Re: Templating Solutions

[Struan Donald]

* at 18/06 17:21 +0100 Roger Burton West said:
> On Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 04:36:00PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote:
> 
> The main reason I prefer H::T to T::T is that H::T templates can be
> given to Dreamweaver monkeys to edit without my having to worry that
> they'll screw them up.

That is an important consideration although in my experience a
taleneted dreamweaver mokey can screw up pretty much anything that
isn't created by dreamweaver in the first place.

struan

Re: YAPC::Europe (Ignore this request)

[Struan Donald]

* at 15/06 14:41 +0100 Greg McCarroll said:
> 
> Ok, ignore this request now. Also thanks to Simon Wilcox. for helping me out 
> here.
> 
> I also believe others are flying on this flight, so it looks like we have
> the official flight for London.pm ;-) and thanks to Jouke we can claim
> to have an official London.pm hotel - with minibars and minigolf

somehow i just can't see "offical hotel of london.pm" being used in
the marketing material...

struan

Re: London.pm - FAQ for web site (was books or something).

[Struan Donald]

* at 14/06 14:55 +0100 Leo Lapworth said:
> Well, as has been muttered about I am redoing the London.pm.org website.
> 
> And yes it DOES need a faq, I have the start of one, but would very much 
> love someone else to finish it off.
> 
> So, If anyone is up for it give me a yell and I'll email you the XML 
> that needs populating.
> 
> The website development is a dictatorship (e.g. we want it done this year 
> so I'm not taking any comments or suggestions until after it's gone live), 
> so no starting of huge discussions about what should go in a FAQ, if your 
> interested and have an opinion, contact me and you can do it! :)
> 
> Infact now I think about it, 2 faq's would be good.
> 
> 1) London.pm - the FAQs
> 2) General - like where to buy books online / hardware etc
> 
> So maybe there are two people out there who want to write these.

er, i'll go for the general one... 

struan

Re: www.gateway.gov.uk

[Struan Donald]

* at 11/06 21:38 +0100 Robin Szemeti said:
> On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Chris Benson wrote:
> 
> > Didn't ukonline.co.uk complain about trademark infringement a while back?
> > 
> > Is gateway.gov.uk the result?  and is there any possible trademark confusion 
> > with this address?
> 
> 
> 'hello .. is that the government? .. oh good. I'd like to complain about
> trademark infringement by one of your sites ..'
> 
> 
> 
> 'yes .. yes .. oh I see .. yes .. no, no you are quite right I don;t want
> to spend the the next 20 years talking to VAT inspectors and men from the
> Inland Revenue ... ah forget I ever called, by the way, did I mention
> waht a fantastic set of teeth Tony has?'

that really is terribly cynical of you. i really can't imagine a
giverment as benevolent and trustworthy as ours even contemplating
such a thing.

struan

Re: Religion (was Re: M$ SQueaLServer)

[Struan Donald]

* at 08/06 11:54 +0100 Robin Szemeti said:
> 
> pah! .. tis written in the scripture ... 'let he who hath one eye be
> blessed'  .. clearly the 'one eye' is a reference to the one 'i' in vi ..
> its *obvious* innit ... I shall found my entire religion on this shadowy
> fact wriiten by our lord himself ( or one of his followers, or perhaps
> someone just mistranslated it .. or made it up ) however ... if anyone
> questions me I shall explain that 'thats what faith is all about' and mark
> them up for burning as well ... 

in future years this may be marked down as the dawning of the second
dark age.

struan

Re: Religion (was Re: M$ SQueaLServer)

[Struan Donald]

* at 08/06 11:35 +0100 Robin Szemeti said:
> On Fri, 08 Jun 2001, Greg McCarroll wrote:
> 
> > calling wordpad an editor is as laughable as calling vi an editor ;-)
> 
> arrghh .. burn the heretic! ... speak brother, for the truth will out ..
> have you been using [x{0,1]]emacs again ... ?

and thus comes the inevitable end[1] to all unix geek discussions...

struan

[1] or at least end to the bit not based on flames and blind prejudice
:)

Re: Religion (was Re: M$ SQueaLServer)

[Struan Donald]

* at 08/06 10:11 +0100 Greg McCarroll said:
> 
> Well here are some reasons why i prefer UNIX to Windows * for servers,
> they are pretty much personal reasons and i'm sure not everyone agrees with
> them.
 


I'd also add that is something hardwary does go wrong and the box
stops running, windows boxes seem much more inclined to spontaneously
corrupt. especially in the case of the power suddenly stopping ("if we
just move that box forward a bit... oh, the lights have gone out").

struan

Re: London.pm posting stats

[Struan Donald]

* at 07/06 04:26 -0700 Paul Makepeace said:
> This is dated from beginning of last year, and mutt is saying that's
> about 13,700 messages (gasp!). Note that some people
> (dcross) appear more than once. Not that a) they
> necessarily need it b) have any hope, ever, of catching Greg...



this is almost as bad as those games that make a point of letting you
know exactly how long you've played it. 

struan

Re: [Announce] Hackspoitation film fest

[Struan Donald]

* at 24/05 23:18 +0100 Greg McCarroll said:
> 
> p.s. at the risk of raising the heckles of BlackStar, does anyone
> know the URL of the company based in the channel islands (or isle
> of mann) that sell american dvds to the UK at the time they
> are released in the US? 247 or something?

http://www.play247.com/ would be them. 

struan

Re: Happy Happy Joy Joy!

[Struan Donald]

* at 18/05 12:54 -0400 David H. Adler said:
> On Fri, May 18, 2001 at 08:20:47AM +0200, Philip Newton wrote:
> > I finally received my copy of TPJ in the mail yesterday. And there was much
> > rejoicing :)
> 
> If it makes anyone feel better, I just heard from Mr. Orwant that *his*
> copy hasn't arrived yet... :-)
> 
> dha, who thinks the overseas copies got somehow shipped before the
> domestic ones...

but that'd mean you got yours first :)

struan

Re: Ken Campbell is a god (was: pc components)

[Struan Donald]

* at 18/05 14:51 +0100 Cross David - dcross said:
> From: Robin Houston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 2:34 PM
> 
> > On Fri, May 18, 2001 at 06:05:44AM +1000, Damian Conway wrote:
> > > Im nogat samting til ridim insait long pastaim Klingon!
> > > 
> > > Damian (longlong tisa Perlpela)
> > 
> > Lingua::TokPisin::Perlpela?
> 
> Nooo!
> 
> Damian - as a sponsor, I'm _begging_ you not to do this :)

if that works you just have to hope the blackstar people don't decide
it's a good idea :)

struan

Re: A look over the shoulder of an XP programmer (auf deutsch)

[Struan Donald]

* at 16/05 15:22 +0100 Simon Cozens said:
> On Wed, May 16, 2001 at 02:41:58PM +0100, James Powell wrote:
> > > You've hit the fundamental problem with XP. Getting anything done
> > > requires two programmers to agree on something; this, as everyone
> > > knows, is impossible.
> > 
> > No it isn't!
> 
> That's not argument, it's just contradiction!

must resist temptation

struan

Re: Enough!

[Struan Donald]

* at 15/05 12:04 +0100 James Powell said:
> 
> My girlfriend got her first SMS spam the other week... all it said
> was "call this number 2320340 324 CompName EX7 TL7" (or similar).

the one i got the other day promised cheaper phone calls and all i
needed to do was phone this number at £1 a minute which seemed kinda
contradictory.

struan

Re: Politics (was RE: BOFHs requiring license)

[Struan Donald]

* at 14/05 12:16 +0100 Matthew Jones said:
> > Ah, yes. That's like "we're listening", isn't it, in response to the
> > fuel crisis? We're not going to do anything, but we're happy 
> > to listen.
> 
> That narked me about the fuel protestors. They claimed "the government
> aren't listening". "Listen" ne "cave in to the selfish demands of a few
> protestors who happen to be holding the nation to ransom" (unwittingly in
> cahoots, some say, with the oil companies).

mmm, some of it was selfishness although for the rural (and when i say
rural i don't mean the home counties) types the cose of fuel really is
a big issue. if you live 30 miles from the nearest major shopping
centre then the cost of fuel really is an issue.

it's a tricky one as there are clearly any number of idiots who
persist in driving to work in london who should be taxed to the hilts
but you have to do it in a way that targets them and not people who
_have_ to use a car. which more or less means congestion charges.
 
