Re: me-commerce
jo walsh wrote: desperately seeking open-source, perl ecommerce application. so far we are looking at: AllCommerce - http://www.zelerate.org (formerly OpenSales), which at a brief glance looks fairly complex and inflexible... InterChange (formerly MiniVend) http://developer.akopia.com, which is CPANned (Bundle::Interchange) and seems a little nicer... IMHO this is the best - thou I trailed it for a project that never happened (or rather it changed into a PHP project ...). This is the most complex - and is quite nift - the developer support is excellent (Mike Heims Minivend author is on their developer mailing list quite a lot). Possibly better for big projects - and possibly overkill for small ones - depends on what you want ... also found Symphero http://www.symphero.net and Apache::iNcom http://indev.insu.com/iNcom/incom.html on freshmeat. if anyone's used any of these packages, and can recommend / ring alarm bells, i would be overjoyed to hear about it. our requirements: - clean, extensible API you can code your own subroutines (in perl) - so you could in theor do quite alot. - support for multiple vendors From which POV - vendor as a catelogue of goods to sell then yes, you can run many shops under interchange. - support for multiple transaction handlers (iPin, DataCash) Again yes - although you may have to write your own interface. - all yer standard shopping basket type stuff yup. - as little wheel-inventing as possible The only things you need to do is get your head round it as its faily complex (interchange that is). Hence intergration may be an issue - but I think the time is worth it due to its extensibility. Like anything the more time you invest the more you are likely to get in return. is all this just some pleasant fairyland dream? Well crimbo is comeing and Father Christmass may help you along ;-). Greg ps I've no connection with Interchange / Akopia - just think Interchange one of the better cart systems. hmm... are the blackstar boys gettign anywhere with CPANning their system, i wonder...? any advice apprec, jo
Re: XML::Schema, YAPC::Europe, mod_perl, Camel Visit, !RANT!
David Hodgkinson wrote: David Cantrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The Mod Perl Evangelist Site - Dave Hodge.. No. I'm writing a poor man's intro to stapling the TT into a mod_perl handler that will be superceded by Apache::Template when Andy finishes it. What's this ? or rather: Is this for take23 ? Is such a thing as Apache::Template being done or is it a pipedream [TM] ? If Apache::Template is real - where can I find out more ? Greg -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: XML::Schema, YAPC::Europe, mod_perl, Camel Visit, !RANT!
Andy Wardley wrote: On Jan 12, 3:57pm, Greg Cope wrote: Is such a thing as Apache::Template being done or is it a pipedream [TM] No, it's real, just not officially finished or released. Someone sent me some new code for it which I'll be intergrating and releasing in the next week or so. Thanks Look forward to it. Greg A -- Andy Wardley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Signature regenerating. Please remain seated. [EMAIL PROTECTED] For a good time: http://www.kfs.org/~abw/
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
Leo Lapworth wrote: Location A big pub in central London. Top floors: development Ground floor Pub: with comedy stand and terminal points for laptops Basement: disco / conference room, big flat screens etc.. What about a bed / kip room and of course a play room - and I do not mean some 70's swingers thing - a P2, etc ... Greg a contractor in a "quite period" I've got a contact who says he can get hold of a million or so VC if this was an actually business plan, but then you have to pay them back with interest and stuff. Ok, it's all a pipedream.. but what a nice one. Leo
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
Greg McCarroll wrote: * Greg Cope ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Leo Lapworth wrote: Location A big pub in central London. Top floors: development Ground floor Pub: with comedy stand and terminal points for laptops Basement: disco / conference room, big flat screens etc.. What about a bed / kip room and of course a play room - and I do not mean some 70's swingers thing - a P2, etc ... nope, they are rewards, rewards are for sucess ;-) Thats were a few people have gone wrong lately then ;-) -- Greg McCarroll http://www.mccarroll.uklinux.net
Re: Consultancy company was [Job] BOFH wanted was: Re: Red Hat worm discovered
Robin Szemeti wrote: On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, you wrote: Having something to crash on when pulling an all-nighter is, IMO, a bad idea as it encourages pulling all-nighters. You just don't write good code at 2 in the morning, and end up spending just as much time untangling it as you did writing it in the first place. yes and no. If you need to do an allnighter and its unavoidable (due to a client suddenly changing ther mind) then theres no problem doing it .. just charge em bigtime! Personally I have done (thinks) about 4 this year ... two of them due to sudden arrival of previously unannounced deadline .. (result: badly implemented crap code, stress, huge costs and a re write a week later) and 2 because I was just so tied up in it and it was going so well that I didn;t want to stop .. so I didn't ... the code from the latter is untouched to date and some of the better code I've written. There is nothing wrong per-se with working on into the night ... the lack of interruption and no pesky phones ringing can be the ideal time to engross yourself in the trickiest and most complex of problems ... but trying to hack something together whilst knackered is a recipie for disaster. My motto: if it feels good, do it. Code when you feel at your most productive, if you don;t think your minds on the job bale out and play. One of the reason I hated a 9 to 5 job was people asking me to do hard things before lunchtime and having to quit doing hard things because it was 5:00. And in any case, if you *need* to work all night, there's something wrong with the project management. no matter how well planned the project I have yet to find a client who hasn;t kept some small but deadly surprise as a secret to throw in just when they know its getting close. Some of these bombshells are smaller than others .. but they always seem to be there, waiting ... no problem .. just expect em an be prepared .. and charge em BigTime :) Have you done much stuff under a DSDM style - ie. qrite a quick protype and then iterate on that ? (massive internal rewrites are allowed under this as it tries to stress the interface / functionality not the internal implentation) Greg I would be VERY interrested in working on a project managed by the XP method. It sounds to good to be true, (and I;ve done enough project managment to know that it probably is too good to be true) but I shure would like to give it a go. -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: What's a perl person then?
