Re: Decompression
-Original Message- From: Richard Clamp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Umm, *strokes beard* by archive you mean tar file, right? If so then >Archive::Tar looks likely, and it even automagically deals with .gz This does exactly what I wanted, a pint is yours at the next meeting! >files via Compress::Zlib (or so it says in the readme) It does as well, this should save a lot of grief. >No non-core modules though? Can't you just create a local lib path >with Archive::Tar in it and say you didn't cheat? If I can't get the module on the server then I guess I'll have to be inventive and just add the whole module to my script ;) And now back to your scheduled Buffy discussion. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: O'Reilly Safari - anyone use it?
-Original Message-From: Barry Pretsell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I'm interested to know if anyone uses Safari to read O'Reilly books online. >http://safari1.oreilly.com/tablhom.asp?home >It sounds like a good idea (must be better than having 3 editions of Programming Perl) and I'm tempted to give it a go, so any Safari subscribers out >there with an opinion? I've not started using it yet but I'll admit to being very tempted on a couple of occasions (When I need the cookbook and my CD's at home mostly) the only real thing putting me off is the need to be constantly on-line. I do a lot of my work on my laptop with no network connections so I don't get distracted by things like e-mail and I'd like a local copy, you could write a slow crawler to make up for this but that sorta breaks the spirit of it and I imagine Nat not being too happy with me ;) I was impressed by the Manning way of letting me download a PDF of the book, it makes my life easier since I can use it off line. On the other hand I thought Manning would have released their back catalogue in ebook as well as they have a very limited selection at the moment. I suppose the issue with books as PDF is that it leaves you wide open to rampant copying... Although you could slow crawl safari and zip 'em up. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: pc components
-Original Message- From: Jonathan Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >At 14:48 17/05/01 +0100, Dean wrote: >>If your in London then forget mail order and go to TCR on a Saturday, >>you get to take home what you pay for and with the drop in spending >>lately its getting easier to haggle the price down. >Are you refering to the 'computer fair' or just TCR in general? Both to a degree. From the shops I've been in recently it seems that they are more willing to drop the price a bit than see you go to one of the fairs. For once the consumers the winner. The fairs do a more mixed selection of stuff than the shops do, where you go depends on what your looking for. >Also, if any London person is unaware of it, the shop CEX (Computer >EXchange) on TCR (just north of Goddge St Stn) sells excellent 2nd hand >hardware, are very knowledgeable, will accept returns with no hassle, and >have never let me down etc etc etc. And they do a nice selection of cheep DVD's. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: [OT] Cordelia (was Re: They are all vampires!)
-Original Message- From: Nathan Torkington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >... Boobapalooza! You boys will be capturing plenty of stills from >the season-ending shows. I'd never sink that low. I know how to use google and wget... >Think Princess Leia only funny and jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Renounce Buffy and Willow, join the dark side. ;) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: pc components
-Original Message- From: Simon Cozens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >My motherboard from Dabs has spent two days "awaiting credit card clearance" >and two days "awaiting despatch". It *is* in stock, it's just taking them >four days - and counting - to get around to shipping it. If your in London then forget mail order and go to TCR on a Saturday, you get to take home what you pay for and with the drop in spending lately its getting easier to haggle the price down. And afterwards you can come to one of the almost weekly geek meets in a nearby pub. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: see attachment
-Original Message- From: Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Of course we could make a cyberpunk movie instead, now let >me thing about it Someone please employ Mr Mccarroll. My mail box can't cope with him having this much spare time. ;) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: [Gllug] Saturday Show
-Original Message- From: John Southern <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Dunno how many of the PMers go to the fairs but this might be of interest: >As you all may know SuSE have decided to help out on the Pre-LinuxDay day. >Along with GLLUG they will be at the UCL Union building computer show >( Mallet Street ) >to tell anyone who will listen and even some who won't about Linux and >about the following weekend Lonix LinuxDay InstallFest. Details about the Lonix fest will be in the soon coming LCN... >A table has been booked and all help is welcome. Starts about 8:30am >It will end in time to go and celebrate John Hearns Birthday in the Hope pub. Which anyone in the area is welcome to gate crash :) >John Southern Dean -- Perl Coder Security Tech E-mail troll Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: sub BEGIN {}
-Original Message- From: Martin Ling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> YOu havent been around here very long have you :) >Indeed, that was just my observation on a few posts' worth. Who *knows* >what I might conclude about a whole day's traffic.. Stick with drunks, it'll save time. And the meetings on Thursday so you announced yourself just in time! ;) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
Original Message- From: Simon Cozens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 12:02:48PM +0100, alex wrote: >> ps the big killer is that there is no large corporate generating tons of >> noise about Perl - whereas this is not the case for Java. > >Wait until TPC. Ahh come on! We need more than that! :) Where are all the things like Perl advocacy, PR, Business Awareness and non-technical expansion plans for the language discussed? Dean -- Perl coder in a sea of PHP.
