Re: Emacs as a perl IDE
On 25 January 2012 22:17, Dave Hodgkinson daveh...@gmail.com wrote: Pulled together some links and thoughts, and actually learned stuff: http://www.davehodgkinson.com/blog/2012/01/using-emacs-as-an-ide/ Any other comments? Piers? Emacs and SBT is pretty good for Scala with continuous build of source. http://jawher.net/2011/01/17/scala-development-environment-emacs-sbt-ensime/
Re: Laptop Recommendation
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 12:51:48PM +, Smylers wrote: Hello. Anybody like to recommend a laptop? Most of our team are using Mac Book Air or Pro. That's been a painless experience, good for development, also great for face to face demos and feedback from internal customers. Two developers wanted Windows 7 so I got them Dell Precision laptops. It took me 2 hours to get the first one to connect reliably to the corporate WiFi, the Macs connected automatically. Say no more. Regards, Peter
Re: Laptop Recommendation
On 23 January 2012 19:17, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: I realize that I stupidly omitted to state that I'll be running Ubuntu on whatever I buy. Surely not on a Macbook Air though? Use VirtualBox full screen and then deploy/break/OMFG/reinstall of Ubuntu won't b0rk your platform. I use it to host Windows7 on my MacBook Air solely in order to run ChessBase :-) Regards, Peter
Re: OT: Agile PM courses?
Any recs for Agile PM courses that can rubber stamp what I've been doing for the last 2-3 years? I realise you may already have been stamped on by now :), but: last year we worked with an Agile coach trainer from Rally and I found she was very practical / did a good job. They do ScrumMaster certification: http://www.agileu.org/ Again, as others have noted: experience is more useful than certificates. I interviewed three PMs last week. One of them claimed to be a qualified PRINCE2 practitioner but couldn't answer what parts of PRINCE are used to manage risk. When pressed, he claimed that he had done it 5 years ago and maybe it was added since then (funny how it was there 20 years ago in original PRINCE). He also claimed to be a certified Scrum Master and when asked what methodology to use for new product development with uncertain requirements: PRINCE, because it handles it better than Agile *cough* So you see. I wish I could make it up, but I'm not. -Peter
Re: OT: Agile PM courses?
On 28 December 2011 11:18, Dave Hodgkinson daveh...@gmail.com wrote: Yep, I know the Skills Matter folks. skillsmatter++ Agreed that certs make little difference. I talked with one supplier and he said Oh, we don't really do Agile shortly followed by I'm a certified Scrum Master but have never used it. That's a fairly pointless box-ticking exercise. I'm not sure whether you're positioning yourself personally as a PM or your company but to give an example I wrote a PQQ recently (from the customer side of an EU procurement framework agreement) and on came up with some scenarios and questions about process to reveal the applicant companies' ability to really apply PM and quality techniques rather than cut and paste from them from course notes. We're using Agile at work and have PMs certified on either/both of Scrum and PRINCE2. We use agile cloud-based planning software from Thoughtworks to support the process, with BDD acceptance criteria on the story cards. It all works well and our primary supplier has fitted their internal processes around it fairly happily - they'd only done waterfall before. -Peter
Re: OT: Agile PM courses?
try Googling Certified Scrum Master and if you're really masochistic PRINCE2 Practitioner throw in some Kanban for maintenance / workflow activities -Peter On 27 December 2011 18:38, Dave Hodgkinson daveh...@gmail.com wrote: Any recs for Agile PM courses that can rubber stamp what I've been doing for the last 2-3 years?
Re: Telecommuting
2011/12/9 Zbigniew Łukasiak zzb...@gmail.com Recently I was surprised by the following (from a talk by Greg Wilson): Physical distance doesn’t affect post-release fault rates but Distance in the organisational chart does. Nagappan et all (2007) and Bird et al (2009) Very interesting! And the irony is I received the first email in this chain while on a teleconference call to two developers in Ireland, a BA in London while on a train to Manchester. Our outsourced dev partners are in Ireland, London,Eastern Europe, and the US, the customers/colleagues I'm delivering to are all around the world. The daily Scrum we run has people participating who are in the office 2 or 3 days per week. It's all possible if you manage the process, use adequate communication tools and schedule effective meetings. Regards, Peter
Re: Beware: NET-A-PORTER
I wouldn't put much faith in anything I didn't hear directly from a N-a-P employee on this matter. Hah. After chatting to NAP's HR person at YAPC::EU about a job, and then sending an email asking, and then a follow-up email checking why I hadn't heard anything, I gave up trying to do anything with NAP directly. They seemed very disorganised on the management side and I presume recruiters hide that chaos away from potential recruits. It's possible in this case Rudolf is seeing a reflection of that US-side. Shame really, after they hosted an excellent London.pm tech event at their secret lair atop Westfield Shepherds Bush some months ago. YMMV Regards, Peter
Re: Implementing a Queue in a process
On 22 November 2011 07:16, Shantanu Bhadoria shant...@cpan.org wrote: Hey people, Here is a interesting problem that I am facing right now. I need to implement a process(in perl) that would sit and wait for someone to push tasks into its queue, each task consists of a set of information in its data structure w.r.t the task details. Search back in the list archives. We discussed this at length in the past year. http://cpanratings.perl.org/dist/AnyMQ Good generic message queue interface, extensible by traits beyond the default in-memory only model. Unfortunately, despite the numerous message-queue modules and bindings (for beanstalk, stomp, rabbitmq, zeromq, amqp, various hand-rolled modules) on CPAN, there are no interfaces between them and AnyMQ on the CPAN. bindings for message queue products https://metacpan.org/module/Net::Stomp https://metacpan.org/module/Net::RabbitMQ https://metacpan.org/module/ZeroMQ https://metacpan.org/release/Beanstalk-Client queue backed by database https://metacpan.org/module/TheSchwartz multi-worker batch processing https://metacpan.org/module/MooseX::Workers https://metacpan.org/module/Schedule::Pluggable Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Ruby?
