Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Richard Clamp]

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 01:45:19AM -0700, Paul Makepeace wrote:
> "Hey! You think this 5K script is enough? Wrong, you've gotta configure
> CPAN, get these suite of modules that is a prerequisite for these suites
> of modules which include something like Data::Dumper which makes you
> pull down the latest f**king perl distribution which doesn't f**cking
> compile on your machine!"

step 1: configure CPAN
step 2: upgrade CPAN
step 3: configure the new CPAN
step 4: use CPAN

yes it sucks mildly, it's still a helluva lot more convinient than
doing it by hand, imo

-- 
Richard Clamp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

RE: Not Matt's Scripts

[Cross David - dcross]

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 12:57 PM

> so ..  who is the FormMail csar? ... I lost track of who was dealing with
> what. 

Er... me. I think.

> I spotted a few things in there and have comments .. or should i
> just post em on the list .. ???

Just post 'em to the list. Let's hold up as much as possible of my code to
the derision of the world!

Dave...

-- 


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Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robert Shiels]

>
> Yes - it's a bit crap. And I'm having trouble with it (read: can't get it
> working).
>
> I think we should be able to put all the Win32 specific bits in one place,
> and have separate places for each external mailer program such as blat;
but
> blat is as good a place to start as any I suppose.
>

Well, finally got the formmail.pl script to work on win32 with blat. Tracked
my major difficulty down to a problem created by the person who ported it to
windows, $CONFIG has been used instead of the correct case which is $Config.
Can't imagine it's ever worked.

I'll have a look at Dave's later.

/Robert, needing to pretend to do some real work now!

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Simon Wilcox]

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 "use"ed 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.

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robin Szemeti]

so ..  who is the FormMail csar? ... I lost track of who was dealing with
what. I spotted a few things in there and have comments .. or should i
just post em on the list .. ???

-- 
Robin Szemeti

The box said "requires windows 95 or better"
So I installed Linux!

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[David Cantrell]

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 12:22:39PM +0100, Simon Batistoni wrote:

> Of course, this comes back to the fact that the user will need to have
> control of/know where the NT mailer exists, but I believe most NT hosting
> services do install blat, and tell people where it is.

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) so that it finds their mailer for them.  We'd have to
re-write Digest::MD5 too, so that we could compare the found file with
a signature just in case someone has been messing with filenames.
Wouldn't want to accidentally start Back Orifice instead of blat.

Yeah, silly isn't it.  That's what happens when you aim for the lowest
common denominator.

-- 
David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/

   Rip, Mix, Burn, unless you're using our latest and greatest
 operating system which we couldn't be arsed to complete

RE: Not Matt's Scripts

[Simon Batistoni]

Arse, apologies for the two messages - I remembered the following and
pressed send simultaneously...

IMHO (and I've looked into this in some depth for various projects over the
past 2 years), there aren't that many command-line mailers for win32. The
only other anywhere-near-prolific one is W3JMail, which is an absolute arse
to configure, and is only used in most outfits because it plugs very well
into ASP pages. All the cheap hosting companies I've ever seen who do NT and
offer mail-out facilities do blat.

Any other command-line mailers which exist are generally unstable,
unconfigurable or downright obscure.

My advice would be to configure Win32 systems to use blat out of the box,
and (possibly) invite input from people who use anything different. That's
the OSS way, after all!

RE: Not Matt's Scripts

[Simon Batistoni]

> On Wed, 02 May 2001, you wrote:
> > Just had a look, and apparently the Formmail scripts have been ported to
> > Win32 and use something called Blat instead of sendmail. Is
> there any reason
> > why we couldn't use Blat too? I'm looking into it to see if I can get it
> > working.
>
> ahh yes ...
> trouble is .. there must be half a dozen 'popular' mailers for win32
> ...blat is just one of many (or so I'm told) the only thing I remember is
> blat is a file based thing, you have to put your mail in a file on the
> disc and then tell blat to send it, at least thats the way formmial was
> using it.

