
gain
a potential enemy."

Well, I've said more than enough and I have better things to do.
"Kudos" to
drieux and those like him who know better than most of us here and take
the
time to explain how and why.

BTB drieux, I was one of those "90 day wonders" who was lucky enough to
have
had excellent NCOs to teach me what life was really like.  I should
write a
book entitled "All I Really Needed To Know I Learned From My Platoon
Sergeant".

Peace In Christ -
Ron Goral
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



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Re: Improving the Quality of Our Beginners was Re: Write permissions and other rights

[Michael Lamertz]

Aye,

it seems I missed the part of this thread where you got flamed, and
couldn't find anything in the archive either.  However:

On Wed, Apr 24, 2002 at 09:17:46AM -0500, Ron Goral wrote:

 snippage ...

> Yes, I can read the perldocs and the manpages, but, incredibly, these are
> written with the notion that I have a half a clue about how to interpret
> what "chmod" means.  And yes, yes, yes, reading more and more documents
> means that eventually, you will come to understand a word or two here or
> there.  However, the plain and simple fact is that until there is a document
> written that assumes the reader knows NOTHING AT ALL about the *NIX
> environment ...

Let me start with: Flaming a post that shows missing understanding of
Unix file permissions is inappropriate and doesn't do this list any
good.

And:  Yepp, you're right.  Perl itself was written to solve specific
problems, and these *were* problems exclusively in the host and Unix
environment.  Times have changed a bit and to find the balance between
explaining to the non-unix people the business of our (Unix folks) daily
life and make the documentation short and to the point on one hand, on
the other explanatory enough so you guys know what this stuff is all
about is not easy.

Unix file permissions are - except for the concept of the directory
hierarchy - about the first things you learn when starting with unix, so
for some people it's hard to understand if anybody has a problem with
this.  *Many*, many of the functions you find when using 'perldoc' come
directly from the underlying C-library that's more or less common to all
Unix systems, and that's documented in the man pages.

So the question here is if it's perls job to explain these concepts.

I don't think so.

Perl should come with perl documentation and leave the system specific
part to specialized documentation.

ActiveState's perldocs that explain perl's connection to the Win32 API
don't explain the underlying concepts either.

These things should be explained in the system documentation - and the
average Linux distro e.g. comes with a truckload full of documentation
in that area.  That's btw. the Unix way to do things:  One program for
one job, but that one should be highly efficient.

However, an appropriate answer on *this* *list* should have been a
pointer to at least one or two introductory Unix books and perhaps some
webpages (and although I dare to post this long rand I'm actually not
able to provide you with any one, since I never read one %-)

It's always hard to bootstrap oneself on a new platform, to get a grip
on the system and a feeling for where to look for more information...
Keep going, and keep on posting stuff here, you'll see, it'll get
better, and you most probably wont get flamed by a kid with too much
thestosterone everyday...

-- 
   If we fail, we will lose the war.

Michael Lamertz|  +49 221 445420 / +49 171 6900 310
Nordstr. 49|   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
50733 Cologne  | http://www.lamertz.net
Germany|   http://www.perl-ronin.de 

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RE: Improving the Quality of Our Beginners was Re: Write permissions and other rights

[Ron Goral]

Sorry Michael.  I was not clear there.  I was not saying that *you* flamed
*me*.  That did not happen.  I was speaking in a general sense to the
flamers on this board.  Please accept my apology for creating this
misconception.

As for Unix file permissions, have a look at the cover of "Learning Perl".
At the top of mine it says "UNIX Programming".  I do agree that the
mysteries of the *NIX OS should not be covered in a list like this, but some
issues (like having to set the proper permissions to enable a script to run
and security concerns as regards .htaccess/.htpasswd files and proper
directory formation) do need to be discussed with on a beginner's list.  If
nothing else, to provide that beginner with a springboard to find the more
in depth documentation he/she will need to be an effective programmer.

However, the point of this response is, again, to apologize to you, Michael,
for inadvertently implying that you had flamed me and I had words for you.
This was not the case at all.

