Re: Books
* at 04/01 13:26 + David Hodgkinson said: It took me three bookshops on Charing Cross Road to get a perl library together for the guys I'm working with, but I managed it without having to go into Foyle's. Yeah! er, what's wrong with foyles if it's not a silly question? s -- Struan Donald mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Code Flunky, 365 Plc. http://www.365corp.com/
Re: Holy War
* at 19/01 16:12 + Redvers Davies said: All I'll say about mandrake is that we have a mandrake box at work and when you run printtool the cdrom ejects. You couldn't do an strace on that so we see what causes that could you? I would have thought a hardware conflict would be the most likely cause there... i'm not if the box still exists. i could have a look and see though... struan
Re: Holy War
* at 19/01 16:33 - Robert Shiels said: What are you planning to do on the box? It'll be purely for home use, so: * Hacking perl * Prototyping web sites * Playing with new toys like AxKit and Camelot * Write * Surf the web * Read mail * Play the occasional game * Listen to MPs * Burn CDs Apart from the games perhaps, I'm just wondering what a PIV1400Mhz will do that a PII350 wouldn't :-) What was your inner justification for getting such a monster machine Dave? that geek tendancy to get a farcially over powered machine 'cause they can? struan
Re: Conslutancy
* at 22/01 16:22 + Simon Wistow said: Andy Wardley wrote: So without wishing to start another holy war, is it possible to change the mailing list configuration to have a more sensible default Reply-to? rant I have arguments with Leon about this. He usually quotes 'Reply To munging considered harmful' (http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html) but as I keep trying to point out to him this document is bollocks. The main statemests it makes are ... snip 2) It provides no benefit to the user of a reasonable mailer. What mailer? I use Netscape which amkes it a pain in the arse. But Netscape isn't a decent mailer you'll say. Ok. Pine. Pine has, IIRC a Reply and a 'Reply To All' capability. I believe Mutt is the same? How does non munging help here? actually mutt has cool mailing list functions in that you can define a mailing list in the config and then l (or L, i forget) replies to the list rather than the person. not that i want this to degenerate into a mail client holy war :) struan
Re: Conslutancy
* at 22/01 16:33 + Greg McCarroll said: * Struan Donald ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: actually mutt has cool mailing list functions in that you can define a mailing list in the config and then l (or L, i forget) replies to the list rather than the person. not that i want this to degenerate into a mail client holy war :) war implies a large struggle, this would be more like a 5 second knockout - everyone knows mutt is the one true mail client well yes but some people are stubborn, plus there's always the school of thought that everyting should be done from within emacs... struan
Re: Dumb-assed question
* at 25/01 10:37 + Michael Stevens said: On Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 06:02:25PM +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dreamweaver (I know, don't ask) nicely escapes the spaces to %20 but when I try and download these, the %20 appears in the Netscape file save as box instead of spaces. Dreamweaver is by far the best GUI html development tool I'm aware of. the number of times i've sent stuff to people that works fine, had them run it through dreamweaver and then complain that it's broken makes me wonder what the bad gui tools are like. struan
Re: Video Tips
* at 29/01 11:29 - Robert Shiels said: Staying resolutely on-topic [1], I've started watching my "League of Gentlemen" first series DVD. This is a very good DVD indeed, with an second audio track by the cast talking about why they did everything. The DVD starts with a question "Are you Local ?" If you click "No" it switches off :) thereby robert demonstrates joke spoiling techinque 27 :) struan
Re: Another Template Toolkit Q
* at 29/01 15:17 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: So TT nicely allows a filename, a filehandle or blank for STDOUT. So how to I capture the output to "some variable" so I could, say, manipulate that output without having to read the file I've outputted? Is that possible? mmm, this should be a FAQ... perldoc Template: By default, the processed template output is printed to STDOUT. The process() method then returns 1 to indicate success. A third parameter may be passed to the process() method to specify a different output location. This value may be one of: a plain string indicating a filename which will be opened (relative to OUTPUT_PATH, if defined) and the output written to; a file GLOB opened ready for output; a reference to a scalar (e.g. a text string) to which output/error is appended; a reference to a subroutine which is called, passing the output as a parameter; or any object reference which implements a 'print' method (e.g. IO::Handle, Apache::Request, etc.) which will be called, passing the generated output as a parameter. If you note, the third paramater can be a ref to a scalar to which the output is appended. hth struan (sho missed this fisrt time round too :)
Re: Perl Books
* at 31/01 14:28 + Dominic Mitchell said: On Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 09:24:20AM -0500, Dave Cross wrote: Here's an interesting page[1] Have a URL for that, guv? er... this unweldy thing would seem to be it: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/4045/107-2581489-8245353 struan
Re: website directory access
* at 01/02 12:35 - Robert Shiels said: I don't really like this, is there another way? I don't want to have to resort to .htpasswd files, which is what I've implemented for now. er, what's wrong with them? struan
Re: Amazon Sales Rank
* at 01/02 08:35 -0500 Dave Cross said:
Data Munging with Perl
by David Cross
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 760
Blimey, how did that happen? Yesterday it was 87,867!
