Re: Elizabeth Castro

[Alex Page]

On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 10:50:12AM +0100, Dave Cross wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 11:12:37AM +0200, Newton, Philip 
>([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:

> > So, what about Liz Castro's response to Dave's use.perl journal entry?

> There is some truth in what she says. The stuff about me fabricating posts
> on her board is untrue.

URLs, damn you :)

Dave
-- 
"Well, I say 'happy', but it's more a sort of vicious glee."
  - Alasdair Watson, Sluts, 19/04/2001
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Is This For Real?

[Alex Page]

On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 09:35:30AM -, iwilliams wrote:
> Perhaps we should get a few tee-shirts printed with 

> use london;

use London; shurely - I don't think we've ever been particularly
pragmatic.

Alex
-- 
"Well, I say 'happy', but it's more a sort of vicious glee."
  - Alasdair Watson, Sluts, 19/04/2001
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Lightweight template module?

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2002 at 03:09:13PM -0600, Chris Devers wrote:

> Most of the other template systems, imho (please no flame wars) tip too
> far in the direction of mixing the logic into the layout, which seems to
> place too much of a burden on the designers, who have enough to worry
> about in getting things to look right on every platform out there (you
> know, IE6 *and* IE5 :). 

That falls into the ground of TIMWTDI. A lot of the templating thigns let
you treat perl like PHP, embedding code and SQL in an HTML template...
I have yet to get round to finishing the Template Toolkit style guide I'm
working on that basically says "Don't use half of its features unless you
rilly have to, and put everything in modules", but once I do I shall throw
it at the muppets doing our website...

Alex
-- 
"Well, I say 'happy', but it's more a sort of vicious glee."
  - Alasdair Watson, Sluts, 19/04/2001
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Social meet kick up the arse [Was: Return to the Yorke]

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2002 at 09:04:47AM +, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:

> However, should wallflowers need lubrication it's really is up to the
> elders of the group to ensure they spend the first couple of hours
> mingling in a vaguely social and sober kind of way before coalescing
> into the usual drunken, argumentative clique.

Yeah... I'd definitely agree with that. At my first ever london.pm
social, I mostly talked to the fellow RHC worker who came with me.
IIRC there was something faintly special happening that night, but
the "core" of the group rapidly became physically and conversationally
impenetrable... or was that incomprehensible?

Alex
-- 
"Well, I say 'happy', but it's more a sort of vicious glee."
  - Alasdair Watson, Sluts, 19/04/2001
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Bolloxia

[Alex Page]

On Mon, Feb 18, 2002 at 02:56:32PM -, Robert Shiels wrote:

> built in shoddiness is against the law, if they aren't fit for the purpose,
> then the shop must replace them or give you a refund. This is something
> that's wrong with the UK, people don't exert this right because they don't
> like to make a fuss, but they still like to complain about the poor
> standards down the pub, or here.

True that. Even when an honest mistake has been made, people don't want to
sort it out. I was in Burger King in Reading (which I much prefer to McD's,
the quality is far superior and worth the price difference) and they have
recently renamed their Whopper Meals to "XL Whopper Meal". The bloke I was
with ordered an extra-large whopper meal expecting it to come with large
chips and drink, and it didn't... he was upset about this but wouldn't go
change it until I hassled him. He paid 30p extra, got his large drink and
fries and was happy. 

> And non-branded stuff from markets is
> generally low quality, and cannot be returned, I see no straw man there. The
> T-shirt looks great, but wash it and it loses it's shape and colour.

*shrug* I beg to differ - I buy a lot of my clothes from markets, especially
underwear, as underwear from "proper" shops is horrifically expensive IME.
I can expect a pair of boxer shorts to fall apart after about six months, but
at three pairs for a fiver that's an acceptable burn rate. I haven't noticed
M&S boxers lasting significantly longer and they're much pricier. Same with
T-shirts - the cool T-shirt stall at the Oxford market sells screen-printed
Stargazer stuff which lasts for ever. Most of my T-shirts are over five years
old and still going strong. The only one that's fallen apart on me is a band
one I bought at HMV.

Alex
-- 
"Well, I say 'happy', but it's more a sort of vicious glee."
  - Alasdair Watson, Sluts, 19/04/2001
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: More pub comments

[Alex Page]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2002 at 02:16:39AM +1030, sue gray wrote:

> I think we need a giant camel or something obvious to have
> on the table for those new ppl - anyone got a lightweight 
> blowup one we can drag to meetings?