Re: Perl Training Courses
-Original Message- From: Nathan Torkington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Seriously, we were surprised when another conference announced itself >over top of our dates, so we're trying to work out how best to deal with >that (move, reposition, whatever). Never ever think conferences are >easy. I think half of the list is the choir on this one ;) Anyone submitting anything for this? http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2001/ Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: RPC stuff
-Original Message- From: Jonathan Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >What's the best way forward for RPC / distributed Perl stuff? I don't need >anything super complicated, but RPC::Simple seems to want to use Tk ?! XML-RPC and SOAP are both interesting at the mo. Homepage http://www.xmlrpc.org/ XML-RPC perl tutorial. http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-xpc1/?dwzone=ws SOAP::Lite tutorial. http://home.cnet.com/webbuilding/0-7704-8-4874769-1.html Although neither are really my field. Dean (Must stay on topic...) -- Perl Coder SecTech E-mail troll Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: de-dupe a filesystem
-Original Message- From: Dave Hodgkinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Anyone got anything to hand that will spot massive duplications in a >filesystem? I've got a whole bunch of servers mirrored to a backup >server and it's be nice to identify where entire file trees have been >replicated... You could run diff on the checksum files that tripwire makes. You do tripwire your servers don't you? ;) This came up on a list recently, I've never used it but it seems to fit your problem. It looks like a trial version is available http://www.veracity.com/apps_compremote.shtml HTH Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Perl Books
-Original Message- From: Benjamin Holzman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >True, but there aren't many people who will assume that they can perform >brain surgery just because they successfully applied a band-aid to a paper >cut the week before. You haven't been to the NHS recently have you... ;) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Perl Books
-Original Message- From: Elaine -HFB- Ashton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >anyone other than Webheads have better things to do than learn CGI. It >doesn't make them stupid, in fact, I'd almost argue that they are the >bright ones. Amen. >Which is probably about 95% of the planet. Why should they care if the >Perl is shoddy? The web page works :) I can see your point and I agree that a tiny initial learning curve is a good thing but what happens when the shoddy bit of cgi is used to execute an intrusion on the host it's based on or another machine?. The coder has a responsibility to make sure that his work at least pays some attention to security. And if the book doesn't cover use warnings or use strict I doubt taint mode is in the contents. If you thought Simons Buffy joke was bad have a look at this, you want the Tainted Perl section... http://www.spy.org.uk/london2600/party-2000.htm Dean (Packing for Belgium so not at tonight's meeting) -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Perl Books
-Original Message- From: Nathan Torkington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Hey, if she's allowed to plug, so am I :-) The 2nd edition of "CGI >Programming with Perl" (O'Reilly of course) is pretty bloody good Duh, its an O'Reilly. ;) Also L Steins Network Programming with Perl is a good book. I'm only a chunk into it buts its a good read on its own and an even better one if your not from a Unix background. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
London Community News 30/01/00
Welcome to the first post of the London Community News. The LCN is a fortnightly (Or so) e-mail that contains a brief summary of the London based open source community groups and their activities for the month ahead and any major open-source events. If you have any suggestions for the mail or know of a group that you'd like to get added to this please drop me a note at [EMAIL PROTECTED] The User Groups: --- London Perl Mongers Home Page: http://www.london.pm.org Contact Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] We are a group who are dedicated to the encouragement of all things Perl-like in London. Its a busy month this month for the London PMer's, in addition to the monthly meeting on the 1st of February (http://london.pm.org/WhatDo.shtml) with guests Mark Jason Dominus (Perl luminary) and Beginning Perl author Simon Cozens there is the bi-monthly technical meeting featuring Matt Sergeant of axkit fame (http://www.axkit.org/) on Thursday 22nd February and on the 26th of February Damian Conway, author of Object Orientated Perl and the slave of Perl mongers everywhere (http://yetanother.org/damian/) will be in London to say hi and scare people with his Quantum::Superpositions module. --- Lonix Home Page: http://www.lonix.org.uk/ Contact Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The aim of Lonix is quite straightforward although it comprises of many points. The overall aim is to unite many Linux individuals in and around London. Below is a list of aims, but you as a member may not agree to all of them. (Hopefully at least one!) Meet like minded individuals to share ideas and discuss opinions. To provide a Linux force in London to persuade the industry to opt for a more Linux friendly approach to their services and products. To assist users with problems, providing advice and physical help. Linux advocacy For details of the monthly meetings you can look here: http://www.lonix.org.uk/Meetings.html This months Lonix is to be held on the 1st of February. Details of the location have not yet been confirmed but can be found at http://www.lonix.org.uk/Meetings.html nearer the date. --- GLLUG Home Page: http://gllug.linux.co.uk/ Greater London Linux User Group's (GLLUG) purpose is to bring together London's Linux users so they can share experiences and expertise (or revel in their inexperience and quest for expertise), to chat about the state of the (Linux) world, that sort of thing. We try to arrange meets so that there is space for users to set up their equipment, so you are welcome to bring your kit along, either to go through the problems you are having or just to show off what you are up to. There are no formalities to attending a GLLUG meeting, no subscription or entry fees, you can just turn up on the day. We welcome and encourage new and inexperienced users, young and old. Due to the high turnout GLLUG meetings are less frequent than the other user groups, you can get notification of the next meeting either on the home page or through this mail :) --- SAGE-WISE Home Page: http://www.sage-wise.org/ Map: http://www.sage-wise.org/lecture/directions.html SAGE-WISE is the System Administrators Guild for Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England, hence the "-WISE" suffix. Our aim is to form a professional association for system administrators in the UK and Ireland. But what is a system administrator? Professional system administrators, however, often look after large numbers of computers and networks - they are the people who keep the systems running, repair faulty discs, install and debug new software, upgrade existing systems, and generally take care of the computing resources needed for their users to perform their tasks effectively. A shorter definition is "A system administrator is one who manages computers not solely for his or her own use". If you know the joys and frustrations of this then feel free to come and visit one of our meetings. This months SAGE-WISE meeting is on Tuesday 13th February and is held at the Eisai Lounge, University College London, LONDON WC1. (Directions and a map are available from the homepage.) The host of this months discussion is James Hobson (Server-Side J2EE developer and Linux guru) leading a BoF (informal discussion) entitled The Battle of the Scripting Languages a BoF (informal discussion) covering the various scripting languages available for web-page generation (jsp, asp, perl, etc.). Outside London Events: --- This month sees the Open Source & Free Software Developers' Meeting (http://www.osdem.org) on February 3-4 in Brussels, Belgium. Among the speakers are Fydor, creator of Nmap (www.insecure.org), Renaud Deraison (Nessus), Richard Stallman (FSF), Werner Koch (GnuPG), Jeremy Allison (Samba), Philippe Biondi (LIDS and kernel security), Rasterman (Enlightenment), and Wichert Ackerman (Debian). A delegation may be leaving from London comprising of GLLUG and Lonix members so if your interested in g
Re: odd -w effect
Original Message- From: David Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Must remember to try IE under WINE. > >Don't bother. It doesn't work. I've seen IE5 running under wine on Debian. The machine did have a 98 partition though so he might have been using the libraries from there, is that cheating? :) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: odd -w effect
-Original Message- From: Robert Shiels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Jon, who thinks Windows workstation connected to *nix machine running >samba >> is the prefered development environment. > >Strangely enough, thats exactly what I do at home. With Exceed for doing X >stuff. If you've got a nice meaty box at home then run Linux with NT in vmware, you get a very nice system that way. You have a two machine subnet for clean network testing that can be firewalled off at the Linux host os, you can use procmail to check for vbs viri and then use outlook and IE for web browsing. Its how I used to do 95% of my work. Well until my motherboard started frying harddrives... Dean PS Running Linux in VMWare on NT works fine as well but its sick :) -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Perl Books
I was having a look at the perl book reviews on Amazon (Yes boycott, yes they have good reviews) when I came across this Proceedings of the Perl Conference 4.0 http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596000138/qid=980264576/sr=1 -62/202-4272860-9199824 I didn't get to go to that conference so can anyone who did go and knows anything about this tell me if it contains details on the talks and similar? Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Extreme Programming (was: Re: Consultancy company)
-Original Message- From: Aaron Trevena <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I did a little pair programming at emap - I probably wasn't doing it right >tho'. even so we did get thru the hard bits quicker and could split up to >do the easy stuff. I think it made a difference but then I was mostly >being a backseat coder so either we did okay or stuart was very tolerant >indeed. How did you establish who would make good pairings? Was it done by trying to place two equals or was it done more on a mentoring level of a very experienced coder and a less experienced one? (I've not read that much on XP) Has anyone who's used XP had a client that was willing to make an employee available pretty much full time or was it more they come in for a chunk of the afternoon three times a week? I have an issue with the fact that clients will be willing to pay a member of staff to spend all day in the consultants office in case they need to be asked questions. I'm not saying its a bad thing to have someone on hand, I can see its uses but from the clients point of view why not just have contact by phone/email. That was the liaison has access to everyone in his base office so he can resolve issues faster with more authority than if he were in your offices. Also you have a paper trail of requests, questions and responses. Is the Monday night meeting still on for those of us who can't make the lunch time one? Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Advice
-Original Message- From: Simon Wistow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Advice is soreley needed. Don't work anywhere that Aaron does, he's jinxed. If he worked at Stonehenge then they'd use EJB's within the week ;) (Sorry Aaron hehe) >If I quit now then I have a week's notice period. If I quit after the >end of the month I have 3 months. I'd hang it out till the end of the month and know that i had the three months security, that way your not going to be forced into taking the first paying job that comes along and you can be a bit more picky about what role you do take. >I've found myself freakily enjoying the low level stuff and I'd like to >learn new stuff. What kind of low level stuff are you interested in? kernel/device drivers kind of thing or something else entirely? Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Feelers for London Open Source Convention
-Original Message- From: Dave Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >(I'll have to remember that pop quizzes are a good way to force the >lurkers out of hiding :) Nope its the lure of free alcohol. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Feelers for London Open Source Convention
>On Wed, Jan 17, 2001 at 11:08:41AM +, alex wrote: >> >> In my opinion London would be fine for an August conference. >> >> I don't know what the fuss is about, really. London is not like Paris in >> the summer. We have a lot more parks. >> >> Perhaps September would be better, but hey. I could go with September, if you go for before August the start of July has a selection of stuff already in planning: The summer Linux Developers' Conference Fri 29th June to Sun 1st July. Linux Expo Weds 4th - Thurs 5th July in London. LinuxTag Stuttgart (Germany) 5th-8th July 2001. Also there is going to be a UKLISA in the second half of this year but I'm not too sure of dates. HTH Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: one liner