On 16 November 2011 14:09, Mike Whitaker m...@altrion.org wrote: On Wed, 2011-11-16 at 13:57 +, Dave Hodgkinson wrote: Yes. There is a W12 cabal. I blame the late Piers. Who has now gone to a better place. He's not the only one who's moved on :D I believe there are a couple of lost souls still at BBC WS. Not me though :-D Anyway, shouldn't daveh's pimping activities be on the perl-jobs list ? :-
Re: Perl Skills Test
On 26 September 2011 14:37, Aaron Trevena aaron.trev...@gmail.com wrote: I had a go at code dojo at the recent Agile on the Beach conference and thought to myself - this would be a handy technical test tool : http://jonjagger.blogspot.com/p/cyberdojo.html (and yes, it does come in perl flavour) Ah, that's a cool idea and would lend itself to testing a potential employee in a different country. I went to a [real world] Scala dojo recently and that was also great fun http://www.meetup.com/london-scala/ It even made me use GNU emacs for the evening! (runs away from holy war) Regards, Peter
Re: Perl Skills Test
On 27 September 2011 14:36, Joel Bernstein j...@fysh.org wrote: It doesn't appear to explain coding dojo but jumps straight into assuming you know what it means. Only Dojo I ever came across is a rather painful JS framework. Context? http://codingdojo.org/ an instance thereof http://www.meetup.com/london-scala/events/32717142/
Re: Perl Skills Test
On 27 September 2011 17:00, Joel Bernstein j...@fysh.org wrote: Maybe I've got this wrong, but I don't much like the idea of applying for a permanent job with little scope to negotiate the rate regardless of skills and experience, where (conventionally, without FOI requests) I don't know (until I get the inevitable low-ball offer) if it's even worth my time applying... I want to be wrong about this, please explain it to me? /joel Next you'll be asking if the permies got a pay rise this year or if their pension fund[1] didn't get raided. *stands at a safe distance* [1] http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/189027/BBC's-secret-pension-pot/ FAT CAT BBC director general Mark Thompson and his executive directors are pocketing cash from a “secret pension pot” while asking staff to accept cuts in their own retirement packages. A multi-million-pound “pension slush fund” allows Thompson and eight executive board members the cash but the rest of the workers are excluded. The revelation will infuriate the BBC http://www.express.co.uk/search/BBC/’s 19,000 staff asked by Thompson this week to accept a one per cent cap on their much smaller pensions http://www.express.co.uk/search/pensions/.
Re: Perl Skills Test
On 22 September 2011 22:13, Piers Cawley pdcaw...@bofh.org.uk wrote: On 22 September 2011 14:14, Dave Cross d...@dave.org.uk wrote: At an interview with Auntie a few years ago, they gave me a Perl script and asked me to highlight all the problems/errors in it. Not sure if they were flattering me, but I found quite a few they didn't seem to be aware of.. I've been on the other side of that interview. I was astonished by how bad the script was. I remember that, the Future Media Perl test. And a related database design test based on some shockingly poor Access DB schema. The idea was they would give you 30 minutes to scribbling down increasingly irate comments on your bit of paper on each. I think, though I could be wrong, that when they asked you to comment on the code and design they had a concealed sound level meter under the table and would give you a score based on how loud you ranted... :- More recently I did a good test which was basically a pair programming exercise where you are given a spec, some partial code, and a unit test you could run but not inspect. Then using your editor of choice go and make the code pass the test and discuss with the technical director your thought processes and why and what you are doing. That seems to me a very reliable way of working out whether someone can deliver the goods. And also whether they can work in a team. Regards, Peter
Re: Perl Skills Test
On 26 September 2011 09:44, Egor Shipovalov kogdaugo...@gmail.com wrote: Could you share the name of the company which gave you this pair programming test? It should be a good place to work. Hi Egor, it was a financial services company in the City of London providing backend stock swap tracking and completion, who I reached via http://osrecruit.com/ Regards, Peter
Re: Perl-friendly message queue-like system
On 22 September 2011 09:15, Martin A. Brooks mar...@antibodymx.net wrote: I have a bunch of servers doing mail ilftering. I would like them to send tiny messages about the results of said filtering to a central point. I would then like something at the central point to pop messages off the queue and update a database. Think of it as sort of a centralised collection point for statistical data. If the odd message gets eaten, it really doesn't matter. I understand something like RabbitMQ or ActiveMQ might do what I want, however the former's website doesn't mention Perl and the latter I am terrified of, having used it. Why not simply use RRDtool if you want statistical reporting - it's light, fast and easy to use http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/tut/rrd-beginners.en.html Regards, Peter
Re: Perl-friendly message queue-like system
On 22 September 2011 15:56, David Cantrell da...@cantrell.org.uk wrote: On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 02:48:32PM +0100, Tomas Doran wrote: There are other advantages of having a 'real' message queue ... I have yet to come across a situation where you needed a real message queue and can't just use a table in a database (replicated/clustered if necessary) with an auto-incrementing id. But then you have to use a real database that can scalably generate auto-inc primary keys. Historically, MySQL didn't until about a year ago. Given the use case is for statistical reporting on what an app has been doing, rrdtool does the entire job really simply with no need for any fancy queueing software at all. We used it to measure activity at BBC WS and it worked well. We also used ActiveMQ which leaks memory and needs restarting unless you are really careful how you configure and use it. Regards, Peter
Re: Perl-friendly message queue-like system
The problem is not the database I store stuff in, it's getting stuff to the
database in the first place. The final data store will almost certainly be
postgres, I see no reason to use anything else.
If volume is not a problem, sure.
We already had 10GB in our PostgreSQL db and didn't want any more coming
from generating rolling 5 minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, hourly (etc.)
stats - real time graphs for our monitoring screens with historic period
comparison across a range of measures .
In case it's of use for someone else here's an easy way to do it.
With RRD you create a logging database file like
$ rrdtool create transfer.rrd \
--start N --step 300 \
DS:transfer_in_secs:GAUGE:1200:0:600 \
DS:files_transferred:GAUGE:1200:0:20 \
DS:transfer_errors:GAUGE:1200:0:20 \
DS:average_errors:COMPUTE:transfer_errors,files_transferred,/,100,* \
RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:1:3600 \
RRA:MAX:0.5:1:3600 \
RRA:MIN:0.5:1:3600 \
RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:4:9600 \
RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:24:6000
that logs 3 data points and computes one more
# in your app's logging configuration set up a Log4perl logger to write RRD
entries
use Log::Log4perl;
my $transfer_rrd_db_path = ./transfer.rrd;
Log::Log4perl-init(
...
log4perl.category.TRANSFERRRD = INFO, TransferRRD,
log4perl.appender.TransferRRD = Log::Log4perl::Appender::RRDs,
log4perl.appender.TransferRRD.dbname = $transfer_rrd_db_path,
log4perl.appender.TransferRRD.layout =
Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout,
log4perl.appender.TransferRRD.layout.ConversionPattern = N:%m,
...
);
# now in your code when you do some work
get_logger('TRANSFERRRD')-info(
$time_elapsed . ':' .
$files_transferred . ':' .
$total_errors
);
then you can create a graph (if that's what you want) with
$ rrdtool graph ./transfer.rrd \
--start -1day --title=Average transfer time --vertical-label secs \
--height 200 --width 400 \
DEF:var_transfer_in_secs=transfer.rrd:transfer_in_secs:AVERAGE \
DEF:var_files_transferred=transfer.rrd:files_transferred:AVERAGE \
DEF:var_transfer_errors=transfer.rrd:transfer_errors:AVERAGE \
LINE1:var_transfer_in_secs#ff:transfer time in seconds \
AREA:var_files_transferred#33BB22:files transferred \
AREA:var_transfer_errors#A1A1A1:transfer errors
More at
http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/doc/rrdtool.en.html
Regards, Peter
http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Perl e-commerce?
Catalyst is a good start. It really is. Now I want to see Dancer and Mojolicious get going as they target different types of developers Well that's good to know ... but how do any of these install on a shared hosting setup? http://docs.dotcloud.com/services/perl/ Shared-kinda anyway ;-) -Peter
Re: Perl e-commerce?