Peace In Christ -
Ron Goral
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


> -Original Message-
> From: Michael Lamertz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 5:52 AM
> To: Ron Goral
> Cc: Michael Lamertz
> Subject: Re: Improving the Quality of Our Beginners was Re: Write
> permissions and other rights
>
>
> Aye,
>
> Sorry, I'll reverse your quotes, because the following sentence struck
> me:
>
> > If my questions are too remedial, then ignore
> > them.  But don't open fire on me simply because I've asked a question.
>
> Where have I flamed you?  My response was completely *pro* your
> request.  %-)
>
> Let me quote the two last paragraphs of my own mail to you:
>
> -- snip --
> However, an appropriate answer on *this* *list* should have been a
> pointer to at least one or two introductory Unix books and
> perhaps some
> webpages (and although I dare to post this long rand I'm actually not
> able to provide you with any one, since I never read one %-)
>
> It's always hard to bootstrap oneself on a new platform, to get a grip
> on the system and a feeling for where to look for more information...
> Keep going, and keep on posting stuff here, you'll see, it'll get
> better, and you most probably wont get flamed by a kid with too much
> thestosterone everyday...
> -- snip --
>
> The only thing I didn't agree with was that topics like Unix file
> permissions should be covered in the perl documentation.  I explained my
> reasons for that at length, and I think they stand.
>
> But then again I agreed with you that the request *IS* valid for the
> beginners list, and that somebody who had good information on the topic
> should have replied to it instead of some zealot flaming around.
>
> We're completely in line I think.
>
> On Wed, Apr 24, 2002 at 08:28:08PM -0500, Ron Goral wrote:
> > Well, I didn't get flamed, another "potential coder" did.  For
> the sake of
> > brevity, the point of my message was simply this:  A beginner's
> list is for
> > beginners.  Not folks with an intermediate knowledge of the
> subject.  It is
> > for those of us who do not know what we are doing.  This is the place we
> > should be able to go and ask the "stupid" questions and hope
> for an answer.
>
> Yepp, I completely agree, although I'm not for cutting out the
> intermediate level questions to another list.  Where will you draw the
> line between a beginner and an intermediate?
>
> If you fragment the lists you also fragment the community and eventually
> the more advanced users will stay away from the absolute-beginners list
> since they don't find it interesting or challenging enough.
>
> > It is an incredible bonus that more knowledgeable coders
> actually take the
> > time to patiently answer our questions.
>
> But don't you underestimate the value that these questions have for us
> who answer.  This is both give and take!  I'm programming perl since
> about 1994 or 1995, but *explaining* stuff to other folks makes me think
> not twice but trice about topics that I thought I had fully grasped
> years ago, and quite often I get a new insight by that process.
>
> I like that, and that's why I lurk on the list!
>
> > But when the knowledgeable can no
> > longer be patient, then they need to move on to a place where they are
> > behind the curve and leave us alone.
>
> Agreed, and in that next sentence...
>
> > I'm not on this list so that some kid
> > can look down his nose at me.
>
> ...You describe exactly wh

Re: Improving the Quality of Our Beginners was Re: Write permissions and other rights

[Michael Lamertz]

On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 10:45:31AM -0500, Ron Goral wrote:
> Sorry Michael.  I was not clear there.  I was not saying that *you* flamed
> *me*.  That did not happen.  I was speaking in a general sense to the
> flamers on this board.  Please accept my apology for creating this
> misconception.

No, no, no!  No need to apologize.  I only replied since I was afraid I
didn't make myself clear and sounded as if I attacked you %-)

> As for Unix file permissions, have a look at the cover of "Learning Perl".
> At the top of mine it says "UNIX Programming".

Aha, sorry, never read that one, but I agree that with that sentence in
the title these topics should be covered, either as a standalone chapter
or near the corresponding functions.

> I do agree that the
> mysteries of the *NIX OS should not be covered in a list like this, but some
> issues

Oink, objection your honor.  One's mystery is the other's daily work.
I've written quite my share of daemons and server programs, but that
might be black magick for others, so even if it's way over the head of a
complete beginner, for the average Unix-Joe this is still basic
knowledge and is IMO appropriate to be explained here too.