-Original Message- From: Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >* Aaron Trevena ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: >> I was wondering how hard it would be to put together a mini Application >> server toolkit. Hows this for a starting point? http://www.apachetoolbox.com/ He has porting it to perl as a future plan... Maybe with London PM's help? > of course you need a name, I personally like Rope - its Yeah "We give you enough software to hang yourself" :) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: one liner
-Original Message- From: Nathan Torkington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Before I launch in a kind of defence of the book, let me remind you >all that I liked the book before Tim started signing my paycheque. :-) Uncross those fingers. ;) Since your in the know what perl books are forthcoming? Anything on Perl XML? >There are perldoc pages? When I was learning, I struggled for months >to find a comprehensive set of manpages on Perl/Tk. It seemed that >there were patchy Perl docs (some widgets covered, some not), and all >the Tcl/Tk docs (leaving me with no idea of how the widget options and >calling conventions work in *Perl*). I was interested in perl/tk about 10 months ago and found both a newsgroup and some miscellaneous postings linking to lots of perl docs for it. Guess I was just lucky. None of the stuff I found covered reasonable sized apps though. >I wonder whether the fact that you wanted a different book isn't >clouding your opinion of this one. It sounds like you wanted >something else. Other than having "a couple of complete sample >applications", and without the detailed widget descriptions, I can't >work out what it was. I would like to know, though. Your probably right, i would have prefered something with a higher emphasis on hands on. I'm curious as to how you view the book though, to me it is an OK reference. Its not a tutorial or an intorduction and it's not really for advanced principles. I lumped it in as a reference as that was what i thought it was best at. >Learning Perl/Tk isn't really *meant* to be a reference. Like the >other Learning books, it's supposed to be an introduction to the >subject. The Perl/Tk Pocket Ref, as you point out, is a much better >reference. Learning Perl/Tk tells you how to write Perl/Tk programs, >what widgets are at your disposal, and what they do. I know that it's not intended to be a full reference but that was the best use i found for it, there were no real intorductions to Tk just an overview of a widget and maybe one example of its use, and they were pretty scarce. A couple of self contained examples of use for each widget, thirty lines or so would have pushed it towards being an introduction but as it stands i'd class it as a reference book because of the comprehensive option lists. >In fairness, I do have to say that the writing in the Perl/Tk book >needed another editorial pass. We realize that in hindsight. It's >still readable, just a little ... quirky :-) I liked the authors style, it gave it more of a... personal, not too polished touch :) The only two ORA books i've ever really disliked were Apache The Definitive guide first edition which just seemed to be all over the place (Nice technical description) and Building Linux Clusters which was a waste of paper but i was contacted by someone at ORA over my views on that and i was satisfied by their responce (They saw my comments on (void). Beware ORA agents are everywhere! :)) >I can't even find this on their web site. Is it still being worked >on? Good question, I can't see it either. And they seem to have dropped the "Perl Tools" book. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: one liner
-Original Message- From: Nathan Torkington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Data point: the O'Reilly Perl/Tk book mysteriously jumped in the >Amazon sales rankings lately. It's been in the 100-300 range the last >few weeks. Toilet paper must be scarce ;) I dislike the Learning Perl/TK book and I'm waiting for the Manning one which seems to have been delayed more times than the railtrack service. Learning Perl/TK just seemed to be too much of a rehash of the perldoc pages, a couple of complete sample applications in the later half of the book would have been nice rather than wasting four pages listing the options for a button, something thats both in the docs and in the much better purchase Perl/Tk pocket reference (Which has all the options but takes a lot less time to read and reference.) There were no nice self-contained applications that showed all the basic details that you build from for your own use, the book just seemed like a selection of unconnected option lists. Simon Cozen's articles are a much better read and learning point and Learning Perl/TK should be used as an off-line reference if its used at all. IMHO Then again I've never written a book so what do I know :) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: one liner
-Original Message- From: Nathan Torkington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Dean S Wilson writes: >> Has anyone tried Linux glade recently? Is it stable with perl yet? >The TPJ that's stalled at the printers has a fantuckingfastic article >on getting started with Glade and Perl/Gtk. I now hate you. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: one liner
-Original Message- From: Leon Brocard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Greg McCarroll sent the following bits through the ether: >> the only thing that gives potential for the marketing of a language is the >> projects that are achieved using it and java has a hell of a lot more cool >> projects than perl > >Yes. This is because Perl is not thought of as being a GUI >language[1]. Discuss Perls very good at GUI's, we've got bindings for TK, Gnome (A module that I can't find the alpha code for...), GTK, GTK-Perl, Win32::GUI, Qt-Perl and Qt... Hang on maybe this is part of the problem... ;) What is missing is a nice GUI drawing program like VB that writes out perl code GUI's and calls perl code for events. Activestate's work on making perl com components has done some inroads with this on Windows. Has anyone tried Linux glade recently? Is it stable with perl yet? I'm not advocating VB over perl but VB has its niche, its good for drawing quick frontends for apps like small databases and similar. Having a similar tool that allowed you to write all the call-backs in perl while getting rid of the monotony of writing combo boxes would be nice. Which is what I'm hoping glade will become. When I'm forced into GUI's I end up using Tk because it'll normally run under Windows and Linux. Does anyone think that compilation is an issue with perls lack of user space apps? Discuss[1]. Dean [1] Yes we have become one with (void) Wheres arp. -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: one liner