> You can listen and still say "no". 

aka the first rule of dealing with marketing departments :)

struan

Re: BOFHs requiring license

[Struan Donald]

* at 14/05 12:13 +0100 duncan said:
> 
> >The money has to be raised somehow.
> 
> selling 3rd generation mobile phone licences for extortionate figures, 
> thereby taxing the population once again?

wasn't it an auction? i like to look on this as some sort of crack
induced madness on the side of tha various telcos involved in which
thet actually belived the hype aboug 3G comming out of their marketing
departments.

struan

Re: BOFHs requiring license

[Struan Donald]

* at 13/05 16:41 +0100 Greg McCarroll said:
> * Dave Cross ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > At 15:27 13/05/2001, Simon Cozens wrote:
> > >On Sat, May 12, 2001 at 03:30:31AM -0700, Paul Makepeace wrote:
> > > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/18866.html
> > > > Absurd, laughable and bizarre. What *is* wrong with the UK?
> > >
> > >Don't ask me, you elected 'em. And it looks like you're all stupid enough
> > >to do it *again*.
> > 
> > 
> > I know, I know. Blair doesn't have a socialist bone in his body - it's been 
> > a _most_ disappointing four years, all i all.
> > 
> > But given that the Socialist Alliance are only standing in ~100 
> > constituencies, there doesn't seem to be any credible alternative.
> > 
> 
> 
> if only the SNP covered the whole of the UK

my experience of the snp is that the average supporter is a lot more
interested in 'getting rid of the english' rather than any of their
more useful policies. of course that doesn't neccessarily go for those
withing the party but given that independance is their whole reason
for existing[1] there must be some element of that in there.

struan

[1] why does that sound so much more cumbersome than the french
equivalent?

Re: putting escape characters in files

[Struan Donald]

* at 11/05 12:07 +0100 Dave Hodgkinson said:
> Struan Donald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > There is a very real argument for devices that do one thing and one
> > thing only but do it in a very simple way without all the flimflam
> > that accompanies most modern computers. Donald Norman has quite a few
> > good books on this.
> 
> Agreed, but they MUST talk to each other. Securely and knowingly.

see Donald Norman. he talks about all this stuff.

struan

Re: putting escape characters in files

[Struan Donald]

* at 11/05 11:49 +0100 Dave Hodgkinson said:
> Roger Burton West <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > Putting pretty interfaces on existing unstable systems does not
> > help to make them simpler...
> 
> That's part of it. Landing a thudding great book of what the thing
> _can_ do, rather than a cookbook of what you _want_ it to do is very
> offputting.

but then what you want to do differs greatly for different people so
instead of one book with lots of information you have to sift through
you get lots of books you have to sift through to find the right one.
I imagine most computer neophytes find their first visit to the
computer section of any large bookshop pretty damn confusing to start
with. 

plus you're assuming people know what they want to do, or even what
they can do. The fact that you could have _two_ windows open at once
was a revelation to a friends dad recently. 

There is a very real argument for devices that do one thing and one
thing only but do it in a very simple way without all the flimflam
that accompanies most modern computers. Donald Norman has quite a few
good books on this.

> Or make it like the Tivo - it "just works".

which is kind of a proof of the one thing very well point.

struan

Re: putting escape characters in files

[Struan Donald]

* at 11/05 11:32 +0100 Roger Burton West said:
> On or about Fri, May 11, 2001 at 10:48:41AM +0100, Jonathan Peterson typed:
> 
> >You know, from the outside, Unix looks so well designed and clean and modern...
> 
> >From the outside, Windows looks as if it works.
> 
> ObRant: computers and OSes in their current state are not consumer devices.
> They're not sufficiently reliable or intuitive. Bad marketing has made
> people think they need the things; most of them are wrong...

you just have to see that people have trouble with palm's sometimes
and they are so much more simple to realise that your average fully
fledged computer in not a consumer device.

but then any reasonably flexible multi-purpose device is always going
to have a hard time being a consumer device as by it's nature it's
complex and trying to make complex things appear simple is very very
hard.

OTOH, if it was simple it's be no fun :) [1]

struan

[1] usual caveats regarding definition of fun apply

Re: putting escape characters in files

[Struan Donald]

* at 10/05 16:37 +0100 Dominic Mitchell said:
> On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 04:35:29PM +0100, Struan Donald wrote:
> > kind of off topic but how do you get things like ^M and such like into
> > a file for, say, writing vi macros?
> > 
> > i've had a look through some docs but i'm beggining to suspect it's
> > one of those bit of unix aracana know to a chosen few. or is there
> > some site/resource that contains this info?
> 
> Generally you can enter a control character into vi and most Unix shells
> by pressing ^V and then the character you want.

ah, thanks
 
> In Emacs, it's ^Q, then the character you want.

only ^Q? that's not like emacs :)

struan

putting escape characters in files

[Struan Donald]

kind of off topic but how do you get things like ^M and such like into
a file for, say, writing vi macros?

i've had a look through some docs but i'm beggining to suspect it's
one of those bit of unix aracana know to a chosen few. or is there
some site/resource that contains this info?

ta

struan

NMS formmail

[Struan Donald]

is this useable as i have someone in the office using the real version
and difficulties with it and i'd quite like to be able to say:

ah ah! you should use this instead.

ta

struan

Re: TBA?

[Struan Donald]

* at 10/05 10:22 +0100 [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
> is a venue decided on for tonights meeting, or is it still TBA?



Don't forget the London.pm website for meetings etc. The next meeting
is a social meeting and has been postponed for a week to the Thursday
10th May. It will be at the Penderel's Oak:
http://london.pm.org/

struan

Re: sing if you're happy that way

[Struan Donald]

* at 08/05 15:18 +0100 Andrew Bowman said:
> Excuse me for my ignorance of this matter, however I can't figure out what
> 'CHOPS' means in this context (and am sure I'm not alone among London PMers,
> at least not on this question).
> 
> According to acronymfinder.com it's "Controlled Humidity Operational
> Preservation System", but I doubt this is what the tiresome oik on
> crackwood.com or cookpot.com or whatever it is was referring to.

as bizzaro insults/putdowns go Controlled Humidity... has a kinda neat
ring to it.
 
> Nor does Jeeves know either.

i suspect this is it though:

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/channel-op.html

although it still doesn't ring true.

sreuan

Re: sing if you're happy that way

[Struan Donald]

* at 08/05 13:04 +0100 Matthew Jones said:
> Wisty - next T-shirt please:
> 
> use strict
>   is gay
> 
> Heh. On the back "-w is jolly"?

surely the back should be:

CHOPS

struan

Re: More revolting natives

[Struan Donald]

* at 04/05 17:33 +0200 Niklas Nordebo said:
> On Fri, May 04, 2001 at 04:29:37PM +0100, Dean wrote:
> > On Fri, May 04, 2001 at 04:17:25PM +0100, Cross David - dcross wrote:
> > > Oh, and you've just gotta love the mentality that sees 'gay' as an insult.
> > > Gives a real feel for the kind of person we're dealing with :)
> > 
> > Just to clarify is this the 13 year old?
> 
> On the subject of 13 year-olds, I highly recommend this thread:
> http://www.cookwood.com/cgi-bin/lcastro/perlbbs.pl?read=4611
> 
> CHOPS

the tv series?

struan

Re: Apocalypse Two

[Struan Donald]

* at 04/05 10:22 +0100 Dave Hodgkinson said:
> Struan Donald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > i kind of like -> from a visual point of view.
> 
> much more like APL... ;-)

i'd not know about that. seem to recall seeing an example of APL in a
book once and it looked very scary. or it might have been ADA. 

still, if damian gets his way we'll no doubt be able to have
modules/filters that mean we can still use -> :) 

struan

Re: Apocalypse Two

[Struan Donald]