Jonathan Peterson wrote: Got this through the email. Where do Perl people fit in? Unix person: So then he tried to su to chroot, but of course the crontab wasn't even mounted because there were four spaces instead of a tab in the getty sed awk ^] sh ksh zsh | and that's why we're getting another three E45000s to run it on. Other unix person: haw haw haw! Computing is truly an art. Windows Person: We spent 50 hours optimizing the drawing routine so as to produce proper antialiasing even on strange hardware, but in the end we couldn't roll it out because none of the sysadmins knows how to. Other windows person: oh well. Java person: We spent 3000 hours optimizing the drawing until finally it could run on a pentium II. Now we just have to make sure the users have I.E.4.8 with the JDK1.3.1 plugin, J3D 2.x, and at least DBTools 2.2 or above, and the correct classpath, and odbc settings, and one of the default fonts that actually works. If not, our six months of work will be completely wasted. Other java person: Failure is impossible. We will prevail. Setbacks are irrelevant. The fools just don't understand that this is JAVA. perl person: Hacked a drawing program in 2 hours. other person: That long, oh dear .. Greg Jonathan PetersonIdeas Hub Ltd (t) +44 (0)20 7487 1310 www.ideashub.com
Re: Consultancy company
Andy Wardley wrote: On Jan 18, 4:28pm, Leo Lapworth wrote: Ok, it's all a pipedream.. but what a nice one. It sounds like an excellent idea. In fact, I've even got as far as writing a (fledgling) business plan for such a venture based around Template Toolkit-ish web development, support and consultancy. It's something that Simon Matthews and I have been talking about for a couple of years, but never really quite got around to taking the plunge. I was about to jump but work related improvments of the last few weeks have pushed it back onto the back burner. Now, what would it take to convince you that there are nicer places to work than central London? Guildford, for example, is quite wonderful and only a train ride away from the smoke... :-)= Agreed - why work in London - what about telecommuters ? i.e I want to stay communtin to my desk - all 3 meters of it (the commute - I live in a small flat) On the matter of funding, I have a friend who works for Goldman Sachs who offered to put me in touch with VC somewhere in the range of 2 - 10m. No favours, no guarantees, but at least a foot in the door and the offer of waving a business plan under the noses of the right kind of people. Of course, you might argue that GS != Right Kind of People :-) But like others, I'm not convinced that VC is the way to go unless you really have to. Having said that, if you want to start big and grow big quickly, I can't see a way to do that without significant moolah up front. Maybe that means "really have to"? Why need a VC's money for a consultancy - shurely most people involved will have all the required kit (PC's / laptops) and all that may be required is a small office. A Consultantcy can raise cash quick via charging monthly like anyone else - ok not everyone pays on time, but if a few do then thats cash in the bank (especially as you pay everyone else at the end of the month.) One consideration worth playing on is that good Perl people are hard to come by. As a scarce resource, we might be able to convince backers that a solid collection of guru and demi-guru level Perl people represents a mighty design/development/consultancy force which could quickly corner a large chunk of the market. I'd love to come to the meeting and hear the ideas, but I've done my trip to London for this month :-) I've been 5 times this week - that's nearly my years quota ! Greg A Pipe dreamer. -- Andy Wardley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Signature regenerating. Please remain seated. [EMAIL PROTECTED] For a good time: http://www.kfs.org/~abw/
Re: Consultancy company
Piers Cawley wrote: Greg Cope [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Andy Wardley wrote: On Jan 18, 4:28pm, Leo Lapworth wrote: Ok, it's all a pipedream.. but what a nice one. It sounds like an excellent idea. In fact, I've even got as far as writing a (fledgling) business plan for such a venture based around Template Toolkit-ish web development, support and consultancy. It's something that Simon Matthews and I have been talking about for a couple of years, but never really quite got around to taking the plunge. I was about to jump but work related improvments of the last few weeks have pushed it back onto the back burner. Now, what would it take to convince you that there are nicer places to work than central London? Guildford, for example, is quite wonderful and only a train ride away from the smoke... :-)= Agreed - why work in London - what about telecommuters ? i.e I want to stay communtin to my desk - all 3 meters of it (the commute - I live in a small flat) I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to have people in the same room; that way you get people who know the answers immediately on tap and able to overhear other discussions and contribute as appropriate. Whilst I love the journey to work in the home office I don't like the rest of the office conditions. Having people there is important. I can understand the idea of building a team, but I think I am more productive here, than in an office where I am nearly constantly interupted. Also not being able to ask a question of the person next door, means I go look for the answer - and the person next door can get on with it. MySQL AB is a example of a company that is developeing a "product" in a virtual sense - why not try and develope a virtual company ? And I like central London because (whatever else is wrong with it) it's relatively easy for everyone to get to by train no matter where they live. Trekking out to (for example) Guildford wouldn't be good for me. But is treking into insert that good to working from home ? ADSL is cheap and working from home can be supprisingly productive. Greg who has so little work may have to commute to London every day ;-( -- Piers
Re: Consultancy company