Aaaand... cue Greg :)

Alex
-- 
"Well, I say 'happy', but it's more a sort of vicious glee."
  - Alasdair Watson, Sluts, 19/04/2001
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Open Certification

[Alex Page]

On Mon, Jan 28, 2002 at 05:24:48PM +, Roger Burton West wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2002 at 09:12:26AM -0800, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:

> >Either it's blessed, or it isn't.  It won't blessed, so it might
> >as well come off your own printer.
> >What am I missing?

> That the community's idea of blessed ("done by people close to Larry") 
> is orthogonal at best to the potential employer's idea of blessed 
> ("done by a big company with an impressive name").

Judging by most of the posts on this thread, it seems to me (and I'd
certainly state as my own opinion) that the community's idea of
blessed is "done well and meaningful", regardless of the degrees of
separation from Larry...

Given a choice between (1) $bigcompany sets up meaningless certification
to make money, (2) Perl community refuses to move without Larry and nothing
gets done and (3) JFDI happens and we get a standard with grass-roots
support which we encourage Perl companies to back, maybe eventually ORA and
perhaps even Larry, I'd go for (3) any day.

I don't see why Larry *would* be against Perl certification, unless he
just doesn't want to get involved personally and leave it for the
community to decide what the community needs, which I think would be a
sensible thing for him to do. Hell, maybe we can come up with something
he's happy to give his approval to :^)

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Open Certification

[Alex Page]

On Mon, Jan 28, 2002 at 10:34:20AM +, robin szemeti wrote:
> On Sunday 27 January 2002 15:58, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:

> > There's nothing wrong with distance learning on a subject for your own
> > self-recognized growth, but you won't get any kind of certification
> > that means a darn to the community without Larry's blessing, which
> > won't happen.

> ummm .. I dont think it's the "community" we're trying to convince here. Its 
> the PHB's and recruiters. Not having some standard test they can apply to 
> discover wether someone really is a "Perl programmer" or a skript kiddie 
> means they end up hiring the occasional idjut ... which means that crap Perl 
> gets written, which means it harms the reputation of the "swiss army 
> chainsaw". 

Quite... how many of us "good programmers" [1] have come across and had to
maintain legacy perl code that looks like someone having a spazm at the
keyboard and isn't documented?

Fortunately, I get to write the IT procedures manual and I'm working on style
guides for our code and then making my own code meet the standards - including
commenting, POD, and my particular way of using TT (which I think is very
sensible, might get round to posting it somewhere so others can cast their
opinions).

Given that people keep saying "Certification will happen if there is demand",
I think we should recognise that there *is* demand, from the coders if not the
PHBs. I'm sure everyone here would like a piece of paper they can wave at a
suit in an interview which acknowledges that they *can* do their shit, to
differentiate them from the kid who's just walked in off the street with a copy
of the Llama under his arm [2].

So assuming that certification *is* going to happen, it makes sense to have
a certification which is more like a Cisco qualification than a Microsoft
one, IYSWIM. I think that the "professional Perl companies" (ActiveState and
O'Reilly, AFAICS) aren't going to be too bothered with vendor lock-in because
they have the common-sense [3] to see that for Perl that would be futile.

I should take this to a Perl-cert list for the technical details, I'm just
trying to say that saying "It'll never work, there's no need, there's no
point trying" may well lead to the established Perl certification, when it
happens (and it is a when, not an if), being expensive bog-paper...

Of course, given what people have been saying about raising public awareness
of Perl 6, launching a certification scheme aimed specifically at *that*
may be a fantastic way to get it into the suit-wearing mindspace...

Alex

[1] I mean in terms of style, structure etc., rather than technical ability,
mostly so I can include myself ;)

[2] That is, differentiate to a suit, who can't tell a well-written script
from a poorly written script from alphabetti spaghetti.

[3] They're involved with Perl, they must be reasonably clueful *g* [4]

[4] OK, there are exceptions to this...
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Advocacy link fest

[Alex Page]

On Fri, Jan 25, 2002 at 01:50:26PM +, Dave Thorn wrote:

> > >From this it follows that everyone who runs a website should link to nms
> > from their homepage, or as close to it as possible, to get it shoved up
> > the list a bit.