Blat can be used the command-line way, by specifying '-' as the input file
(hey - a unix convention!)

The following snippet works like a dream.

$mail_program='c:\winnt\system32\blat.exe';
$from_field='My Lovely Site <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>';

open (MAIL, "|$mail_program - -t \"$recipient\" -i \"$from_field\" -s
\"$subject\"");

Then just print to MAIL, and close the filehandle when you're done.

Of course, this comes back to the fact that the user will need to have
control of/know where the NT mailer exists, but I believe most NT hosting
services do install blat, and tell people where it is.

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Jonathan Stowe]

On Wed, 2 May 2001, Robin Szemeti wrote:

> On Wed, 02 May 2001, you wrote:
> > Just had a look, and apparently the Formmail scripts have been ported to
> > Win32 and use something called Blat instead of sendmail. Is there any reason
> > why we couldn't use Blat too? I'm looking into it to see if I can get it
> > working.
>
> ahh yes ...
> trouble is .. there must be half a dozen 'popular' mailers for win32
> ...blat is just one of many (or so I'm told) the only thing I remember is
> blat is a file based thing, you have to put your mail in a file on the
> disc and then tell blat to send it, at least thats the way formmial was
> using it.
>

Blat *can* take a message from STDIN - I think you specify '-' as the
filename.

/J\

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robin Szemeti]

On Wed, 02 May 2001, you wrote:

> Current version is at 
>  but it needs some 
> tightening up and peer review.

oh arse .. now WHY did I (in a later message)  read that as being Dave
Hodgkinson? .. my brain is fried ;) .. apologies mr Hodgkinson .. you
probably didnt want my comments ;)  ...

-- 
Robin Szemeti

The box said "requires windows 95 or better"
So I installed Linux!

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robert Shiels]

From: "Robin Szemeti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: 02 May 2001 11:02
Subject: Re: Not Matt's Scripts


> On Wed, 02 May 2001, you wrote:
> > Just had a look, and apparently the Formmail scripts have been ported to
> > Win32 and use something called Blat instead of sendmail. Is there any
reason
> > why we couldn't use Blat too? I'm looking into it to see if I can get it
> > working.
> ahh yes ...
> trouble is .. there must be half a dozen 'popular' mailers for win32
> ...blat is just one of many (or so I'm told) the only thing I remember is
> blat is a file based thing, you have to put your mail in a file on the
> disc and then tell blat to send it, at least thats the way formmial was
> using it.
> I did look at the said script many moons ago
> instead of
> if($win32){ send_win32($mail) }
> else { send_unix($mail) }
> it has
> sub send{
> do this ...
> err .. but not this bit if its unix.
> oh and this bit
> but add this bit for win32
> and take this bit off agin
> and this bit goes in for unix
> and then do this if its win32
>

Yes - it's a bit crap. And I'm having trouble with it (read: can't get it
working).

I think we should be able to put all the Win32 specific bits in one place,
and have separate places for each external mailer program such as blat; but
blat is as good a place to start as any I suppose.

/Robert

PS - has anyone done this one already on Win32, or shall I keep going.

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robin Szemeti]

On Wed, 02 May 2001, you wrote:
> Just had a look, and apparently the Formmail scripts have been ported to
> Win32 and use something called Blat instead of sendmail. Is there any reason
> why we couldn't use Blat too? I'm looking into it to see if I can get it
> working.

ahh yes ...
trouble is .. there must be half a dozen 'popular' mailers for win32
...blat is just one of many (or so I'm told) the only thing I remember is
blat is a file based thing, you have to put your mail in a file on the
disc and then tell blat to send it, at least thats the way formmial was
using it.

I did look at the said script many moons ago 
instead of 

if($win32){ send_win32($mail) }
else { send_unix($mail) }


it has 

sub send{

do this ...
err .. but not this bit if its unix.
oh and this bit
but add this bit for win32
and take this bit off agin
and this bit goes in for unix
and then do this if its win32

etc etc ..
}

-- 
Robin Szemeti

The box said "requires windows 95 or better"
So I installed Linux!