a day in the life of a famous perl author:
goto: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1930110006/
while (1){
look at sales rank
sleep 300
hit refresh
}
struan
Re: Mailing List Stuff
* at 02/02 12:29 + Jonathan Stowe said: On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Dave Cross wrote: Any questions? Yeah, can I have a pony ? what is it with ponys? struan
Re: Bad programming considered harmless
* at 02/02 12:25 - Jonathan Peterson said: However, I don't question the plumber's competence, or indeed pretend to anyone including myself that I can do a good job of it. The same should apply to programming. If I were to try my hand at re-plumbing my kitchen, I know I'd make a god-awful mess, and I am intelligent enough to not attempt it. The great unwashed should approach programming the same way. snip type="good points" / Expertism is a dangerous trend. A little knowledge is _not_ a dangerous thing. The only dangerous thing is not knowing the _extent_ of your (little) knowledge. and here is the flaw. it's teh knowing the extent of your knowledge that's the hard part and the bit that the learn perl while you wait for the kettle to boil type books don't seem (IMO) very good at instilling. I'm all for trying to get more people to program perl or any other language but at the same time i'd like it to be done in a sensible way. not only as having bad perl floating about there isn't a good thing, also 'cause if you teach someone bad habits then if they continue they are going to have to unlearn them all, or things will be harder than they should be and they're more likely to get disgruntled. we have enough problems with people looking at perl and thinking "mmm, that looks hard, i'll learn python" without having them 'learn' perl then discover half of what they learnt is bad perl. you have to teach them some theory of good programming, as at the end of the day it _will_ make their lives easier. struan
Re: TT2 Question
* at 08/02 13:00 -0500 Andy Williams said: I'm installing TT2. The problem. the installation says that I need XML::DOM ver 1.27 installed I've hunted high and low but all I can find is version 1.25! Anyone know where I can get it? libxml-enno is what you want. struan
Re: VA?
* at 13/02 17:07 + Jonathan Stowe said: On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Struan Donald wrote: *and* they have blue LEDs :) Well that doubles the price for starters :) ah, but everyone loves blue LEDs struan
Re: Alternative to bad perl resources
* at 19/02 13:34 + Steve Mynott said: Tony Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Surely part of the reason that so much bad code gains so much popularity is that bad coders tend to think their code is good, so don't mind publicising it and shouting about it lots. Good coders, on the other hand, think that their code is always bad, so are reluctant to do much with it. But their "bad" is usually much better than others "good" ... This is very true. Also code beauty is in the eye of the beholder and is subjective. Also badly written code can be "good" in the sense of being useful. ah, we have so much of that :( every time it needs hac^H^H^Hextended i try and clean it up but given i never have the time to start from sratch it's an uphill struggle. We, as programmers, mean internal design when we say "good" whereas users refer to software as "good" because it has a simple UI, is useful and solves some problems without creating many new ones. Of course good internal design probably tends to correspond to a certain extent to good software, since it should be easier to extend when new features are required and should be less buggy. and also, well thought out software design should reflect in better useability. if the code is a maze of hacks and kludges then it's all the harder to hide that behind a clean front end. the fact that UI design seems to be a much ignored skill doesn't help. struan
Re: t-shirts
* at 21/02 12:49 + Michael Stevens said: On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 12:43:34PM +, Paul Mison wrote: On 21/02/2001 at 12:26 +, Michael Stevens wrote: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US and they were disposable. This sort of meme just does the rounds too rapidly. I mean, how much would you laugh at someone wearing a 'I am Mahir, Kiss Me Now' or whatever it was tshirt now? You've got it! We need dissolving t-shirts! surely just t-shirts with editable text? struan
Re: geek cricket
* at 27/02 12:33 + Roger Burton West said: On or about Tue, Feb 27, 2001 at 12:29:19PM +, Amias Channer typed: Each company would have a team (or combine to make teams) and play 40 over matches on sunday afternoons in some sort of league . Does this appeal to anyone ? gambling is optional . You mean... actual physical exertion? maybe he means pub cricket. struan
Re: Heretics' meeting
* at 28/02 15:09 - Hamlet D'Arcy said: Could you post a bit more about the Heretic's meeting? Perhaps some links. I've never heard of the group. if only we had a faq :) struan
Re: Heretics' meeting
* at 23/02 06:57 -0500 Dave Cross said: At Fri, 23 Feb 2001 12:40:19 +, Greg McCarroll [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Q. When are social meetings? A. On the day after the first wednesday of the month. Please stop confusing the newcomers. London.pm social meetings are _always_ on the first Thursday of the month. Some sad individuals have a problem with that and insist on using other arcane calculations for the meeting date. This only results in problems when the _official_ meetings are on the 1st of the month. On months like this (and March will be one such month) you may well see talk of a 'heretics meeting' on the 8th. Hope this is clearer now. Dave... * at 28/02 15:09 - Hamlet D'Arcy said: Could you post a bit more about the Heretic's meeting? Perhaps some links. I've never heard of the group. to be more helpful see above[1]. struan [1]: wondering how to make mutt do things in the right order when replying to multiple posts.
