Re: Last Night
At 11:57 02/02/2001 +, Greg wrote: so all we need is a private room in a pub in central london that does food Does EC2 count as central London ? The White Hart in Clifton Street (near Liverpool Street station) has a private room that would be big enough. They do food and as a plus point, it has it's own bar ! I'll check out costs etc if people are interested. Simon. -- Simon Wilcox | [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote." Kosh
In defence of Perl
Good morning all, This is a plea for help. Here is the situation: Over the last year I have been building an intranet type site based on Linux/Apache/MySQL/mod_perl. This is delivered via the internet, suitably authenticated (mod_perl/LDAP) and encrypted (mod_ssl), as most of our 1,700 people use client supplied PC equipment. It has been very successfully received and much more development is wanted. To accommodate all the requirements I have asked for funding for two perl developers to rebuild the site in a more modular and easy to manage form and add content management, forums, document management etc etc. This is all fine but there is a big cloud. We have a new IT manager who wants to bring all development into one team and use a single toolset for web based applications. The other development team has been working for 3 years on a web-based job management system which has been developed/enhanced by several third parties (we own the code but sub for the development resources). It is an NT system, using IIS, ASP, VBScript, VB dlls, MTC components and a MS SQL backend with stored procedures etc etc. This system is deployed on our client sites and does not at any time run over the internet. They now have a need to redevelop large parts of the application as the original requirements have changed considerably and are looking to bring the development in house. We are now locked in argue^H^H^H^H^Hdiscussion about how to standardise our toolsets. My belief is that the LAMP type route provides a very cost effective, portable and scalable solution but I concede that bigger backends are needed for volume transaction systems. The help I need is in answering some questions: What big corporates are using perl in web development and how/for what ? Why perl is better (or could be better) than a combination of ASP/VBScript/VB/MTC Is there any benchmarking available of salary bands for differing skills, i.e. are perl guys much more than ASP guys who can also do the other bits ? Any other arguments I should be making ! My big problem is that with a huge investment in the MS code base, I am fighting a rearguard action to prevent having to adopt MS stuff, just because we've already spent loads on it, which seems false economy to me. My preferred approach would be to stick with MS tech for maintenance of the existing code base and continue to sub out for developers, and use open source tech for new development, with commercial backends when we need that level of sophistication. Anyone have any comment on this ? Thank you for your attention, all advice gratefully received. Regards, Simon Wilcox
Re: In defence of Perl
At 11:12 13/02/2001 +, you wrote: This is all fine but there is a big cloud. We have a new IT manager who wants to bring all development into one team and use a single toolset for web based applications. why dont you just track both projects for a while and get some results about the current productivity of both teams, say a month or two. We don't actually have any developers and deciding what to recruit is at the core of the issue. I covered the code development for the intranet but I have to spend too much time on managing the process now the job management system sub-ed out all the development. We could go forward with contract staff for a few months but there is already a perception that they don't want to "waste" development in one language by ditching it later. then put it into an analysis model showing the cost of moving either team to the others toolset and the perceived cost reductions in the long term supporting just one toolset. these things always need to be analysed properly rather than gut instincts and who can argue the best. Agree 100% ! Greg -- Greg McCarroll http://www.mccarroll.uklinux.net
RE: In defence of Perl
At 11:48 13/02/2001 +, you wrote: [snip] As one of the requirements listed was content management you can through in the BBC, especially the interactive telly division. Heck, they even gave a presentation at YAPC::Europe. Does anyone know if that presentation is available online anywhere ? Simon
Re: DMP
At 10:13 20/02/2001 +, you wrote: amazon uk have started shipping data munging with perl. I have my copy. Michael Must be very popular, it's just dropped back to "On Order; is usually dispatched within 1-2 weeks" ! Simon
Re: Scraping news feeds?
At 12:54 07/03/2001 -0500, Dave Cross wrote: [snip] Chapter 10 isn't it Dave ? Section 10.4 to be precise. "Specialized parsers - XML::RSS" :) You've got a bit further since last Thursday then! Yep, but not quite that far ! Also been reading Rebel Code which has a nice bit about Perl in it. Simon.