-Original Message- From: Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Ok, we are not (void) but we are pretty close so here is a one liner that >hopefully will provote discussion I left (void) and you'l not take me back alive! Outlook canne take the strain! >the only thing that gives potential for the marketing of a language is the >projects that are achieved using it and java has a hell of a lot more cool >projects than perl I think that marketing is the key term in this mail. Java has a good marketing team and is being taught in universities at the moment, nothing better than having a lot of fresh faced advocates being spawned at the end of each term. Dean (Playing both sides in this one) -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: one liner
-Original Message- From: Michael Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Greg are you trolling? If so let me play ;) >> the only thing that gives potential for the marketing of a language is the >> projects that are achieved using it and java has a hell of a lot more cool >> projects than perl >What are these mysterious cool java projects that no-one's been telling >me about? Fortay's a good example. A Java IDE written in Java, and under Linux it's pretty quick even on 64 MB ram. IBM developerworks and Alphaworks have tftp and dhcp servers in Java. I wouldn't run them though :) >I think the best thing people can do for the language is create good things >and modules and whatever using it. I agree but I also think that this is one of the problems, the only people who see the modules are other perl coders. I'm not saying that modules are a bad thing or a waste of effort, I'd hate to think about writing the code for half of the modules I use on a regular basis but the only people who really understand and use them are perl coders, people who know that perl is good. I think Greg means making something a little more visible, How many netusers see the powered by python logo on mailman each day? Whats our answer to that? Slashcode? Plying devils advocate is fun. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: copious free time
-Original Message- From: Natalie Ford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Oops - oven too[1]? Is it something in the water? Yeah its called Java ;) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: copious free time
-Original Message- From: dcross - David Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Another of the brethren has been liberated! Only Brother Mison remains >> to be saved ;) >Er... no. Paul was... um... 'saved' yesterday as well :( Well in that case kiss Oven goodbye. One of the reasons that I jumped at the chance to work at Oven was the fact that it had so many respected coders that I could learn from as I worked with them, now that Dave, Richard and Paul have gone I see no way for them to attract competent technical staff, after all look what they did to the last competent team they had, they let them slip through their fingers. Oh well. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: copious free time
-Original Message- From: Richard Clamp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reach me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you've got anything for a senior >programmer, with 2-3 years Perl, a bag of unix/sql hammers, and a (silly) >module in the CPAN. Another of the brethren has been liberated! Only Brother Mison remains to be saved ;) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Technical Meeting
-Original Message- > XML::Schema > XML::Schema will rule the world! This is still in the planning / > development phase, but it promises to kick bottom really hard. > Create a schema to describe your data and then sit back and let > the camel take over. The XML::Schema module should allow you > to build schema-specific parsers, (de-)marshalling code to convert > XML schema instances to/from objects, XML/SQL interfaces, and other > cool stuff like that. Hey, is that frost on the keyboard? XML::Schema gets my vote although I'm going to agree with Neil and say lets just make Andy stand by the projector all night and cover the lot of 'em :) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Damian's webpage.
Don't know how many of you have seen this: http://yetanother.org/damian/diary_January_2001.html#day_4 Made me chuckle. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Perl CD BookShelf 2nd Edition
Original Message- From: Dave Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> get a policy in place for upgrades, I'd rather pay 10-15 to upgrade my >> perl and Unix CD first edition and miss out on the included book than >> have to shell out for both of them at full price again. Might send >> that in to "ask Tim" as it goes... >Or wait for our resident O'Reilly editor to pick up on it... Good point! I just found this in the Ask Tim Archives. looks like plans have been laid... -Quote Of course, CD Bookshelf products and ematter versions of some titles are only two of many experiments we're running in an attempt to build up business models for online books. We will be selling online access to individual books and collections of books on a subscription basis starting next year. And I imagine that we'll figure out some way of giving a discount to people who've previously bought books. (It's a good argument for product registration for books, so we know who's bought them, and can make these kind of offers.) Quote Be interesting to see how they deal with it, and maybe we can start getting bulk discounts :) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Perl CD BookShelf 2nd Edition
-Original Message- From: Natalie Ford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 28 December 2000 18:54 Subject: Re: Perl CD BookShelf 2nd Edition >The problem being that I think they should include both and there is noway >of voting for both! :-) I'd agree with both for more money. And they might as well add the DBI book, it was light enough to be added at very little cost :) Good book and very well written but too light techwise, a bundle of FULL examples with different databases would have made it better IMHO Now that the cd bookshelves are taking off it might be time for ORA to get a policy in place for upgrades, I'd rather pay 10-15 to upgrade my perl and Unix CD first edition and miss out on the included book than have to shell out for both of them at full price again. Might send that in to "ask Tim" as it goes... Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Perl CD BookShelf 2nd Edition
