new Perl project / startup - Need advice
Hi Mongers, we're starting a project in autumn with a non-programmer friend. He's got the ideas, the clients-base and the money. I have the time, a pretty clear idea of what he wants, and the mathematical + programming skills. I'm thinking of using Dancer2. I'd like to speak with someone who has some experience with setting up startups. I've got very varied questions to ask, and it would be much easier for me to speak about it rather than write. Any volunteer for a chat? Before or after the technical meeting on Thursday would be perfect, but i could do another day too. Cheers :-) Pierre, aka mascip
Re: [ANNOUNCE] London Perl Mongers Technical Meeting 2013-07-25
On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 11:09:01AM +0100, Leon Brocard wrote: London Perl Mongers organises technical meetings every two months. The technical meetings are a chance to find out what has been going on in the Perl community, what techniques people are using and how Perl integrates with other software. The next technical meeting will be on the 2013-07-25 from 7pm to 9pm (you may arrive earlier, please sign in at the reception). You have to sign up to attend: see the website. This meeting is sponsored by Square One and will be held at their offices near Liverpool Street. Many thanks to Christine Wong, Square One and everyone involved for allowing us to use this wonderful venue. Talks James Laver: Cool things I've been playing with Alex Balhatchet: App::highlight Léon Brocard: Syncing social media and feeds with IMAP Tom Hukins: Monitoring Your Code with Log4perl http://www.meetup.com/London-Perl-Mongers/events/129091792/ This is on Thursday. See you there! Léon.
Re: new Perl project / startup - Need advice
These guys seem to have some useful events. Haven't been myself, but my business partner pops along and has made a number of useful contacts: http://www.3-beards.com/ We'll both be along at the Digital Sizzle 10 thing in a month's time. HTH Mark On 07/22/2013 03:39 PM, Pierre M wrote: Hi Mongers, we're starting a project in autumn with a non-programmer friend. He's got the ideas, the clients-base and the money. I have the time, a pretty clear idea of what he wants, and the mathematical + programming skills. I'm thinking of using Dancer2. I'd like to speak with someone who has some experience with setting up startups. I've got very varied questions to ask, and it would be much easier for me to speak about it rather than write. Any volunteer for a chat? Before or after the technical meeting on Thursday would be perfect, but i could do another day too. Cheers :-) Pierre, aka mascip
Re: new Perl project / startup - Need advice
Hi Peirre, have you read the blogs Ovid has about startups? http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lacuna-expanse.html http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lokkunestoria.html Good luck with your new project. drebolo On 22 July 2013 15:39, Pierre M piema...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Mongers, we're starting a project in autumn with a non-programmer friend. He's got the ideas, the clients-base and the money. I have the time, a pretty clear idea of what he wants, and the mathematical + programming skills. I'm thinking of using Dancer2. I'd like to speak with someone who has some experience with setting up startups. I've got very varied questions to ask, and it would be much easier for me to speak about it rather than write. Any volunteer for a chat? Before or after the technical meeting on Thursday would be perfect, but i could do another day too. Cheers :-) Pierre, aka mascip -- Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.com
Re: new Perl project / startup - Need advice
Or at the tech meet :) On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 3:40 PM, Dave Hodgkinson daveh...@gmail.com wrote: More than happy to talk IRL. I'm in Hoxditch or Camden. On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.comwrote: Hi Peirre, have you read the blogs Ovid has about startups? http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lacuna-expanse.html http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lokkunestoria.html Good luck with your new project. drebolo On 22 July 2013 15:39, Pierre M piema...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Mongers, we're starting a project in autumn with a non-programmer friend. He's got the ideas, the clients-base and the money. I have the time, a pretty clear idea of what he wants, and the mathematical + programming skills. I'm thinking of using Dancer2. I'd like to speak with someone who has some experience with setting up startups. I've got very varied questions to ask, and it would be much easier for me to speak about it rather than write. Any volunteer for a chat? Before or after the technical meeting on Thursday would be perfect, but i could do another day too. Cheers :-) Pierre, aka mascip -- Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.com
Re: new Perl project / startup - Need advice
More than happy to talk IRL. I'm in Hoxditch or Camden. On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Peirre, have you read the blogs Ovid has about startups? http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lacuna-expanse.html http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lokkunestoria.html Good luck with your new project. drebolo On 22 July 2013 15:39, Pierre M piema...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Mongers, we're starting a project in autumn with a non-programmer friend. He's got the ideas, the clients-base and the money. I have the time, a pretty clear idea of what he wants, and the mathematical + programming skills. I'm thinking of using Dancer2. I'd like to speak with someone who has some experience with setting up startups. I've got very varied questions to ask, and it would be much easier for me to speak about it rather than write. Any volunteer for a chat? Before or after the technical meeting on Thursday would be perfect, but i could do another day too. Cheers :-) Pierre, aka mascip -- Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.com