On 14 September 2011 10:37, James Laver james.la...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 Sep 2011, at 10:11, Mallory van Achterberg wrote: Is there a (decent, maintained) Perl-based e-commerce platform out there? No. I can find plenty of, for example, shops running Magento and I can see (as a user) what all comes with that. Even themeing magento is a pain in the arse, let alone extending it. I ask for danger money to work with it and even still I get fed up of recruiters calling offering nearly-danger-money. It's horrible and hateful and I never want to work with it again. Can someone point me to a site or resource that really compares Perl e-commerce packages to these popular PHP ones? Something that describes all that they come with and what merchants can and cannot do with them, without having to actually install all of these and try setting them up just to see? Like, a review site. Don't trust any of them. And then suffer the PHP and buy cubecart or similar (the open source ones all have their various major failing, mostly around security, which is what i expect most of these 'scripts' will suffer from). I'll echo what James says here. For a free software cart frontend use a PHP cart like ZenCart and OSCommerce, the Perl solutions aren't fully featured enough IME. Or pay for a commercial one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_shopping_cart_software Another whole fun ballgame is choosing the payment processor for the checkout backend. The UK government has a comparison website for pricing/features but these two used to be okay http://www.2checkout.com/ http://www.authorize.net/ Make sure the cart you want to use has a gateway plugin for the payment processor you want to use. I wouldn't use Google Checkout. Paypal is expensive but convenient for some customers and you made need it as an additional payment option to avoid losing sales. Another approach to use a combined commercial solution like http://www.actinic.co.uk/ . Regards, Peter
Re: Perl e-commerce?
On 14 September 2011 12:20, Mallory van Achterberg stommep...@stommepoes.nl wrote: My question isn't because I'm personally looking for a shopping cart to use myself, or for a client (at least, not yet). My question is because, I see it as another reason web developers don't even consider Perl for these things. Which makes no sense to me. Imagine a graphic designer who designs sites for customers and can cope with FTPing some PHP files to a server and hacking a bit on the code - but not much more. Probably doesn't know how to use ssh or Unix shell commands. That's why PHP is used, the barrier to entry is low enough for them to be able to do a site on their own, and I would guess the majority of small e-commerce sites are written by such people. Another case to imagine is you do a shop for your client and then suddenly they want to change to a different payment provider. Or start offering some complicated coupon and rebate scheme for good customers. An existing large and popular cart product probably has a plugin they pick up off the web and stick on to do it with little or no coding. No coding == no cost of testing. They charge the customer £200 and it's straight profit. If you had to spend half a day hacking on Perl code to do it, it's cost you more money and you'll have an irate client when their customers start hitting the bugs (which will inevitably be there to start with).
Re: Perl e-commerce?
ZenCart is a fork of OSCommerce that does not fix the horrible security holes. Don't use either of these. I tend to assume any PHP site is going be insecure unless proven otherwise :-D I won't repeat conversations I've had with small business owners about why they should pay a bit more for a secure site and had them go the cheapest route. Let's just say that if a client wants a cheap as chips site and doesn't care too much if their customer details get ripped off then they are a good way to go. Now I may have to wash my hands
Re: Emergency social Monday at Shooting Star, E1 7JF (with ingy!)
On 4 September 2011 21:12, Léon Brocard a...@astray.com wrote: Ingy döt Net, founder of Acmeism is in town and he wishes to drink tasty beer. Come enjoy a drink with us on Monday. Monday, 7pmish onwards http://london.randomness.org.uk/wiki.cgi?Shooting_Star,_E1_7JF 125-129 Middlesex Street London E1 7JF Liverpool Street Station tube See you there, Leon. Splendid. It seems I am in the City for an interview Monday afternoon so I shall see you there :-) Regards, Peter
Re: Writing about Perl FOR WEBDEVS
On 2 September 2011 11:57, Mallory van Achterberg stommep...@stommepoes.nlwrote: Leo, I LOVE the Plack talk that went with those slides. As someone who does no Perl, they were awesome, they made sense, and they were exciting. That's why I suggested a Plack / Dancer app for Dave Cross' article. It's the kind of stuff new people want to learn how to do. Regards, Peter
Re: Expected Config File Locations
On 30 August 2011 16:25, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: On Windows, it uses %LOCAL_APPDATA%\bang.cfg (where %LOCAL_APPDATA% is gleaned from a system %call). How does that seem to Windows users? However it doesn't seem to support recent Windows versions, crashing on. Windows 7 and even Vista: https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=57625 http://www.cpantesters.org/cpan/report/7277549 You could just call the Win32 API directly to get this directory and then build the dir path. Regards, Peter
Re: Anyone got a US iTunes account
On 27 August 2011 16:25, Andy Armstrong a...@hexten.net wrote: On 27 Aug 2011, at 14:25, Andrew Beattie wrote: The trouble is that whilst I'm sure that your request is genuine, it is so close to a Western Union fraud or a cheque overpayment fraud that you really want to be asking someone that already knows and trusts you. Well quite - it feels grubby. That's why I'm asking here - to maximise the likelihood of an intersection between people who know me and people with a US iTunes account :) I don't suppose there's a fee transfer payment available for this out of Charles Taylor's off-shore Liberian assets? :-p -P
Re: Writing About Perl
On 23 August 2011 12:24, Pete Smith p...@cubabit.net wrote: I think that devs are interested in tools that let them get things up and running with little effort, so perhaps an article explaining how easy it is to use catalyst/dancer/mojo + dbic + plack (with a bit of moose thrown in) using distro packages (cpan probably frustrates newbies to perl if installation / tests fail) to get a web app up and running in a few minutes. That was the appeal of ruby and rails as far as I can make out. I agree. Show how to write a web service running on Dotcloud using Dancer . Regards, Peter
Re: Writing About Perl
On 23 August 2011 18:11, Leo Lapworth l...@cuckoo.org wrote: Installing / using / extending Domm's App::Timetracker ( https://metacpan.org/release/App-TimeTracker) might make an interesting article. He gave a talk about it at YAPC::EU http://yapceurope.lv/ye2011/talk/3391(slides: http://domm.plix.at/talks/2011_riga_app_timetracker/) Oh that's pretty cool. The git sync idea would go down well with Linux hackers. -Peter
Re: CFT?
On 28 July 2011 23:37, Dave Hodgkinson daveh...@gmail.com wrote: Do any people have time to hack on something for IOU's pending us getting more funding? It's doing interesting things with images, interfacing to numerous sites like flickr, Hipstamatic, Instagram as well as databases like Wikipedia, OpenCalais, Thesauri and so on. We have a demo and need to close in on a minimum usable product. The backend is Catalyst and Moose, the frontend is *all* JS and CSS in the browser. For IOUs ? Is that like when they offer you shares instead of a better salary? :-/ Peter
Vote for Pwnies
Voting time http://pwnies.com/nominations/ (not Perl related admittedly since many of these hacks are Apache or PHP but, you see, ponies... )
Re: Dear Git Users
On 21 July 2011 22:46, Paul Johnson p...@pjcj.net wrote: I seem to recall moving stuff to github being fairly straightforward once you worked out what needed to be done. I'm afraid that I can neither remember what I did, nor can I find the instructions on how to do it... I dub this the Murdoch Defence -Peter
Re: Phenona
On 14 June 2011 16:00, Dave Hodgkinson daveh...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 Jun 2011, at 17:42, Dirk Koopman wrote: Anyone had a go with: http://www.phenona.com/ a perl cloud? dotcloud has Miyagawa. That wins. AFAICS if the 14 year old sole employee is run over by a bus that platform is dead in the water. And the last time I put live a system using a framework sri was working on he argued and left the framework and several months of worry and hassle ensued so I'm not keen on using mojolicious. Dancer, maybe :-) Plus I'm quite happy provisioning my own Perl stacks on EC2. Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Someone needs to take jwz aside...