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robert Shiels]

Just had a look, and apparently the Formmail scripts have been ported to
Win32 and use something called Blat instead of sendmail. Is there any reason
why we couldn't use Blat too? I'm looking into it to see if I can get it
working.

--
Robert


- Original Message -
From: "Matthew Byng-Maddick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: 02 May 2001 10:06
Subject: RE: Not Matt's Scripts


> On Wed, 2 May 2001, Cross David - dcross wrote:
> > Yep. But Net::SMTP is not a stadard module and therefore sendmail wins.
>
> That wasn't the reason. The reason was the same as one of the reasons for
> rewriting matt's scripts in the first place - that the error handling
> sucks. You can't sensibly error handle with Net::SMTP. This is why there
> was discussion, however, on widnoze, (not sure about vanilla mac (rather
> than os x)) there is no sensible way to do a queued message.
>
> MBM
>
> --
> Matthew Byng-Maddick  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> +44 20  8980 5714  (Home)
> http://colondot.net/ +44 7956 613942  (Mobile)
> I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. -- Mae West
>
>

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[will]

- Original Message -
From: Cross David - dcross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 4:12 AM
Subject: RE: Not Matt's Scripts


> Feel free to believe what you want, but as far as I'm concerned, not
> expecting people to install extra CPAN modules is of overriding importance
> in writing replacements for Matt's scripts.
>
> Dave...

Although we have Net::SMTP installed on our servers and there is a formail
program there, there is no way any member of support is going to tell an
average 'my first homepage' AOL customer that they need to use a script that
requires anything extra installed.  They have difficulty enough telling the
difference between binary and ascii mode let alone being able to handle
module installation.

If the script is meant to be a replacement for matts script then using
Net::SMTP negates this based on the target audience for matts scripts IMHO.

Will.

RE: Not Matt's Scripts

[Cross David - dcross]

> From: Matthew Byng-Maddick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 10:07 AM
> 
> On Wed, 2 May 2001, Cross David - dcross wrote:
> > Yep. But Net::SMTP is not a stadard module and therefore sendmail wins.
> 
> That wasn't the reason. The reason was the same as one of the reasons for
> rewriting matt's scripts in the first place - that the error handling
> sucks. You can't sensibly error handle with Net::SMTP. This is why there
> was discussion, however, on widnoze, (not sure about vanilla mac (rather
> than os x)) there is no sensible way to do a queued message.

Feel free to believe what you want, but as far as I'm concerned, not
expecting people to install extra CPAN modules is of overriding importance
in writing replacements for Matt's scripts.

Dave...


The information contained in this communication is
confidential, is intended only for the use of the recipient
named above, and may be legally privileged. If the reader 
of this message is not the intended recipient, you are
hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or
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If you have received this communication in error, please 
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Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Paul Makepeace]

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 10:06:46AM +0100, Matthew Byng-Maddick wrote:
> was discussion, however, on widnoze, (not sure about vanilla mac (rather
> than os x)) there is no sensible way to do a queued message.

open EMAIL, ">>c:\webmas~1.txt";

Paul

RE: Not Matt's Scripts

[Matthew Byng-Maddick]

On Wed, 2 May 2001, Cross David - dcross wrote:
> Yep. But Net::SMTP is not a stadard module and therefore sendmail wins.

That wasn't the reason. The reason was the same as one of the reasons for
rewriting matt's scripts in the first place - that the error handling
sucks. You can't sensibly error handle with Net::SMTP. This is why there
was discussion, however, on widnoze, (not sure about vanilla mac (rather
than os x)) there is no sensible way to do a queued message.

MBM

-- 
Matthew Byng-Maddick  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> +44 20  8980 5714  (Home)
http://colondot.net/ +44 7956 613942  (Mobile)
I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. -- Mae West

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Dave Hodgkinson]

Dave Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> At 19:53 30/04/2001, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
> 
> >I've got someone needing a form to mail script. Where's ours[0]?
> >
> >Ta,
> >
> >Dave
> >
> >[0] Oh, all right, yours since I bottled out.
> 
> Current version is at
>  but it needs
> some tightening up and peer review.