* at 04/05 09:48 +0100 Jonathan Peterson said:
> 
> > And much, much more!
> 
> "we'll switch to using . instead of ->"
> 
> Yay!!

i kind of like -> from a visual point of view.

struan

Re: cocktails

[Struan Donald]

* at 03/05 12:42 +0100 Simon Wistow said:
> Chris Heathcote wrote:
> 
> > Off the top of my head:
> > ICA bar, Match (Noho/Farringdon/Sosho), lab (on Old Compton St.), aka...
> > also heard about Smiths of Smithfield, but never been there.
> 
> For true geekdom go get cocktails go to Cynthia's Cyberbar
> 
> http://www.cynbar.co.uk/
> 
> where you are served cocktails by a robot.

although poss not on a sunday afternoon. certainly no robotic serving
of a saturday afternoon (although this was 1ish so maybe a bit early)
plus all that shiny metal surface decor is very unpleasant very
quickly.

struan

Re: tube strike / may meeting postponed til 10th

[Struan Donald]

* at 03/05 10:28 +0100 Mark Fowler said:
> On Wed, 2 May 2001, Struan Donald wrote:
> 
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1307000/1307103.stm
> >
> > for those who don't get a kick out of seeing server errors :)
> 
> Which we all know you don't ever get on news.bbc.co.ukeven when a page
> you're looking for doesn't exist

good grief, neither it does. what can they be thinking?

struan

Re: tube strike / may meeting postponed til 10th

[Struan Donald]

* at 02/05 16:51 +0100 Leon Brocard said:
> jo walsh sent the following bits through the ether:
>  
> > well, it looks like the tube strike (8pm Weds 2nd May - 8pm Thurs 3rd May)
> > is still on, and this will scupper our May social meeting plans rather.
> 
> It's not anymore, but we shouldn't shift the date again:
> http://www.thetube.com/content/pressreleases/

or

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1307000/1307103.stm

for those who don't get a kick out of seeing server errors :)

struan

Re: Company Name

[Struan Donald]

* at 25/04 13:15 +0100 Jonathan Stowe said:
> On Wed, 25 Apr 2001, Robert Shiels wrote:
> 
> > I've decided to set up my own company and become a contractor. There are
> > quite a lot of decisions to be made, but the hardest one I'm finding is
> > thinking of a company name!
> 
> Get the domain off Paul and call it PerlIsMyBitch Ltd.

and randal thought the t-shirts were bad?

struan

Re: Company Name

[Struan Donald]

* at 25/04 09:02 +0100 Robert Shiels said:
> I've decided to set up my own company and become a contractor. There are
> quite a lot of decisions to be made, but the hardest one I'm finding is
> thinking of a company name! So far my only ideas are simply "Shiels" or
> "Shiels Consulting"; this is fairly obvious, and I already own the
> shiels.com domain. I guess I could try "Shiels Enterprises" or "Shiels Inc",
> but they seem pretty naff.
> 
> How did contractors here come up with the names for their companies, and can
> you think of anything with Shiels in the name that sounds good. I will
> mainly be doing SAP work, but hope to get other IT work too, so don't want
> SAP in the name.

you could always try one of those anagram generators. 

struan

Re: Beginners Guide

[Struan Donald]

* at 21/04 10:14 +0100 Robin Szemeti said:
> On Fri, 20 Apr 2001, you wrote:
> 
> > I read it as not wanting to fund the various commercial entities one
> > ends up funding in order to actual get a digital box. The idea of
> > putting any more money in the Murdoch empires coffers just for the
> > sake of getting News 24 and BBC Choice certainly doesn't appeal.
> 
> ahh ..  yes .. that would be another interpretation ...
> but, again,  it certainly used to be the case and AFAIK it still is that
> you can get ( it might be 3 quid or something $ trivial to cover the cost
> of hte card) a BBC only card that is free on production of your TV
> licence. I know Murdoch et al were not very keen on the idea and try and
> tell you it 'cant be done' etc but ISTR the DTI telling em to just shut
> up and do it.

and almost as if in answer to this i noticed a great many ads for
digital tv wjile vegging in front of smtv on saturday that made much
of the fact that you bought it and itv2 was free, free, free! as it
also showed tvs with news24 etc i imagine all your favourite bbc
digital channels are also free.

struan

Re: Beginners Guide

[Struan Donald]

* at 19/04 22:59 +0100 Robin Szemeti said:
> On Thu, 19 Apr 2001, you wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 19, 2001 at 11:34:02AM +0100, Robert Shiels wrote:
> > > - Original Message -
> > > From: "Matthew Byng-Maddick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > >
> > > > Personally I don't mind funding the beeb, as long as the quality of
> > > > content they produce is high. I do object to funding random corporations
> > > > whose interests are to their shareholders...
> > > >
> 
> well don't you worry yourself unduly .. you don't fund then in any way 
> and up to this point in time at least the only shareholder is the BBC in
> all thes 'random corpoartations' .. basically its a dadge to allow the
> BBC to compete against the commercial stations. the 'random corporations'
> eg BBC resources limited recieve no licence payers money other than for
> services they sell to the BBC eg studio costs for a specific programme.
> that way they cant be accused of using public funded resources to compete
> against other production companies when bidding for work. in other words
>  its just another accounting trick :)

I read it as not wanting to fund the various commercial entities one
ends up funding in order to actual get a digital box. The idea of
putting any more money in the Murdoch empires coffers just for the
sake of getting News 24 and BBC Choice certainly doesn't appeal.

struan (who always seem to end up paying the licence despite watching
less tv than his flatmates)

Re: next social meeting vs tube strike

[Struan Donald]

* at 19/04 15:04 +0100 dcross - David Cross said:
> From: Steve Mynott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 2:48 PM
> 
> > Struan Donald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > 
> > > Noticed on my way past the news stands last night that the next tube
> > > strike is pencilled in for May the 3rd, as is the next social
> > > meeting.  OK, so the strike might not happen but if it does is this 
> > > not going to make the next social meeting a bit problematic?
> > 
> > why don't you have the social meeting a day earlier so that everyone
> > can "work from home" with their hangovers the following day?
> 
> You mean hold a meeting that's not on a Thursday. Hmm... interesting
> concept. I'm not sure that the rules cater for that possibility.
> 
> Let me think about. Might need an EGM this evening. Hope we're quorate.

Dunno, don't the strikes tend to start the evening before the day[1]? I'd
be wary of holding in any time round the 3rd.

struan

[1] or the evening of the second to be less confusing

next social meeting vs tube strike

[Struan Donald]

Noticed on my way past the news stands last night that the next tube
strike is pencilled in for May the 3rd, as is the next social
meeting.  OK, so the strike might not happen but if it does is this 
not going to make the next social meeting a bit problematic?

just a thought.

Struan

Re: Mourning clothes for London.pm

[Struan Donald]

* at 18/04 17:47 +0100 Dominic Mitchell said:
> On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 05:43:20PM +0100, dcross - David Cross wrote:
> > Alexis Denisof (who plays Wesley) is going out with Alyson Hannigan
> > (Willow).
> 
> For some reason, this is made even worse by the automatic word
> association of "Wesley" and "Crusher".

ah, the curse of the TNG generation. I imagine there'll be a real dearth
of wesleys for the next 10 to 20 years.

struan

Re: Mourning clothes for London.pm

[Struan Donald]

* at 18/04 16:50 +0100 Dean said:
> On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 04:43:09PM +0100, dcross - David Cross wrote:
> > > CNN reports that BtVS's SMG will wed Freddie Prinz.
> > 
> > Why would that bother us? Remember, we're all Willow fans here.
> 
> You may insult my OS, you may insult my editor but don't tar me with that
> brush Mr Cross :)
> 
>   Dean (Cordelia fan)

heresy is all very well and good but surely there are limits?

struan

Re: Komodo

[Struan Donald]