Re: Silliness
Thanks everyone. That exposes my lack of familiarity with the q qq operators ;-) Another little bit of learning learned. S.
Re: Matt's Scripts Projects
At 12:40 19/03/2001 +, Mark Fowler wrote: It has occured to us we need a decent name for this. Discussion on IRC has concluded that: a) It shouldn't mention Matt in the title. So "Not the Matt Wright Archive" is out then ;-) b) That is should have a name that appeals to newbies. How about EasyScripts ? the domain name is available, anyway. c) It should sound at least semi-professional[1]. Can we make use of the PerlMonger connection and/or use the Programming Republic logo ? Simon.
Re: Matt's Scripts Projects
At 13:18 19/03/2001 +, Mark Fowler wrote: On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Simon Wilcox wrote: b) That is should have a name that appeals to newbies. How about EasyScripts ? the domain name is available, anyway. Not very perl, but I like it. Something similar though. EasyPerlScripts or even EZPerlScripts (for the American audience :) ? c) It should sound at least semi-professional[1]. Can we make use of the PerlMonger connection and/or use the Programming Republic logo ? Yes, IMHO, though IANAL. http://www.pm.org/faq.shtml http://republic.perl.com/logo.html The perl mongers logo is a little on the big size (and we're not allowed to resize it.) Maybe a page that says "Who did this ?" "Why did we do it ?" and fit the logo in there ? Perhaps we should try and get the project endorsed in some way so that we can say "The Perl Mongers bring you Easy Perl Scripts" ? But now I'm descending into Marketing so I'll shut up ! S.
Re: Matt's Scripts Projects
At 14:59 19/03/2001 +, Simon Wistow wrote: Chris Devers wrote: Probably, as is "The Matt's Wrong Archive", which is probably far too negative obvious anyway... ;) But if Matt Sergeant put it up ... ... it would all be in XML ;-)
Re: Matt's Scripts Projects
At 15:40 20/03/2001 +, Gareth Harper wrote: - Original Message - From: "Robin Szemeti" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 3:06 PM Subject: Re: Matt's Scripts Projects On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, you wrote: apart from that the benfits of running as a Limited Company are large (ish) assuming you can escape from the clutches of IR35. by careful handling of the way you do things your overall tax and NIC burden can be 'effectivley managed' and you should see 80~85% of what you earn actually ending up in your pocket. but iosn;t the same true when acting as a Sole Trader ? You still invoice people as you would as a Limited Company (I asked an accountant friend of mine for advice and he suggested I go with Sole Trader which is why I'm asking) IANAL but I think that clients become liable for paying certain dues, NI IIRC, if you, as a sole trader or casual worker, are based on a client site, directed by the client, for a long period of time (for some value, unknown to me, of "long"). By retaining a limited company, the client is absolved of this obligation. There could be other reasons or this reason could be completely false. It's been several years since I looked at this. Simon.
RE: Pointless, Badly-Written Module.
At 16:29 20/03/2001 +, Jonathan Peterson wrote: a) a two reasons why this module should never have been written, and 1. It's redundant, other modules do this already. 2. MM DD YY is an evil date format, and should be abolished in favour of DD MM YY which is more sensible. Or even better YY-MM-DD which avoids cross-pond confusion. Simon.
ISO8601 [was] Re: Pointless, Badly-Written Module.
At 11:43 20/03/2001 -0500, Dave Cross wrote: Which is the ISO standard (number 8601) for dates for a very good reason. I thought I'd look this up, but the BSI want 50 quid for a copy. I appreciate this is how they make money to fund the standards work but it seems a tad steep for the casual viewer such as myself. Anyone know of a free online resource ? Simon Cheepskate
Re: ISO8601 [was] Re: Pointless, Badly-Written Module.
