Dim sum today
For those of you that aren't plugged into IRC, I and possibly others will be going to the New World for dim sum this lunchtime (1pm). If you're likely to come please drop me a line (or pop up on IRC and privmsg me) so I can guess what size table to ask for. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: Rindolf again
mike <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, Mar 11, 2002 at 09:09:55PM +, Nicholas Clark wrote: >> On Mon, Mar 11, 2002 at 05:00:10PM +, Rob Partington wrote: >> > When did checking facts become unfashionable? :( >> >> When AOL starting providing Usenet access? > > AOL just started the perpetual September. There was plenty of > cluelessness on Usenet before AOL. Nope, September was already up and running by the time AOL came along. I can't now remember who the original offenders were; Delphi is springing to mind. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: Rindolf again
Sue Spence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >> mike <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> >> > On Mon, Mar 11, 2002 at 09:09:55PM +, Nicholas Clark wrote: >> >> On Mon, Mar 11, 2002 at 05:00:10PM +, Rob Partington wrote: >> >> > When did checking facts become unfashionable? :( >> >> >> >> When AOL starting providing Usenet access? >> > >> > AOL just started the perpetual September. There was plenty of >> > cluelessness on Usenet before AOL. >> >> Nope, September was already up and running by the time AOL came >> along. I can't now remember who the original offenders were; Delphi is >> springing to mind. >> > > I think the key word in his post was "perpetual". > > Crap history of usenet: > > Stage 1: Usenet is useful & fun and generally quiet. People check to see > if new articles have arrived (in any newsgroup) every few hours or so if > they become bored at work, and it is actually possible that there might > not be any. September is September. Most students who continue > participating generally become potty-trained by Christmas. Cluelessness > exists but in small amounts due to a small & highly-selective user base. > > Stage 2: The first public access BBSes offer 'net access to the public. > September comes in small waves as each BBS starts up. The FIDO/usenet > gateway makes a bigger splash (collision of two very distinct & strong > user bases), but eventually the shouting dies down. People tend to judge > other posters, at least on first encounter, by their Reply-To: address, > and public access is on the bottom of the pecking order. Cluelessness > index rises. Before this point, you had to be stable enough to stay in > school or be gainfully employed in order to get on the 'net. > > Stage 3: There is an explosion of hype as the media etc notice the new > www thing. AOHELL blankets the USA with diskettes and later CDs. > September is now continuous. Cluelessness is now rife along with spam > and everyone just gets used to it/works around it. The phrase 'September that never ended' was already in live use before AOL gave Usenet access. I can't now remember whether the Jargon File entry cites Prodigy or Delphi as the original offenders, but trust me on this, AOL were latecomers. I was there. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: Meeting report
Simon Wilcox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Paul mentioned on IRC that no-one has reported on the last social meeting. > I don't have a weblog so I'll post one to the list. > > As last month, Kate had booked us the back section of the cellar bar at > the Cittie of Yorke, a space supposedly capable of taking about 40, with > the front half reserved for another party. > > They didn't show up, which was a good thing as we had an excellent > turn-out and were able to spread out comfortably. Do we know if enough beer was consumed for similar numbers to justify booking the whole bar (if that makes sense). Because, tbh, there didn't seem to be many more folks there than at the average social meet, and having the bar *there* rather than downstairs was really good. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Dim sum! (was Re: food)
Alex McLintock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> >> >>Yesterday Leon Brocard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> >> > Late notice, but hey: >> > >> > Some of us are having dimsum today at the The New World, 1 Gerrard >> > Place London, W1. Come and eat with us and we won't talk about >> > pipelines. Sorry about the late notice. >> >>Dave Hodgkinson writes: >> > And it was cool and groovy. Remember: listen on #london.pm for rumours >> > of dim sum. > > Swearword!!! That's one of my favourite restaurants and I had spare > time yesterday too. > I'm up for DimSum almost anytime they are serving it. Since I have CFT > at the moment > taking a break should not be a problem. > (My GF works for Foyles in Computing dept and the New World is within > a short walk of it) > > I will need an email though to tell me about the DimSum since I > haven't IRC'ed regularly for ten years now. Okay, so, I'm toying with the idea of dim summing today. Alex? Anyone? Up for it? -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: addiction
"Newton, Philip" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Simon Wistow wrote: >> "addiction [...] makes you do stuff which you wouldn't normally >> do and not only that but you'll actually be ashamed of them >> *whilst* you're doing them so don't do it, ok". > > Is that so? I thought part of the point of "relaxed inhibitions" was > that your moral chooser takes a hike so that you don't actually care > about what you're doing and whether you'd normally be ashamed of it > or not. Been there, done that, while I was pouring money into fruit machines I was ashamed of what I was doing. As I was doing it. Addiction is really, really horrible. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Friday morning whimsy
So, I was daydreaming on the train this morning, when I came up with this idea which may, or may not amuse you all: http://use.perl.org/~pdcawley/journal/3717 -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Book review, 0th draft