* at 18/04 11:58 +0100 Robin Szemeti said:
> On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, you wrote:
> 
> > IMHO the Linux port is an afterthought, most of the effort seems to have
> > been focused on the Windows side, the integration with Visual Studio
> > springs to mind.
> 
> umm ... since Linux accounts (at a guess) for 75% of Perl usauge, thats
> quite an 'afterthought'. My guess is they see ActiveState Perl as taking
> over the world and these tools are simply there to help get it to that
> position. 

i do love the sound of figures being plucked from thin air.

struan

CPAN search from mozilla address bar

[Struan Donald]

no idea if anyone will find this useful but:

if you use mozilla (on linux/*nix at least) stick this:

http://search.cpan.org/search"
>






in a file called cpan.src in the searhcplugins directory of your
mozilla install. restart mozilla. go the the internet search options, 
select CPAN as your default Search Engine and hey presto, you can now
search cpan direct from the mozilla address bar.

only don't tick the display in my sidebar option as it doesn't work. 

struan

Re: NWS (was Re: Technical Meeting - 19th April)

[Struan Donald]

* at 17/04 14:09 +0100 Mark Fowler said:
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, Struan Donald wrote:
> > surely there should be a better way than this? after all the
> > combinations involved are quite numerous. is the notion of something
> > that does :
> > 
> > #!/bin/sh
> > 
> > if [ -e /usr/bin/perl ]; then
> > exec './bin_perl.pl'
> > fi
> > 
> > or equivalent too silly? although not sure this sort of thing is possible
> > on non unix type systems. OTOH would at least cut down the number of
> > files that the person installing needs to worry about.
> 
> I don't particularly see the number of scripts this person is installing
> as a problem.  The key concept is that these scripts are designed so that
> someone who knows *nothing* about their system can basically upload them
> all then see which one works.  Once they've got this script working the
> script should contain instructions on how to modify any of the
> other scripts to work with their server.

it's not so much the number of scripts as the "try each of these
scripts till one works" situation i think we should be trying to
minimise. 
 
> I don't think what you're suggesting will work at all on windows.  Or pure
> mod_perl...

true. although the number of people using mod_perl who'll be using
these is debatable. windows is a problem though.

> Feel free to disagree, I'm just suggesting ideas here.  Honestly, I'm not
> sure what's the best way...

heck, anything that helps is better than the "your isp will know"
school of help.

struan

Re: NWS (was Re: Technical Meeting - 19th April)

[Struan Donald]

* at 17/04 14:00 +0200 Philip Newton said:
> Mark Fowler wrote:
> >  3) Write a set of scripts
> 
> ...with a bunch of different extensions such as .pl .plx .cgi for
> combinations of "operating system" + web server that map scripts to
> interpreters by extension and/or directory rather than by shebang line...
> 
> >that are all basically the same but have
> > different #!/usr/bin/perl lines on the top and tell you the
> > information that you might need to know about the server. 
> > For example what version of perl you're running, what the current
> > working directory is, what the permissions on the directories 
> > are, etc, etc.

surely there should be a better way than this? after all the
combinations involved are quite numerous. is the notion of something
that does :

#!/bin/sh

if [ -e /usr/bin/perl ]; then
exec './bin_perl.pl'
fi

or equivalent too silly? although not sure this sort of thing is possible
on non unix type systems. OTOH would at least cut down the number of
files that the person installing needs to worry about.

struan

Re: TPJ Reborn

[Struan Donald]

* at 11/04 17:50 +0100 Greg McCarroll said:
> * David Cantrell ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 05:10:12PM +0100, Leon Brocard wrote:
> > > Paul Mison sent the following bits through the ether:
> > > 
> > > > If you're going to do IRC style karma-ing, at least make sure there's a
> > > > bot present
> > > 
> > > ... and before someone magically has enough time to link dipsy to
> > > email, no email bots please! ;-)
> > 
> > Sorry, ol bean, I'm already piping this list through two bots (my archiver
> > and my URL-hunter).  They don't say anything in public though.  Yet.
> 
> point of order - they are filters, not bots

point of information: isn't that a point of information?

struan

NWS (was Re: Technical Meeting - 19th April)

[Struan Donald]

* at 11/04 08:28 +0100 Mark Fowler said:
> On Mon, 9 Apr 2001, dcross - David Cross wrote:
>
 

 
> I'll also be able to give a quick status update on the website for NMS
> (probably at the same time as I'll be using it as my example)

what is the status of the NMS thing. i'm liable to have some spare time
over the weekend so if there's anything that needs doing on this i could
have a bash.

struan

Re: Technical Meeting - 19th April

[Struan Donald]

* at 10/04 09:15 +0100 Greg McCarroll said:
> * Marcel Grunauer ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 09, 2001 at 04:56:28PM +0100, Struan Donald wrote:
> > > 
> > > nowhere we might be tempted to sit by the thames till the wee small
> > > hours generating tremendous hangovers :)
> > 
> > "sit"? IIRC, you tried to lean against a bench but unfortunately
> > were standing between two benches, landing on the ground face-down.
> > 
> 
> its a good job he had lots of `anasthetic' that night, or that would
> of really hurt

not at the time no :(

struan

Re: Technical Meeting - 19th April

[Struan Donald]

* at 09/04 16:09 +0100 dcross - David Cross said:
> 

> 
> p.s Next social meeting is on Thur 3rd May. Suggestions for venues would be
> most welcome.

nowhere we might be tempted to sit by the thames till the wee small
hours generating tremendous hangovers :)

struan

Re:

[Struan Donald]

* at 06/04 11:34 +0100 Natalie Ford said:
> At 22:42 04/04/01, David Cantrell wrote:
>  > PC-Pine is suitable only for small children recovering from major surgery.
> 
> ...and maybe people who prefer a GUI?  :)

isn't that what he said? :)

struan

Re: the 2nd best london.pm meeting of all time

[Struan Donald]

* at 06/04 10:16 +0100 dcross - David Cross said:
> From: Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: 06 April 2001 10:00
> 
> > I nominate last night as the 2nd best social meeting of all time, just
> > behind the TVR train and toilet seat nicking of a previous meeting.
> 
> It _was_ a lot of fun. Thanks everyone for coming.
> 
> > The stolen wine by the thames at 1am was a particularly nice feature.
> 
> Oh $deity. Are we going to be barred from Vinopolis now?

i should sincerely hope so. we have standards you know.

struan

Re: Certing

[Struan Donald]

* at 05/04 21:37 + Robin Szemeti said:
> On Thu, 05 Apr 2001, you wrote:
> > * Greg McCarroll ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > > * Dean ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > > > Will the Perl Cert discussion/brainstorming be taking part at todays meet
> > > > or the technical one?
> 
> > > todays
> 
> > having said that i think it will be pretty damn informal
> 
> judging by the way grep appeared late, informed everyone he'd had 'a hell
> of a day' and then went to the bar and bought two 6 pint pitchers of 6X
> I think it fair to say it might well be a little more informal than
> people might possibly have imagined . :))
 
and this i why i would like to nominate that the phrase of the day is
"I blame greg"

struan (who really drank far more than he intended)

Re: London.pm List Weekly Summary 2001-04-02

[Struan Donald]

* at 04/04 14:23 -0400 David H. Adler said:
> On Wed, Apr 04, 2001 at 11:36:22AM +0100, Leon Brocard wrote:
> > 
> > Martin Ling delurked and couldn't believe we were all nutters and
> > Buffy fans. David Adler added "drunks". Jonathan Stowe added
> > "skateboarders, musicians". Lucy McWilliam (who has very amusing
> > taglines) added "geeks, goths, jugglers, Netscis. And that's just
> > me". Paul Makepeace added "unicyclist". Greg McCarroll added "drunk
> > crazy buffy fans".
> 
> Surely that last is a clarification, not an addition.

perhaps, but certainly a point worth empahasising

struan

Re: Test

[Struan Donald]

* at 04/04 15:58 +0100 Robin Houston said:
> On Wed, Apr 04, 2001 at 03:09:02PM +0100, Nicholas Clark wrote:
> > [...] the HTML hanger on serves no purpose except to consume
> > my disk space at 4 times the rate.
> 
> You mean you *archive* this bollocks?

doesn't eveyone archive all their mail? *some* of it *might*
be useful at some point. and it's not like disk space is at a premium
these days

struan

Re: Crazy Idea

[Struan Donald]

* at 03/04 17:21 +0100 Matthew Byng-Maddick said:
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2001, Struan Donald wrote:
> > * at 03/04 16:47 +0100 Andrew Bowman said:
> > > Either that or he misread F&M as S&M, or, worse, FHM.
> > well, that unstructured data is difficult tp parse :)
> 
> Is dave cross written in Perl?

well no[1] but if it's hard to parse in perl...

s

[1] not that i have any evidence one way or the other...