Well hurry up, I'm in the middle of an argument and I want to slap
some people with a "this is how they _Should_ look" cluestick...


-- 
Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org
Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star   http://www.deep-purple.com
  Interim CTO, web server farms, technical strategy
   

RE: Not Matt's Scripts

[Cross David - dcross]

From: Dave Hodgkinson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 9:28 AM

> Dave Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> 
> > Current version is at
> > <http://www.dave.org.uk/scripts/notmatt/formmail.pl.txt> but it needs
> > some tightening up and peer review.
> 
> Remind me, what was the mission here? To so somethign that flows like
> A Matt's script but is done right?

Drop in replacements for Matt's scripts using best practices - but no
external modules.

> And didn't we have the argument(s) about sendmail vs. Net::SMTP and
> inline HTML vs. template?

Yep. But Net::SMTP is not a stadard module and therefore sendmail wins.

Dave...

-- 


The information contained in this communication is
confidential, is intended only for the use of the recipient
named above, and may be legally privileged. If the reader 
of this message is not the intended recipient, you are
hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or
copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.  
If you have received this communication in error, please 
re-send this communication to the sender and delete the 
original message or any copy of it from your computer
system.

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Paul Makepeace]

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 09:27:44AM +0100, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
> And didn't we have the argument(s) about sendmail vs. Net::SMTP and

I'd be interested to hear a convincing argument for Net::SMTP.

> inline HTML vs. template?

"Hey! You think this 5K script is enough? Wrong, you've gotta configure
CPAN, get these suite of modules that is a prerequisite for these suites
of modules which include something like Data::Dumper which makes you
pull down the latest f**king perl distribution which doesn't f**cking
compile on your machine!"

Yay for CPAN!! Which orifice would you like to have reamed with a
scabby old splintering broom-handle today?

Paul

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Dave Hodgkinson]

Dave Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Current version is at
>  but it needs
> some tightening up and peer review.

Remind me, what was the mission here? To so somethign that flows like
A Matt's script but is done right?

And didn't we have the argument(s) about sendmail vs. Net::SMTP and
inline HTML vs. template?

-- 
Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org
Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star   http://www.deep-purple.com
  Interim CTO, web server farms, technical strategy
   

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Dave Cross]

At 19:53 30/04/2001, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:

>I've got someone needing a form to mail script. Where's ours[0]?
>
>Ta,
>
>Dave
>
>[0] Oh, all right, yours since I bottled out.

Current version is at 
 but it needs some 
tightening up and peer review.

Dave...



-- 
  SMS: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Data Munging with Perl 

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Dave Hodgkinson]

Mark Fowler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> On 30 Apr 2001, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:
> 
> > I've got someone needing a form to mail script. Where's ours[0]?
> 
> According to my records, Dave C was doing it.

FWIW I had a look at Soupermail. A better effort but could still do
with work.

-- 
Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org
Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star   http://www.deep-purple.com
  Interim CTO, web server farms, technical strategy
   

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Mark Fowler]

On 30 Apr 2001, Dave Hodgkinson wrote:

> I've got someone needing a form to mail script. Where's ours[0]?

According to my records, Dave C was doing it.

Dave?

Later.

Mark.

-- 
 mark typed this

Not Matt's Scripts

[Dave Hodgkinson]

I've got someone needing a form to mail script. Where's ours[0]?

Ta,

Dave

[0] Oh, all right, yours since I bottled out.

-- 
Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org
Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star   http://www.deep-purple.com
  Interim CTO, web server farms, technical strategy
   

Re: Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Matthew Byng-Maddick]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Simon Wilcox wrote:
> 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".

Because it was only meant to deal with things up to 31, if you try and
(for some reason) try to put 32 in, you would get 32th (because it has
populated the array). I don't like that kind of thing. It's a personal
choice. I think the bit I objected to most was the $th[31]="st" bit. I
shouldn't have put it like that, but as Robin says, TIMTOWTDI,so yeah.