Piers Cawley wrote: Greg Cope [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Piers Cawley wrote: Greg Cope [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Andy Wardley wrote: On Jan 18, 4:28pm, Leo Lapworth wrote: Ok, it's all a pipedream.. but what a nice one. It sounds like an excellent idea. In fact, I've even got as far as writing a (fledgling) business plan for such a venture based around Template Toolkit-ish web development, support and consultancy. It's something that Simon Matthews and I have been talking about for a couple of years, but never really quite got around to taking the plunge. I was about to jump but work related improvments of the last few weeks have pushed it back onto the back burner. Now, what would it take to convince you that there are nicer places to work than central London? Guildford, for example, is quite wonderful and only a train ride away from the smoke... :-)= Agreed - why work in London - what about telecommuters ? i.e I want to stay communtin to my desk - all 3 meters of it (the commute - I live in a small flat) I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to have people in the same room; that way you get people who know the answers immediately on tap and able to overhear other discussions and contribute as appropriate. Whilst I love the journey to work in the home office I don't like the rest of the office conditions. Having people there is important. I can understand the idea of building a team, but I think I am more productive here, than in an office where I am nearly constantly interupted. Also not being able to ask a question of the person next door, means I go look for the answer - and the person next door can get on with it. Hmm... Have you looked at the XP books? XP ? MySQL AB is a example of a company that is developeing a "product" in a virtual sense - why not try and develope a virtual company ? Well, clients probably like offices. Admittedly not necessarily a *good* argument. Ah well there I agree - a posh office creates an impression that alot of big clients (read high revenue clients), find appealing. I've not argued against an office - just the idea that everyone has to be in it all the time ! And I like central London because (whatever else is wrong with it) it's relatively easy for everyone to get to by train no matter where they live. Trekking out to (for example) Guildford wouldn't be good for me. But is treking into insert that good to working from home ? ADSL is cheap and working from home can be supprisingly productive. Where it's available. That would be 'not from my exchange in the forseeable future...' Ah well, I want to move to Cornwall which will not get adsl for another few years ;-( Greg
Re: Consultancy company
David Cantrell wrote: On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 05:04:54PM +, Piers Cawley wrote: I'm *really* unsure about telecommuting. Seems to me that the way to really build a team (especially when doing serious development) is to have people in the same room; Plus there's too many distractions at home. Even if you live on your own. It's great to have the capability - for those evening brainwaves, or if you're ill - but doing it every day just doesn't work, at least for me. That should read there's too many distractions at home for me (or you as the case may be). I am about 150% more productive at home - 25 % because I save the journey, and the other 25% due to not having to go to meetings / going for long lunches / the chat that turns into a tangenical discussion on XZY / some Luser or PBH asking a stupid question that they could have worked out themselves if I was not there / insert any other activity that takes me away from the task in hand. Sorry the above turned into a rant, I just get a bit pissed off with closed minds that assume that having people in an office = productivity. Yes there are advantages to working in an office - i.e the team can be greater than the sum of its parts. But working from elsewhere also allows idividuals to be productive - often alot more. Why not combine the two - i.e have a day a week where everyone meets to brainstorm / ask questions / do what needs to be done to take advantage of a group. Rant over. Greg And I like central London because (whatever else is wrong with it) it's relatively easy for everyone to get to by train no matter where they live. Trekking out to (for example) Guildford wouldn't be good for me. Yeah. What he said. -- David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/ Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced
Re: Consultancy company
Piers Cawley wrote: Greg Cope [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: David Cantrell wrote: That should read there's too many distractions at home for me (or you as the case may be). I am about 150% more productive at home - 25 % because I save the journey, and the other 25% due to not having to go to meetings / going for long lunches / the chat that turns into a tangenical discussion on XZY / some Luser or PBH asking a stupid question that they could have worked out themselves if I was not there / insert any other activity that takes me away from the task in hand. The vision I have is of a team (or teams) working in *our* premises, with customers working with us. We avoid pointless meetings. The customer is there because they know what we're supposed to be doing for them, and they know what's important. When you're only working a 35 hour week (40 tops...) then you should have enough free time outside work that there's less inclination to piss off for a long lunch. And the whole point about setting this up is to get rid of the PHB. Sorry the above turned into a rant, I just get a bit pissed off with closed minds that assume that having people in an office = productivity. *Ahem*. Were I to be the sort of person who takes things personally, I'd take that personally. Or something. Seriously, I tried working from home when the trains were up the spout, and for a couple or three days it was great. However, one or two points. 1. As a sole developer, working from home is/can be good, especially when your head is down and you're turning out the code for a particular bit. But working from home means you're away from the customer, and the customer is the only person who can make business decisions about what your code is supposed to be doing. I've never said that I do not meet customers on a face to face basis arround once a week. Working as I do means that the customer and I focus on the specs, and iterative developement - as they need to be clear that I know what I am supposed to do. 2. You are away from the team. Again, sole developer, this is not a problem. Consultancy where we're supposed to be doing the synergy thing, not quite so good. Time you spend away is time in which you aren't plugged into what's happening and (and this is *really* important), time spent away is time in which you aren't doing the mentor thing. I strongly believe that, in a joint consultancy deal, it is *really* important that gurus help to enlighten students, otherwise how do we get our partners up to speed so we can go out and get more fun work and make more fun money? Agreed that if you need to teach - guru and student need to be in the same place. 