Re: Heretics' meeting
* at 28/02 17:37 + Michael Stevens said: On Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 05:33:34PM +, Matthew Robinson wrote: OK, its 'meetings are held on the day after the first wednesday of the month'. That makes perfect sense now, I work on the "meetings are held whenever more than half the people on irc mention a pub" theory. now i don't hang about on irc but if it's like the list then that's a lot of meetings struan
Re: Strange Request
* at 13/03 10:43 - Jonathan Peterson said: There's a marketing battle that needs to be fought first. We need, somehow, to ensure that newbie CGI programmers read criticisms of Matt's scripts _before_ they find Matt's Script Archive. And I don't know how you're going to undo five years of misinformation and achieve that. Maybe we need to sponsor Matt Wright? The inverse of the Damian sponsorship, we would cover whatever revenue he gets from his scripts in return for him shutting all the sites down for a year, and redirecting everyone somewhere else. What do you reckon? Sponsor Matt to not be involved with Perl for a year? couldn't we just raise enough cash to send him on a decent perl training course? that way he might re-write his stuff. although the sheer twistedness of the above does appeal :) struan
Re: Strange Request
* at 13/03 10:56 + Michael Stevens said: On Tue, Mar 13, 2001 at 10:58:36AM +, Greg McCarroll wrote: how to solve this, will there is an easy way that would deal with the problem at source - perl certification *duck* having said in another email how there were no resources to deal with this problem, there is a near miss in the perl cookbook, however to tackle the problem directly, maybe ORA need to commission a Perl CGI Cookbook. all the good classic web problems, with simple ready to run examples. forums, guestbooks, counters, voting, etc. Maybe we should join the many people who've had a go at this... setup a CVS repository on penderel, get on with it. was that the sound of someone volunteering? struan
Re: Matt's Scripts
* at 14/03 15:22 + Michael Stevens said: On Wed, Mar 14, 2001 at 04:10:02PM +, David Cantrell wrote: WebDAV is not OK, cos it means installing yet more stuff on the server which is simply not needed. If a user can't use scp, then I don't want that user. I mean, it's not hard FFS. Admittedly rather unscientific research has shown you're actually wrong - lots of users find it very hard. enough people find moving/copying files on windows complex... when you start introducing a second computer... struan
Re: Scalar Context vs List Context
* at 14/03 10:37 -0500 Dave Cross said: ... and how much trouble you can get in for not knowing the difference: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/13/208259 the best thing about this is the number of links to this story that give the impression the kids were arrested for not knowing the difference rather than the consequences thereof. i think even some of the more unforgiving of us would agree that it'd be a bit harsh if it was the case. not useing strict on the other hand... struan
Re: Buffy riding a pony!
* at 02/04 16:26 +0100 David Cantrell said: I was bored today, so I wrote an ickle module which takes code like this: we're less than half way through damian's year and already this sort of thing is becoming very common. i'm beginning to think that YAS didn't think the idea through carefully enough... or do we suppose this is just an unfortunate side effect of letting too many london.pm members talk to each other? struan
Re: archiving
* at 03/04 13:55 +0100 Greg McCarroll said: * Robin Houston ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Tue, Apr 03, 2001 at 01:36:54PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: Did you all know that i used to blow up pressurised butane cannisters as a child? We *all* used to do *that* :-) snip content="tales of madness and danger from the dark mccarroll past"/ So, should we start baiting Scientologists through the archive? aren't they no fun in that all they do is sent a cease and desist letter rather than get involved in pointless debates? plus do we really want people coming round a seizing our computers as evidence? (well, not unless it's covered by household insurance as mine's looking a bit elderly these days) struan
Re: archiving
* at 03/04 14:17 +0100 dcross - David Cross said: From: Greg McCarroll [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 03 April 2001 13:56 So, should we start baiting Scientologists through the archive? Where do I start? * L Ron Hubbard is on record as saying the best way to make money is to start a religion. A few years later he founded the church of scientology. * Scientologists believe that humans are descended from clams. * Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were both scientologists. There's a rumour that their (exactly) ten year marriage was a scientology contract drawn up to cover up the fact that they're both gay. * Scientologists pay huge sums of money to buy "secrets" that are mirrored all over the internet. The "church" claims these are copyrighted and will do their best to close down any site carrying these. * The "church" was responsible for the closure of anon.penet.fi and recently forced Slashdot to edit some comments. * Loads more good stuff from Operation Clambake at http://www.xenu.net. Is that the sort of thing you wanted? you'll have those illumnati round your house this evening.. or is that david ike? struan and you forgot the machines for exorcising the space aliens from your head. or something like that.