Re: Crazy Idea

[Struan Donald]

* at 03/04 16:47 +0100 Andrew Bowman said:
> > From:   Simon Wistow [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> >>> How would people in London.pm like a one night camp out, subject
> >>> to the F&M issue going away. The plan would be - we bundle into
> > ^^^ 
> >> Hmmm. Do the words "foot" and "mouth" mean nothing to you?
> 
> > /me suspects Dave may have been kidnapped and replaced by a dozier, evil
> > replacement.
> 
> Either that or he misread F&M as S&M, or, worse, FHM.

well, that unstructured data is difficult tp parse :)

struan

Re: archiving

[Struan Donald]

* at 03/04 14:17 +0100 dcross - David Cross said:
> From: Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: 03 April 2001 13:56
> 
> > So, should we start baiting Scientologists through the archive? 
> 
> Where do I start?
> 
> * L Ron Hubbard is on record as saying the best way to make money is to
> start a religion. A few years later he founded the church of scientology.
> 
> * Scientologists believe that humans are descended from clams.
> 
> * Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were both scientologists. There's a rumour
> that their (exactly) ten year marriage was a scientology contract drawn up
> to cover up the fact that they're both gay.
> 
> * Scientologists pay huge sums of money to buy "secrets" that are mirrored
> all over the internet. The "church" claims these are copyrighted and will do
> their best to close down any site carrying these.
> 
> * The "church" was responsible for the closure of anon.penet.fi and recently
> forced Slashdot to edit some comments.
> 
> * Loads more good stuff from Operation Clambake at .
> 
> Is that the sort of thing you wanted?

you'll have those illumnati round your house this evening.. or is that
david ike?

struan

and you forgot the machines for exorcising the space aliens from your
head. or something like that.

Re: archiving

[Struan Donald]

* at 03/04 13:55 +0100 Greg McCarroll said:
> * Robin Houston ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 03, 2001 at 01:36:54PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote:
> > > 
> > > Did you all know that i used to blow up pressurised butane
> > > cannisters as a child?
> > 
> > We *all* used to do *that* :-)
> > 
> 

> 
> So, should we start baiting Scientologists through the archive? 

aren't they no fun in that all they do is sent a cease and desist
letter rather than get involved in pointless debates? 

plus do we really want people coming round a seizing our computers as
evidence? (well, not unless it's covered by household insurance as
mine's looking a bit elderly these days)

struan

Re: archiving

[Struan Donald]

* at 03/04 13:45 +0100 Andrew Bowman said:
> > From:   Greg McCarroll [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > Did you all know that i used to blow up pressurised butane
> > cannisters as a child?
> 
> I guess that goes with the accent Greg ;-)
> 
> If you hadn't discovered Perl goodness knows what you'd be doing now...
> 
> Andrew.
> 
> P.S. Did you do the old WD40 flamethrower trick too?

dunno about the butane cannisters but surely there can't be anyone
here who hasn't done that?

struan

Re: Buffy riding a pony!

[Struan Donald]

* at 02/04 16:26 +0100 David Cantrell said:
> I was bored today, so I wrote an ickle module which takes code like
> this:

we're less than half way through damian's year and already this sort
of thing is becoming very common. i'm beginning to think that YAS didn't
think the idea through carefully enough...

or do we suppose this is just an unfortunate side effect of letting
too many london.pm members talk to each other?

struan

Re: Debian question ...

[Struan Donald]

* at 22/03 14:29 + David Cantrell said:
> mallum and others wrote:
> 
> > dpkg -l
> 
> OK, so how did I manage to miss that?  Answers on a postcard.

i suspect it's the well known phenomona of managing not to read the
one line of the manual that was relevant. 

struan

Re: Scalar Context vs List Context

[Struan Donald]

* at 15/03 11:18 - David Cantrell said:
> On Thu, Mar 15, 2001 at 10:04:47AM +0000, Struan Donald wrote:
> > * at 14/03 10:37 -0500 Dave Cross said:
> > > ... and how much trouble you can get in for not knowing the
> difference:
> > > 
> > > <http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/13/208259>
> > 
> > the best thing about this is the number of links to this story that
> > give the impression the kids were arrested for not knowing the
> > difference rather than the consequences thereof. i think even
> > some of the more unforgiving of us would agree that it'd be a bit
> > harsh if it was the case.
> 
> I think that being banged up in a cell with a large man named Spike is
> perfectly reasonable for not testing your code before uploading it to
> the live site.

like i said, some of us :)

struan

Re: Scalar Context vs List Context

[Struan Donald]

* at 14/03 10:37 -0500 Dave Cross said:
> ... and how much trouble you can get in for not knowing the difference:
> 
> 

the best thing about this is the number of links to this story that
give the impression the kids were arrested for not knowing the
difference rather than the consequences thereof. i think even
some of the more unforgiving of us would agree that it'd be a bit
harsh if it was the case.

not useing strict on the other hand...

struan

Re: Matt's Scripts

[Struan Donald]

* at 14/03 15:22 + Michael Stevens said:
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2001 at 04:10:02PM +, David Cantrell wrote:
> > WebDAV is not OK, cos it means installing yet more stuff on the server
> > which is simply not needed.  If a user can't use scp, then I don't want
> > that user.  I mean, it's not hard FFS.
> 
> Admittedly rather unscientific research has shown you're actually wrong -
> lots of users find it very hard.

enough people find moving/copying files on windows complex... when
you start introducing a second computer...

struan

Re: Matt's Scripts

[Struan Donald]

* at 14/03 14:59 + Mark Fowler said:
> On Wed, 14 Mar 2001, Greg McCarroll wrote:
> > * Dave Cross ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > > At Wed, 14 Mar 2001 14:34:32 + (GMT), Jon Eyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
>wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > My several users use scp.
> > > > 
> > > > is there an idiot-proof graphical front-end for scp? windows 
> > > > clients? my several users require them, or they'll just continue 
> > > > using ftp, because it's *easier*... 
> > > 
> > > They won't if you stop running the ftp daemon on the server :)
> > > 
> > 
> > Rule one of security:
> > Ensure availability for authorised users
> > 
> > this breaks it ;-)
> > 
> 
> Do what we do.  Keep everything running, but shove a whopping great
> ipchains (or firewall of choice) in the way.  If you want to access it,
> ssh tunnel it first.

and people are worrying about plain scp confusing people? ssh
tunneling is one of those things that appears close enough to magic
that people assume it is. damn useful magic though.

plus it always seems such a pain on windows

struan

Re: Strange Request

[Struan Donald]

* at 13/03 15:23 + Aaron Trevena said:
> On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Greg McCarroll wrote:
> 
> > * Dave Cross ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > > My opinion is that the only way this project could work is if the scripts 
> > > worked on _any_ web server on _any_ platform with _no_ extra modules. Matt 
> > > Wright can achieve that and we're all much cleverer than he is, so we 
> > > should be able to do it too.
> > > 
> > 
> > i originally shared your viewpoint on this, but what changed my
> > mind is the following scenario,
> > 
> > some random perl monger, lets call them dave for ease has
> > a really cool forums script. unfortunatly dave's script
> > uses TT and dave hasn't time to replace the TT elements.
> > 
> > do you exclude this script from the archive on the basis that it
> > uses TT?
> > 
> > this question defines the archive of scripts a little. is the
> > collection of scripts specifically aimed at the lowest commond
> > denominator and tackling the MW problem directly, or is that
> > just its core mission, and other scripts are welcome.
> 
> I don't think we actually need to lower to teh lowest common denominator -
> by applying the ROPE idea it should be possible to provide some easy
> bundles with their own namespace that the user can just unzip and ftp to
> their own local_modules/rope.
> 
> If you provide scripts that work with perl5.x base but also provide
> scripts that use rope::lite, or rope::intermediate bundles the user will
> still be interested in using the bundle and we can encourage them to use
> modules and set them on the path to rightesusness.
> 
> I think something like this would be the ultimate test of the ROPE
> concept.