> I've linked to it from , which seems to
> have quite good google karma :)

But that's because every goth under the sun has a link to fuckedgoths on
their homepage or LiveJournal :)

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Open Certification

[Alex Page]

On Fri, Jan 25, 2002 at 11:15:02AM +, Simon Wilcox wrote:

> Perl cannot compete with that (we don't have the resources) and so I
> suspect we will never have a perl certification programme that is
> effective.

How can the education and certification model of the Open University
be applied to Perl?

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: bad nasty evil thread

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 03:06:51AM -0600, Richard Clyne wrote:

> Because some things work better on NT than on Unix.  As long as
> decisions are made based on the suitability of the platform for the
> application, then I've got nothing against NT etc.

Yep. We're running MimeSweeper on NT, forwarding to a Sun box as a
pop3 server after filtering... if anyone can direct me to a better
*nix only system that's as easy to configure with as good support
that won't be troublesome to install and migrate to, I'd be interested
but our own research hasn't found anything.

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Advocacy thoughts - was Re: bad nasty evil thread

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 04:00:41PM +, Jonathan Peterson wrote:

> Not always, but it depends how hard you try...

Yep... as anyone who's seen me on IRC over the last few days will
testify, I'm struggling to get Debian working on my laptop. Not
(just) out of some innate desire to rid myself of Windows, but
because all the *nix administration experience at my company is on
servers... I can whip up a BSD server install in a couple of hours
but I've never tried to get X working.

We've found the right motivations in our company - mostly financial.
We're already deploying StarOffice on some of our Windows desktops
to avoid the cost of more MS licenses. We've explained the advantages
in having proper networked storage, hotdesking (through LDAP and
remote-mounting /home), a simpler backup policy, easier remote
administration, stuff like that... and they like the idea.

Especially, they like the lack of licensing. We've demonstrated that
people can do all they need to do, with open source software.
Management are clueful enough to realise that people *will* bitch but
get used to it - the plan is for IT to train one person in each
department on the basics of using a Linux desktop and StarOffice and
use them as first-line support. Get the users to teach the users,
and they'll be more likely to grok it.. and with no root, they can't
kill things too badly.

In other areas, I've replaced propriaty FileMaker Pro databases with
Postgres databases, interfaced with a web browser, using perl and TT.
I've saved a fortune in licensing in a few months, and improved the
system to boot. Most of my admin scripts are in perl, just because it's
what I know... and they're nicely documented with comments and POD,
which means I can create my IT procedures manual (now stored under CVS
along with all my other content, a new introduction to my company)
automagically.

It does depend on the company, and the angle you find. In my case, it
wasn't "We must be doing it this way" but "Windows works, here's an
alternative that will save us time and money, why don't we give it a go?"
If the end-user trial of Debian desktops doesn't go well, we'll stick
with Windows, which is why I'm putting so much effort into learning
Debian admin - we need everything to work perfectly, first time, so
our users don't get that bad experience thing.

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: bad nasty evil thread

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2002 at 01:17:33PM -0500, Mike Jarvis wrote:

> How does that beat mod_perl at anything?  How do people get away with
> charging so much for it?  Can we convince people that a perl based app
> server is a sexy? Can we sucker them out of hundreds of thousands of
> pounds in licenses/consulting?

Maybe this is the new direction for london.pm - setting up a company
run by whoever happens to be in the CFT club at the moment, buying suits
and PDAs and marketing perl application servers at the Java market...

We could call Perl 6 "Perl Plus" and employ more Mongers as they become
CFT-enabled due to their employers spending vast amounts of money on
our conslutancy fees...

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Geekpr0n

[Alex Page]

On Fri, Jan 04, 2002 at 12:59:22PM -0500, anathema wrote:

> Other than unixsex.org, are there any other sites that feature admins #-ing 
> away at root?

You'd be better off asking Katz, actually. And tell him to fix the mime types
of .xhtml files while he's at it, I'm trying to polish my CV!

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Book Reviews

[Alex Page]

On Fri, Nov 30, 2001 at 10:27:47PM +, Dave Cross wrote:

> I was actually having a go at the people who HAVE HAD BOOKS FOR OVER A MONTH.
> Makes you wonder how fast they read :)

Sorry, it's not the reading, it's the writing. I've finished the new edition of
Learning Perl and like it a lot (esp. since I'm such a newbie). I've made notes,
but am having trouble summoning the JDFI to do it. I've made my housemates ban
me from playing Cheapass games until it's done, so hopefully I should have it by
tomorrow... 