Re: Crazy Idea
* at 03/04 16:47 +0100 Andrew Bowman said: From: Simon Wistow [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 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 ^^^ Hmmm. Do the words "foot" and "mouth" mean nothing to you? /me suspects Dave may have been kidnapped and replaced by a dozier, evil replacement. Either that or he misread FM as SM, or, worse, FHM. well, that unstructured data is difficult tp parse :) struan
Re: Crazy Idea
* at 03/04 17:21 +0100 Matthew Byng-Maddick said: On Tue, 3 Apr 2001, Struan Donald wrote: * at 03/04 16:47 +0100 Andrew Bowman said: Either that or he misread FM as SM, or, worse, FHM. well, that unstructured data is difficult tp parse :) Is dave cross written in Perl? well no[1] but if it's hard to parse in perl... s [1] not that i have any evidence one way or the other...
Re: Test
* at 04/04 15:58 +0100 Robin Houston said: On Wed, Apr 04, 2001 at 03:09:02PM +0100, Nicholas Clark wrote: [...] the HTML hanger on serves no purpose except to consume my disk space at 4 times the rate. You mean you *archive* this bollocks? doesn't eveyone archive all their mail? *some* of it *might* be useful at some point. and it's not like disk space is at a premium these days struan
Re: Certing
* at 05/04 21:37 + Robin Szemeti said: On Thu, 05 Apr 2001, you wrote: * Greg McCarroll ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: * Dean ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Will the Perl Cert discussion/brainstorming be taking part at todays meet or the technical one? todays having said that i think it will be pretty damn informal judging by the way grep appeared late, informed everyone he'd had 'a hell of a day' and then went to the bar and bought two 6 pint pitchers of 6X I think it fair to say it might well be a little more informal than people might possibly have imagined . :)) and this i why i would like to nominate that the phrase of the day is "I blame greg" struan (who really drank far more than he intended)
Re:
* at 06/04 11:34 +0100 Natalie Ford said: At 22:42 04/04/01, David Cantrell wrote: PC-Pine is suitable only for small children recovering from major surgery. ...and maybe people who prefer a GUI? :) isn't that what he said? :) struan
Re: Technical Meeting - 19th April
* at 09/04 16:09 +0100 dcross - David Cross said: snip/ p.s Next social meeting is on Thur 3rd May. Suggestions for venues would be most welcome. nowhere we might be tempted to sit by the thames till the wee small hours generating tremendous hangovers :) struan
Re: Technical Meeting - 19th April
* at 10/04 09:15 +0100 Greg McCarroll said: * Marcel Grunauer ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Mon, Apr 09, 2001 at 04:56:28PM +0100, Struan Donald wrote: nowhere we might be tempted to sit by the thames till the wee small hours generating tremendous hangovers :) "sit"? IIRC, you tried to lean against a bench but unfortunately were standing between two benches, landing on the ground face-down. its a good job he had lots of `anasthetic' that night, or that would of really hurt not at the time no :( struan
NWS (was Re: Technical Meeting - 19th April)
* at 11/04 08:28 +0100 Mark Fowler said: On Mon, 9 Apr 2001, dcross - David Cross wrote: snip I'll also be able to give a quick status update on the website for NMS (probably at the same time as I'll be using it as my example) what is the status of the NMS thing. i'm liable to have some spare time over the weekend so if there's anything that needs doing on this i could have a bash. struan
Re: TPJ Reborn
* at 11/04 17:50 +0100 Greg McCarroll said: * David Cantrell ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 05:10:12PM +0100, Leon Brocard wrote: Paul Mison sent the following bits through the ether: If you're going to do IRC style karma-ing, at least make sure there's a bot present ... and before someone magically has enough time to link dipsy to email, no email bots please! ;-) Sorry, ol bean, I'm already piping this list through two bots (my archiver and my URL-hunter). They don't say anything in public though. Yet. point of order - they are filters, not bots point of information: isn't that a point of information? struan
Re: NWS (was Re: Technical Meeting - 19th April)