> It seems to me that it doesn't but as you say, YMMV and I got to practice 
> my benchmarking :-)

:) I did expect it to be slower, it also copes with any number.

MBM

-- 
Matthew Byng-Maddick   Home: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  +44 20  8980 5714  (Home)
http://colondot.net/   Work: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> +44 7956 613942  (Mobile)
Knebel's Law: It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the
  leading causes of statistics.

Re: Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Matthew Byng-Maddick]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Simon Wilcox wrote:
> At 13:29 27/03/2001 +, Matthew Byng-Maddick wrote:
> So - Did I get this heinously wrong or is MBM's sub really a lot slower ?

You didn't get it wrong. It's a lot slower partly *because* it's a sub
rather than an array.

MBM

-- 
Matthew Byng-Maddick   Home: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  +44 20  8980 5714  (Home)
http://colondot.net/   Work: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> +44 7956 613942  (Mobile)
Knebel's Law: It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the
  leading causes of statistics.

Re: Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Simon Wilcox]

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: Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Simon Wilcox]

At 16:48 27/03/2001 +0100, Simon Wilcox wrote:

>Benchmark: timing 10 iterations of Array, Sub, myArray...
>  Array:  3 wallclock secs ( 3.37 usr +  0.05 sys =  3.42 CPU)
>Sub:  6 wallclock secs ( 5.30 usr +  0.08 sys =  5.38 CPU)
>myArray:  8 wallclock secs ( 8.39 usr +  0.11 sys =  8.50 CPU)

And just to be fair & complete, I've pre-computed the array for the sub:

[snip]

@th2=(qw(th st nd rd),("th")x6);
sub th2{(($_[0]-10-$_[0]%10)/10%10)?$th2[$_[0]%10]:"th"}

[snip]

 'preSub' => '{
 my @time=localtime;
 my $th=th2($time[3]);
 my $dummy = strftime("%e$th %b %Y\n", @time);
 }'

And get :

Benchmark: timing 10 iterations of Array, Sub, myArray, preSub...
  Array:  4 wallclock secs ( 3.35 usr +  0.07 sys =  3.42 CPU)
Sub:  6 wallclock secs ( 5.24 usr +  0.11 sys =  5.35 CPU)
myArray:  8 wallclock secs ( 8.51 usr +  0.11 sys =  8.62 CPU)
 preSub:  5 wallclock secs ( 4.43 usr +  0.10 sys =  4.53 CPU)

Thanks folks, that little interlude saved me from throwing my PC out the 
window as Visio 2000 crashed for the 6th time today !

Simon

Re: Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robin Houston]

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)

 .robin.

-- 
Beware. The paranoids are watching you.

Re: Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Simon Wilcox]

At 17:40 27/03/2001 +0200, Philip Newton wrote:
>Simon Wilcox wrote:
> > So - Did I get this heinously wrong or is MBM's sub really a
> > lot slower ?
>
>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.

Ah I see :

 'myArray' => '{
 my @th=(qw(th st nd rd),("th")x16)x2; $th[31]="st";
 my @time=localtime;
 my $dummy = strftime("%e$th[$time[3]] %b %Y\n", 
@time);
 }',

Benchmark: timing 10 iterations of Array, Sub, myArray...
  Array:  3 wallclock secs ( 3.37 usr +  0.05 sys =  3.42 CPU)
Sub:  6 wallclock secs ( 5.30 usr +  0.08 sys =  5.38 CPU)
myArray:  8 wallclock secs ( 8.39 usr +  0.11 sys =  8.50 CPU)

S.

Re: Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[David Cantrell]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 04:19:08PM +0100, Simon Wilcox wrote:

> I thought I would play around with Benchmark.pm, because I don't use it 
> nearly often enough, so I made this script:
> 
> @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"}
> 
> 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 ?