3. Every time I need to ask you something and you're not there and I have to phone you, there's a chance I'll think 'ah fuck it' and not bother. And there's a chance that that will be a *really* bad idea. But if you are confortable phoneing (|emailing|irc) me then you would - as that is how we would need to comunicate. I've wasted so much time being in an office being asked and asking lame questions just because I am next to someone. I have much less distractions at home. I'm not saying that offices (especially client offices) don't suck. But they don't have to. If we're going to do this, lets do it right. Now, I freely admit that I have partaken of the Extreme Programming Kool-Aid, and dammit I want to do it. But dammit again, it makes *sense*. Also bear in mind that when I made the decision (having tried it) that I'd rather commute in and be near the customer rather than work from home (in my *very* comfortable home office...) that meant adding another 4 hours (count 'em) of travelling time to my day. If I work from home I work too long. If work too long my code starts to suck. If my code starts to suck I get embarrassed and my reputation starts to slip. I want to work with copilots. I want to be able to *have* that tangential conversation that'll turn out to be useful in six months time. And table football's no fun if you're playing with yourself. Yes there are advantages to working in an office - i.e the team can be greater than the sum of its parts. This is *so* important. But working from elsewhere also allows idividuals to be productive - often alot more. How are you measuring productivity? An assumption on real hours worked - i.e when I was in London I was ever working more than about 6 hours a day (on a long day) due to lost time ... At home I regualarly hit 6 hours on a day that is 4 hours shorter. I have not measured this as their is no use benchmark qw(:gregs_time); Why not combine the two - i.e have a day a week where everyone meets to brainstorm / ask questions / do what needs to be done to take advantage of a group. Because groups don't work like that. All of a sudden I'm taking notes. And trying
Re: Perl/MySQL based forums
Dave Hodgkinson wrote: Michael Stevens [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sun, Jan 21, 2001 at 01:33:09PM +, Greg McCarroll wrote: * Dave Hodgkinson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: No, I'm not going to code a forum package by hand. go on dave, it cant be that hard Having done it a few times, it *isn't* that hard... I'm playing with mwforum right now. Seems OK. I've a site in production that uses this - works fine. Greg -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: TPC5
Jonathan Stowe wrote: On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, Jonathan Peterson wrote: If you're prepared to consider locations a little out of central London there are lots of large hotels around Heathrow that have sizeable conference type facilities (also handy for the airport!). FWIW, I know my mother has booked some largish meetings outside of London. Of course, I don't remember offhand how large, or, for that matter, what kind of numbers you're looking at. Go to Brighton. It's nicer than London, on the sea, easy to get to from Gatwick, and has more pubs per head of population than any other town in Britain (I think, or maybe it was more pubs per square mile). It has conference facilities for all sizes (although I've no idea how booked up they get). And it's 55 minutes from London by train. And its handy for me. And me ;-) Greg /J\ -- Jonathan Stowe | http://www.gellyfish.com | I'm with Grep on this one http://www.tackleway.co.uk |
Re: TPC5
Dave Hodgkinson wrote: Greg Cope [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The Beach. For some values of beach not including sand. Don't start that argument. I spend many an hour - recently opcodes clicked whilst on the beach - and watching three nutters go for a swim ! Greg -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: TPC5
Jonathan Peterson wrote: If you're prepared to consider locations a little out of central London there are lots of large hotels around Heathrow that have sizeable conference type facilities (also handy for the airport!). FWIW, I know my mother has booked some largish meetings outside of London. Of course, I don't remember offhand how large, or, for that matter, what kind of numbers you're looking at. Go to Brighton. It's nicer than London, on the sea, easy to get to from Gatwick, and has more pubs per head of population than any other town in Britain (I think, or maybe it was more pubs per square mile). It has conference facilities for all sizes (although I've no idea how booked up they get). And it's 55 minutes from London by train. 47 mins actually - although this time is now theoretical due to the train problems. Also brighton has a very / extremely high number of places to eat (cafe||restaurants). Only 25 mins from the secound biggest airport in the UK, which is nearer than London. Greg
Re: TPC5
Greg McCarroll wrote: * Greg Cope ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Andrew Bowman wrote: From: "Nathan Torkington" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Timing in London is hard, because there aren't very many hotels capable of supporting such an event. It's quite amazing to us, in fact, how difficult it has been to find a place to hold it in London. What sort of numbers are we talking about then? If you're prepared to consider locations a little out of central London there are lots of large hotels around Heathrow that have sizeable conference type facilities (also handy for the airport!). What about Brighton ;-) potential london clients will be put off dealing with a company not in london Have you heard of Victoria Real - the people behind amonst other things big browers website ? I think Location in this day an age is a little irrelivant. The choice will be made on quality of service - not where the office is based. Although I agree that some people may be a little biased. The south coast has a very high number of nu media companies - and apparently Worthing is the most profitable town / area in the UK. It is often easier to get to some London Locations from Brighton than it is from London. i was thinking about consultancies, and there are really two types and two types of person who want to be create each type. and those two types can be summarised as the two Steves, the question is what are people trying to do - create a Jobs or a Wozniak consultancy? You've lost me there ? -- Greg McCarroll http://www.mccarroll.uklinux.net
Re: Consultancy company- Where do you want to go?