* at 17/04 14:09 +0100 Mark Fowler said: On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, Struan Donald wrote: surely there should be a better way than this? after all the combinations involved are quite numerous. is the notion of something that does : #!/bin/sh if [ -e /usr/bin/perl ]; then exec './bin_perl.pl' fi or equivalent too silly? although not sure this sort of thing is possible on non unix type systems. OTOH would at least cut down the number of files that the person installing needs to worry about. I don't particularly see the number of scripts this person is installing as a problem. The key concept is that these scripts are designed so that someone who knows *nothing* about their system can basically upload them all then see which one works. Once they've got this script working the script should contain instructions on how to modify any of the other scripts to work with their server. it's not so much the number of scripts as the "try each of these scripts till one works" situation i think we should be trying to minimise. I don't think what you're suggesting will work at all on windows. Or pure mod_perl... true. although the number of people using mod_perl who'll be using these is debatable. windows is a problem though. Feel free to disagree, I'm just suggesting ideas here. Honestly, I'm not sure what's the best way... heck, anything that helps is better than the "your isp will know" school of help. struan
CPAN search from mozilla address bar
no idea if anyone will find this useful but: if you use mozilla (on linux/*nix at least) stick this: search name="CPAN" description="CPAN Search" method="GET" action="http://search.cpan.org/search" input name="mode" value="module" input name="query" user /search in a file called cpan.src in the searhcplugins directory of your mozilla install. restart mozilla. go the the internet search options, select CPAN as your default Search Engine and hey presto, you can now search cpan direct from the mozilla address bar. only don't tick the display in my sidebar option as it doesn't work. struan
Re: Komodo
* at 18/04 11:58 +0100 Robin Szemeti said: On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, you wrote: IMHO the Linux port is an afterthought, most of the effort seems to have been focused on the Windows side, the integration with Visual Studio springs to mind. umm ... since Linux accounts (at a guess) for 75% of Perl usauge, thats quite an 'afterthought'. My guess is they see ActiveState Perl as taking over the world and these tools are simply there to help get it to that position. i do love the sound of figures being plucked from thin air. struan
Re: Mourning clothes for London.pm
* at 18/04 17:47 +0100 Dominic Mitchell said: On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 05:43:20PM +0100, dcross - David Cross wrote: Alexis Denisof (who plays Wesley) is going out with Alyson Hannigan (Willow). For some reason, this is made even worse by the automatic word association of "Wesley" and "Crusher". ah, the curse of the TNG generation. I imagine there'll be a real dearth of wesleys for the next 10 to 20 years. struan
next social meeting vs tube strike
Noticed on my way past the news stands last night that the next tube strike is pencilled in for May the 3rd, as is the next social meeting. OK, so the strike might not happen but if it does is this not going to make the next social meeting a bit problematic? just a thought. Struan
Re: next social meeting vs tube strike
* at 19/04 15:04 +0100 dcross - David Cross said: From: Steve Mynott [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 2:48 PM Struan Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Noticed on my way past the news stands last night that the next tube strike is pencilled in for May the 3rd, as is the next social meeting. OK, so the strike might not happen but if it does is this not going to make the next social meeting a bit problematic? why don't you have the social meeting a day earlier so that everyone can "work from home" with their hangovers the following day? You mean hold a meeting that's not on a Thursday. Hmm... interesting concept. I'm not sure that the rules cater for that possibility. Let me think about. Might need an EGM this evening. Hope we're quorate. Dunno, don't the strikes tend to start the evening before the day[1]? I'd be wary of holding in any time round the 3rd. struan [1] or the evening of the second to be less confusing
Re: Beginners Guide