Okay, here's the zeroth draft of a review. Comments, questions, spelling flames are all appreciated. =head1 NAME Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, by Kent Beck =head1 SYNOPSIS I is not just for Smalltalk programmers, it's the best book about Design Patterns I've ever read, and hopefully the model for more. =head1 DESCRIPTION Some time ago now I read I by Stewart Brand; a fine book, later made into a BBC TV series by some enlightened producer in the days before dumbing down. Brand had lots of interesting things to say about what he thought made good buildings good and bad buildings bad, and what we as users, owners and builders could do about it. In that book, Brand gave a great deal of weight to the work of an architect called Christopher Alexander, who had developed a new way of looking at what makes a good building good and who had come up with a set of tools (A Pattern Language) which could, he claimed be used to build good homes, workplaces, towns, cities, countries, planets. So, I toddled off to Amazon and picked up copies of I and I and read them, avidly. They were, and are, wonderful books, full of practical advice and thought provoking argument. In Alexander's view, a Pattern Language is neither use nor bloody ornament if you (a layman) can't I it to generate buildings that have 'the quality without a name' or 'life'. His Pattern Language is arranged hierarchically (well, sort of, its flattened for publication in book form; imagine how a heap data structure gets flattened into an array and you're almost there...), and the individual patterns refer/feed back and forth to their related 'super' and 'sub' patterns (think of Cohen and Stewart's 'complicity and simplexity' if you've read their work). The idea is that a user of a Pattern Language would start at a particular pattern appropriate to she wanted to build (say, a house for a family). That pattern refers back to a couple of larger patterns before explaining the problems that the pattern sets out to solve, discussing the trade offs that need to be made and then setting out a concrete set of recommendations to solve the problem. These recommendations usually refer forward to smaller patterns, which refer forward to further smaller patterns until you end up with straightforward advice like 'break your windows up into lots of small panes', 'build thick walls', or 'put bedrooms at the eastern end of the house'. By controlling the interplay of these patterns and taking account of local factors, the user can build a 'living' building. (Alexander also makes plain that this should be an ongoing process throughout the build of the house, constant feedback informing and mutating the design (sound familiar all you XP converts?)) The only catch is, as Richard P Gabriel points out in I, Alexander's pattern language failed to achieve its goals. In the hands of a great architect and builder, it could be (and has been) used to produce beautiful buildings, but in experiments where non architects used the language, they failed to produce buildings that had the 'life' Alexander was aiming for. Alexander is working on a 'patch' for this, and is expected to publish some new work in this area in the near future (and I have a gut feeling about what some of the changes are going to be, but no matter). A few years later, I came across the concept of the 'Design Pattern'; a conscious appropriation of Alexander's pattern language ideas by members of the Object Oriented Programming community. The canonical book on the subject being I by the Gang of Four, and a jolly good book it is too. So far as it goes. The problem I have with I is that it lacks the diversity of scale that one finds in Alexander's pattern language which runs from pattern 1. 'A World Government', through to 'build in low density concrete' (or some such pattern; I'm writing this on the train and I've lent my copy of I to someone else anyway). The patterns that are there are very good indeed, and they are well tied together, but there's an awful lot of gaps, especially at the 'small' end of the scale. Which is where Kent Beck's I steps up to the plate and hits an immediate home run. I is far and away the best book I have ever read on Design Patterns. Ignore the fact that it's dealing specifically with Smalltalk, read it for the I. Beck is specifically dealing with the 'tactics' of programming -- patterns in the small. His overarching concern is to help you write code that is easy to understand, maintain & extend. If you read nothing else, read the introduction in which the author sets out his priorities and then clearly explains why. If there's one word that sums up the patterns that follow it's clarity. Beck explains the problem straightforwardly, gives concrete examples and then offers a no nonsense solution. His patterns play well with each other, and the satisfying 'feedback' that is such a feature of Alexandrian patterns is evident here too. Beck is also very good on what I'll call 'ap
Re: RealNames RIP
Paul Makepeace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Sad stuff; RealNames who were the only name resolution system to deal > with non-ascii were effectively snuffed out by Microsoft a few days ago > when they decided not to renew RealNames's contract. Oh come on Paul. Whilst I hold no brief for Microsoft, the whole RealNames thing was a bloody stupid idea of enormous proportions from the very start, and it deserved to lose. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: Buffy S6E21-22
the hatter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Wed, 22 May 2002, David H. Adler wrote: > >> On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 07:02:24AM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: >> > * David H. Adler ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: >> > > On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 10:06:11PM -0400, Mike Jarvis wrote: >> > > > When do you guys get it? I won't spoil, I'll just say I have real hope >> > > > for next season. It could be really good. >> > > >> > > Or not. Lots of potential, but it really depends on where they go with >> > > it. It could still be fairly mediocre without too much trouble. >> > > >> > >> > I predict guest appearances, say Bradd Pitt, Tarantino and John >> > Cleese. Oh and Jeff Goldblum stretching his acting range that bit >> > further and playing a mad professor ;-) >> >> I suppose David Hemmings as a Hippie Gestapo Officer would be too much >> to hope for... :-) > > Or mulder and scully (or just scully) come to town to investigate the > mysterious goings on. I have the horrible feeling I've seen some slash fiction along those lines. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Emergency Dim Sum!