Neil Ford wrote: The "A-Team" - scenario is one in which a team goes in to rescue a failing project, or go in and retune/redesign an existing project that works but has become a victim of its own success. Think of this work as bespoke enhancements. That just has me conjering up images of turning up at a client site in a big black van (screeching tyres obligatory) and either leaping out laptops in hand or just unrollong some CAT5 and plugging into their network :-) So who's bankrolling the van and who wants to be BA? lol - monday's been c*** so far (Linx rooter down apparently - sounds like something off an excuse sheet). Men in black theme - we must all have black suits - dark glasses avliable from Macy D's soon, and we can get a clapped out van from BT for next to nothing Greg Neil. (whose tounge is ever so slightly on his cheek!) -- Neil C. Ford [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.binky.ourshack.org
XP, testing and perl
Dear All All the posts about XP and a Slashdot article about it got me thinking and I have a generic question for the virtual floor. Does Anyone know of any good perl test tutorials - i.e how to make various test suites for a perl modules "make test" target ? I've seen the Test::Harness stuff - but am after a guide - or a few simple examples. All the code I read in CPAN modules t/ dir appears to be written in any old fasion. Clues please, otherwise I'll continue to add to the t/ dir code pool in any old way.. ;-) Greg
Re: Sun's Perl was Re: Application servers and e-commerce platforms
Dave Hodgkinson wrote: Robin Houston [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: (Sadly I no longer have shell access to any four-processor Sun machines to confirm this.) Which reminds me. How in gods name do Sun get away with charging so much for stuff? We've erm, "acquired" an enterprise 420. this box has 2 CPUs, 4G or RAM and about 80G of disk. For the same money I could build a clutster of what, 30 linux boxes? Don't tell me programmer time has got that expensive? Or that thinking about what you're doing stopped happening? If it's good enough for Google... Help me out here! It is good kit (and alot of it is rebadged stuff - with nice blue / gray boxes and Sun stickers). But it's also a marketing thing I know tow clients whom purchased 15k of sun kit each, and in either case a good Linux / Free|OpenBSD box would have done the same. The only time I recommend sun is when you need a bigger box than a twin Pentium machine - and even then I mentions Alpha's (as I think they as just as good a Sun's for the_just_above_intel market). Also a a final Sun rant, sometime's it hard to scale / cluster stuff i.e a RDBMS system is not a simple thing to cluster - and buying a bigger box is the less of two evils. Well that's a rant over first thing on Friday ! Greg -- Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.deep-purple.com Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire -
Re: Sun's Perl was Re: Application servers and e-commerce platforms
Steve Mynott wrote: Dave Hodgkinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [..] How in gods name do Sun get away with charging so much for stuff? Because they can and they have a brand people trust like IBM or Microsoft. In fact you can buy far cheaper Sun clones from companies like Transtec but the Sun name tends (rather irrationally) to carry more weight in some circles (eg. telcos, ISP and City). Many people use clones internally but Sun kit for the stuff customers see. We've erm, "acquired" an enterprise 420. this box has 2 CPUs, 4G or RAM and about 80G of disk. For the same money I could build a clutster of what, 30 linux boxes? Don't tell me programmer time has got that expensive? Or that thinking about what you're doing stopped happening? If it's good enough for Google... You can't really compare Suns with standard PCs because they have numerous advantages still -- 64 bit archecture, faster bus, SCSI (although some use IDE now). It's still expensive to get PCs in 1U cases and you can fit a lot of Netra T1s in a 19" rack. Although for desktop use the framebuffers rarely have enough colours to be useable. I suspect things like SMP probably still work better. And if I were on call supporting a server I would probably still trust a Sparc running Solaris over some dodgy PC desktop with Redhat stuck on it by a hobbyist who has never used another UNIX. Cutting - Althought I agree with the sentiment that a Sparc box will probably be more reliable than a generic PC. However s /some dodgy PC desktop with Redhat stuck on it by a hobbyist who has never used another UNIX/inexperienced/; Lets not compare inexperience with anyparticular flavour of *nix. Greg Who started on Redhat along time ago, and has since used and initially disliked Solaris/Sun OS, but has since softened as is happy to work on any *nix. Having said that I think they are probably doomed to occupy an increasingly small niche and things like clustered Free UNIX clones (PVM on BSD or Beowolf on Linux) certainly offer more bang per buck. -- 1024/D9C69DF9 steve mynott [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a unix user to show you how it's done. --scott adams
Re: Sun's Perl was Re: Application servers and e-commerce platforms