bundle?
namespace?
help, this looks complex
mmm, matt's script archive: one file is all i need!


although this is only with ref to replacements for the matt wright
stuff.

struan

Re: Strange Request

[Struan Donald]

* at 13/03 10:56 + Michael Stevens said:
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2001 at 10:58:36AM +, Greg McCarroll wrote:
> > how to solve this, will there is an easy way that would deal with 
> > the problem at source - perl certification 
> > 
> > *duck*
> > 
> > having said in another email how there were no resources to deal with this
> > problem, there is a near miss in the perl cookbook, however to tackle
> > the problem directly, maybe ORA need to commission a Perl CGI Cookbook.
> > 
> > all the good classic web problems, with simple ready to run examples.
> > forums, guestbooks, counters, voting, etc.
> 
> Maybe we should join the many people who've had a go at this...
> 
> setup a CVS repository on penderel, get on with it.

was that the sound of someone volunteering?

struan

Re: Strange Request

[Struan Donald]

* at 13/03 10:43 - Jonathan Peterson said:
> 
> > There's a marketing battle that needs to be fought first. We
> > need, somehow,
> > to ensure that newbie CGI programmers read criticisms of
> > Matt's scripts
> > _before_ they find Matt's Script Archive. And I don't know
> > how you're going
> > to undo five years of misinformation and achieve that.
> 
> Maybe we need to sponsor Matt Wright? The inverse of the Damian sponsorship,
> we would cover whatever revenue he gets from his scripts in return for him
> shutting all the sites down for a year, and redirecting everyone somewhere
> else. What do you reckon? Sponsor Matt to not be involved with Perl for a
> year?

couldn't we just raise enough cash to send him on a decent perl
training course? that way he might re-write his stuff.

although the sheer twistedness of the above does appeal :)

struan

Re: New London PM Shirt Designs

[Struan Donald]

* at 01/03 11:50 + Michael Stevens said:
> On Thu, Mar 01, 2001 at 10:46:54AM +, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
> > "Hamlet D'Arcy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > > Here is the new London PM T-shirt design that some of you asked about at the 
> > > last meeting.
> > > http://www.geocities.com/hamlet_darcy2/lpm_shirt.jpg
> > > Let me know what you think.
> > Want one.
> 
> Your challenge, should you decide to accept it, will be to get such a
> t-shirt printed and be wearing it by 6pm this evening.
> 
> This email will self-destruct in 10 seconds.

couldn't all this sort of thing be summed up as:

my ($meme,$buzzword) = @ARGV;
$meme =~ s/$buzzword/perl/g;
print $meme;

and then it'll never be out of date.

struan

Re: Heretics' meeting

[Struan Donald]

* at 28/02 17:37 + Michael Stevens said:
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 05:33:34PM +, Matthew Robinson wrote:
> > OK, its 'meetings are held on the day after the first wednesday of the month'.
> > That makes perfect sense now,
> 
> I work on the "meetings are held whenever more than half the people
> on irc mention a pub" theory.

now i don't hang about on irc but if it's like the list then that's a
lot of meetings

struan

Re: Heretics' meeting

[Struan Donald]

* at 28/02 15:21 + Roger Burton West said:
> On or about Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 03:16:17PM +0000, Struan Donald typed:
> 
> >to be more helpful see above[1].
> >[1]: wondering how to make mutt do things in the right order when
> >replying to multiple posts.
> 
> Tag the posts you want, then reverse the sort order (shift-o whatsit).

ah, that makes sense.

ta

struan

Re: Heretics' meeting

[Struan Donald]

* at 23/02 06:57 -0500 Dave Cross said:
> At Fri, 23 Feb 2001 12:40:19 +, Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
>wrote:
> > 
> > Q. When are social meetings?
> > A. On the day after the first wednesday of the month.
> 
> Please stop confusing the newcomers. 
> 
> London.pm social meetings are _always_ on the first Thursday of the month. Some sad 
>individuals have a problem with that and insist on 
> using other arcane calculations for the meeting date. This only results
> in problems when the _official_ meetings are on the 1st of the month.
> On months like this (and March will be one such month) you may well
> see talk of a 'heretics meeting' on the 8th.
> 
> Hope this is clearer now.
> 
> Dave...

* at 28/02 15:09 - Hamlet D'Arcy said:
> Could you post a bit more about the Heretic's meeting?
> Perhaps some links.
> 
> I've never heard of the group.

to be more helpful see above[1].

struan

[1]: wondering how to make mutt do things in the right order when
replying to multiple posts.

Re: Heretics' meeting

[Struan Donald]

* at 28/02 15:09 - Hamlet D'Arcy said:
> Could you post a bit more about the Heretic's meeting?
> Perhaps some links.
> 
> I've never heard of the group.

if only we had a faq :)

struan

Re: Quantum Weirdness

[Struan Donald]

* at 27/02 17:48 + Rob Partington said:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Robin Houston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > I just bought a Mars bar, and it's
> > *drum roll*
> > sixty-five grams!
> 
> They already did that on IRC!  Keep up, that man!
> 
> Tue1129#London.pm/Ranguard> Arrg, Damion lied - British Mars bars weigh 
> 65 g! not 60.. the Quarks must have put on weight!

maybe they're just less tightly bound.

struan

Re: geek cricket

[Struan Donald]

* at 27/02 12:33 + Roger Burton West said:
> On or about Tue, Feb 27, 2001 at 12:29:19PM +, Amias Channer typed:
> 
> >Each company would have a team (or combine to make teams) and play 40 over
> >matches on sunday afternoons in some sort of league .
> >Does this appeal to anyone ? gambling is optional .
> 
> You mean... actual physical exertion?

maybe he means pub cricket.

struan

Re: Greetings

[Struan Donald]

* at 23/02 14:24 - Matthew Jones said:
> > > > Cordelia
> > > Airhead
> > 
> > Arrogant, too. IMO.
> 
> Being a 8uffy refusenik, I'm a little confused by this conversation. Do you
> think there might be any websites about 8uffy of Sarah Michelle Gellar out
> there that I can trawl for info? I know it's a long shot.

i believe some people have put the odd page up. some of them may have
pictures.

struan

(or try http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ i think)

Re: Greetings

[Struan Donald]

* at 23/02 15:08 +0100 Philip Newton said:
> Michael Stevens wrote:
> > Question: 8uffy or willow?
> > Answer: a controversial issue on which no consensus has yet 
> > been reached.
> 
> That's because some people just won't see the light :-)

TMTOWTDI surely?

struan

Re: t-shirts

[Struan Donald]

* at 21/02 12:49 + Michael Stevens said:
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 12:43:34PM +, Paul Mison wrote:
> > On 21/02/2001 at 12:26 +, Michael Stevens wrote:
> > >ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
> > 
> > and they were disposable. This sort of meme just does the rounds too
> > rapidly. I mean, how much would you laugh at someone wearing a 'I am
> > Mahir, Kiss Me Now' or whatever it was tshirt now?
> 
> You've got it! We need dissolving t-shirts!

surely just t-shirts with editable text?

struan

Re: DMP

[Struan Donald]

* at 20/02 11:12 - dcross - David Cross said:
> From: Struan Donald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: 20 February 2001 11:01
> > 
> > * at 20/02 10:35 + Mark Fowler said:
> > > Micheal claimed that:
> > > 
> > > > amazon uk have started shipping data munging with perl. I have my
> > > > copy.
> > > 
> > > Indeed they have.  I've got mine now.  They're also 
> > shipping the mod_perl
> > > pocket reference.
> >  
> > mmm, pc bookshop tell me uk release not till july. is this kind of
> > delay normal? 
> 
> That can't be right. How did you get that info? I'll get on to the UK
> distributors and see why bookshops are getting such crap information.

i phoned up and asked, they phoned publisher/distibutor and told me
july.
 