* at 21/04 10:14 +0100 Robin Szemeti said: On Fri, 20 Apr 2001, you wrote: I read it as not wanting to fund the various commercial entities one ends up funding in order to actual get a digital box. The idea of putting any more money in the Murdoch empires coffers just for the sake of getting News 24 and BBC Choice certainly doesn't appeal. ahh .. re read yes .. that would be another interpretation ... but, again, it certainly used to be the case and AFAIK it still is that you can get ( it might be 3 quid or something $ trivial to cover the cost of hte card) a BBC only card that is free on production of your TV licence. I know Murdoch et al were not very keen on the idea and try and tell you it 'cant be done' etc but ISTR the DTI telling em to just shut up and do it. and almost as if in answer to this i noticed a great many ads for digital tv wjile vegging in front of smtv on saturday that made much of the fact that you bought it and itv2 was free, free, free! as it also showed tvs with news24 etc i imagine all your favourite bbc digital channels are also free. struan
Re: Company Name
* at 25/04 09:02 +0100 Robert Shiels said: I've decided to set up my own company and become a contractor. There are quite a lot of decisions to be made, but the hardest one I'm finding is thinking of a company name! So far my only ideas are simply Shiels or Shiels Consulting; this is fairly obvious, and I already own the shiels.com domain. I guess I could try Shiels Enterprises or Shiels Inc, but they seem pretty naff. How did contractors here come up with the names for their companies, and can you think of anything with Shiels in the name that sounds good. I will mainly be doing SAP work, but hope to get other IT work too, so don't want SAP in the name. you could always try one of those anagram generators. struan
Re: Company Name
* at 25/04 13:15 +0100 Jonathan Stowe said: On Wed, 25 Apr 2001, Robert Shiels wrote: I've decided to set up my own company and become a contractor. There are quite a lot of decisions to be made, but the hardest one I'm finding is thinking of a company name! Get the domain off Paul and call it PerlIsMyBitch Ltd. and randal thought the t-shirts were bad? struan
Re: tube strike / may meeting postponed til 10th
* at 02/05 16:51 +0100 Leon Brocard said: jo walsh sent the following bits through the ether: well, it looks like the tube strike (8pm Weds 2nd May - 8pm Thurs 3rd May) is still on, and this will scupper our May social meeting plans rather. It's not anymore, but we shouldn't shift the date again: http://www.thetube.com/content/pressreleases/ or http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1307000/1307103.stm for those who don't get a kick out of seeing server errors :) struan
Re: tube strike / may meeting postponed til 10th
* at 03/05 10:28 +0100 Mark Fowler said: On Wed, 2 May 2001, Struan Donald wrote: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1307000/1307103.stm for those who don't get a kick out of seeing server errors :) Which we all know you don't ever get on news.bbc.co.ukeven when a page you're looking for doesn't exist good grief, neither it does. what can they be thinking? struan
Re: cocktails
* at 03/05 12:42 +0100 Simon Wistow said: Chris Heathcote wrote: Off the top of my head: ICA bar, Match (Noho/Farringdon/Sosho), lab (on Old Compton St.), aka... also heard about Smiths of Smithfield, but never been there. For true geekdom go get cocktails go to Cynthia's Cyberbar http://www.cynbar.co.uk/ where you are served cocktails by a robot. although poss not on a sunday afternoon. certainly no robotic serving of a saturday afternoon (although this was 1ish so maybe a bit early) plus all that shiny metal surface decor is very unpleasant very quickly. struan
Re: Apocalypse Two
* at 04/05 10:22 +0100 Dave Hodgkinson said: Struan Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: i kind of like - from a visual point of view. much more like APL... ;-) i'd not know about that. seem to recall seeing an example of APL in a book once and it looked very scary. or it might have been ADA. still, if damian gets his way we'll no doubt be able to have modules/filters that mean we can still use - :) struan
Re: sing if you're happy that way
* at 08/05 13:04 +0100 Matthew Jones said: Wisty - next T-shirt please: use strict is gay Heh. On the back -w is jolly? surely the back should be: CHOPS struan
Re: sing if you're happy that way
* at 08/05 15:18 +0100 Andrew Bowman said: Excuse me for my ignorance of this matter, however I can't figure out what 'CHOPS' means in this context (and am sure I'm not alone among London PMers, at least not on this question). According to acronymfinder.com it's Controlled Humidity Operational Preservation System, but I doubt this is what the tiresome oik on crackwood.com or cookpot.com or whatever it is was referring to. as bizzaro insults/putdowns go Controlled Humidity... has a kinda neat ring to it. Nor does Jeeves know either. i suspect this is it though: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/channel-op.html although it still doesn't ring true. sreuan
Re: TBA?