Don't know how many of you have seen this: http://www.oreilly.com/survey/perlcd.html Vote to decide if they should put Mastering Regular Expressions or the cookbook on the new CD. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Fwd: SPUG: ActivePerl 623 Indigo Perl
-Original Message- From: Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >* Dean S Wilson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: >> Or on a CD bookshelf, that way they could leverage their back >> catalogue of stuff like Managing make/imake and bung those on it for > >i never thought the day i'd see a monger use a phrase like > > ``leverage their back catalogue'' > >i think this represents a paradigm shift for london.pm ;-) My covers been blown! Quick... Buffy Buffy Buffy TVR! :) Sort! Compare! Dean PS I changed the title slightly to throw any Activestate snoopers. -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Fwd: SPUG: ActivePerl 623
-Original Message- From: Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >* Roger Burton West ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: >> On Wed, Dec 27, 2000 at 09:42:26AM +, Redvers Davies wrote: >> >> my vote the one, the only ... Charlie's Angels >> >That was a fun film and entertaining but I need more that kung fu and breasts >> >to make a good 90 mins... >> >> That sounds almost... heretical. >looking at the subject line, i can imagine Dick Hardt having arranged >to have various perl mailing lists and newsgroups monitored by bots >and him getting all excited as release 623 seems to be getting some >good coverage in london.pm ;-) Its your fault! You corrupted the innocent thread! Pitch Black gets my vote, I fell asleep half way through and woke up just in time to see the end, and it was predictable enough that I could even contribute to the discussion in the pub about the film. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Fwd: SPUG: ActivePerl 623
-Original Message- From: Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >if I was someone like redhat or activestate (in conjuction with redhat >who have an already established distribution structure), i'd produce >CD's for each platform (Mac,Win98,Win2K) that with one install executable >would install a complete development environment based on GNU tools It used to be possible to download the whole of the ported Cygnus stuff (Bash, text utils binutils and stuff like that) in a single exe file and run it with a couple of clicks until Redhat bought them out, now its more bother than its worth, you have to download each zipped file and manually install it into the bash shell. Which is another separate download. >in fact even ORA could do this, they could bundle it with a book for >each platform Or on a CD bookshelf, that way they could leverage their back catalogue of stuff like Managing make/imake and bung those on it for added value. I'd buy a copy just for the convenience of not having to hunt around for the stuff myself. But with a special discount version for PMer's :) >above, something like - the development kit that should of come with >your OS I have one of these kit's, its called VMware and Linux lives in it on my NT box :) And yes I know it should be the other way around but I got bored of needing Linux when I was in NT. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Fwd: SPUG: ActivePerl 623
-Original Message- From: David Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 24 December 2000 15:01 Subject: Re: Fwd: SPUG: ActivePerl 623 >On Sun, Dec 24, 2000 at 02:35:50PM -, Dean S Wilson wrote: > >> PS Is it worth me doing a lightning talk at the next tech meeting on >> Windows PPM/Module install? But don't tell Lonix :) > >Yes. Then we can all laugh :-) I was expecting this response from you! Do you think I can drag out "don't do it use Linux instead" for five minutes? :) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Fwd: SPUG: ActivePerl 623
-Original Message- From: David Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >All free Unix-a-likes, and most commercial ones, have compilers either >as part of the package or as one of the 'must have' packages that >everyone installs anyway. Your argument might be valid for a few niche >platforms for which free compilers are not available, such as Irix 6.2, >but then Activestate don't support that anyway. >> Ppm's are now being built with support for Linux, Solaris and Win32 as >> standard so if >> your not happy compiling stuff this may be the way to go. > >CPAN.pm and the Makefiles do it all for me. It doesn't matter if I'm >not happy compiling stuff. Which is fine if your a Nix person, those idioms don't hold in the Windows world. The Windows world is a huge market of possible perlers but why should they go to the effort of getting perl and then make.exe tar.exe gzip.exe gcc.exe possibly a bash shell and then spend time setting all these up so that they work together and only then learn how to build modules separately when they can be offered a single perl binary and then just use 'ppm install module-name?' I can understand not wanting to split development effort into two paths (PPM and CPAN shell) but if you force people to go and get a lot of tools that they don't have as standard (And I'm not saying that having things like these on a Win box is a bad thing just impractical for a lot of people.) then they'll consider if its worth the effort and maybe just leave it there and use VBScript with the Windows Scripting Host. After all perl makes easy things easy. Why should I go and download ten programs from ten sites? Leaving them on the path of ignorance and us with a missed chance at the next Conway. I don't mean that the language needs to be dumbed down in anyway but I think that relying on Nix principles like makefiles and compiling everything yourself will do nothing to help the adoption of perl in the Windows market, something that Activestate seem to be doing an excellent job of promoting. The fact that the source is available means that anyone with the skill and knowledge to compile things on their own can do so if they choose but for everyone else I think that the starting curve should be as gentle as possible. Once they've used perl for a couple of months on Windows I'd be very surprised if they turn back to the other options. And then they'll either advance and want to do stuff for themselves or plod along happily using (In want of a better term) 'baby' perl. I'd like to see perl do increasingly well under windows rather than having to pick up twenty proriorty niche languages which would be the only other option for most Win users. >You can tell CPAN to ignore tests results IIRC, or just install that >module manually just skipping the 'make test' Your dead on with that I actually ended up doing manual installs for the ones that failed tests, it was just a shame that the really simple way didn't work and it made me time over three commands instead :) I was always dubious about making it install by force, I preferred to do it by hand if it had errors, guess I broke the laziness rule with that :) >> An on-topic post! > >Disgusting. Let's go back to Jim Davidson. Please please please don't. Its x-mas be kind. :) All the above is IMHO. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Fwd: SPUG: ActivePerl 623