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Small world [was] Re: London, Tube, Perl, and maths. (fwd)

[Alex Page]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 12:50:24PM -0500, anathema wrote:
> Simon Wilcox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> >The point to this little story is that his original article [2] attracted
> >a rebuttal, posted by non-other than anathema, a subscriber to this very
> >list [3].

> That rebuttal got me kicked off a mailing list.

That's not quite the way it happened, but I'm not going to go dragging up
old arguments on another mailing list *g*

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: Another Good Meeting

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2001 at 03:38:14PM +, aef wrote:

>  would a Friday meeting be a possibility? It doesn't
> make a lot of difference to me, but it might allow
> some more non-Nodnol people to turn up.

Friday meetings would be *excellent*, speaking as a not
Nodnol person. OK, as a regular thing it'd probably not
be good, as I'm sure even perl geeks can find something
to do on a Friday night, but I'd be well up for it every
now and again.

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: DaemonNews, PerlMonth and TPJ

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2001 at 12:28:30PM -0500, David H. Adler wrote:

> ~ 12:27:14$ grep -i whisk dean.msg

> And this is on topic, how, exactly?  ;-)

Since when were kitchen utensils on-topic?

Alex
-- 
KCBpd lWmulvo ECS+ m5 CPEIV B13 Ou Lmb Sc+isIC+ T++ A6LAT H6oe b5 D+
 - See http://bob.bob.bofh.org/~giolla/bobcode.html for decoding
Website: http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
Writing: http://www.livejournal.com/~diffrentcolours

Re: TPJ

[Alex Page]

On Tue, Oct 30, 2001 at 11:59:07AM -, Barbie wrote:

> Alex is that Borders on Charing Cross Road? If so I'll have to make sure I
> pay a visit every few months :)

No, that's Borders in Oxford, where I live.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: TPJ

[Alex Page]

On Mon, Oct 29, 2001 at 11:47:59PM -, Barbie [home] wrote:

> SysAdmin might be alright for those who are interested in useful things for
> Solaris or integrating Macs into your network, but for me $50 for something
> that I'll probably never read is a bit of a waste of money. For those who
> have received a copy is it really worth $12.50 (£7.80 approx) a copy?

I don't subscribe, I buy it each month in Borders - I've got the Nov 2001
issue on my desk, with a price sticker saying 4.95 on it.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: Classic Computer Books (Non-Perl)

[Alex Page]

On Tue, Oct 23, 2001 at 03:27:12PM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> I didn't do the HCI course because that would have meant getting to
> lectures at 9am.

> Sometimes I wonder if I missed anything useful.

Judging by my HCI course, no, you didn't.

1) Be consistent
2) Be logical
3) Don't force inappropriate metaphors
4) Talk to the users.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: Self-test

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 02:04:46PM -0400, David H. Adler wrote:

> > (from a Flanders & Swann song, 1950s)

> Funny.  Jon and Phillip never struck me as F&S fans... *shrug*

Maybe they picked it up from Diabolo... I can imagine everyone's
favorite satanic chicken liking them.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: Netiquette was Re: [Perl Jobs] CGI / MySQL developer (onsite),UK, London]

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 04:16:22PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote:

> I have heard Mr Pratchet's name cited as the guilty party for the
> increased use of footnotes, especially as comic asides.

I'd claim that Mr Pratchett, as with so many other things, stole
that one from Mr Adams...

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: Classic Computer Books (Non-Perl)

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 07:24:11AM -0700, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:

> And if you miss that style, you should pick up Learning Perl (3rd).

Review's on the way - I've got about half the book read and annotated,
will do the rest when I have any FT whatsoever.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: Writing a Perl Game

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 01:42:36PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote:

> I'd like to write a game and I'd rather do it as a group project with
> some friends, to simply make it a bit more fun.

It's been dead in the water for nearly a year due to lack of CFT, but
http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/slutsmud-dev might be worth a look.
More ideas than code really, but there's some good stuff in there and
I've been aching to get back to it...

(BTW, mail me offlist if you try to subscribe - yahoogroups doesn't like
letting me know when people do that.)

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: "Invisible ink e-mails"

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Sep 19, 2001 at 03:51:53PM +0100, Mark Fowler wrote:

> How do you void the key?  If I've decrypted the mail at some point I
> *have* the key (as I am clever and have hacked my client to save me a copy
> to disk)

...and been locked up under the DMCA.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

[simon@simon-cozens.org: Housewarming]

[Alex Page]

- Forwarded message from Simon Cozens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -

X-Addresses: The [EMAIL PROTECTED] address is deprecated due to being broken. 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] still works, but simon-cozens.org or netthink.co.uk are preferred.