At 06:42 21/03/2001 -0500, Dave Cross wrote: At Wed, 21 Mar 2001 11:37:32 + (GMT), AEF [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Useful Summary: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html Standard: ftp://ftp.qsl.net/pub/g1smd/8601v03.pdf This one seems to be a second edition although the filename infers third. Google is Good[tm]. doh ! will now write 100 times - "use all your resources before bothering other people" Looks like you _can_ get it directly from ISO by going to: http://www.iso.ch/markete/8601.pdf This seems to be the first version. Quite a lot seems to have changed between versions judging by the markup on the qsl.net version above. I agree wholeheartedly with the observation on the IDFC page Dave posted - "Seems pretty daft to me - if you want a worldwide standard to be adopted it should be freely available to everyone who could possibly want to use it" /rant Simon.
Re: Pointless, Badly-Written Module.
At 17:51 22/03/2001 +0100, Philip Newton wrote: Simon Wilcox wrote: Or even better YY-MM-DD which avoids cross-pond confusion. Oh yeah? Which year, month, and day are represented by the combination 02-03-04? Depends on the side of the pond, and on which pond (MM-DD-YY in US, DD-MM-YY in UK, possibly YY-MM-DD in Japan). I admit I suffered from speedy-reply syndrome. A moments more thought and I would probably have recognized the need for a 4-digit year. But at least I learned about ISO8601 :-) Simon. -- "The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote." Ambassador Kosh, B5
Re: London.pm List Weekly Summary 2001-03-19
At 05:25 23/03/2001 -0500, Dave Cross wrote: For even more points: What was the first TV show the Lenny Henry appeared on? Dave... Tiswas ! Actually - I think this was where McDoughnut first appeared ? Simon.
RE: Job: I'm looking for one..
At 10:31 27/03/2001 +0100, Jonathan Peterson wrote: Rumour has it that many people are bringing tech in house, which is hitting conslutancies and agencies harder. I'm still not convinced that there's a major downturn in the total number of tech jobs. That's exactly what we're doing. I have a full development program for the foreseeable future and we've decided to bring it in house. We will still use external resources for really tricky bits that we don't have the knowledge for. My experience is that I get better performance out of people with a vested interest in the company and what we're doing than from any outside agency who, for all their protestations and claims of "partnerships", are still there to make a profit. That's not to say it doesn't work (my company, Williams Lea, *is* an outsourcer) but when it's core to your business and changing fast, keeping it in house makes it easier to control cost and quality. plug type="vacancies" We are looking for two perl developers to work on intranet based systems integration and information/knowledge management projects. In addition to all the usual requirements, experience with Micro$oft tech (IIS/VB/MTS) will be an advantage as would exposure to systems integration. A "corporate tolerant" attitude is also required, to avoid upsetting all the poor people not doing cool web stuff around here (like the beancounters :) If you are interested, please let me know off-list. /plug Simon.
Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts
At 13:29 27/03/2001 +, Matthew Byng-Maddick wrote:
my @th=(qw(th st nd rd),("th")x16)x2; $th[31]="st";
That's an evil and gross hack.
[snip]
sub th{(($_[0]-10-$_[0]%10)/10%10)?(qw(th st nd rd),('th')x6)[$_[0]%10]:"th"}
The first one I understood. Not sure about the second but I'll work it out ;-)
I thought I would play around with Benchmark.pm, because I don't use it
nearly often enough, so I made this script:
#! /usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Benchmark;
use POSIX 'strftime';
use vars qw(@th);
@th=(qw(th st nd rd),("th")x16)x2; $th[31]="st";
sub th{(($_[0]-10-$_[0]%10)/10%10)?(qw(th st nd rd),('th')x6)[$_[0]%10]:"th"}
my $count=10;
timethese($count, {
'Array' = '{
my @time=localtime;
my $dummy = strftime("%e$th[$time[3]] %b %Y\n",
@time);
}',
'Sub' = '{
my @time=localtime;
my $th=th($time[3]);
my $dummy = strftime("%e$th %b %Y\n", @time);
}'
});
Now - I don't know if I've used this right at all - comments and criticisms
gladly accepted.
The output is:
Benchmark: timing 10 iterations of Array, Sub...
Array: 3 wallclock secs ( 3.33 usr + 0.09 sys = 3.42 CPU)
Sub: 6 wallclock secs ( 5.27 usr + 0.06 sys = 5.33 CPU)
So - Did I get this heinously wrong or is MBM's sub really a lot slower ?