On Wed, 8 Jun 2011, David Cantrell wrote: It's the lack of a CPAN-a-like for any other language that keeps me coming back to perl. Of course, it's possible that the Comprehensive Python Archive Network or similar for ruby/javascript/java/C/whatever does exist but I just can't find it. But then, if I can't find it, it's not much use. Python repo http://pypi.python.org/pypi It was fairly chastening a couple of years back looking for a library implementing Role Based Access Control and finding that there was a Python one but no Perl one http://pypi.python.org/pypi?%3Aaction=searchterm=role+based+access+controlsubmit=search http://search.cpan.org/search?query=role+based+access+controlmode=all Then when I was doing WxWidgets programming from ActivePerl having to use the wxPython library docs http://www.wxpython.org/ because they were more up to date and complete than the Perl ones http://wxperl.sourceforge.net/documentation.html in terms of calling from a wrapper (more useful than the C++ docs). Node.js repo http://npm.mape.me/ V8 seems to work well on Unix and takes little code to implement an event-driven networking app using server-side JS. If you can get over the 'Nam-style flashbacks to old skool javascript hacks for IE5.0 Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Cool/useful short examples of Perl?
On 30 May 2011 11:40, Leo Lapworth l...@cuckoo.org wrote: Hi, I'm working on http://learn.perl.org/ and I'd like to have a few rotating example of what can be done with Perl on the home page. Here's an idiot simple code colorizer for logs / diffs that I use quite a lot http://blogs.perl.org/users/peter_edwards/2010/08/colorized-perl-code-snippets-on-ansi-terminals.html Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Part-time Perl Developer Position based Reading, UK
On 27 May 2011 12:11, David Cantrell da...@cantrell.org.uk wrote: OMG! I'D NEVER HEARD OF IRC AND HAD NO IDEA WHAT IT COULD DO!!! LOL. Here's an article for you Dave. You should have been born a German and then all your colleagues would avoid phatic communication. According to a journalist, so it must be true: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13545386 -Peter
Re: Part-time Perl Developer Position based Reading, UK
I worked from home for 5 years when my kids were younger so I could be there for them after school and so on and that turned out quite well. (Now they're grown up I enjoy going in to an office again.) BT did a study some years ago of teleworking and assessed it as an appropriate option for highly skilled workers who can use technology to enable their collaboration and whose work can be measured by deliverables rather than on a sitting at their desk basis. To get a gig like that you must have some worth to a business - industry knowledge, domain knowledge, contacts - and some personal attributes - organised, flexible attitude - to make it work. You need something to differentiate yourself from some cheaper guy abroad. What do I mean? Well I was designing and rolling out systems for recruitment companies and the ideal time to do releases was 7 p.m. so a teleworker doing it remotely was ideal, particularly when said customers are all over the UK. Also I would go and help with technical sales. Having someone halfway up the country who doesn't mind travelling to Manchester, Leicester, London, wherever, on a regular basis is valuable. I'd also pop into the office once a week even if there was no need in order to keep up contacts with the staff. The easiest way into it is to already work for the client and negotiate flexible working when you've proved your worth. BTW don't diss the puerile coffee banter too much. Many employers regard Perl programmers as misanthropic weirdos with no social skills. That might be okay if you're just gonna sit there typing code but if you have to talk to customers to figure out their requirements and keep them happy then be careful. I took one guy on-site and the customer told me never to bring him back, saying What kind of crazy guy is that? I never want to speak with him again.. YMMV but you're trying to sell yourself and your skills and the more options you close off the less potential work you can get. Regards, Peter
Re: Part-time Perl Developer Position based Reading, UK
Let's assume that you and I work together. You like working at home, I prefer to work at work. Now, one day we need to discuss something. How do we do that? What I used to do was schedule 2-3 days a week in for meetings if that was necessary at points of a project lifecycle. A properly run meeting takes time to prepare an agenda and write minutes and carry out follow-up tasks so if you're spending more than 2d a week on them they are probably not productive. Unless you're meaning pair programming and the like. Mostly a day a week was enough. Those collaboration tools only work if they work well for all the participants. Well the ops manager lived in the South of France and the colleague I programmed most closely with lived in Paris. Another colleague lived up in Sleaford. We used Skype, occasional meetings, collaborative drafts of specs. Seemed to work okay. In fact although I'm on site here every day still most of the discussion work I've done has been on MS messenger with rarer white board workouts. To get a gig like that you must have some worth to a business - industry knowledge, domain knowledge, contacts - and some personal attributes - organised, flexible attitude - to make it work. You need something to differentiate yourself from some cheaper guy abroad. Are you saying that people who can't - or won't - persuade manglement that they should work at home are somehow lacking in those requirements? My point was really that a UK person will be more expensive to employ as a teleworker than a East European or Indian teleworker so you need to offer something - such as on-site availability - to justify the cost. A pal of mine running a suits company in London got Vietnamese programmers to write his company shop for that reason. If you're somewhere where management won't play and you want to telework then you have to move elsewhere. Which is what I did originally to get to an employer with a more tolerant attitude. The alternative approach of hack-on-open-source-projects and get-yourself-known then telework-all-night-sleep-all-day is also possible provided you're enough of a smart-arse to justify your rate. TEH FOOOTBAWL or about what was on the idiot-box last night or what AWESUM SPORTS CAR you don't know a damned thing about but really want - none of that has any bearing on being able to talk sense to a client. All oil on the social wheels. Most humans are social animals and get on and work better with people who make some effort along those lines, however insincere or pointless. One of the evils of recruitment software is finding out the sales guys record people's favourite footy teams / interests as well as partner name/kids names and birthday so they can trot them out on the phone / in person as if they a) remembered; b) gave a shit, in order to maintain a relationship as a basis for doing business. I suppose you *could* proceed without any social niceties (see earlier customer quote). Cheers, Peter
Re: ActiveMQ (was Re: Devel::Cover with Moose?)