Kake needs steamed dumplings and fatty pork! So do I! Join us at the New World today, 1pm and help stave off the emergency. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: [jobs-admin@perl.org: [Perl Jobs] Perl Developer -Perl/mod_perl/ Template Toolkit/Linux/XML (onsite), United Kingdom,London]
Leon Brocard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > [Forwarded for anyone currently searching for a job who doesn't mind > dodgy hotmail accounts] > > Can anyone say "perfect job"? No. The rate's terrible. And I mean *really* terrible. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: [jobs-admin@perl.org: [Perl Jobs] Perl Developer -Perl/mod_perl/ Template Toolkit/Linux/XML (onsite), United Kingdom,London]
Paul Makepeace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, May 23, 2002 at 08:54:51PM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> Leon Brocard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> >> > [Forwarded for anyone currently searching for a job who doesn't mind >> > dodgy hotmail accounts] >> > >> > Can anyone say "perfect job"? >> >> No. The rate's terrible. And I mean *really* terrible. > > That's what I was thinking. They're paying bad salary rates but for a > contract-length period. Hell yes. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Ooh... Thursday dim sum...
Gill, my lovely wife, will be up in Nodnol tomorrow lunchtime, so we'll be doing the dim sum thing, New World, 1pm. Please come and join us, you know it makes sense. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: Ooh... Thursday dim sum...
Dave Hodgkinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > >> Gill, my lovely wife, will be up in Nodnol tomorrow lunchtime, so >> we'll be doing the dim sum thing, New World, 1pm. Please come and join >> us, you know it makes sense. > > In the Earls' Court area? ;-) Um. No. At the New World. Are you at the exhibition then? -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: [ANNOUNCE] Meetings in July
Kate L Pugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I wonder if the perfect pub actually does exist. There's a remarkably decent one in Chelmsford where Gill, I and a bunch of folkies spent a very happy Sunday afternoon. It's a tad out of the way though. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: the muppets
Mike Jarvis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 09:12:24PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: >> >> so what muppet (muppet show, new muppets, sesame street, etc.) do >> people on london.pm remind you of, heres my list >> >> (big smileys attached to all this, its meant to be gentle fun) >> >> Leon - Kermit - he chose it >> mstevens - Beaker - he chose it >> John Stowe - Animal - fairly obvious >> Paul / blech - Oscar the grouch- fairly obvious >> Myself - Fonzi >> Piers - Waldorf - heckling > > I think you mean Fozzie (the bear), not Fonzi (the greaser from Happy > Days). I have visions of Greg jumping a shark. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: [ANNOUNCE] Meetings in July
David Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Fri, Jun 21, 2002 at 09:30:38AM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> Kate L Pugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > I wonder if the perfect pub actually does exist. >> There's a remarkably decent one in Chelmsford where Gill, I and a >> bunch of folkies spent a very happy Sunday afternoon. It's a tad out >> of the way though. > > Not the Bakers Arms or the Orange Tree on Lower Anchor St? I'm not entirely sure I can remember. Might have been the Orange Tree. Real ale pub, always has a couple of milds on, big back room (where we gathered with a detached house in the North's worth of acoustic guitars, a few top notch singers and generally had a whale of a time.) -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: [ANNOUNCE] Meetings in July
Greg McCarroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > * [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: >> Kate L Pugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > I wonder if the perfect pub actually does exist. >> >> There's a remarkably decent one in Chelmsford where Gill, I and a >> bunch of folkies spent a very happy Sunday afternoon. It's a tad out >> of the way though. > > is that the place with the cheese souffle? if so it is indeed very > nice. there is also a perfect pub in edinburgh, scotland[1] but our > meetings are too large for it. Um. No. That was near Newark, which is in Nottinghamshire. As opposed to Chelmsford, which is in Essex. I know they're both outside zone 6, but really. -- Piers New quote coming soon.