Installing WWW::Webkit on Debian/Mint
Hi, Quick question: has anybody had any success installing WWW::Webkit on Debian (v7.1) or Linux Mint (v12)? I won't list all the problems that I am having just now (suffice to say they are various recursive dependency failures that I don't want to spend lots of time on). I'm more interested to know if anyone's installed it without a problem and if there is an easy way to do so (there isn't a Debian package). Alternatively, what are people's recommendations for interacting with a website using a Perl (or indeed other) script? I am trying to automate interaction with a rather clunky HR website at work (to perform a repetitive task), and don't have the luxuries of an API or similar. Thanks, Andy
Re: Installing WWW::Webkit on Debian/Mint
I have had good results in the past on resistive websites with WWW::Selenium. It was straightforward to get running under Ubuntu, but does require a full browser and an x server. I hear phantom.js is good, and has a Perl wrapper. -- Sent using from a tiny keypad. -Original Message- From: Andrew Beverley a...@andybev.com Sender: london.pm-boun...@london.pm.org Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 18:15:03 To: london.pm@london.pm.org Reply-To: London.pm Perl M\[ou\]ngers london.pm@london.pm.org Subject: Installing WWW::Webkit on Debian/Mint Hi, Quick question: has anybody had any success installing WWW::Webkit on Debian (v7.1) or Linux Mint (v12)? I won't list all the problems that I am having just now (suffice to say they are various recursive dependency failures that I don't want to spend lots of time on). I'm more interested to know if anyone's installed it without a problem and if there is an easy way to do so (there isn't a Debian package). Alternatively, what are people's recommendations for interacting with a website using a Perl (or indeed other) script? I am trying to automate interaction with a rather clunky HR website at work (to perform a repetitive task), and don't have the luxuries of an API or similar. Thanks, Andy
Re: Installing WWW::Webkit on Debian/Mint
If said clunky HR website requires javascript, WWW::Selenium or WWW::Mechanize::Firefox. Otherwise WWW::Mechanize. (Other things may work too, but those are what I have had success with.)
Re: new Perl project / startup - Need advice
Oh, it's nice to feel supported. Individual answers follow. @Dave: Great, thank you! I'm sending you a personal email. @Ash: i'll keep your contact if i have further questions or doubts. It's nice to have several possible persons to speak with. @Mark: thanks for the links. @Dinis: i've read one of Ovid's articles, will read the other one tomorrow, cheers. @Dirk: Thank you for the precious advice. I've got no experience at number 1 (writing an agreement). It's one of these uncomfortable tasks that we'll have to do soon-ish. At the moment Leo pays me as a consultant, but we've spoken about being partners. I'm not sure where that will lead us. It will have to become clear soon. Starting to write some code soon (after my holidays in August), that's the plan. One of my questions is: do i want to start alone, or find someone to work with? Not an easy question at all. I'll send another email to all, to ask more about lowest impact perl from the beginning On 22 July 2013 16:40, Dave Hodgkinson daveh...@gmail.com wrote: More than happy to talk IRL. I'm in Hoxditch or Camden. On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Peirre, have you read the blogs Ovid has about startups? http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lacuna-expanse.html http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lokkunestoria.html Good luck with your new project. drebolo On 22 July 2013 15:39, Pierre M piema...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Mongers, we're starting a project in autumn with a non-programmer friend. He's got the ideas, the clients-base and the money. I have the time, a pretty clear idea of what he wants, and the mathematical + programming skills. I'm thinking of using Dancer2. I'd like to speak with someone who has some experience with setting up startups. I've got very varied questions to ask, and it would be much easier for me to speak about it rather than write. Any volunteer for a chat? Before or after the technical meeting on Thursday would be perfect, but i could do another day too. Cheers :-) Pierre, aka mascip -- Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.com
Which modules do you allow yourself to use for production?
As i was asking for advice in a previous email, Dirk Koopman wrote: Use the lowest impact perl from the beginning (that probably means avoiding Moose, Catapole et al). I understand that this means: avoid modules with lots of dependencies. Is that right? I thought Moose only slowed things down at compile time, am i wrong? What is the negative impact of using it for a web-app? Until now i've been working on a personal project, using everything that i fancied. Would (any of) you advise not to use any of these in production code? Moo Method::Signatures invoker ( to type $-a_method() instead of $self-a_method() ) Util::Any IO::All Syntax::Feature::Junction autobox boolean I'd be happy to get rid of most of them, but it would be hard for me to stop using Moo and Method::Signatures. Because invoker is not widely used and maintained, i'll check if i can easily stop using it (ack it away). That would mean using it, without taking much risk if i needed to get rid of it some day. Your impressions? Pierre
Re: Which modules do you allow yourself to use for production?
