Re: [Boston.pm] Perl community The Rising Costs of Aging Perlers
are behind the curve on marketing, so we can't simply say it's the same for all languages, it isn't, and the presentation for Perl particularly, almost consistently, reads like a text book) I think that may be part of the problem. I just watched a video lesson today on how to program the kinect which broke down the lessons to capturing images recognizing the skeleton responding to commands. It used C# for the api though it listed other languages that could be used. However, you didn't hear about programming theory or language internals. It was, to do this, you write this command. The majority of the population that has a great idea only wants to know how do I do x not what an array is. If they learn an array along the way, so be it. It's part of the solution. I'd guess this may be a starting point. That the language be presented as a method to solve a problem. Currently it's presentation is academic and guess what? That's where people are using it. We need tutorials and websites focused on how to build a login, how to build an add item page, how to save peoples information. They are looking for solutions to their business problems, and I'm going out on a limb, but I can't imagine Mary the Restauranteur who has an incredible idea on how to build a website for restaurants is going to ever include the words array, scalar, subroutines, or referencing in her search for how to do that. Yet, on the first page of how to use perl results, that's all I found. When Perl is viewed as a solution to someone's business problem or more particularly, their business idea , then they will hire Perl programmers to use that forward that solution. Right now, in the marketing sense, it's only a language, not a way to make $500,000 a month with this new website idea I came up with. If I were to wager a method to do this, I'd say take the word Perl out of the equation, just like the build with Kinect lesson did with C#. Don't sell the language, sell the solution. Don't teach them arrays, teach them how to build a login mechanism. Anyways, that felt like more of a rambling diatribe than anything, so I'll only partially apologize. :-) -John -- John Tsangaris -- |417-208-9013| - | Deputy Jasper County Sheriff's Office | | Member Infragard, Kansas City Chapter | | MemberFraternal Order of Police, Lodge 27 | | Junior Warden AFAM Fellowship Lodge #345 | | 32° Scottish Rite, Valley of Joplin | | Member Knights of St. Andrew | - ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
[Boston.pm] Net::Google::Calendar help
I have an issue with a number of events on a google calendar which are
two weeks off. The original events were entered manually from 02/07/11
to about 05/28/11 and frequent about 4 / week. I need to shift the
entire calendars events two weeks into the future.
Net::Google::Calendar appeared to do what I want (yes i know it's
alpha) and almost did. I have it getting a list of events and time
shifting them. Before I update my calendar with the new times though, I
need to get past a bug | user-ignorance. The class has very few but
simple to use methods, one of which, -get_events, returns only events
from 4/14/11 through 5/26/11. It's missing the first two months as well
as the last day's events. There is nothing else in this calendar as
it's specific to this project.
I've tinkered with options, etc, but am confident that the way I'm
using it should return what I want. It is not.
The docs uses this line (and so do I) for the example:
for ($cal-get_events) { }
This is only returning 25 of my ~65 events. I've even set that
max-results parameter to 1 just in case there was a 25 event default
limiter to no avail.
So...
Did I hit the alpha wall?
Am I screwing something up?
Is there another easy-to-use package out there that gives sweet sweet
access to google calendar?
Thanks!
John Tsangaris
--
|417-208-9013|
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| Software Engineer Aries Digital Technologies |
| Deputy Jasper County Sheriff's Office |
| President Faithful Aid Foundation |
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| 32° Scottish Rite, Valley of Joplin |
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Re: [Boston.pm] Recursion Problem
perhaps you forgot to turn on warnings? Ronald I'm a bad person. Thanks, Ronald et al! -John ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
[Boston.pm] Trying out CGI::Application
I'm in need of some upper level wisdom sharing. I've been playing around with CGI::Application and while I've made it do what I want it to, there seems to be some things missing (either from it's capabilities, or mine). So, I've searched the net for some good CGI::App examples of how the pros use it, but I'm met with the same simple examples over and over. These examples show that if you have a large program with 1000 different run modes, well.. you end up with 1000 line of mode1 = \mode1,. On top of that.. all examples show the mode1 as being coded inside your main package. Now, while I know that you can clean stuff up by moving the subs to various other modules which can be used in your main package, there doesn't seem to be an easy way of loading only the modules you need based on the run mode. The program assumes the run mode sub is available and runs it. This seems to be extremely unweildy for any large number of subs and run modes. I've looked for examples of a better way to use CGI::Application than the simple run_mode = \sub in the main package way but can't find any. In the past I used a super simple framework, not as full featured, but at least it had the capability to dynamically load parts of the program when needed, rather than the whole shebang. Am I missing something or does CGI::Application seem to fall short on the organizational level? Also, what is the standard (or several of the better ways) of using the run modes? For instance, to create a register function I have two choices, create a page template using one run mode to display and another to process it, or use the same run mode to display and process it determining which to do by watching which button was clicked (which seems to make the whole run mode idea pointless). But, while I run through my scratchpad of pieces to build, I find myself running the almost identical pattern for each fairly simple feature by writing: run mode to display, run mode to process, web template. After writing my third copy of that pattern I figured there must be a better way of handling requests for display / processing purposes in CGI::Application. Can anyone pop a kernel my way on how I can make better use of this package? I'm looking for more of an architectural-leveled answer, please. Thanks! John ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] why popularity matters