By the way.. how are you finding ActiveMQ, especially when interacting with it from Perl? I'm using it from Net::Stomp which had issues but now (version 0.40 on) works fine for us. Historically, ActiveMQ had problems with memory leaks though 5.3 works fine for us. It is also the standard queue platform used more widely within the BBC. One thing to watch out for is if you use non-persistent queues and don't consume the messages eventually the server runs out of memory and at that point (rather bizarrely IMO) still accepts TCP/IP connections but blocks responding to requests. You do see messages in its log, though. IIRC some people have had problems with high volume sites when the message packet is over 2K and occasionally frames get dropped (so use a smaller payload). We're using it in a fairly simplistic way, I write to a queue to notify publishing events (start and finish) and we also wrote a node.js http://nodejs.org/ pub-sub hub which picks those up using https://github.com/benjaminws/stomp-js and re-broadcasts by cometd to web clients (in addition to handling other client-server notifications and messaging). Seems to work okay. The JS code with node turned out to be straightforward and easier to implement a FSA than say writing a Perl POE server. Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: ActiveMQ (was Re: Devel::Cover with Moose?)
Actually we are running ActiveMQ 5.4.0 in production although latest is 5.4.2 on that branch and 5.5.0 is now also available. http://activemq.apache.org/ https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/ReleaseNote.jspa?projectId=12311210version=12315623 Yet more Java leaking memory bugfixes by the look of it :-) -Peter
Re: Devel::Cover with Moose?
On 23 May 2011 09:27, Toby Corkindale t...@dryft.net wrote: Is anyone else using Devel::Cover with Moose, much? I seem to get megabytes of warnings displayed even on trivial modules. It's trying to create MD5 digests of files containing the materialised functions created by __PACKAGE__-meta-make_immutable. Similar behaviour with NYTProf [edwarp11@wsfmas26 dev]$ perl -d:NYTProf t.pl [edwarp11@wsfmas26 dev]$ nytprofhtml Reading nytprof.out Processing nytprof.out data Writing sub reports to nytprof directory 81% ... Unable to open '/home/edwarp11/dev/generated method (unknown origin)' for reading: No such file or directory. 99% ... Unable to open '/home/edwarp11/dev/accessor foo defined at T.pm' for reading: No such file or directory. A bit of Googling turns up a comment July 2009 from Tim Bunce http://blog.woobling.org/2009/07/optimizing-mooses-startup.html then http://code.google.com/p/perl-devel-nytprof/source/browse/trunk/t/71-moose.t?spec=svn1374r=1374 r1374http://code.google.com/p/perl-devel-nytprof/source/detail?spec=svn1374r=1374 by tim.bunce on Sep 30, 2010 Diffhttp://code.google.com/p/perl-devel-nytprof/source/diff?spec=svn1374r=1374format=sidepath=/trunk/t/71-moose.told_path=/trunk/t/71-moose.told= Add preliminary (incomplete) test files for #line handling and Moose. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has these tools playing together well. There's not much Moose in the production code here and what we have was added after our last round of NYTProf'ing so I haven't looked in detail at the reports it produces yet. Back to fighting with ActiveMQ. Feh. Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Devel::Cover with Moose?
After upgrading to latest NYTProf 4.06 I get fewer warnings 82% ... Source for Moose generated method (unknown origin) isn't available (/home/edwarp11/dev/generated method (unknown origin): No such file or directory) Then when I upgrade to latest Moose 2.0007 I get $ perl -d:NYTProf t.pl Couldn't load class (MooseX::StrictConstructor::Trait::Class) because: Undefined subroutine namespace::autoclean::on_scope_end called at /home/edwarp11/perl_local1/lib/perl5/namespace/autoclean.pm line 57. Upgraded namespace::autoclean from 0.11 to 0.12 and $ perl -d:NYTProf.pl runs cleanly but when I run nytprofhtml I get 0% ... Eval::Closure::__ANON__[(eval 113)[/home/edwarp11/perl_local1/lib/perl5/Eval/Closure.pm:124]:26] has no caller subnames but a call count of 2 about 100 times [edwarp11@wsfmas26 dev]$ perl -d:NYTProf t.pl [edwarp11@wsfmas26 dev]$ nytprofhtml Reading nytprof.out Processing nytprof.out data Writing sub reports to nytprof directory 81% ... Unable to open '/home/edwarp11/dev/generated method (unknown origin)' for reading: No such file or directory. 99% ... Unable to open '/home/edwarp11/dev/accessor foo defined at T.pm' for reading: No such file or directory.
Re: Best practice for unit tests that rely on internet access?
On 4 May 2011 12:24, David Cantrell da...@cantrell.org.uk wrote:
On Tue, May 03, 2011 at 10:39:17PM +0100, Alexander Clouter wrote:
David Cantrell da...@cantrell.org.uk wrote:
You could always check whether outbound HTTP is allowed by connecting
to
somewhere entirely different. Try penthouse or thepiratebay -
Argh. Something tells me that will do down badly!
Often you can put the connectivity tests in the developer tests in the xt/
directory and then they don't need to be run at install time.
Another approach is to wrap the tests that might hang in a block with a
timeout
my @tests = glob *.t;
my $harness = TAP::Harness-new(
{color=$nocolor?0:1,verbosity=$verbose} );
timeout( $TIMEOUT, sub {$harness-runtests(@tests)} );
sub timeout {
my ($secs, $code) = @_;
$SIG{ALRM} = sub { die timeout after $secs sec(s) };
eval {
alarm $secs;
eval {
{$code};
};
alarm 0;
warn $@ if $@;
};
alarm 0;
delete $SIG{ALRM};
}
Regards, Peter
http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Someone needs to take jwz aside...
On 20 April 2011 11:13, Jesse Vincent je...@fsck.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 09:40:57AM +0100, Dave Hodgkinson wrote: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/04/a-badge-for-the-software-industrys-failures/ Or does he have a point? He has a point. Gosh that's timely: my talk last week at http://miltonkeynes.pm.org/ Adding OAuth to the BBC World Service Twitter Feeder (Peter Edwards) http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk/twitter_oauth/ I think the answer (I cannot be bothered to reply on that blog) is to use Net::Twitter::Lite or roll your own like I did there. I had problems installing deps on some antique POS server combined with bureaucracy putting me off building my own perl. And to be honest, why would I wade through bureaucratic permission-gaining exercises when 30 lines of code did the job. You'll also note that on a stock company install of Redhat 5.5 last week the Moosified version failed to install without my upgrading lwp manually. Go ahead and write CPAN modules requiring perl 5.12 and up to date Moose then watch organisations throw Perl out the window and replace it with Java. Like I'm seeing right now because they end up stuck requiring particular versions of libraries to work and rolling upgrades are not company policy or are politically inexpedient. You can get away that if you're running it on your Macbook or in a small central team, good luck on a large corporate platform. -Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Someone needs to take jwz aside...
On 20 April 2011 20:51, Abigail abig...@abigail.be wrote: I've been trying to tell people for many, many years that this is a good way to deliver applications, but Perl programmers seem to be stuck in the 60s; and the mere thought of having two copies of a text file takes too much costly diskspace. I replied to someone on dbix-class list this week how to install multiple perl/libs/libarry trees including system libraries (i.e. C, C++) and be able to build new servers easily http://lists.scsys.co.uk/pipermail/dbix-class/2011-April/009891.html And of course Piers Cawley has done some great work at the BBC on automating This Sort Of Thing. Credits also to Steve Mynott who proved g4l works great for bulk imaging of Linux distro configs for new machines when he built a new cluster of app and database servers for our department recently. Thinking about it I didn't mention pkgsrc for system libraries. It's pretty good although it can whack you in the back of the head as a colleague found out when building our dev machine subversion and then suddenly the client-side developers started getting shareable library errors :-} Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Someone needs to take jwz aside...