Michael Stevens wrote: On Fri, Jan 26, 2001 at 10:35:45AM +, Steve Mynott wrote: I suspect things like SMP probably still work better. And if I were on call supporting a server I would probably still trust a Sparc running Solaris over some dodgy PC desktop with Redhat stuck on it by a hobbyist who has never used another UNIX. Can't we compare something vaguely equivalent here instead? I personally would have just as little faith in Solaris run by someone who didn't know what they were doing as I would in Redhat run by someone who didn't know what they were doing. Here, here ! How about a decently built rack mount PC running Debian[1], by someone who actually knows how to setup that particular OS decently, as compared with a Sun box running Solaris setup by someone good with solaris? (And, myself, I'd recommend the PC for some situations, and the Solaris box for others). My main problem with the PC architecture is that you can do a lot by carefully picking a good manufacturer, but it's still fundamentally not as solid and consistent as sun stuff, IMHO. I imagine you could get a pc service contract on the same level as Sun do, but I have no experience in the area. Has anyone got any experience paying vast amounts of money for PC support? did you get much for your money? Michael [1] OS changed on the grounds I feel that Redhat ships something more optimised towards desktop use, whereas I feel Debian and Solaris are both more suited for servers. Would this still hold for a RedDrat system with all the X stuff and other unncessary stuff removed ? And if not - what else do you you think is different ? I've a small shell script that does quite a bit of rpm -e (remove) on X stuff / other druff that redhat installs by default - it would be nice if they included a stripped down install class in their default install - which left you with a basic machine Greg
Re: Sun's Perl was Re: Application servers and e-commerce platforms
Redvers Davies wrote: Would this still hold for a RedDrat system with all the X stuff and other unncessary stuff removed ? Nah, ou want slackware A, N and D... No more. 10 meg for your base OS, compile what you need. Stop IT ... I am not using slackware ! Greg
Re: Sun's Perl was Re: Application servers and e-commerce platforms
Redvers Davies wrote: Stop IT ... I am not using slackware ! Ans why not?? For a server it is perfect. Very small, very compact. Perfect for a secure environment. Only joking - I'm used to redhat - I might move to Debian who knows ? I am quite happy with redhat / debian as I know what I am getting - I hate solaris's lame install that means you have to install all the GNU stuff, adjust your path, man path etc Slackware is a middle ground. Greg
Re: Mark Thomas
Dave Cross wrote: (Even more off-topic than usual) I've got four tickets for the filming of the Mark Thomas Product this Sunday. It's filmed in the pub at the end of my road, but I don't think I'll be around in time to go. You'd need to be in the pub for about 7:15pm to get decent seats, but the filming doesn't actually start until 9pm. I'll have them with me tonight if anyone wants to claim them. Dave... Does MT have a special T shirt vendor ? Yesterdays was a monopoply joke that I did not get Greg
Re: Perl Books
Aaron Trevena wrote: On Thu, 1 Feb 2001, Elaine -HFB- Ashton wrote: No, there wasn't even something I could buy for it sadly. It's a simple CGI, I would have paid $15 for a quickie 'here's your simple cgi just plug in your variables here' code. Been there - more often than not, the cookbook fills any holes. I had a particular problem with web forums - slashcode being a bit OTT and wwwthreads cotsing money and then hundreds of PHP and java and asp forums, then I found mwforum and now I am rewriting it big time to get back into coding after sitting on my arse for weeks waiting for work or chasing people up or editing html. If anybody is interested I hope to have a TT'd version of mwforum on the web some time next week. After that I will totally hack it apart and rework it to fit my own twisted needs. Are you going to send the patches back to the authors ? Greg snippage A. -- A HREF = "http://termisoc.org/~betty" Betty @ termisoc.org /A "As a youngster Fred fought sea battles on the village pond using a complex system of signals he devised that was later adopted by the Royal Navy. " (this email has nothing to do with any organisation except me)
Re: Midgard Content Management
Dean S Wilson wrote: I've seen lots of Content management systems get shredded and left on the floor of this list and I'm after opinions from anyone whos used Midgard, basically is it any good? (http://www.midgard-project.org) php - nasty Have you looked at openinteract (.org) ? A new perl App server. From the talks I was in I discovered the following: Perl got a few mentions at the Open Source Dev meeting, CPAN's location mirroring algorithm was mentioned a couple of times in a presentation about BGP by VA Linux. VA are making a geographical redirector that will does dynamic DNS and points a client to thier nearest (network wise) node. Zope is now supporting Perl at a much level than previously (Apparently, I don't use Zope so I have no idea...) Smoothwall has had over 375,000 downloads from Sourceforge and they use perl for all the firewall admin stuff. Has to be a good thing, also Smoothwall are in discussion with getting Smoothwall boxsets distributed so I'm assuming that perl will be shipped out with every copy of those. Not major stuff but nice none the less. Rasmus of PHP said that he, Larry and Guido were in the planning stages of getting a meeting together to discuss backends to scripting languages... Not sure exactly how far into planning and this answer was prompted by someone asking why not use the perl or python backend instead of Zend. Zend is nasty - they had to change the licence in PHP4 from gpl to a BSD free-ish one because zend was originally under the qpl (I think). Zend have decided to release thier caching / complier stuff commerically for loads of money. Another company has released a GPL cacher I feel that zend rewrote the underlying script engine for php, so that they could then "sell" it or sell the add ons. Greg Dean PS Brussels was nice but I think it closes for the weekend. -- Profanity is the one language all programmers understand. --- Anon
Re: The Conway Lecture