Re: [ANNOUNCE] Meetings in July
David Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Fri, Jun 21, 2002 at 12:33:35PM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> David Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > Not the Bakers Arms or the Orange Tree on Lower Anchor St? >> I'm not entirely sure I can remember. Might have been the Orange >> Tree. Real ale pub, always has a couple of milds on, big back room > > Sounds like the Orange Tree. I used to live in the ground floor flat next > door. Coo. I lived in Chelmsford for about 5 years, 'til, um, 1997. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: [Off Topic] AD&D Books]
Dave Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I was doing some cleearing out yesterday and I came across a pile of > old AD&D manuals. Now the likelihood of me ever playing AD&D again is > very small so I'm sure there are people on this list that can give them > much better homes. I have: > > Player's Handbook (1st Edition 1978) > Dungeon Master's Guide (1979) If those are first printings then they may be vaguely valuable now. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: Dim sum on Thursday
Kate L Pugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Hello. It is my birthday today. I am having a week off work. So, we > should go for dim sum at the New World at 1pm on Thursday, and > consider making it a long lunch hour for those employed, and possibly > making an afternoon of it for those on short or long term CFT. Now that sounds like a plan to me. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: Dim sum on Thursday
Dave Hodgkinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > Kate L Pugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > > Hello. It is my birthday today. I am having a week off work. So, we > > > should go for dim sum at the New World at 1pm on Thursday, and > > > consider making it a long lunch hour for those employed, and possibly > > > making an afternoon of it for those on short or long term CFT. > > > > Now that sounds like a plan to me. > > You're employed! I can take a long lunch. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: Reminder: pubmeet tonight, Calthorpe Arms
Kate L Pugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Just a quick reminder that we will be gathering in the Calthorpe Arms > in Gray's Inn Road, tonightfromt 6pm. Checks map. Ooh... there's a half decent Japanese restaurant down the road from there (head south down GIR, past the ITN building, it's called Aki and it'll be on your left). -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: [PUB] Report on the Calthorpe Arms
Paul Mison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I'm minded to go here for the next social, on the 8th of August, > despite the beer festival going on, because I think more people will go > to a pub social than to a pay-to-get-in event. > > Speak now, or hold your peace. /me will definitely not be going to a beer festival. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: mysql autoincs
Michael Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 10:47:23AM +0100, Roger Burton West wrote: > > On or about Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 10:43:17AM +0100, Peter Haworth typed: > > >Surely you shouldn't rely on sequences being contiguous, anyway? Who cares > > >if your test eats up some values; their only purpose should be to ensure > > >uniqueness. > > Contiguity becomes important when you're doing things like generating > > invoice numbers. > > I've forgotten the precise details, but I remember doing at least > one system which assigned random but unique ids to everything. > I think these happened to be given to the client in some situation. > He was very unhappy and insisted we use 'proper' ids. If anyone's > going to see an id, it usually seems to work out better if it's an > integer that goes up by 1 every time an id is generated. Depends on the thing being IDed in question. If it's anything that might be sucsceptible to 'session stealing' type events, then having an id that is completely opaque is generally a good idea. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
Re: Weird splice
Andy Wardley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I'm trying to do the simplest thing with splice() but not seeing the > results I expect. It seems to go weird when I passed an array of > arguments rather than a direct list. > > my (@list, @result, @args); > > # first, the working example > @list = qw( a b c d e ); > @result = splice(@list, 3, 1); > > print "splice remains: @list\n"; # a, b, c, e > print "splice result: @result\n"; # d > > # now the not-so-working example > @list = qw( a b c d e ); > @args = (3, 1); > @result = splice(@list, @args); > > print "splice remains: @list\n"; # a, b > print "splice result: @result\n"; # c, d, e > > The summary: splice() seems to get confused if you call it as > splice(@list, @args). > > Am I missing something obvious? Splice is prototyped @$;$$@ if memory serves. The prototype pushes the second argument into a scalar context. So C becomes C, which becomes C, which is what you've got. Of course, in Perl 6, you'd just do: C, but we don't have that yet. -- Piers "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite." -- Jane Austen?