On 20 April 2011 22:53, Walt Mankowski walt...@pobox.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 09:40:57AM +0100, Dave Hodgkinson wrote: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/04/a-badge-for-the-software-industrys-failures/ Or does he have a point? He's embarrassed that didn't think to run apt-get install libnet-twitter-perl? Fails on Redhat Linux, need to run yum. What if he needs a newer version of the library and the upstream package provider hasn't bundled it yet? Imagine you're supporting a 3 year old code base that needs specific versions of DBIx::Class, Catalyst, Moose and Class::MOP to make it run, and when you do a upgrade via yum or apt-get or cpan random things break in your regression tests and you don't have the budget to go fix all of them. (No, that's not where I work now but it is a real world situation.) -Peter
YAPC::EU 2011 Riga, Latvia registration
A reminder that there are 5 days left for the early bird price on YAPC::EU 2011 which is in Riga, Latvia August 15th-17th and that now would be a good time to start thinking about booking travel and accommodation. http://yapceurope.lv/ye2011/ I'm looking forward to attending Jonathan Worthington's course on OO programming with Perl 6 on the Thursday http://yapceurope.lv/ye2011/talk/3283 If you make a good living as a result of Perl, why not consider helping a newbie attend: http://www.send-a-newbie.enlightenedperl.org/ Cheers, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Perl on a smartphone?
gvim == gvim gvi...@gmail.com writes: gvim Anyone running Perl on a smartphone? Android must be close by now gvim but I haven't ventured into this market yet. Would like bash 4 gvim too. Make that Perl + bash + vim and I'm happy to pay. Check out http://www.slideshare.net/xSawyer/when-perl http://www.slideshare.net/xSawyer/when-perlSL4A is what you want http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ It supports Lua http://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:Lua, BeanShell http://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:BeanShell, Pythonhttp://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:Python , Perl http://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:Perl, JRubyhttp://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:JRuby , Tcl http://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:Tcl, JavaScripthttp://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:JavaScript , Ruby http://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:Ruby, Shellhttp://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:Shell . http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ Works well and you can knock up apps easily in Perl. It runs through an HTTP request-response model to get around Android's security. (i.e. don't write commercial software with this.) If you're serious about Smartphone apps, look at Titanium Appcelerator or PhoneGap. My team has had success for an iPhone/Android crossover app written in HTML + JavaScript using the latter. Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Perl on a smartphone?
gvim too. Make that Perl + bash + vim and I'm happy to pay. P.s. bash and vim? You can install sshd/dropbear on Android http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=442754 and ssh in, keep in mind the Linux there is minimal. I guess you'd want to edit locally on your dev computer and use adb to push files to the Android handset http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/adb.html Regards, Peter
Re: SystemTap hooks in Perl
On 8 March 2011 14:01, Steve Mynott st...@gruntling.com wrote: On Tue, Mar 08, 2011 at 04:23:04PM +1100, Toby Wintermute typed: I've been playing around with Perl's SystemTap integration (in core since 5.12.0), but I've been struggling to find any documentation on it. Maybe this is of some interest? https://dgl.cx/2011/01/dtrace-and-perl Anyone got recommendations for best practices for using perlbrew and local::lib? Used together they don't play nicely with the Cwd.so in my developer sandbox local::lib which is compiled for 5.8.8. I guess I'd need a separate local lib for each perl version and have perlbrew switch the env vars for those at the same time it fiddles with the perl interpreter settings or symlinks? Regards, Peter
Re: SystemTap hooks in Perl
On 8 March 2011 20:18, James Laver london...@jameslaver.com wrote: On Tue, Mar 08, 2011 at 05:45:46PM +, Peter Edwards wrote: Anyone got recommendations for best practices for using perlbrew and local::lib? Used together they don't play nicely with the Cwd.so in my developer sandbox local::lib which is compiled for 5.8.8. I guess I'd need a separate local lib for each perl version and have perlbrew switch the env vars for those at the same time it fiddles with the perl interpreter settings or symlinks? Which is why perlbrew essentially does this automatically. You have a library hierarchy for each perl version, so just cut local::lib out of the equation and use that. Alternatively, you could just write a wrapper script to switch it and that would not only switch it in perlbrew but also change the environment variables for local::lib. Ah thanks James. Since we use multiple local libs for different apps then I can't use the perl version-specific library so I think I'll have to go for your suggestion of a wrapper script for switching. I thought I'd check before writing such a beastie or looking at a patch in case other users of perlbrew had come across a similar problem, which if you're using a heterogenous environment with multiple apps is very likely. Regards, Peter
Re: iPhone Barcode Readers
On 1 March 2011 10:34, Dominic Thoreau domi...@thoreau-online.net wrote: On 1 March 2011 09:49, Dave Cross d...@dave.org.uk wrote: Need some advice on iPhone Barcode reading apps - so I turn to london.pm, my favourite group of iGeeks. On a side note - I've got a moderate library, of books, DVDs and CDs, and feel the need for some library management, not least so I can tell where individual items actually are. http://www.delicious-monster.com/ - as long as you use a Mac I think they did an iPhone app but Apple blocked it :( Do it in 6 lines of Python using an Android phone? http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/android-barcode-scanner/ You can pick up a second-hand Hero for £60. Cheers, Peter
Re: Jobs in London
In here I aspect to find some contacts of enterprises with good programmers, A new board I found recently which seems quite straight up is http://www.coderstack.co.uk/perl-jobs http://www.coderstack.co.uk/perl-jobs Cheers, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Jobs in London
Mid range 32,000 - 40,000. Senior 40,000 - 55,000. Dev manager 55,000 - 70,000. More for banking jobs On 26 Feb 2011 20:05, marcos rebelo ole...@gmail.com wrote: My problem is to know how to answer to the question: How much money do you expect to receive? If I say a value to low, I will be leaving the enterprise in short time since someone will offer me more. If I say a value to high, I will lose the position. I would like to know a +- fare amount. Best Regards Marcos Rebelo On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 19:50, Dominic Thoreau domi...@thoreau-online.net wrote: On 26 February 2011 18:29, marcos rebelo ole...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all I have already seen Monster. In here I aspect to find some contacts of enterprises with good programmers, I'm curious to know the rates in London: How much can I aspect to win a year? I found that the taxes are 40%, but I didn't understood how much shall I pay for the Social Security. If you want to calculate actual take home pay from Gross Salary, the best site I've found is http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/ Dominic -- Nonnullus unus commodo reddo is mihi. ABC*D1EFGHIJK2.LMNO3*4PQRST*ITUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-BULLSHEIT-EMAIL*U.56X -- Marcos Rebelo http://www.oleber.com/ Milan Perl Mongers leader https://sites.google.com/site/milanperlmongers/ Webmaster of http://perl5notebook.oleber.com
Re: Recommendation for simple Web Frameworks
Matt == Matt Sergeant mserge...@messagelabs.com writes: Matt But the dependencies list *is* much larger for Catalyst. Indeed. I'm in a corporate environment where installing 70+ up to date CPAN modules is a non-trivial requirement. I needed to update our Twitter feeder recently and had to bail on the CPAN Moose OAuth Twitter for a simpler one purely for that reason. It's not always practicable even if we like Moose with deps (which most of us do). Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Recommendation for simple Web Frameworks
On 10 January 2011 22:59, Denny 2...@denny.me wrote: On Mon, 2011-01-10 at 22:00 +, John Imison wrote: Out of interest, does anyone use CGI::Application? What are the general thoughts on that? It's called Titanium now isn't it? Seemed nice and simple when I last used it. I'm working with CGI::App on a CMS that delivers a huge number of stories and audio-visual items internationally. It works, it's reliable and it's simple. CGI::App's been around a long time. That means other programmers have done your testing for you. These are all good things. It's always possible to rewrite something to the latest, coolest tech, but that doesn't mean it will work reliably, be cost-effective or can be grokked by your average programmer. There's a correlation there with whether your Ops department will allow you to install it :-| Regards, Peter
Re: [ANNOUNCE] LPW2010: Newsletter #8: Thoughts for the Day
Hi Leo/whomever, the London.pm Google calendar is still showing the old address. Could you update it please? Ta, Peter On 1 December 2010 12:04, Mark Keating m.keat...@shadowcat.co.uk wrote: In this Newsletter: 1. The New Venue In case it has skipped your notice, or if you haven't yet been informed the venue for the conference on Saturday has been moved from the Universities Cavendish Campus to the Marylebone Campus: University of Westminster Marylebone Campus 35 Marylebone Road London NW1 5LS If you could make sure that this information is spread as broadly as possible so that we have no lost speakers/attendees on Saturday I would be most grateful.