A perl beginner will post this kind of questions here, since he cannot
decide if this is an advanced topic or a standard problem, so things
like that should be posted here as long as they relate to the person's
perl code.

> However, the point of this response is, again, to apologize to you, Michael,
> for inadvertently implying that you had flamed me and I had words for you.
> This was not the case at all.

Again, no reason for this!  :-)

I think we're about as much in sync concerning the topic of this thread
as we can be.

Take care - Mike

-- 
   If we fail, we will lose the war.

Michael Lamertz|  +49 221 445420 / +49 171 6900 310
Nordstr. 49|   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Improving the Quality of Our Beginners was Re: Write permissions and other rights

[Beau]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Thursday 25 April 2002 08:45 am, Ron Goral wrote:
> I do agree that the mysteries of the *NIX OS should not be covered 
> in a list like this, but...
I'm still a blithering tyro where perl is concerned, but one of the 
most daunting aspects of my earliest learning efforts was the 
unix-centric nature of most perl material.  Correct me if I'm wrong, 
but aren't perl's roots are in unix system admin, isn't that what Mr. 
Wall wrote it for?  To folks lacking the context of unix much of perl 
is simply impossible to figure out.  Willingness to help out in that 
realm is of great service to we newbies.  (Personally, I only began to 
"get" perl *after* I started running a linux box.)

One thought is that perhaps "beginners" is more heterogeneous a 
collection than some might expect.  Seems to me the term will entice 
folks who have never written a hello world in any language as well as 
seasoned programmers who are only "beginners" in the context of perl.  
The list emphasis seems to be more toward this latter group, but the 
former is the one most in need of a friendly place to be naive and 
ignorant and slow.  If this isn't the place for such 
perhaps someone can point to a similar resource that *is* for the 
absolute beginner?

- -- 
Beau
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Re: Improving the Quality of Our Beginners was Re: Write permissions and other rights

[drieux]

On Thursday, April 25, 2002, at 04:27 , Robert Beau Link wrote:

> On Thursday 25 April 2002 08:45 am, Ron Goral wrote:
>> I do agree that the mysteries of the *NIX OS should not be covered
>> in a list like this, but...
[..]
> but aren't perl's roots are in unix system admin, isn't that what Mr.
> Wall wrote it for?

unix sysAdds took to it because they were 'wimps' and did not
have the 'big stones' to master 'sed' and 'awk' and 'grep'
and do complex, esoteric and arcane convolutions in /bin/sh
that come with a flat name space management problem - in
the days before /bin/sh had 'functions' as an archetype...

{ ok, so invoking mknod to make a named pipe to talk between
two shell scripts may not have been a good idea }

{ ok, so the CERN 'losers' did that http/html thing because
ftp/telnet was 'hard' - the whiners... }

8-)

RealMen[tm] Code in Perl because it's just simpler.

> To folks lacking the context of unix much of perl
> is simply impossible to figure out.

part of it is that the 'unix freaks' come from 'the network
IS the solution' - approach - and hence want our code to do
for us, that which we need done, but otherwise interrupts
our flaming our friends and enemies on 'the net'.

So depending on how much of that 'system' like background
you already have - that is a part of what you are kvetching about.
It is not always the 'kernel internals' - but much of the basic
'unix context' that is just weird Unix remains one of the
most backward at the 'user interface layer' - but at Oh Dark
Squat, all you have is an accoustic coupler for that modem,
a dial up connection and that Admiral Terminal - Kick It
Down, Who Cares, we can get a tty line and ROCK! Mouse What???

[..]
> One thought is that perhaps "beginners" is more heterogeneous a
> collection than some might expect.
[..]

you ain't just whistling dixie there

those of us who have coded but not had the time to study
come back and learn new tricks

I mean I just learned that I can use bbedit on my OS X
box as a Perl IDE - so... it's all trades here...

ciao
drieux

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