On Mon, 2013-07-22 at 19:45 +0100, Pierre M wrote: As i was asking for advice in a previous email, Dirk Koopman wrote: Use the lowest impact perl from the beginning (that probably means avoiding Moose, Catapole et al). Surely you need to have an idea of the scale of the project before making anything like a decision as to the best approach to take. If you are building a fairly large project and you exclude things like Moose on some principle that has nothing to do with the project and it's requirements you may well find you have bitten off your nose to spite your face.
Re: Installing WWW::Webkit on Debian/Mint
Otherwise WWW::Mechanize. Wow, thanks for that, that was easy. Works well on a test website, just need to try on said clunky HR system tomorrow :)
Re: new Perl project / startup - Need advice
I'm doing a kind of moonlighty startup thingy - my collaborators are not Perl people and I decided to make a (Dancer/DBIx::Class:Schema powered) web API to do all the heavy lifting - they will do all the user interface and production scalability stuff. Fingers crossed it works - has to be done by September!! On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Pierre M piema...@gmail.com wrote: Oh, it's nice to feel supported. Individual answers follow. @Dave: Great, thank you! I'm sending you a personal email. @Ash: i'll keep your contact if i have further questions or doubts. It's nice to have several possible persons to speak with. @Mark: thanks for the links. @Dinis: i've read one of Ovid's articles, will read the other one tomorrow, cheers. @Dirk: Thank you for the precious advice. I've got no experience at number 1 (writing an agreement). It's one of these uncomfortable tasks that we'll have to do soon-ish. At the moment Leo pays me as a consultant, but we've spoken about being partners. I'm not sure where that will lead us. It will have to become clear soon. Starting to write some code soon (after my holidays in August), that's the plan. One of my questions is: do i want to start alone, or find someone to work with? Not an easy question at all. I'll send another email to all, to ask more about lowest impact perl from the beginning On 22 July 2013 16:40, Dave Hodgkinson daveh...@gmail.com wrote: More than happy to talk IRL. I'm in Hoxditch or Camden. On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Peirre, have you read the blogs Ovid has about startups? http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lacuna-expanse.html http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lokkunestoria.html Good luck with your new project. drebolo On 22 July 2013 15:39, Pierre M piema...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Mongers, we're starting a project in autumn with a non-programmer friend. He's got the ideas, the clients-base and the money. I have the time, a pretty clear idea of what he wants, and the mathematical + programming skills. I'm thinking of using Dancer2. I'd like to speak with someone who has some experience with setting up startups. I've got very varied questions to ask, and it would be much easier for me to speak about it rather than write. Any volunteer for a chat? Before or after the technical meeting on Thursday would be perfect, but i could do another day too. Cheers :-) Pierre, aka mascip -- Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.com
Re: Installing WWW::Webkit on Debian/Mint
On Mon, 2013-07-22 at 17:35 +, dave.lamb...@gmail.com wrote: I have had good results in the past on resistive websites with WWW::Selenium. Thanks. That will be my fallback if the website is more complicated than I originally thought (it's several years old, so hoping it doesn't have much/any active content).
Re: Which modules do you allow yourself to use for production?
On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 07:45:28PM +0100, Pierre M wrote: As i was asking for advice in a previous email, Dirk Koopman wrote: Use the lowest impact perl from the beginning (that probably means avoiding Moose, Catapole et al). I understand that this means: avoid modules with lots of dependencies. Is that right? I thought Moose only slowed things down at compile time, am i wrong? What is the negative impact of using it for a web-app? Well, it's all software. But seriously, use whatever work for your situation. Every module gives you some benefits (using the labour of someone else), and some drawbacks (dependencies, loss of performance/flexibility because the module wasn't tailored to your setup, etc). It all depends on what your needs are. For a typical startup, there is the race to profit: you got to make money before your funding runs out. Which modules you're willing to use then are different then when you're already established, and have to deal with hundreds of millions of pageviews a day. And if you're somewhere in between, you'll make different decisions. Until now i've been working on a personal project, using everything that i fancied. Would (any of) you advise not to use any of these in production code? Without having a good knowledge of your environment, I can't say. Abigail
Re: Which modules do you allow yourself to use for production?