Neil Ford wrote: (please circulate this to any interested parties) Forwarded to the UK FreeBSD User Group and the Brighton Linux User Group. Brighton LUG - Where ? Greg Neil. -- Neil C. Ford Yet Another Computer Solutions Company [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Conway Lecture
Neil Ford wrote: Neil Ford wrote: (please circulate this to any interested parties) Forwarded to the UK FreeBSD User Group and the Brighton Linux User Group. Brighton LUG - Where ? http://www.brighton.lug.org.uk It's a fairly dorment group but it does exist. The web page has details on how to join the mailing list. Ah the LUG that I belong to Greg (nice but dim!) Neil. -- Neil C. Ford Yet Another Computer Solutions Company [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[JOB] Passing on a permi web developer add from an old client
Dear All An old client I used to contract for needs a permie web developer - London, W2 based. This role has nothing to do with me, and I am not an agent, just spreading the word for an old client - I thought the people here may be interested. i.e if it all goes pear shaped don't come running to me ;-) Quote from the job spec they sent me: quote looking for a full-time, permanent Web Developer to maintain current systems and develop new tools for the site. Working for the Technical Development Manager, the candidate should have an excellent track record in MySQL and Perl on a Unix (Linux) platform (min 2 years) and have experience developing web applications in PHP4. Some knowledge of SendMail,Qmail, HTML and JavaScript would be an asset. /quote If anyone is interested then contact eleanor.thompson at bluecarrots.com. Greg insert massive disclaimer here
perl (compling) optiziations
Dear All I know this is best asked elsewhere but I'm looking at perl-5.6.1-TRAIL2 as I am thinking of moving to this for some production platforms (or 5.6.1 when that comes out) Is anyone using any funky optimizations for the CFLAGS beyond -Doptimize=-O3 -march=pentiumpro ? This is for Linux using pcgg 2.95.2.1 Ta Greg
Re: perl (compling) optiziations
Philip Newton wrote: Greg Cope wrote: I know this is best asked elsewhere but I'm looking at perl-5.6.1-TRAIL2 as I am thinking of moving to this for some production platforms (or 5.6.1 when that comes out) Is anyone using any funky optimizations for the CFLAGS beyond -Doptimize=-O3 -march=pentiumpro ? This is for Linux using pcgg 2.95.2.1 Any specific reason why you want to fiddle around with optimizations? just a boyish go faster urge. I used things like this in the past with some good results (10% to 20% improvements) on other apps. Plus I am likely to install this on quite a few boxes, so a little effort now is worth it. In any event, http://www.mail-archive.com/perl5-porters@perl.org/msg23098.html and the ensuing thread may be of interest -- Tim Bunce asked about the "best GCC compiler options for Intel (perl apache)" and got some answers. http://www.mail-archive.com/perl5-porters@perl.org/msg23387.html is a summary of some of his findings, with a sample gcc and a sample pgcc command line at the end. http://www.mail-archive.com/perl5-porters@perl.org/thrd7.html#23098 is (currently) the thread overview. Ta - just what I was looking for. Greg Cheers, Philip
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
Robin Houston wrote: On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 01:23:01PM +0100, Robin Szemeti wrote: I concur. There is simply too much of the important stuff missing from Java to make it useable for web content delivery as far as I can tell. I just couldn't do half of what I do without regexes Since excellent regex libraries are freely available, this is akin to claiming that Perl is useless for writing HTTP clients because LWP isn't in the core ;-) blatantly off topic I was thinking about this the otherday - can you recommend some (pref open source) Java regex libs ? going back to the perl topics Greg .robin. -- A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal--Panama! --Guy Jacobson
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
Robin Houston wrote: On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 01:59:40PM +, Greg Cope wrote: I was thinking about this the otherday - can you recommend some (pref open source) Java regex libs ? OROMatcher. http://jakarta.apache.org/oro/index.html There's also gnu.regexp, for LGPL fans: http://www.cacas.org/~wes/java/ Both support perl5 syntax, more or less. .robin. Ta. Greg -- "Sometimes I sit in front of my washing machine and contemplate the worthlessness of life. My washing machine isn't even plugged in." --alex
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
Robin Szemeti wrote: On Wed, 28 Mar 2001, you wrote: On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 01:10:00PM +0100, Aaron Trevena wrote: Plain and simply I don't think java is the right technology for e-commerce, plain and simple. gartuitous snippage no .. it _does_ have its strong points .. I wouldn't have even bought a book if i thought it was really bad .. but it just seems to make some things so hard to do. Mybe its just me being crap. I'd be intrested to set a good perl programmer and a Java guy head to head .. get em to build an app to the same spec and see how long they took, and then get them to extend it in some way and time that .. I once read a report (18 months ago) where the same projects where given to lots of programmers, the usualy results were show i.e algorythm design was the most important factor, although on the whole scripting langauges were faster to develope in, and had faster execuion speeds and lower memory footprints. I should try and find it again as I've lost the URL. Greg don't get me wrong .. I'm not just Java bashing .. but really, the hype it gets would have you believe its all tings to all men .. in reallity its got good points, but some big holes too ... -- Robin Szemeti The box said "requires windows 95 or better" So I installed Linux!