No, you got it right.  You would expect the sub version to be slower, as it
has to make a subroutine call and do some calculations every time, whereas
the array version pre-calculates everything and then just does a tonne of
comparitively inexpensive array lookups.

-- 
David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/

This is a signature.  There are many like it but this one is mine.

** I read encrypted mail first, so encrypt if your message is important **

 PGP signature

Re: Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Philip Newton]

Simon Wilcox wrote:
> So - Did I get this heinously wrong or is MBM's sub really a 
> lot slower ?

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.

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.

Benchmarking [was] Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Simon Wilcox]

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: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robin Houston]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 01:29:57PM +, Matthew Byng-Maddick wrote:

> > my @th=(qw(th st nd rd),("th")x16)x2; $th[31]="st";
> 
> That's an evil and gross hack.
> 
> sub th{(($_[0]-10-$_[0]%10)/10%10)?(qw(th st nd rd),('th')x6)[$_[0]%10]:"th"}


TIMTOWTDI, thank ghod ;-)

 .robin.

-- 
"It really depends on the architraves." --Harl

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robin Houston]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 10:14:22PM +0100, Robert Shiels wrote:
> 
> %e seems to be Linux specific. %d works on both Linux and Windows.

Not Linux-specific, it's part of the Single Unix Specification.

Point taken about Win32.

 .robin.

-- 
select replace(a, CHR(88), replace(a,,'')) from (
select 'select replace(a, CHR(88), replace(a,,)) from (
select ''X'' a from dual)' a from dual)

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robert Shiels]

From: "Robin Houston" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: 27 March 2001 14:59


> On Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 02:08:11PM +0100, Mark Fowler wrote:
> > 2) How do I get strftime to produce th/st/nd for the date?  I can't see
it
> > on man strftime, but I might just be going blind.
>
> use POSIX 'strftime';
> my @th=(qw(th st nd rd),("th")x16)x2; $th[31]="st";
>
> my @time=localtime;
> print strftime("%e$th[$time[3]] %b %Y\n", @time);
>

%e seems to be Linux specific. %d works on both Linux and Windows.

/Robert, possibly making his first perl contribution to the list!

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Matthew Byng-Maddick]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Robin Houston wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 02:08:11PM +0100, Mark Fowler wrote:
> > 2) How do I get strftime to produce th/st/nd for the date?  I can't see it
> > on man strftime, but I might just be going blind.
> use POSIX 'strftime';
> my @th=(qw(th st nd rd),("th")x16)x2; $th[31]="st";

That's an evil and gross hack.

\newcount\n \newcount\i
\def\th#1{\n=#1 \i=0 \the\n\/$^{\rm \ifnum\n<0 \else%
\loop\ifnum\n>9 \advance\n by -10 \advance\i by 1\repeat%
\loop\ifnum\i>9 \advance\i by -10 \repeat%
\ifnum\i=1 th\else \ifcase\n th\or st\or nd\or rd\else th\fi\fi\fi}$}

was how I wrote it in TeX, so

sub th{(($_[0]-10-$_[0]%10)/10%10)?(qw(th st nd rd),('th')x6)[$_[0]%10]:"th"}

in perl?

MBM

-- 
Matthew Byng-Maddick   Home: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  +44 20  8980 5714  (Home)
http://colondot.net/   Work: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> +44 7956 613942  (Mobile)
Knebel's Law: It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the
  leading causes of statistics.

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Robin Houston]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 02:08:11PM +0100, Mark Fowler wrote:
> 2) How do I get strftime to produce th/st/nd for the date?  I can't see it
> on man strftime, but I might just be going blind.

use POSIX 'strftime';
my @th=(qw(th st nd rd),("th")x16)x2; $th[31]="st";

my @time=localtime;
print strftime("%e$th[$time[3]] %b %Y\n", @time);

:-)

 .robin.

-- 
Flee to me, remote elf!