[Please forward to london-pm]

Housewarming party! Friday night from 6:30pm onwards at .pad, Oxford.
More information and directions at http://simon-cozens.org/dotpad.html

Please *don't* bring beer or whisky. There is plenty. If you want wine, please
bring your own; there will be some food but if you have freaky dietary needs,
you might want to bring some more along.

Simon

Re: In Defence of Mysql was Re: Divorcing data storage from business logic

[Alex Page]

On Fri, Jul 06, 2001 at 08:44:02AM +, Steve Mynott wrote:

> As an aside does anyone know of any successful SQL porting or database
> migration projects at all?  I have seen more disaster than success in
> the this field.  It seems to me you should build your system on a firm
> foundation and then not try to retrospectively change it.

Yep. Take one Oracle database, a collection of flatfiles with no relations
whatsoever, no primary keys, no consistency, no integrity, duplication,
replication, missing data, all that jazz, and a nice recursive schema
with about 20 tables, every one with 3 or 4 foreign keys, hosted on a
SQL Server 6.5 box.

The test database for my code was 500Mb. The *real* database was in the
high-gig or tera range. I wrote the interface in Visual Basic. 90% of the
data was transferred automagically. I rock.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: Big Projects / Variable Backends

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2001 at 10:25:07AM +0100, Robert Shiels wrote:

> From: "Alex Page" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> > I also know that we might be moving from MySQL to something a little more
> > 'professional' in the not-too-distant future.

> OK - this subject keeps coming up, and I'm confused. I have no religious axe
> to grind about databases, so what should I be using. Keep in mind that it
> must be free and work on both Linux and Windows. Obviously if I want
> industrial strength and I have lots of money I'll probably use something
> like Oracle, but is there something in between that I should be using?

I don't know about specific products, but basically: Transactions are good.
Stored procedures are very good, especially if you've got a nice database server
talking to a comparitively crap client. Basically, a good SP will let you do
everything you can't do in SQL, and return sensible errors at the same time.

Then you get into complicated stuff which I don't know much about. MySQL
stores all its files together on the disk, making data migration a matter
of copying to the right place, but compromising speed. Other products may
well use binary files, indices, stuff like that.

ANSI support is always good (although AFAIAA there's no database server that
fully supports SQL-86, let alone SQL-92). All servers support at least the
basics, some of them have extensions, and some of them *koff*Access*koff*
are just fucking wierd.

Can't really pick a name for you, but these are always good things to look
for.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: Big Projects / Variable Backends

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2001 at 09:43:17AM +0100, Leon Brocard wrote:
> Alex Page sent the following bits through the ether:

> > However, I'm trying to future-proof on this project, so

> Let me put my extreme programming hat on. You're doing work for no
> particular reason? You can predict the future?

I know there's a half-finished LDAP server in the server room which I'll
be finishing off when I've done this bug-tracking system, which we'll be
using (with a slave, natch) for our password authentication and other
gubbins.

I also know that we might be moving from MySQL to something a little more
'professional' in the not-too-distant future.

I also know that, even if it's not particularly useful on this project,
knowing how to do this sort of thing will come in handy *some* day, so
I might as well get it sorted when I'm not under enormous time pressure.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Big Projects / Variable Backends

[Alex Page]

OK, I've been banging my head against the wall here, and I've
got conflicting answers on IRC, so I thought I'd ask a question
which'll probably start a flamewar, distracting me from the
problem at hand *g*

I have a project. The details don't really matter (it's a
bug tracking system for hardware / firmware, FWIW, and no
existing open-source software seems to do the job), but it's
essentially a bunch of CGI scripts (using Template-Toolkit
for the time being, though I'd like not to), with some
perl modules in the middle, and a backend, which is currently
a MySQL databas, to which we connect with DBI/DBD.

However, I'm trying to future-proof on this project, so
I'd like some optional backend modules which can be swapped
in by changing a single configuration line - for example,
using an LDAP server instead of a database table for user
password authentication and privileges.