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
James Powell wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2001 at 09:59:35AM +0100, Dominic Mitchell wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2001 at 08:56:36AM +0100, James Powell wrote: Course, mysql does support transactions now... I believe with two different types of table for some reason. It's because the underlying table type is implemented using Berkeley DB3, which does support transactions. And that has several modes of operation, hash, btree and recno. I haven't looked into it, but I would imagine that it makes transactions across different tables kind of tricky. In fact, I'd class it as a bit of a hack. But don't take my opinion for it, because this is all based on 2nd hand evidence. -Dom But as well as Berkeley there's innobase and gemini (not in yet?) table types that support transactions. http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_Table_types.html I can't say I've used any of them or would trust any of them... I've tested innobase and it appears to be fine. It very Oracle like in the way it works (it needs loasd of resources to run quickly). MyISAM table handlers for speed and Innobase table handlers for transaction based tables (also with row locking) and you should be away. (The Innobase code is apparently not new, and has been taken from another project and bolted on, which sounds bad but actually appears to work quite well). Greg And MySQL has got full-text indexing now - didn't notice that one http://www.mysql.com/news/article-54.html "MySQL 3.23 now has full-text indexing and searching capabilities. This allows you to search your vast databases of textual information, with queries returning search string occurrence/relevance." Incidentally, saw your ssh letter in the new LJ... jp
Re: Job: I'm looking for one..
Philip Newton wrote: Greg Cope wrote: I once read a report (18 months ago) where the same projects where given to lots of programmers, the usualy results were show i.e algorythm design was the most important factor, although on the whole scripting langauges were faster to develope in, and had faster execuion speeds and lower memory footprints. I should try and find it again as I've lost the URL. You may be looking for this: http://wwwipd.ira.uka.de/~prechelt/Biblio/jccpprtTR.pdf An empirical comparison of C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Rexx, and Tcl for a search/string-processing program That looks the ticket ta. Greg Or google for "empirical comparison Python Rexx program" for a few references. Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton [EMAIL PROTECTED] All opinions are my own, not my employer's. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Re: Good Accountants
Robin Szemeti wrote: On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, you wrote: Where do you live? DJ Adams recommended Menzies (www.menzies.co.uk) to me, and I went to see them last night for the first time. They are going to set up my new company for me too. They like IT contractors, and the partner I met with talked to me for about 30 minutes on ways to avoid IR35 :-) sound like a 'contractors accountant' .. mine (Lowson Ward in Birmingham) do nothing other than accounting for contractors and know all the relevant bits. Very often a 'general' accountant doesn't seem to know all the little wrinkles that one who specialises in contractors does. Well worth getting the right sort. Very professional, I like them so far. Based in Kingston and have other offices around Surrey. On a similar point, can anyone recommend a good business bank account? Flemings Premier Banking 01708 713317 basically free for contractors (up to 20 cheques a month) and pay interest. I got several hundred quid in intrest last year. Telephone service and all that stuff. most impressed .. and I do have other business acounts to comapre it to. I would heartily recommend them. They are widely used by contractors. +1 the service I've found to be excellent, they call you sir on the phone and sound like they mean it, quite shocking these day's. Greg -- Robert - Original Message - From: Gareth Harper [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 26 April 2001 09:09 Subject: Good Accountants Can any of you contractor types recoomend a good accountant, as the one I was using (a friend of the family) suggested that I use an accountant who was more familiar with the IT contracting business, as he was more suited to much larger companies. Thanks Gareth Harper -- Robin Szemeti The box said requires windows 95 or better So I installed Linux!
SQL statements to DB Schema (dia ?)
Dear All This is not perl related, but I hope to tap your collective knowledge. I'm involved with taking on a project started (and nearly finished) by an Agency writen mostly in PHP and Delphi. No statements that I'm already in trouble - thanks. I have no DB schema, and as such could dump the SQL schema (via mysqldump) - and I was wondering if there was a super thing that could translate the create table stuff into a diagram I could print, and then look at If this worked on Linux and involved perl and Dia then it would be fab. Thanks for your time. Greg
Using perl for a high performance mailer daemon ?
Dear All Sorry to drag the tone back down to perl, but, I've a question that is ripe for the lists collective expertise. I want to design a mailer for sending large numbers of individual messages to a large list. This is for a client whom manages companies customers CRM lists. This is more of a prototype / proof of concept, and as such I thought perl would be the best. We are already using qmail, but the expense of queuing a message mean that performance is limited by disc speed and qmail-send the program that manages the queue and sending outbound emails. Hence I want to write is a thing that: a) Looks up and caches MX records in a shared area (shared mem) - easy. b) Load the message template into shared mem - easy. c) Gets message from shared mem, and given a list uses qmail-remote to actual do the smtp conversation (by reading info on different filehandles), if the initial send fails drop back to an smtp relay that will queue the message or bounce it somewhere else. Could this done even quicker with a perl client that does simple checks ? d) Log to a central file - success for failure. I just know there must be a way to do this in perl that is quick (rather than writing it in C). So whats the way the write this so that its execution speed is the fastest (given enougth memory and network bandwidth). Part C is the sticker, i.e. the quickest way to spawn and control alot of other process that communicate over filehandles. Clues on a postcard, ta. Greg normal vaguely perl service can be resumed