* at 10/05 10:22 +0100 [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: is a venue decided on for tonights meeting, or is it still TBA? shuffles through mailbox for weekly summary Don't forget the London.pm website for meetings etc. The next meeting is a social meeting and has been postponed for a week to the Thursday 10th May. It will be at the Penderel's Oak: http://london.pm.org/ struan
putting escape characters in files
kind of off topic but how do you get things like ^M and such like into a file for, say, writing vi macros? i've had a look through some docs but i'm beggining to suspect it's one of those bit of unix aracana know to a chosen few. or is there some site/resource that contains this info? ta struan
Re: putting escape characters in files
* at 10/05 16:37 +0100 Dominic Mitchell said: On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 04:35:29PM +0100, Struan Donald wrote: kind of off topic but how do you get things like ^M and such like into a file for, say, writing vi macros? i've had a look through some docs but i'm beggining to suspect it's one of those bit of unix aracana know to a chosen few. or is there some site/resource that contains this info? Generally you can enter a control character into vi and most Unix shells by pressing ^V and then the character you want. ah, thanks In Emacs, it's ^Q, then the character you want. only ^Q? that's not like emacs :) struan
Re: putting escape characters in files
* at 11/05 11:32 +0100 Roger Burton West said: On or about Fri, May 11, 2001 at 10:48:41AM +0100, Jonathan Peterson typed: You know, from the outside, Unix looks so well designed and clean and modern... From the outside, Windows looks as if it works. ObRant: computers and OSes in their current state are not consumer devices. They're not sufficiently reliable or intuitive. Bad marketing has made people think they need the things; most of them are wrong... you just have to see that people have trouble with palm's sometimes and they are so much more simple to realise that your average fully fledged computer in not a consumer device. but then any reasonably flexible multi-purpose device is always going to have a hard time being a consumer device as by it's nature it's complex and trying to make complex things appear simple is very very hard. OTOH, if it was simple it's be no fun :) [1] struan [1] usual caveats regarding definition of fun apply
Re: putting escape characters in files
* at 11/05 11:49 +0100 Dave Hodgkinson said: Roger Burton West [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Putting pretty interfaces on existing unstable systems does not help to make them simpler... That's part of it. Landing a thudding great book of what the thing _can_ do, rather than a cookbook of what you _want_ it to do is very offputting. but then what you want to do differs greatly for different people so instead of one book with lots of information you have to sift through you get lots of books you have to sift through to find the right one. I imagine most computer neophytes find their first visit to the computer section of any large bookshop pretty damn confusing to start with. plus you're assuming people know what they want to do, or even what they can do. The fact that you could have _two_ windows open at once was a revelation to a friends dad recently. There is a very real argument for devices that do one thing and one thing only but do it in a very simple way without all the flimflam that accompanies most modern computers. Donald Norman has quite a few good books on this. Or make it like the Tivo - it just works. which is kind of a proof of the one thing very well point. struan
Re: putting escape characters in files
* at 11/05 12:07 +0100 Dave Hodgkinson said: Struan Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: There is a very real argument for devices that do one thing and one thing only but do it in a very simple way without all the flimflam that accompanies most modern computers. Donald Norman has quite a few good books on this. Agreed, but they MUST talk to each other. Securely and knowingly. see Donald Norman. he talks about all this stuff. struan
Re: BOFHs requiring license
* at 13/05 16:41 +0100 Greg McCarroll said: * Dave Cross ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: At 15:27 13/05/2001, Simon Cozens wrote: On Sat, May 12, 2001 at 03:30:31AM -0700, Paul Makepeace wrote: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/18866.html Absurd, laughable and bizarre. What *is* wrong with the UK? Don't ask me, you elected 'em. And it looks like you're all stupid enough to do it *again*. troll type=politics I know, I know. Blair doesn't have a socialist bone in his body - it's been a _most_ disappointing four years, all i all. But given that the Socialist Alliance are only standing in ~100 constituencies, there doesn't seem to be any credible alternative. /troll if only the SNP covered the whole of the UK my experience of the snp is that the average supporter is a lot more interested in 'getting rid of the english' rather than any of their more useful policies. of course that doesn't neccessarily go for those withing the party but given that independance is their whole reason for existing[1] there must be some element of that in there. struan [1] why does that sound so much more cumbersome than the french equivalent?
Re: BOFHs requiring license
* at 14/05 12:13 +0100 duncan said: The money has to be raised somehow. selling 3rd generation mobile phone licences for extortionate figures, thereby taxing the population once again? wasn't it an auction? i like to look on this as some sort of crack induced madness on the side of tha various telcos involved in which thet actually belived the hype aboug 3G comming out of their marketing departments. struan
Re: Politics (was RE: BOFHs requiring license)
* at 14/05 12:16 +0100 Matthew Jones said: Ah, yes. That's like we're listening, isn't it, in response to the fuel crisis? We're not going to do anything, but we're happy to listen. That narked me about the fuel protestors. They claimed the government aren't listening. Listen ne cave in to the selfish demands of a few protestors who happen to be holding the nation to ransom (unwittingly in cahoots, some say, with the oil companies). mmm, some of it was selfishness although for the rural (and when i say rural i don't mean the home counties) types the cose of fuel really is a big issue. if you live 30 miles from the nearest major shopping centre then the cost of fuel really is an issue. it's a tricky one as there are clearly any number of idiots who persist in driving to work in london who should be taxed to the hilts but you have to do it in a way that targets them and not people who _have_ to use a car. which more or less means congestion charges. You can listen and still say no. aka the first rule of dealing with marketing departments :) struan
Re: A look over the shoulder of an XP programmer (auf deutsch)
* at 16/05 15:22 +0100 Simon Cozens said: On Wed, May 16, 2001 at 02:41:58PM +0100, James Powell wrote: You've hit the fundamental problem with XP. Getting anything done requires two programmers to agree on something; this, as everyone knows, is impossible. No it isn't! That's not argument, it's just contradiction! must resist temptation struan
Re: Ken Campbell is a god (was: pc components)
* at 18/05 14:51 +0100 Cross David - dcross said: From: Robin Houston [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 2:34 PM On Fri, May 18, 2001 at 06:05:44AM +1000, Damian Conway wrote: Im nogat samting til ridim insait long pastaim Klingon! Damian (longlong tisa Perlpela) Lingua::TokPisin::Perlpela? Nooo! Damian - as a sponsor, I'm _begging_ you not to do this :) if that works you just have to hope the blackstar people don't decide it's a good idea :) struan
Re: Happy Happy Joy Joy!