[Obligatory london.pm break]
Buffy. Buffy's a top program. I wish I had time to watch it
regularly, or the money to buy the videos or DVDs.
[end of break]

What's the best way to do this code-wise? In my CGI, I
want to be able to call a single function which will
work out (in the modular backend) what it has to do to
get the desired information. I'd also like the parent module
(the one with the configuration info that loads all the other
desired modules) not to need to know about the API between say
the CGI and the authentication code.

I've tried Exporter throwing
functions all over the shop, I've tried object orienting
until $cow->{'position'} == $home, and I still can't get it to
work nicely. Any tips, suggestions, methodologies?

With apologies for a perl-related question,

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: The august social meet...

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Jul 04, 2001 at 12:53:08PM +0100, Lucy McWilliam wrote:

> Is anyone *not* going to YAPC?

Yes.

> Does anyone want to gather at the Great
> British Beer Festival instead (www.gbbf.org)?

Yes, but I'm moving house that weekend.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: TT & new website (buffy)

[Alex Page]

On Mon, Jul 02, 2001 at 10:08:59AM +0100, Piers Cawley wrote:
> Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> > Now Angel ...

> Was utterly crap until he got his own series.

And even then, the best bit was watching Spike impale him with
large metal poles...

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: TT & new website

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 05:23:27PM +0100, Lucy McWilliam wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Jun 2001, Alex Page wrote:

> > Gah. Tempted, but I'd rather spend my birthday doing something slightly
> > more entertaining...

> In the spirit of fluffy london.pm:
> Happy birthday ;-)

Aaww, ta very much. And if any perl-monger should find themselves in
Camden this evening, I'll be in the Electric Ballroom... I'll be the
one in black *g* (stares at dtg)

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: TT & new website

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 07:08:37PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote:

> i think we should start using scientific notation for ages,

>   e.g. 
>   Greg  = 2.695 * 10^01
>   Robin = 3.799 * 10^01

Better to use exponential ages, that way you have to be really
bothered to work it out...

Alex ( e ^ 3.09 today! [3sf])
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: TT & new website (buffy)

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 11:10:26AM +0100, James Powell wrote:

> This is cool. I think the future of perl is in generating ASCII art.

Funnily enough, I'm about to write a function that generates ASCII art
for the front page of a web site - a 20 x 10 character block of random
letters in a fixed-width font, with proper text placed randomly, in a
different colour. Could be kind of matrix-esque with the right fonts.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: rewarding tasks

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 09:21:56AM +, Greg Cope wrote:
> Alex Page wrote:

> > The project I'm working on ATM is quite fun - we need a bug tracking
> > system to replace the klunky FileMaker Pro system we have at the
> > moment. I looked at Bugzilla, but it doesn't match our needs,
> > mostly because this is for tracking hardware bugs.

> Request tracker - just started using it, and quite impressed.

URL? Cost? License? Platform? Details, man, details!!!

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: Cliqueiness

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2001 at 09:53:09PM +0100, Neil Ford wrote:

> We will of course need to name them (though one of them should retain it's
> given name, Niles) and work out some way to tell them all apart.

I'd suggest another name from Frasier for the other. Frasier itself is
a little obvious, and Daphne's a nice name...

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: rewarding tasks

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2001 at 07:06:07PM +0200, Marcel Grunauer wrote:

> Have you thought about doing something completely different, for
> whatever reason? Have big projects ever worked out for you (or the
> company you're with)?

I've only been at Solid State Logic for a few weeks, so I'm not in
the best position to comment. However, the IT dept here has been
rather short-staffed, and it's only with my appointment that we've
got enough manpower to get things done (300+ terminals, rickety
old servers, and 3 permanent staff now).

We've got vision and good ideas, and we're relatively autonomous
so long as we (a) keep things working and (b) don't spend too much
money. However, we get little time to finish any projects we start.
This may change when my boss returns (he's been off sick pretty
much since I started), but it's rather depressing. We'd like an
LDAP-based PAM system for our central servers, and to keep other
user info (e-mail aliases, phone extensions etc.) up to date.

I've got OpenLDAP's slapd running on a box, but haven't had time
to configure, populate and secure it yet, let alone upgrade the
servers to use PAM.

The project I'm working on ATM is quite fun - we need a bug tracking
system to replace the klunky FileMaker Pro system we have at the
moment. I looked at Bugzilla, but it doesn't match our needs,
mostly because this is for tracking hardware bugs.