Simon.
Re: Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts
At 16:53 27/03/2001 +0100, Robin Houston wrote: On Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 05:40:19PM +0200, Philip Newton wrote: Well, remember that the sub effecticaly recalculates (what amounts to) the array each time. To be fair, you should include the array initialisation inside the loop and see who wins then. Hey, that's not _fair_! The whole point of using an array is that you can pre-populate it. (also it's more concise, and I find it more comprehensible. YMMV) I agree, it's how I would have done it. I was just trying to see it really deserved the label "evil and gross hack". It seems to me that it doesn't but as you say, YMMV and I got to practice my benchmarking :-) Simon.
RE: Perl Certification Drive
At 11:56 29/03/2001 +0100, Jonathan Peterson wrote: I think the money aspect is very important. This isn't YAS, it's supposed to be a professional qualification for professional programmers. 300 sounds like a good number for me. "If it only costs a fiver then what good can it be" will be the PHB's attitude, I've seen this often. Yes, you are right. However, given the, ah, aversity of many perl programs to getting certified, I'd like to remove barriers to entry. If we can get the 'professional' stamp by sticking names like O'Reilly (Or Microsoft - why not?) on the certificates, and then charge less, I think that would be better. But if not, then I agree a charge (mayb more 50 than 300?!) can have a similar effect. Maybe two levels ? 1. Tests as part of a course package are cheap. You already have the infrastructure set up and authorised trainers can administer the test. 2. Standalone test are more expensive. You have to have dedicated hardware and testing environments. What about getting those guys that do the Novell Microsoft exams [pause for web search] Prometric to do it. They already have all the infrastructure. Simon.
Re: Crazy Idea
At 15:29 03/04/2001 +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: How would people in London.pm like a one night camp out, subject to the FM issue going away. The plan would be - we bundle into vehicles on a given afternoon (probably saturday), go to a farm shop and get lots of cider, and then spend the night around a camp fire, drinking and talking. Count me in. I have a tent and everything ! Simon.
List jumping ? [was] RE: when are we going to see the caaaamels
Is there list jumping going on ? I seem to be getting about half the traffic this afternoon. frinstance, I didn't get the original post this replies to. At 17:29 03/04/2001 +0100, dcross - David Cross wrote: From: jo walsh [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 03 April 2001 16:15 can we go now that it is spring? some sunday afternoon soon? davorg? can we davorg? Er... yes... I suppose so. /me makes a mental note to work out who is entitled to camel tickets. I anyone thinks they owe for a slice, plesae let me know. Dave...
Re: Crazy Idea
At 02:38 04/04/2001 +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: * Simon Wilcox ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Count me in. I have a tent and everything ! any you have the ``right'' attitude when it comes to beer and explosives I used to use theatrical maroons (explosives with electrical detonators) to blow up bits of the garden. They made very effective mines to destroy Action Men too. Admittedly I was only 10 at the time but I think that counts as the "right" attitude ;-) Simon.
Re: Crazy Idea
At 11:12 04/04/2001 +0100, Roger Burton West wrote: On Wed, Apr 04, 2001 at 02:38:44AM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: any you have the ``right'' attitude when it comes to beer and explosives http://firedrake.org/roger/fireworks/ ooh, ahh !
Re: Crazy Idea
At 09:50 04/04/2001 +, Robin Szemeti wrote: 1) LeMaitre make some very big marroons for stage use. The very brand :-) 2) it says they need to be in some form of container when they go off. Nah. Bury them in sand for realistic WWII FX. Mwahahahaha 3) do NOT use those funny square dustbin/ashtray things (with the two flaps of steel as a lid) as the container (see [2] above) 4) the lids on [3] are, apparently, not attached very well. Indeed they are not. I remember that happening to me in a production I once worked on. 5) Members of the public attending an event do not take kindly to being whisked off to hospital to have lumps of metal removed from their legs. Luckily it only did minor damage to the backstage area. I tell you this to help you avoid long chats with staff from the local HSE and insurance comapanies, neither of whom seem to have much 'sense of fun' in these matters ... Miserable lot I always find but not as bad as the jobsworth fire brigade fire safety inspection officers I've come across.