Re: Best practice for variables shared between processes?
On 20 September 2010 17:30, Roger Burton West ro...@firedrake.org wrote: I wish to have two processes, a producer (which will create files) and a consumer (which will do something with them), running simultaneously. Ideally the producer would push filenames to a list as it finishes producing them, while the consumer would shift them off the same list (or loop-wait, if the list is empty). What is the accepted best practice for achieving this effect in modern idiomatic Perl? Use a queue? http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?TheSchwartz or for larger scale ApacheMQ | RabbitMQ | Beanstalkd Regards, Peter
Re: Best practice for variables shared between processes?
And I spotted this tonight http://octobot.taco.cat/ Supports AMQP/RabbitMQ, Beanstalk, and Redis PubSub. Others easily addable On Sep 20, 2010 6:51 PM, Mark Fowler m...@twoshortplanks.com wrote: On 20 Sep 2010, at 17:30, Roger Burton West ro...@firedrake.org wrote: I wish to have two process... You could use threads instead of processes and use a shared variable. Of course, this would prevent you from starting and stopping the processes independently and would complicate safely restarting the process(es) as you'd have to somehow either wait for the queue to empty or serialise it (and woe be unto you if one or the other threads errors out). I guess it depends entirely on how 'repeatable' your jobs are and if you can re-run them on failure. What is the accepted best practice for achieving this effect in modern idiomatic Perl? All the cool kids are playing with redis these days (a nosql thingy that does particularly well with queuing amongst other things) if you can stomach an extra process. The more tried and tested (if slower, and requiring a handy mysql server) solution has already been mentioned: theschwartz. This is king of the Perl 'reliable' home-baked queue solutions that can survive happily with a server restart and/or jobs crashing out etc and won't lose things without retrying them a configurable number of times, etc. A more lightweight solution that tends towards more realtime stuff would be Gearman. This isn't nearly as reliable (i.e. it does handing off jobs rather than a centralised persisted queue) but might be more suited to what you're doing. YYMV depending on the nature of what you're doing and there isn't one one size fits all solution.
Re: Running your own mini-cpan or other repos
On 2 September 2010 12:42, Ashley Hindmarsh a...@best-scarper.co.uk wrote: We've currently got some vague requirement for a 'snapshot' for CPAN (not the standard minicpan) to help us reproduce builds at a given time, getting the 'current' version of a module at the time it was originally built, probably in the short-term, rather than keeping a separate repository. This is for applications built using shipwright where we bind the app and supporting modules together with local::lib. I've previously used a similar model to Leo (archived module tarballs, but built without CPAN), with good results. Ash Can't you build your local::lib tree and then use cpan autobundle to generate a file with a complete set of versions and install from that later if you need to reproduce your bundle? Regards, Peter
Re: Graphical data representation plugins
On 2 September 2010 12:37, Kristian Flint kristian.fl...@tamar.com wrote: I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations, experience or comments around graphically representing data in a browser? http://www.highcharts.com with jquery is good for stats reporting. Regards, Peter
Re: Need a CRUD thing
http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?Catalyst::Plugin::AutoCRUD Originated from a beastie we wrote to do Cat + extjs for recruitment software using web browsers, CatalystX::ListFramework Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk On Aug 25, 2010 2:34 PM, David Cantrell da...@cantrell.org.uk wrote: Dear interwebs, please point me at a Thingy which will allow me to point a tiny script at a database and have it do CRUDdy web stuff. I really can't be arsed with dicking about with appeasing DBIx::Class and Catalyst by hand. Bonus points if it works with SQLite. Brickbats if it requires mod_perl or similar or Java. -- David Cantrell | Enforcer, South London Linguistic Massive Did you know that shotguns taste like candy canes? Put the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger for an extra blast of minty goodness!
Re: learning / training in java perl programmer?
On 31 July 2010 19:32, Aaron Trevena aaron.trev...@gmail.com wrote: That's about it, I was thinking I can bootstrap myself through the SCJP, and then invest serious time and money on the SCJD, possibly as part pof a new job (which is why I'm learning Java - lots of jobs using both or asking for at least 2 languages) There are lots of mixed language environments now, using the best tool/product for the job in different areas and talking HTTP between them. We're using Perl backend, Java under Jetty for cometd messaging, a Java servlet under Tomcat for Saxon XSLT, plenty of Javascript with Dojo in the UI. We've also used services in Python on AppEngine. In that situation you need capable programmers who are flexible enough to pick up different toolsets, languages and libraries and make them work together. Perl rates seem to have picked up a bit over the Summer though I reckon you still get more as a contractor for Java than Perl http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/scjd.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/java.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/perl.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/scjd.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/java.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/perl.do Java can be fairly frustrating compared to how easy it is to do stuff in Perl. You picks your choice and takes yer money. Cheers, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Programming language job stats
I was just looking at trends over the past year: http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/java.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/java.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/perl.do http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/contracts/uk/perl.doInteresting graphs comparing day rates and number of jobs in each. Regards, Peter
Re: London Perl Mongers Social Meeting Thursday 6th May at the Gunmakers
On election night? I will be at teh count as I'm a candidate. Maybe next month :- On May 5, 2010 9:24 PM, Léon Brocard a...@astray.com wrote: On 30 April 2010 16:45, Léon Brocard a...@astray.com wrote: London Perl Mongers organises social... This is tomorrow! See you there, Leon We're going back to the Gunmakers this Thursday (6th May), where the lovely landlord Jeff alway...