So I'm scratch-building one. I'm halfway through the schema ATM,
and I'll be writing a nice modular interface (possibly using
Template::Toolkit, although I'd like to write my own templating
system just for the hell of it) to look like the old database,
with hooks to (e.g.) authenticate from the LDAP server when it
arrives. It's a fun project, and I'm hoping it gets finished soon.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: TT & new website

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2001 at 10:59:54PM +0100, Chris Benson wrote:

> Do you mean the UKUUG's Linux Developer's Conference 2001 at UMIST
> from midday Friday 28th to ~midday Sunday 1st, with a grand meal on 
> the Friday night?

Gah. Tempted, but I'd rather spend my birthday doing something slightly
more entertaining...

Alex (it's either Thu 28th or Fri 29th BTW)
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: Cliqueiness

[Alex Page]

On Fri, Jun 22, 2001 at 02:48:31PM +0100, Lee Goddard wrote:

> > > > perl -e "while (1){rand>0.5 ? print'\\' : print'/'}" 

> > Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at -e line 1.

> Unix beary types should know to s/"/`/; 

Is that particularly hairy Unix types, ones who like honey, ones who
steal picnic baskets or a typo?

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: headers

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 12:34:42PM +0100, Simon Wistow wrote:

> I'm also loathe to start ranking people as better or worse. There are
> people you like, there are people you don't, some people are better at
> perl than others and some people can drink more or post more or have a
> higher signal to noise ratio but trying to organise that into some sort
> of ranking scheme is against the spirit of the Perl community.[0] 

Sorry, forgot the "require Detect::Sarcasm;"...

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: headers

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 11:50:11AM +0100, will wrote:

> From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> > Who's this guy, anyway? Does he show up on the London-list posters
> > headboard? :)

> What, you mean there is a list of the 'best' people on the list?

Yes, based on a combination of posting volume, CPAN submissions, alcohol
tolerance and blatant bribery and cheating.

> > (First place goes to grep. Second, third, fourth, and fifth places also go
> > to grep. Then come the rest of the regulars.)

> This is exactly the sort of cliquey elitism that is not good for perl/linux
> advocacy.

Have you *seen* how much grep posts?!?

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: headers

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 12:44:23PM +0200, Philip Newton wrote:

> How many off-London people have we got? (Well, also excluding people who
> live near London.)

Me! I live in Oxford, and although I used to commute to London daily, I
got myself un-hired, and decided that working somewhere without a 2.5hr
commute each way would be a better idea. Even though I don't get to see
dtg and spurkis any more.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: Code Repository Software

[Alex Page]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 06:36:41AM -0400, Andy Williams wrote:

> Does anyone know of a web based code repository that I can install in
> house. Something that looks like CPAN would be great.

Erm, would a web interface to CVS be useful? I'm sure these already
exist...

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: PUB: Dogget's Coat and Arms

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 06:08:50PM +0100, Chris Butler wrote:

[re: Doggets]

> I can't make it tonight, but I've been there before with people from another
> mailing list, and I can recommend it.

Seconded. And I survived the evening slightly better than Chris did *g*

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: HTML email

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 11:55:50AM +0100, Robert Shiels wrote:

> I use Outlook Express, and if there is a link in a text only email, it is
> highlighted and can be clicked on to open in IE5 automatically. I'm guessing
> that a huge proportion of people have this facility. So my clickthrough rate
> is independent of whether email is HTML or text.

However, the target URL has to be visible for this to happen, whereas most
HTML ad-mail will have a 
http://www.dodgycompany.com";>CLICK HERE!!! thing goin'
on...

Alex

PS: Yes, my  tags are deliberately mismatched.
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: HTML email

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 11:56:35AM +0100, Roger Burton West wrote:

> >However, the target URL has to be visible for this to happen, whereas most
> >HTML ad-mail will have a 
> >http://www.dodgycompany.com";>CLICK HERE!!! thing goin'
> >on...

> You forgot .

From: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1#text-decoration

"UAs must recognize the keyword 'blink', but are not required
 to support the blink effect."

CSS - Sanity for the InterWeb.

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours

Re: HTML email

[Alex Page]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 11:02:48AM +0100, Simon Wistow wrote:

> What percentage of people use HTML email? He reckons 50% but I can't
> find any figure to dispute that.

Those who use HTML e-mail are not classified as 'people'. Hence 0% *g*

Alex
-- 
"Four pints of milk, a turkey baster and some plastic
 tubing, that's all you need."
http://www.cpio.org/~grimoire
http://www.livejournal.com/users/diffrentcolours