Re: Crazy Idea
At 11:33 04/04/2001 +0100, Chris Heathcote wrote: on 4/4/01 11:27 am, Simon Wilcox wrote: Luckily it only did minor damage to the backstage area. I bought a supply of various flashes and explosions, but did not have a firing box. Using the switch on a 4 way extension block (with a number of mains plugs to croc clips) is probably not the safest way to fire them. I'll bet it worked a treat though ! c. (who also used to cut live mains cables with secateurs, for fun) Which reminds me of the time someone shorted out a mains socket with a paper clip "to see what happened". Scared the hell out of the teacher :-) Ahh, the old days. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be..
Re: Crazy Idea
At 12:39 04/04/2001 +0100, Martin Ling wrote: I received a 240V shock whilst still in the womb. Various people have made the obvious comic-book connections about my affinity for all things electronic I once got an electric shock off a stage lantern whilst 18ft up a ladder. The only reason I'm still here is that the ladder jammed against the ceiling as I toppled backwards. Otherwise it would have been a messy end on the rows of seats below me. Some say that would have been a Good Thing (tm)
What time tonight ?
What time is the technical meeting starting tonight ? Simon.
RE: What time tonight ?
At 17:37 19/04/2001 +0100, dcross - David Cross wrote: From: Simon Wilcox [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 5:38 PM What time is the technical meeting starting tonight ? oh. um. well. let's say 7:00pm. how does that sound? Good. Almost got stuck here but have finally tracked down a bug I've been chasing all day so I shall be there. (The bug being that File::Copy from 5.005_03 doesn't work under mod_perl if you have PerlFreshRestart On. Silly me !) See you all later. Simon.
Re: Not Matt's Scripts
At 13:27 02/05/2001 +0100, David Cantrell wrote: If the purpose of this is to make it utterly drool-proof, then why not re-write File::Find (can't make them install it of course, that would be expecting too much) Is there a reason why we can't distribute our own versions of modules with the scripts ? MWF Forum (as an example) has modules in the same directory as the scripts which seem to just get useed in the usual way. Could we not ship our own version of File::Find, and have the code use it if it can't use the real File::Find because it's not installed ? OK, so it would eat up disk space but if it were clever, there would be some run once code that would figure out what's there and what isn't and tell the user which files they could safely remove. Ideally it would rewrite itself and do the deletes automatically but I suspect that clueful ISPs will have removed write permissions for the webserver to write to cgi-bin ! Just a thought. Simon.
Training anyone ?
Just saw this linked from a hugely obvious banner ad on the Register : http://training.gbdirect.co.uk/courses/perl/for_the_register.html Great idea to tie it in to a success story I thought. Simon.
Re: Templating Solutions
Philip Newton wrote: Simon Wilcox wrote: I avoided HTML::Embperl, HTML::Mason Apache::ASP because they all embed perl into the template which is a Bad Thing (tm). Why is that so evil? I'm willing to be enlightened here. A couple of reasons. Separation of code presentation is good because it means that your designers can concentrate on the design html whilst your programmers concentrate on function. It helps if those not familiar with perl don't have to worry about it. They get a domain specific language that is easy to understand (TT2 scores well here because it hides the differences between scalars, arrays, hashes and object methods), and hopefully difficult for them to break. See this thread for Andy's take on this. http://www.template-toolkit.org/pipermail/templates/2001-June/001076.html Secondly, it helps with maintenance reusability if all your perl code is in one place, there's less to change and less chance of thiongs going wrong. This really helps when the PHBs come along and ask if you can redesign the pages for a particular client. Whilst this can be done if you've mixed up perl into your template it makes it much harder because there is a lot more for the designers to break (and let's not even mention asp/php/jsp :) Now I accept that if you are the sole programmer/developer/designer on a project then it maybe doesn't matter but I have found that it helps me to work in a separated way, so when they say, as they have, ah, we need the first two years in this table and the rest in that one it becomes a presentation issue and not a perl coding issue [1]. HTH, Simon. [1] It was really easy to do in a TT2 template as well !