On 22/07/13 19:45, Pierre M wrote: As i was asking for advice in a previous email, Dirk Koopman wrote: Use the lowest impact perl from the beginning (that probably means avoiding Moose, Catapole et al). I understand that this means: avoid modules with lots of dependencies. Is that right? I thought Moose only slowed things down at compile time, am i wrong? What is the negative impact of using it for a web-app? There is a significant difference between Moo and Moose. The same is true for other choices between modules that you might make. And yes, I would advise against producing production code that has lots of external (CPAN) dependencies, especially if the normal path through those modules touches most of them. There are numerous (horror) stories of what can happen when one wants to update something, say a perl or a major CPAN component with many dependencies. While I reckon prototyping is useful, you should be aware that when dealing with people that have Pound note watermarks etched on their glasses, prototypes have a habit of becoming (the rump of) production code. This, IMO, is usually a recipe for failure and if not that, then significant engineering cost later on. Which is not to say that your partner is such a person. The choices you make now will colour your development for several years, unless you (intend to, from the start) throw that codebase away and start again. A plan that you might like something in writing about in your agreement/design goal document. The trick with this software writing lark is to get the balance right from as near the start as possible. But don't agonise for a long time over all this, get on with writing it :-) Dirk
Re: new Perl project / startup - Need advice
neal stephenson's Cryptonomicon, starts with a story about a tech guy who implemented some other guy's idea for a part in the company and ends up (not spoiling) getting screwed . it is a very enjoyable book . i found it also very entertaining because it rang so true, i personally know 2 people , and second hand know another who were the tech brains and programming skills in a project who ended up getting screwed or grossly underpaid (and not getting even equity for what they did). though nowhere as bad as the book . oh, actually 3 people personally if i include myself. :-) my only advice, if you are promised anything, be promised it in writing. (I do know quite a few people from whom i would not require a promise in writing, but they are very much the ones who will insist on it themselves (so if they get investors later, they will be bound by the same promise. etc.) ) -- vish On 22 July 2013 15:34, Bob MacCallum uncool...@gmail.com wrote: I'm doing a kind of moonlighty startup thingy - my collaborators are not Perl people and I decided to make a (Dancer/DBIx::Class:Schema powered) web API to do all the heavy lifting - they will do all the user interface and production scalability stuff. Fingers crossed it works - has to be done by September!! On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Pierre M piema...@gmail.com wrote: Oh, it's nice to feel supported. Individual answers follow. @Dave: Great, thank you! I'm sending you a personal email. @Ash: i'll keep your contact if i have further questions or doubts. It's nice to have several possible persons to speak with. @Mark: thanks for the links. @Dinis: i've read one of Ovid's articles, will read the other one tomorrow, cheers. @Dirk: Thank you for the precious advice. I've got no experience at number 1 (writing an agreement). It's one of these uncomfortable tasks that we'll have to do soon-ish. At the moment Leo pays me as a consultant, but we've spoken about being partners. I'm not sure where that will lead us. It will have to become clear soon. Starting to write some code soon (after my holidays in August), that's the plan. One of my questions is: do i want to start alone, or find someone to work with? Not an easy question at all. I'll send another email to all, to ask more about lowest impact perl from the beginning On 22 July 2013 16:40, Dave Hodgkinson daveh...@gmail.com wrote: More than happy to talk IRL. I'm in Hoxditch or Camden. On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Peirre, have you read the blogs Ovid has about startups? http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lacuna-expanse.html http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2013/07/perl-startups-lokkunestoria.html Good luck with your new project. drebolo On 22 July 2013 15:39, Pierre M piema...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Mongers, we're starting a project in autumn with a non-programmer friend. He's got the ideas, the clients-base and the money. I have the time, a pretty clear idea of what he wants, and the mathematical + programming skills. I'm thinking of using Dancer2. I'd like to speak with someone who has some experience with setting up startups. I've got very varied questions to ask, and it would be much easier for me to speak about it rather than write. Any volunteer for a chat? Before or after the technical meeting on Thursday would be perfect, but i could do another day too. Cheers :-) Pierre, aka mascip -- Dinis Rebolo dinisreb...@gmail.com
Re: Which modules do you allow yourself to use for production?
Thank you, all. That's very good advice. Yup, the main thing is to make money before it runs out. Abigail, your comments to Ovid's blog post (about testing) were just what i needed to read at the time, on this subject. Summary of the ideas so far: - it depends on the size of the project - don't re-invent the wheel - dependency hell will become visible when i will want to upgrade stuff. So be careful from the start, and find a good enough balance. - don't spend too much time getting it perfect: start writing code
Re: Which modules do you allow yourself to use for production?
Don't use system Perl. Brew your own and make it part of the app. Sent from my iPhone On 22 Jul 2013, at 23:04, Pierre M piema...@gmail.com wrote: Thank you, all. That's very good advice. Yup, the main thing is to make money before it runs out. Abigail, your comments to Ovid's blog post (about testing) were just what i needed to read at the time, on this subject. Summary of the ideas so far: - it depends on the size of the project - don't re-invent the wheel - dependency hell will become visible when i will want to upgrade stuff. So be careful from the start, and find a good enough balance. - don't spend too much time getting it perfect: start writing code