I've *never* been hired to do perl coding. I've been hired to write software to solve problems. I think that he didn't mean that literally, but more of a general statement of solving problems specifically using perl. :-/ Sneaking in perl code is unprofessional. All code you write should be subject to code review, and if your company's guidelines say thou shalt not use perl then you will fail the review. Even if your company doesn't do code reviews right now (and they should) that doesn't mean that they won't in the future. And when they do start, you'll be up shit creek for deploying stuff without appropriate authorisation and quality control. Again, you may be taking the statement a little too literally. Not to be offensive, but you seem to be taking a high horse stance on this. You just may be the first person I've met (virtually) that has never had to take an order from a business supervisor which trades doing it right for do it now. I guess I had the luxury, or the bank account, where I could tell me supervisor that I absolutely refuse to do what he is asking unless I get to do it the right way. I have a feeling my career at that employment would be short lived. Anyways, perhaps you are not taking the sneaking in of perl in the right context. I've snuck a linux server into my last employers network, because I could. It was a decision left to me, which went against what the company was moving to but not against company rules. And in fact, the server has been very popular. Also, I sneak perl in all the time. Any side half/un-official project or automation, I use perl. Even though it's not the company language anymore. I won't lose my job, nor will people send me up shit creek because I had the opportunity to use perl and I did. Perhaps you need to take a step back and realize that english is not a programming language, and you do not have to interperet every line literally. -John ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
RE: [Boston.pm] Bottom Up
Can someone remind me why Perl needs to be more popular? What actual problem will be solved? Are we running low on module developers? Running low on core developers? Is the existing code-base evaporating? Are there not enough t-shirt and book sales? How will we know when Perl is popular enough? Wouldn't it be easier to just trash the reputations of other languages? Should we have existing Perl users use Perl more often? I think your target audience is a little skewed from the original threads purpose. I don't recall anyone claiming that their are not enough programmers. I believe the problem was not enough unknowledgable, perl-accepting decision makers. It doesn't need to be more popular though. Nor does it need to be accepted by non-technical decision makers. These are not necessities. I just really liked programming in Perl for all those years, but since having a job means more to me than being able to choose which language I use in my job, I am now a C# programmer. This because perl was not popular enough to be supported by my non-technical and technical managers. I'm not complaining about learning a new language, I just really liked perl. It's almost like being laid off from a corporation because not enough customers wanted to purchase their product. So it is that I am no longer a perl programmer (defined by the language I use 50 hours a week as opposed to the language I use 5 hours a week on side projects). I am confident that, had perl more acceptance by those not in the know, the decision would have been made differently. And it's like they had to choose between the two languages as all of our legacy code is written in perl. Almost everything in-house is. It still did not prevent them from deciding that Perl was not supported enough to continue using it. How will we know when Perl is popular enough? Oooh.. this ones easy. When my boss comes to me and says use Perl for this next project. I wouldn't ask for more perl popularity than that. I hope I made the problem at hand more clear. -John ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] (also) Perl
Have any great advances been made with a perl gui which can be used on multiple platforms? I have to say, I just wrote my first ASP.NET application in C# over the last 3 weeks, and while I had many complaints on having to write several lines of code to accomplish what I could have in 1 line of perl, as well as shortcuts that I could have taken in perl which don't even seem to exist in C#, I must say that I actually enjoyed the WYSIWYG editor. If I could write standalone programs for windows in perl, and be able to share those programs with my non-perl collegues at work without over head of them having to install perl separately, would work wonders for general acceptance of the language. I understand that I can bundled perl itself as an executable. But the WYSIWYG IDE and easy to use executables just seem to make the language more palatable for knowledgeable, non-technical users. -John On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:18:54 -0500, Bogart Salzberg wrote: On Feb 25, 2005, at 6:08 PM, Alex Brelsfoard wrote: Ideas? How about an alliance with Apple? Ditch AppleScript and replace it with Perl, marry Perl to a GUI and turn Mac users into Perl-hacking sysadmins. Does anyone know of a good book on database theory? Really. Bogart ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] (also) Perl
Truly, I was simply looking for a way to advertise Perl as being something serious in today's technology. Guess it's back to the drawing board. I'm motivated to not let this die at the certification sucks stage, since perl popularity means more money in my pocket (and I'm assuming it is the same for most people on this list). I've recently been moved to C# which was a company decision. The decision makers chose this as they stated they have had a much easier time finding C# developers than Perl developers (their results have apparently come via responses to various local posting methods including perl jobs). And while people can argue that this isn't so, it really was for this one company (and this was mutliple postings over several years). I'm sure I could push back a little, but the general tide seems to be going that way and I know my efforts will be in vain. So... we all know perl can do what other languages can do and sometimes better (in the context of web languages of course). The question is, how to persuade the decision makers to make the right decision. I agree that a nice list of super corporations that use perl would lend some legitimacy to the language, but I don't think that will have the definitive effect we, or at least I, am hoping it will. Sure, certification would probably make executives pay more attention, but as we've seen by many