> I would imagine that it'll be in bookshops in the next week or two.

which was more what i was expecting.

> > > [% UNLESS office_policy_to_use_amazon %]
> > >  [% INCLUDE standard_reasons_not_to_use_amazon_text %]
> > > [% END %]
> > 
> > why did amazon have to go and do things that make you not want to buy
> > books from them? it's enormously inconvenient.
> 
> Yeah, but don't you get such a good feeling of moral superiority when
> you don't buy from them.

eh?

struan

Re: DMP

[Struan Donald]

* at 20/02 12:08 + Greg McCarroll said:
> * Struan Donald ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > 
> > why did amazon have to go and do things that make you not want to buy
> > books from them? it's enormously inconvenient.
> > 
> 
> yip, i occasionally break my moral standpoint when i'm in a rush,
> but my bill at amazon is now 10% of what it used to be

yeah, but then you have the "well, while i'm here..." temptaions to
resist. I was intending to get the network programming book at the
same time...
 
> i think B&N's appeal against them is going well for B&N

the fact that they might get whipped in court doesn't make amazon any
better. 

struan

Re: DMP

[Struan Donald]

* at 20/02 10:35 + Mark Fowler said:
> Micheal claimed that:
> 
> > amazon uk have started shipping data munging with perl. I have my
> > copy.
> 
> Indeed they have.  I've got mine now.  They're also shipping the mod_perl
> pocket reference.
 
mmm, pc bookshop tell me uk release not till july. is this kind of
delay normal? 

> [% UNLESS office_policy_to_use_amazon %]
>  [% INCLUDE standard_reasons_not_to_use_amazon_text %]
> [% END %]

why did amazon have to go and do things that make you not want to buy
books from them? it's enormously inconvenient.

struan

Re: Alternative to bad perl resources

[Struan Donald]

* at 19/02 13:34 + Steve Mynott said:
> Tony Bowden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > Surely part of the reason that so much bad code gains so much popularity
> > is that bad coders tend to think their code is good, so don't mind
> > publicising it and shouting about it lots. Good coders, on the other hand,
> > think that their code is always bad, so are reluctant to do much with it.
> > But their "bad" is usually much better than others "good" ...
> 
> This is very true.
> 
> Also code beauty is in the eye of the beholder and is subjective.  
> 
> Also badly written code can be "good" in the sense of being useful.

ah, we have so much of that :( every time it needs hac^H^H^Hextended i
try and clean it up but given i never have the time to start from
sratch it's an uphill struggle. 
 
> We, as programmers, mean internal design when we say "good" whereas
> users refer to software as "good" because it has a simple UI, is
> useful and solves some problems without creating many new ones.
> 
> Of course good internal design probably tends to correspond to a
> certain extent to good software, since it should be easier to extend
> when new features are required and should be less buggy.

and also, well thought out software design should reflect in better
useability. if the code is a maze of hacks and kludges then it's all
the harder to hide that behind a clean front end. the fact that UI
design seems to be a much ignored skill doesn't help.

struan

Re: VA?

[Struan Donald]

* at 13/02 17:07 + Jonathan Stowe said:
> On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Struan Donald wrote:
> >
> > *and* they have blue LEDs :)
> >
> 
> Well that doubles the price for starters :)

ah, but everyone loves blue LEDs
 
struan

Re: VA?

[Struan Donald]

* at 13/02 13:24 + Dave Hodgkinson said:
> 
> Anyone have an opinion on VA?

we have some of their kit and seems nice. they come with actual
manuals for a start plus the support people actually seem to know
about linux.

(note that this is gleaned from talking to our sys admin rather than
actuallly talking to their support people)

*and* they have blue LEDs :)

struan

Re: TT2 Question

[Struan Donald]

* at 08/02 13:00 -0500 Andy Williams said:
> I'm installing TT2.
> The problem. the installation says that I need XML::DOM ver 1.27
> installed
> 
> I've hunted high and low but all I can find is version 1.25!
> 
> Anyone know where I can get it?

libxml-enno is what you want.

struan

Re: Bad programming considered harmless

[Struan Donald]

* at 02/02 12:25 - Jonathan Peterson said:
> >
> > > However, I don't question the plumber's competence, or
> > indeed pretend to
> > > anyone including myself that I can do a good job of it.
> > The same should
> > > apply to programming.  If I were to try my hand at
> > re-plumbing my kitchen,
> > > I know I'd make a god-awful mess, and I am intelligent enough to not
> > > attempt it.  The great unwashed should approach programming
> > the same way.
 

 
> Expertism is a dangerous trend. A little knowledge is _not_ a dangerous
> thing. The only dangerous thing is not knowing the _extent_ of your (little)
> knowledge.

and here is the flaw. it's teh knowing the extent of your knowledge
that's the hard part and the bit that the learn perl while you wait
for the kettle to boil type books don't seem (IMO) very good at
instilling. I'm all for trying to get more people to program perl or
any other language but at the same time i'd like it to be done in a
sensible way.

not only as having bad perl floating about there isn't a good thing,
also 'cause if you teach someone bad habits then if they continue they
are going to have to unlearn them all, or things will be harder than
they should be and they're more likely to get disgruntled.

we have enough problems with people looking at perl and thinking "mmm,
that looks hard, i'll learn python" without having them 'learn' perl
then discover half of what they learnt is bad perl. 

you have to teach them some theory of good programming, as at the end
of the day it _will_ make their lives easier.

struan

Re: Mailing List Stuff

[Struan Donald]

* at 02/02 12:29 + Jonathan Stowe said:
> On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Dave Cross wrote:
> >
> > Any questions?
> >
> 
> Yeah, can I have a pony ?

what is it with ponys?

struan

Re: Amazon Sales Rank

[Struan Donald]

* at 01/02 08:35 -0500 Dave Cross said:
> Data Munging with Perl
> by David Cross
> 
> Amazon.com Sales Rank: 760
> 
> Blimey, how did that happen? Yesterday it was 87,867!

a day in the life of a famous perl author:

goto: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1930110006/

while (1){
look at sales rank

sleep 300

hit refresh
}

struan

Re: website directory access

[Struan Donald]

* at 01/02 12:35 - Robert Shiels said:
> 
> I don't really like this, is there another way? I don't want to have to
> resort to .htpasswd files, which is what I've implemented for now.

er, what's wrong with them? 
 
struan

Re: Perl Books

[Struan Donald]

* at 31/01 14:28 + Dominic Mitchell said:
> On Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 09:24:20AM -0500, Dave Cross wrote:
> > Here's an interesting page[1]
> 
> Have a URL for that, guv?

er... this unweldy thing would seem to be it:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/4045/107-2581489-8245353

struan

Re: Another Template Toolkit Q

[Struan Donald]

* at 29/01 15:29 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
> >>mmm, this should be a FAQ... 
> >> 
> >>perldoc Template: 
> >>struan 
> >> 
> >>(sho missed this fisrt time round too :) 
> >> 
> 
> Thanks for the pointers, call me lazy, isn't that supposed to be a trait
> of a good programmer? ;-) 

only for certain values of lazy :)

struan

Re: Another Template Toolkit Q

[Struan Donald]

* at 29/01 15:17 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
> 
> So TT nicely allows a filename, a filehandle or blank for STDOUT. 
> 
> So how to I capture the output to "some variable" so I could, say,
> manipulate that output 
> without having to read the file I've outputted? 
> 
> Is that possible? 

mmm, this should be a FAQ...

perldoc Template:

   By default, the processed template output is printed to
   STDOUT.  The process() method then returns 1 to indicate
   success.  A third parameter may be passed to the process()
   method to specify a different output location.  This value
   may be one of: a plain string indicating a filename which
   will be opened (relative to OUTPUT_PATH, if defined) and
   the output written to; a file GLOB opened ready for
   output; a reference to a scalar (e.g. a text string) to
   which output/error is appended; a reference to a
   subroutine which is called, passing the output as a
   parameter; or any object reference which implements a
   'print' method (e.g. IO::Handle, Apache::Request, etc.)
   which will be called, passing the generated output as a
   parameter.