-Original Message- From: Mark Fowler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >More to the point, how do I get makefiles to work on a humble Win98 box? Short answer is that you don't. Long answer is that you use nmake.exe (For perl modules, for anything else get an .exe its not worth the effort.) I can't find a link to it on the net but I have a copy here (Microsoft has released it under the resource kit license) and if you want I'll forward you a copy off list, its about 65KB in size. >First background: I'm at home (it's christmas) and I've just installed >Perl on my father's computer. It's a windows box - something I've never >attempted to do before. The activestate install was fine, once I >realised that downloading the installer and running it didn't actually >install perl (like IE or Netscape installers) but downloading the .mix >file and double clicking it did. I have an intense dislike of the new msi installer format. Its basically a way of making the download more awkward than before with no marked benefits. The benefits that you were supposed to get were that you can run most of the apps from the cd saving harddrive space, problem with this is when you *Shock Gasp Horror* use more than one of them at a time. For internet downloads MSI is just a stupid idea. (IMHO) >Now, I want to be able to use CPAN.pm to install modules, so I head off to >ftp://ftp.easynet.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/ and download all the GNU >stuff - tar, gzip, make - (and emacs, bash and the C compiler for good >measure.) But alas, when I try installing everything it works up until >you get to run make - and then it falls over. >Just for the record, ppm (not unexpectedly) does this : > >bash-2.04$ ppm install Symbol::Approx::Sub >Installing package 'Symbol-Approx-Sub'... >Error installing package 'Symbol-Approx-Sub': Could not locate a PPD file >for package Symbol-Approx-Sub Active State still has it as Sub::Approx. Also when using ppm you need to use -'s rather than :: e.g.: ppm install Symbol-Approx-Sub (Which won't work due to no package.) >Nothing works on this Damn Tank. [1][2] Yeah but ain't the sliding menus *Mighty Purity* >I want my Linux box back! Bah welcome to hell ;) While your using Windows have a look at the ActiveState PDK, the perl debugger is quite nice, I'm thinking of buying it when my trial license runs out. If you need any help with the Winperl stuff drop me a note, I'll be on-line roughly once a day over x-mas and I'll help if I can. Dean PS Is it worth me doing a lightning talk at the next tech meeting on Windows PPM/Module install? But don't tell Lonix :) -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Donation [off topic]
-Original Message- From: David Hodgkinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Donation [off topic] >> PPS Has anything been mentioned about the London PM X-mas food/drink? > >We were pretty quorate the other lunchtime at the New World chinese... Ah! It wasn't in a pub so I got confused and didn't realise that it was an official meeting ;) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Fwd: SPUG: ActivePerl 623
-Original Message- From: Robin Szemeti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 21 December 2000 14:04 >I would suggest that anyone capable of installing Linux will have no >bother at all typing >$perl -MCPAN - e shell >how simple can it be? Agreed with the perl bit but setting up a base Linux box is becoming very simple, I have a box in the corner that runs mandrake 7.0 and gets wiped every week or so, it takes twenty minutes to get a nice base install. Most of the options are autodetected and if you click newbie setup it asks about three questions so I'm very dubious about the skill needed for installing linux, I can see your point about how simple it is (-MCPAN) once you've used it once or twice but if someone's moving from Windows to Linux it won't be the first thing that they think of and having a nice *familiar* ppm system will help ease them in. I like the -e shell function, searching for modules by author is something thats lacking from ppm and should be added. Also once its set up with readline and other stuff like that it blows ppm out of the water for functionality. >I have to disagree most strongly there .. i spent a good while bashing my >head because they'd ported DBI::Proxy to the new 5.6 version of ppm .. >but had not ported RPC::something that was a dependency. various >fragments became available as ppm and promptly didnt work .. ISTR it >being a major headache at the time. The 5.6 ppm's were shall we say 'fragile' for the first two months or so, a lot of the base stuff seemed to have slightly iffy dependency problems and some people got caught out by installing 5.5 and 5.6 packages in the same tree. Sounds like you got caught at the raw end of it though, still thats what you get for being a pioneer ;) >at the end of the day even if yer -MCPAN fails typing perl >Makefile.PL/make/make install is not THAT hard .. this is programmers we >are talking about here .. easy peasy n'est pas? Makefiles are no where near the norm on the Windows boxes where the bulk of ActiveState's users currently reside, learning how makefiles work (And I have to admit my experience in writing makefiles is very small) is yet another hurdle for people moving from Win to Nix. Although this might be a good way of making them get there feet wet ;) >so .. OK .. I'll grant you its useful (infact it rocks) as a windows port >of perl .. the ppm thing is sorta OK .. I prefer to compile it myself if >I can .. I have a copy of nmake and a suitaible compiler and it all >seems to happen usually .. Question for you, if you compile perl under Win32 with one compiler and then compile modules under another compiler do you get problems using it? I only ever really use the one compiler so I've not come across it but I've heard it can be awkward. Be nice to know what happens with out having to try it myself :) >but for *nix I see it as a dangerous >splintering .. theres already the defacto standard for *unix and you hope >that it still works under ActiveState/Win32.. but are prepared to be >disappointed (mainly because the OS is missing several major features) ... >but I can't see any strong advantage to running it on *nix .. infact >since every major *nix distro comes with Perl as standard the level of >cluefulness required