* at 18/05 12:54 -0400 David H. Adler said: On Fri, May 18, 2001 at 08:20:47AM +0200, Philip Newton wrote: I finally received my copy of TPJ in the mail yesterday. And there was much rejoicing :) If it makes anyone feel better, I just heard from Mr. Orwant that *his* copy hasn't arrived yet... :-) dha, who thinks the overseas copies got somehow shipped before the domestic ones... but that'd mean you got yours first :) struan
Re: [Announce] Hackspoitation film fest
* at 24/05 23:18 +0100 Greg McCarroll said: p.s. at the risk of raising the heckles of BlackStar, does anyone know the URL of the company based in the channel islands (or isle of mann) that sell american dvds to the UK at the time they are released in the US? 247 or something? http://www.play247.com/ would be them. struan
Re: Religion (was Re: M$ SQueaLServer)
* at 08/06 11:35 +0100 Robin Szemeti said:
On Fri, 08 Jun 2001, Greg McCarroll wrote:
calling wordpad an editor is as laughable as calling vi an editor ;-)
arrghh .. burn the heretic! ... speak brother, for the truth will out ..
have you been using [x{0,1]]emacs again ... ?
and thus comes the inevitable end[1] to all unix geek discussions...
struan
[1] or at least end to the bit not based on flames and blind prejudice
:)
Re: Religion (was Re: M$ SQueaLServer)
* at 08/06 11:54 +0100 Robin Szemeti said: pah! .. tis written in the scripture ... 'let he who hath one eye be blessed' .. clearly the 'one eye' is a reference to the one 'i' in vi .. its *obvious* innit ... I shall found my entire religion on this shadowy fact wriiten by our lord himself ( or one of his followers, or perhaps someone just mistranslated it .. or made it up ) however ... if anyone questions me I shall explain that 'thats what faith is all about' and mark them up for burning as well ... in future years this may be marked down as the dawning of the second dark age. struan
Re: www.gateway.gov.uk
* at 11/06 21:38 +0100 Robin Szemeti said: On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Chris Benson wrote: Didn't ukonline.co.uk complain about trademark infringement a while back? Is gateway.gov.uk the result? and is there any possible trademark confusion with this address? ring ring 'hello .. is that the government? .. oh good. I'd like to complain about trademark infringement by one of your sites ..' pause 'yes .. yes .. oh I see .. yes .. no, no you are quite right I don;t want to spend the the next 20 years talking to VAT inspectors and men from the Inland Revenue ... ah forget I ever called, by the way, did I mention waht a fantastic set of teeth Tony has?' that really is terribly cynical of you. i really can't imagine a giverment as benevolent and trustworthy as ours even contemplating such a thing. struan
Re: London.pm - FAQ for web site (was books or something).
* at 14/06 14:55 +0100 Leo Lapworth said: Well, as has been muttered about I am redoing the London.pm.org website. And yes it DOES need a faq, I have the start of one, but would very much love someone else to finish it off. So, If anyone is up for it give me a yell and I'll email you the XML that needs populating. The website development is a dictatorship (e.g. we want it done this year so I'm not taking any comments or suggestions until after it's gone live), so no starting of huge discussions about what should go in a FAQ, if your interested and have an opinion, contact me and you can do it! :) Infact now I think about it, 2 faq's would be good. 1) London.pm - the FAQs 2) General - like where to buy books online / hardware etc So maybe there are two people out there who want to write these. er, i'll go for the general one... struan
Re: YAPC::Europe (Ignore this request)
* at 15/06 14:41 +0100 Greg McCarroll said: Ok, ignore this request now. Also thanks to Simon Wilcox. for helping me out here. I also believe others are flying on this flight, so it looks like we have the official flight for London.pm ;-) and thanks to Jouke we can claim to have an official London.pm hotel - with minibars and minigolf somehow i just can't see offical hotel of london.pm being used in the marketing material... struan
Re: Templating Solutions
* at 18/06 17:21 +0100 Roger Burton West said: On Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 04:36:00PM +0100, Greg McCarroll wrote: The main reason I prefer H::T to T::T is that H::T templates can be given to Dreamweaver monkeys to edit without my having to worry that they'll screw them up. That is an important consideration although in my experience a taleneted dreamweaver mokey can screw up pretty much anything that isn't created by dreamweaver in the first place. struan