If you note, the third paramater can be a ref to a scalar to which the
output is appended.

hth

struan

(sho missed this fisrt time round too :)

Re: Video Tips

[Struan Donald]

* at 29/01 11:29 - Robert Shiels said:
> Staying resolutely on-topic [1], I've started watching my "League of
> Gentlemen" first series DVD.
> 
> This is a very good DVD indeed, with an second audio track by the cast
> talking about why they did everything.
> 
> The DVD starts with a question "Are you Local ?"
> 
> If you click "No" it switches off :)

thereby robert demonstrates joke spoiling techinque 27 :)

struan

Re: Sun's Perl was Re: Application servers and e-commerce platforms

[Struan Donald]

* at 26/01 11:33 + Michael Stevens said:
> On Fri, Jan 26, 2001 at 11:30:28AM +0000, Struan Donald wrote:
> > on the other hand kickstart files aren't that tricky to write and you
> > can then set up the box in a sensible way (or something approaching
> > that) and it's very easy to set up a chunk of boxes the same. 
> > 
> > of course you a box to put the kcikstart stuff on (assuming network
> > install...)
> 
> Isn't kickstart a solaris thing, or have redhat developed new stuff
> I didn't know about?
> 
> If it is just a solaris thing, I was holding up solaris boxes as being
> GOOD because they don't come with much stuff installed. For servers,
> I see this as a desirable feature.
> 
> One of these days I must play with the FAI (fully automatic installation)
> stuff for debian.

kickstart is (i assume) teh redhat equiv of FAI. or at least it is if
FAI is stick floppy in system, create symlink in some magic format i
can't quite remember on kickstart server and reboot box. go and make
beverage of choice, come back to newly installed box.

s

Re: Sun's Perl was Re: Application servers and e-commerce platforms

[Struan Donald]

* at 26/01 11:21 + Michael Stevens said:
> 
> IMHO the main significance here is in the default install. You can
> fiddle around with anything if you want and make it vaguely sensible as a
> server.
> 
> Redhat as default is not very well setup to use as a server on the internet
> (I feel). Debian I think is a lot better as shipped, as is Solaris,
> mostly on the grounds they're less prone to installing irrelevant
> crap[1].

on the other hand kickstart files aren't that tricky to write and you
can then set up the box in a sensible way (or something approaching
that) and it's very easy to set up a chunk of boxes the same. 

of course you a box to put the kcikstart stuff on (assuming network
install...)

struan

Re: Dream weaver

[Struan Donald]

* at 25/01 15:56 - Robert Shiels said:
> Subject: RE: Dream weaver
> 
> Just got sent this:
> 
> DREAMWEAVER 3.0- Training Dates Now Available!
> ==
> With Dreamweaver being adopted by up to 90% of development companies
> worldwide, Focus Group are now providing cost effective, scheduled and
> company specific Dreamweaver training, offering Developers the
> opportunity to gain extensive skills in  just 2 days.  

up to 90%?

struan

Re: Dumb-assed question

[Struan Donald]

* at 25/01 11:26 + James Powell said:
> On Thu, Jan 25, 2001 at 11:05:49AM +0000, Struan Donald wrote:
> > * at 25/01 10:37 + Michael Stevens said:
> > > On Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 06:02:25PM +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > > >   Dreamweaver (I know, don't ask) nicely escapes the spaces to %20 but when
> > > >   I try and download these, the %20 appears in the Netscape file save as 
>box
> > > >   instead of spaces.
> > > 
> > > Dreamweaver is by far the best GUI html development tool I'm aware of.
> > 
> > the number of times i've sent stuff to people that works fine, had
> > them run it through dreamweaver and then complain that it's broken
> > makes me wonder what the bad gui tools are like. 
> > 
> > struan
> 
> Waiter, a copy of Frontpage 2000 for the gentleman!

thank you, no.

struan

Re: Dumb-assed question

[Struan Donald]

* at 25/01 10:37 + Michael Stevens said:
> On Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 06:02:25PM +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >   Dreamweaver (I know, don't ask) nicely escapes the spaces to %20 but when
> >   I try and download these, the %20 appears in the Netscape file save as box
> >   instead of spaces.
> 
> Dreamweaver is by far the best GUI html development tool I'm aware of.

the number of times i've sent stuff to people that works fine, had
them run it through dreamweaver and then complain that it's broken
makes me wonder what the bad gui tools are like. 

struan

Re: odd -w effect

[Struan Donald]

* at 24/01 12:07 -0600 Paul Makepeace said:
> On Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 01:47:59PM -, Jonathan Peterson wrote:
> > Jon, who thinks Windows workstation connected to *nix machine running samba
> > is the prefered development environment.
> 
> Aye aye. Windows UI is much nicer than linux's (right now) and
> linux doesn't have a decent browser which is a serious handicap.

mozilla's pretty good. 9ok it does fall over a bit and is a bit of a
memory hog but i think you can point those fingers at ie too.
 
> 

> 
> 
> Linux UI question (on Debian/KDE laptop right now): If I copy
> a URL in a mail message by highlighting it, what's the fastest
> way of getting that loaded in a browser? Right now I have
> to delete the URL in a browser window and then paste. Being
> able to click it and then hit ^V is *much* nicer (in Windows)
> than this manual delete time wastage.

does ALT+L not open the open location dialog into which you can just
paste the url? but yeah, it is a bit broken that.

(or CTRL B and then select the relevant url :)

struan

Re: odd -w effect

[Struan Donald]

* at 24/01 13:18 + Greg McCarroll said:
> * Dave Cross ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > At Wed, 24 Jan 2001 12:08:50 +, Michael Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 12:04:33PM +, Roger Burton West wrote:
> > > > On or about Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 12:08:37PM +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] typed:
> > > > >Got it -- something else to stick in the commit checks... grrr... I forgot
> > > > >that some people use windows.
> > > > If only I could.
> > > > Try using CVS when some people insist on editing with Windows...
> > > 
> > > Emacs is available for windows. Now if I can just persuade it to save
> > > with unix line ending conventions...
> > 
> > And Xemacs. Seems to work fine with both Unix and DOS line endings, but
> > I haven't yet worked out how to change them.
> > 
> 
> its more the people, a lot of them want to drag and drop and
> have file menus

i seem to recall from my windows days that textpad was configurable
about these things and has all those nice things that make windows
users feel at home.

struan

Re: Conslutancy

[Struan Donald]

* at 22/01 16:33 + Greg McCarroll said:
> * Struan Donald ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > 
> > actually mutt has cool mailing list functions in that you can define a
> > mailing list  in the config and then l (or L, i forget) replies to the
> > list rather than the person.
> > 
> > not that i want this to degenerate into a mail client holy war :)
> > 
> 
> war implies a large struggle, this would be more like a 5 second
> knockout - everyone knows mutt is the one true mail client

well yes but some people are stubborn, plus there's always the school
of thought that everyting should be done from within emacs...

struan

Re: Conslutancy

[Struan Donald]

* at 22/01 16:22 + Simon Wistow said:
> Andy Wardley wrote:
> 
> > So without wishing to start another holy war, is it possible to change
> > the mailing list configuration to have a more sensible default Reply-to?
> 
> 
> I have arguments with Leon about this. He usually quotes 'Reply To
> munging considered harmful'
> (http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html) but as I keep trying to
> point out to him this document is bollocks.
> 
> The main statemests it makes are ...
> 

> 
> 2) It provides no benefit to the user of a reasonable mailer. 
> What mailer? I use Netscape which amkes it a pain in the arse. But
> Netscape isn't a decent mailer you'll say. Ok. Pine. Pine has, IIRC a
> Reply and a 'Reply To All' capability. I believe Mutt is the same? How
> does non munging help here?  

actually mutt has cool mailing list functions in that you can define a
mailing list  in the config and then l (or L, i forget) replies to the
list rather than the person.

not that i want this to degenerate into a mail client holy war :)

struan