arguments, certification is a waste. It's non-representative of actual skills, corporately biased, not 'monitored' enough, etc. So what to do then? I guess I am not that convinced that certification is such a crap shoot. Of course all these down-sides of certification are there, so is Java really a better language because its supporters were able to come up with certification program and pursuade executives to use the language? I think in talking about certification, the whole purpose gets lost very quickly in the geeks mind of why waste the time if it's a waste of time? The purpose of certification in the context with which it was introduced in this thread is not an added ability for us, the geeks, to judge other geeks to determine if they have met certain spiritual and linguistic criteria. The purpose of said certification was to pursuade executives who make language decisions that perl does have credibility behind it. If all these negative things about perl certification is true, then it is true for all language certification. Yet, someone recently got a job somewhere in this great union, or india, because they had certification. I don't mean to imply that a certificate is the only variable managers evaluate when hiring, but have you noticed that no matter how much more you may know than the kid who just got his Bachelor of Computer Science, unless you have that B.Sc, doors close? So, the Java certified get more jobs than the plain Java knowledgeable. Ok. Therefore we should not have perl certification because, why? The suggestion that we can pick up our certificates at the next meeting may not be far from what is necessary for certification to accomplish the originally proposed goal. I'm not suggesting you pay $5 and pickup your piece of pizza, a coke, and a certificate simply for sitting in on the session. But... it simply feels like people are thinking more like software engineers than executives. If not certification, what else could we do? I am interested in what the more experienced developers have considered to be a better method of increasing perl popularity than certification. Is a group needed specifically for the promotion of perl? Perhaps to raise money through events and such in order to turn around and advertise perl generally? There are dairy farmers who do that. Tourism spots tend to pool money in order to promote general spending in their area. So why not a Chamber of Perl? (I may be joking about the name but not the idea). Is an occasional radio or tv advertisement that bad of an idea that we shut that down too? Advertising works for Java, but it couldn't possibly work for perl, right? Remember, we are not trying to convince the smart people who already know perl is good. Our solid logic proving perl is the best and only choice for all things is in great need of viagra when placed next to the hot look and feel of the advertised or certified languages. If you have seen most executives, they don't drive the logical cars, they drive the hot cars, regardless of how illogical it may be. So let's hear it. Not accepting that perl is doomed to forever be the 'unpopular' choice, I'd like to hear from others ideas that would really work to raise general social/corporate awareness of the language. Sorry... I had some lint in that $.02... but I'm sure you'll understand. :-) -John -John ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] Serious upload help needed
So, if they can't click on a link to an ftp server, type a password and drag-drop the files where they belong, how do they manage to get clean underwear on every morning? IE isn't the greatest browser, but it looks like the familiar Windows Explorer when viewing an FTP site. The only thing you should be worrying about is clear text passwords over the Internet. I think business requirements should be left to the knowledgable. Those are the things that typically drive decisions. Perhaps I didn't state it clearly enough (though I did), ftp was not an option and I didn't want to go into details because it was a waste of time. (No, Tom.. not nefarious.. just a waste of time.. decision made and it wasn't up to me :-) ) I'm still baffled that their are responses out there that follow precisely the opposite of what the business requirements dictate, such as an ftp server and client do not provide close to the functionality of the system that I was supposed to build. Especially on shared host systems. I do appreciate all the other helpful responses though! The roll your own server may take a front seat. Thanks! -John ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
[Boston.pm] Serious upload help needed
I have a client that has specific needs for an upload utility. They don't care what language I use, they simply want it webbased. They can't use ftp (the users are not knowledgeable enough, nor do they want to use client apps other than browsers). I can't go into the rest of the details as to why they want a system like this, but they need upload capabilities in the hundreds of MB on a variety of shared hosting systems. Soo php has a 2 MB default Apache limit. Perl seems to simply cut off at 1216 B on one server and times out on another (was using a 23MB file for test purposes). What can I do to get around this? I'm even looking at Java Servlets which I will explore tomorrow.. but since I have never cracked my Java Servlets book until tonight, I'm afraid that I won't know if that will allow me to do what I want until I try it tomorrow. So I am asking all the knowledgeable and wise gurus out there. What language do I use (please say perl) and what settings do I set in order to facilitate the upload of 100MB files through a web interface on a hosting system that I have no configurational control over? Or do I simply inform my client that this kind of capability does not exist with current technologies? Regards, John ___ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
Re: [Boston.pm] Help using LWP to change password Q's?
I'm not sure this answers your question... but I always do this whenever trying to figure out form data being sent to the server for LWP purposes. Use a simple proxy server and log the requests. I used the chance to roll my own (about 20 lines, now up to about 100) that keeps three different types of logging, one for sites visited, one for form post data, and one for everything under the sun. I manually interact once with the site I am trying to LWP, with logging on. I also take a look at the html source for other options, but whatever comes through the log gets cut-and-pasted into my LWP calls for the basis of my interaction. I've never had to get around javascript before, but I'm sure you can simulate the transform pretty easily. -John ___ Boston-pm mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