to install it is much greater than the level of >cluefulness required to do the cpan thing, so I cant see the ease of ppm >(which is no easier than the MCPAN thing imho) being a factor . Why did you have to come up with a very good argument? I'm not too sure where I think the two module managers should go, ppm is needed on Windows for 85% of the Win Perl Users, its too much effort for most people to get working c compiler, nmake and all the other pre-requisites and then build their own modules. For them (And often for me) I still think that PPM's the way to go. I use -MCPAN when I'm on Linux and to be honest I wouldn't use ppm on Linux, it wouldn't be worth it but I can agree with making PPM available to ease the transition of Win perlers but maybe making it just call -MCPAN -e shell and adding wrappers for some of the commands, that way you'd avoid the splintering of development. What might be interesting is if Activestate starts shipping ActivePerl with one of the Major Linux distros like SUSE, Redhat and Mandrake, if they did ppm might make some rapid movement into the turf of -MCPAN :) PPM or -MCPAN? As someone said tmtowtdi. >just my 2 penneth. now .. how can I get it onto my lapto tha has no >cdrom or network card? ... I see a very long 9600 baud call to demon ... Floppy's, shed loads of floppies :) Although I've got one of the old 100mb Zip drives I use for stuff like this :) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Fwd: SPUG: ActivePerl 623
-Original Message- From: Robin Szemeti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >errr .. now this is where I kinda lose the plot .. Active state perl for >windoze is a kinda good idea ... it wouls be nicer if you yould just get >plain perl to compile and install .. but hey, if ActiveState wanna go to >the trouble of porting it and making up some amusing installer called ppm >that will only load cpan modules that have been specially prepared for it >then thats ok too.. Theres a Win util script that automatically packages up modules from cpan (I'll try and dig out a link) and if you play abut with your ppm scripts you could make it package them and install them in a single command. But that's just sick. :) > the .ppm packages are sometimes a bit behind the >current revision and you can't always get the latest release just when >you want it of the main binary ... but it does give you Perl on windoze >.. which makes for less pain and suffereing in the world.. Also as another option Indigo Perl is supposed to be quite good, and it comes with a precompiled apache and mod-perl set up. >but since yer standard *nix Perl install comes with access to all the >packages, a 'easy to use module installer' perl -MCPAN .. and none of the >disadvantages why would anyone want to run Activestate perl under *nix >..?? just curious .. Might be missing a obvious point. Think of it as proof of evolution, once you've spent some time on Win boxes you begin to need something like perl. And then you either learn perl and do pretty much everything with it or end up learning lots of different little niche technologies. After a few months of perling you end up with this burning desire to find out what this fork thing does and you install Linux/FreeBSD (I've not yet met a netBSD user.) and then you find that your amazingly simple package system has stopped working. And you flee back to Windows. But with the port of ppm available your made immediately comfortable in the Nix environment and Linux is your new best friend :) After a few weeks of this you feel the need to prove yourself and compile perl by yourself and just forget about ActiveState's ppm... Damn proved your point for you ;) As far as I know there are two main reasons for using ppm's under Win. PPM's can come with precompiled bits like dll's/plls' so you don't need a compiler. You can permanently add new repositories with two simple commands. Can this be done under the cpan module on Nix or are files always looked up under a cpan mirror? The compiler issue seems a bit moot under Nix so I'll assume its for building offline or alternate repositories. Ppm's are now being built with support for Linux, Solaris and Win32 as standard so if your not happy compiling stuff this may be the way to go. Also I've had mods fail under -MCPAN due to test errors but I've never had a ppm refuse to install for any reason. Active State used to require all modules to pass certain tests before they'd package them, don't know if this has anything to do with what they support under corporate contracts but it might be another reason. An on-topic post! Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Donation [off topic]
-Original Message- From: James Powell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Aha, a Jim Davidson connoisseur! Complement or insult? Taking the lists view i'll go with insult ;) Its a local thing me thinks, crude comedians with chips on their shoulders are appreciated here :) I'm very worried about joining this thread, I've not been involved in an on-topic thread on this list for a while (When we do get them ;)) and this one won't help any... So I'm not going to join. Say what you like I shall remain silent. Mainly so I don't get kicked about the list but also coz i'll be sending other non-relevent stuff in the near future ;) >I thought he was supposed to b*gar off (along with Paul >Daniels and Andrew Lloyd Webber) when Labour won the last election ;) Andrew Webber tried to leave but customs told him that he needed a pet passport for his kids ;) Dean PS Red White and Very blue is an hour and a half of back-raising jokes :) PPS Has anything been mentioned about the London PM X-mas food/drink? -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Donation [off topic]
-Original Message- From: Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 20 December 2000 17:23 Subject: Re: Donation.. >> Your memory is flawed. Pantos aren't even slightly entertaining. > >not even the comic genius jim davidson's adult one? Warning both of these are VERY crude pantos! Sinderella is a bit boring, boobs in the wood is a good laugh. If you don't get offended then "In the Wood" is well worth a watch. Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: Compare and Contrast
From: Simon Wistow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Anyway, one is an email claiming that a t-shirt will destroy years of >work getting Perl accepted by American corporations and the other is a >widely read Web techniques column by the same author at >http://www.stonehenge.com/perl/amihooternot > >Failing to see why t-shirts were offensive now. I like the sentence at the bottom: 'This program will be featured in an upcoming WebTechniques Perl column.' Wonder if the editors will let him keep the screen dumps :) Dean -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