Re: Cheap places in central London?
Check out http://laterooms.com you can get some pretty good deals there I usually use them to book http://www.waverleyhousehotel.com/ near work for around £60-70 per night mid week incl. full English breakfast That's not bad. I can't get it as cheap if I use that hotel chain's own booking site. The further up towards Kings Cross you go the cheaper (and less savoury). If you pay more you can get better, of course. I can dig out recommendations for more pricey places if you wish. Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk On 3 May 2010 20:09, Ovid curtis_ovid_...@yahoo.com wrote: Beer. Now that the formalities are out of the way, my apologies for a completely off-topic email. I've some friends from the US who are struggling to find affordable accommodation in central London for my upcoming June wedding. Any suggestions? Cheers, Ovid -- Buy the book - http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlhks/ Tech blog- http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/ Twitter - http://twitter.com/OvidPerl Official Perl 6 Wiki - http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl6
Re: Lovefilm, yes or no?
On 16 April 2010 13:20, Victoria Conlan vi...@comps.org wrote: I don't know about anyone else here, but the only reason I would ever ask that question would be to turn down anyone who claimed to know more than 3. I'd make that 5 (since it's what's taught at school here) but yeah, I was thinking the same thing :) Thank you, you made me feel a lot better about myself. :-D For reference: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comicsid=1777#comic As it is Friday, and hence pie day (The Coal Hole, The Strand): http://www.pi-world-ranking-list.com/ Cheers, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: Lovefilm, yes or no?
On 14 April 2010 13:19, ian londonperlmong...@iandocherty.com wrote: There might be less comments to this thread if the people who have *not* been tested and rejected leave a comment. However, as a matter of interest, the test I took was the 'pelmanism' game (turning over cards to find a match). Has anyone been given a different test? I know a couple of people not on this list, one who joined in the last 6 months and seems happy enough there, another who interviewed for a perm job a couple of weeks ago and didn't get it. You takes your pick... Funniest interview question I heard of recently (not Lovefilm) was: What's two to the power 14 As in, work out the answer there and then, not type in perl -e 'print 2**14, \n' as eny fule kno Cheers, Peter
Re: Lovefilm, yes or no?
On 14 April 2010 16:06, Simon Cozens si...@simon-cozens.org wrote: I guess I should be the first to point out that, not only are there people from Lovefilm reading this list, there are people from the BBC reading it too. Not many people have access to the proxy logs to look up Purple Bunny's X-Originating-IP, and anyway isn't having your employees push off for a more tempting job all part and parcel of working life? Cheers, Peter
Re: Lovefilm, yes or no?
I'm not sure if that interview question thread proves you are all deranged nutters, maths geniuses or scarily good programmers. Probably a bit of each. Jeez, where has my PHP For Beginners book gone, it's not too late for a career in a meejabollix agency. Cheers, Peter On Apr 14, 2010 10:53 PM, Ruud H.G. van Tol rv...@isolution.nl wrote: ian wrote: I was once asked at an interview 'how many digits of PI do you know?'. If phrased like that, I would ask Decimal? and then answer ten, 0..9. -- Ruud
Re: Directions for Tonight
To add to what Andy said: http://maps.google.co.uk/places/gb/london/wood-ln/201/-bbc-media-village?hl=en Tube to White City. Come straight out and cross road. Turn right. Cross road. Follow path into Media Village passing White City building on right and Media Centre on left (ground floor Tescos, Daveys bar etc.). Continue to end which is the Broadcast Centre. On the right on the wall above you should be Olympic 1956 plaque. Enter Broadcast Centre building in front of you and head to reception desk. Register, get your name ticked off the list and receive a badge. BBC staff volunteers will escort groups up to the meeting room which is BC4 C4 M4. Regards, Peter On 18 March 2010 15:33, Smylers smyl...@stripey.com wrote: Hi there. Broadcast Centre looks like quite a big place. Is the entrance that we need tonight obvious? And do we need a room or floor number or anything to navigate inside? Thanks. Smylers -- Watch fiendish TV quiz 'Only Connect' (some questions by me) Mondays at 20:30 on BBC4, or iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lskhg
Re: Directions for Tonight
Indeed you are right http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/22681357/ On 18 March 2010 16:09, Dave Cross d...@dave.org.uk wrote: On 03/18/2010 03:57 PM, Peter Edwards wrote: On the right on the wall above you should be Olympic 1956 plaque. Could have sworn it was 1908. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_White_City Dave...
Re: Parking At BBC White City
Good point, a yellow line nearby may be possible, if insecure. The traffic is terrible though. I used to sit at work and watch the poor suckers queueing on the A40... On Mar 17, 2010 4:22 AM, Dave Hodgkinson daveh...@gmail.com wrote: Surely at that time of night, there's an abundance of single yellows to park on? On 17 Mar 2010, at 07:43, Andy Armstrong wrote: On 16 Mar 2010, at 18:42, Paul wrote: For Thu... -- Dave HodgkinsonMSN: daveh...@hotmail.com Site: http://www.davehodgkinson.com UK: +44 7768 490620 Blog: http://www.davehodgkinson.com/blog Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davehodg
Re: Parking At BBC White City
You need a permit to park in TVC carpark. Tbh you're much better off getting tube to white city (central) or wood lane (hc) or a bus or taxi unless you have mobility problems in which case let us know off-list and we'll help. Regards, Peter On Mar 16, 2010 6:48 PM, Paul londonpm90...@rainslide.net wrote: For Thursday's meet, how is parking there? -- .
Re: [Fwd: Betonmarkets CTO position]
I do hope anyone considering the online gambling gig has read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Carruthers#Arrest_during_US_transit_flight Welcome to the Land of the Free. Unless you provide on-line gambling to US Netizens :-] Regards, Peter http://perl.dragonstaff.co.uk
Re: TT and UTF8?
On 29 January 2010 19:20, Dave Cross d...@dave.org.uk wrote: On 01/29/2010 07:07 PM, Dave Cross wrote: Templates that contain UTF-9 These Template are one more encoded! /me waits for inevitable UTF-11 gag. Oh! Too late.
Re: Recommended hotels or crash place for LPW 2009?
£48 ppn for a tiny room in Chalotte Street London Regents Park, London, W1T4RD, furnished, includes wifi. Not too bad for a hacker on a budget. and a Blues Bar down the road :-]
Re: Twitter modules
Net::Twitter::Lite works fine. We're using it to send out Arabic breaking news alerts. To change the program agent string shown on Twitter you have to use the new API and that requires Net::Twitter which is more complex but does have a lot more features. Regards, Peter On Nov 10, 2009 2:48 PM, Andrew Black andrew-per...@mail.black1.org.uk wrote: I would like to be able to make twitter updates from either Perl program or from shell. CPAN has a very large number of modules with Twitter in their subject. From a cursorly glance Net::Twitter::Lite or Net::Twitter look plausabl. Does anyone have an experience that would suggest I look elsewhere. Cheers