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Jonathan Stowe]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Mark Fowler wrote:
>
> 1) Is POSIX.pm a standard module (and how do I work this out for
> myself) and supported on all O.S.es so I don't have to rewrite strftime.
>

Its definitely in the 5.00404 on one of the machines here so I would that
it could be said to be standard. Anyhow I'm using it somewhere so it
should be :)

/J\

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Philip Newton]

Mark Fowler wrote:
> 1) Is POSIX.pm a standard module

I believe it is, but the functionality might not be the same everywhere -- I
think it just gives you as much as the platform itself provides. However,
strftime so basic I'd guess any vaguely ANSI-/POSIX-compliant C library
should have it.

> (and how do I work this out for myself)

Er, download the Perl source and see if it's in there?

> and supported on all O.S.es so I don't have to rewrite strftime.

If you have a POSIX compliant compiler/C library, it should be there. I'd
say most are, nowadays. (Certainly now that Perl *requires* an ANSI C
compiler to build.)

> 2) How do I get strftime to produce th/st/nd for the date?  I 
> can't see it on man strftime, but I might just be going blind.

I don't think you can.

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: Not Matt's Scripts

[Philip Newton]

Dave Cross wrote:
> At Sun, 25 Mar 2001 22:21:52 +0100 (BST), Jonathan Stowe 
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Anyhow what are we going to do about the 'C++' ones :)
> 
> Ignore them. Pretend they aren't there :)

You misspelled "Rewrite them in Perl". HTH.

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: Not Matt's Scripts

[Dave Cross]

At Tue, 27 Mar 2001 14:08:11 +0100 (BST), Mark Fowler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> As far as my scripts go, they're going quite well, but two questions:
> 
> 1) Is POSIX.pm a standard module (and how do I work this out for
> myself) and supported on all O.S.es so I don't have to rewrite 
> strftime.

Yes it is. Best way to check is to see if it's in perlmodlib - but,
of course, that changes with each release :(

I've used strftime in many of my scripts.

> 2) How do I get strftime to produce th/st/nd for the date?  I can't 
> see it on man strftime, but I might just be going blind.

You can't.

Dave...

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Mark Fowler]

Dave Cross wrote:

> So it looks like we've got most of then sewn up. Anyone else want to report 
> on progress or grab one of the outstanding ones to do?

Progress is going quite well.  I've been fiddling with HTML for the stuff
which is quite easy to do.  The hard thing is trying to work out the exact
process involved in someone downloading stuff and setting it up, and what
information they need to be displayed.  The other hard stuff is actually
writing the copy for the pages. It's all going well, but I'm not rushing
it.

So, I guess I'm saying to say there's not much to report atm, but there
will be soon.  Be assured I haven't forgotten about it.

As far as my scripts go, they're going quite well, but two questions:

1) Is POSIX.pm a standard module (and how do I work this out for
myself) and supported on all O.S.es so I don't have to rewrite strftime.

2) How do I get strftime to produce th/st/nd for the date?  I can't see it
on man strftime, but I might just be going blind.

Later.

Mark.

-- 
print "\n",map{my$a="\n"if(length$_>6);' 'x(36-length($_)/2)."$_\n$a"} (
   Name  => 'Mark Fowler',Title => 'Technology Developer'  ,
   Firm  => 'Profero Ltd',Web   => 'http://www.profero.com/'   ,
   Email => '[EMAIL PROTECTED]',   Phone => '+44 (0) 20 7700 9960'  )

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Dave Cross]

At 22:46 26/03/2001, you wrote:
>On Mon, 26 Mar 2001, Dave Cross wrote:
>
> > At Sun, 25 Mar 2001 22:21:52 +0100 (BST), Jonathan Stowe 
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > On Sun, 25 Mar 2001, Dave Cross wrote:
> > >
> > > > I've had a bit of a go at some of these today and they're up at
> > > >  if anyone's interested.
> > > >
> > >
> > > You might want to change the content-type on that directory as I get a
> > > funny error :)
> >
> > Hmm... What error are you getting? Works ok for me.
>
>
>Script execution error
>
>
>
>Unable to execute script due to a configuration problem.
>Please notify the webmaster of this error.
>
>exec() returned: 13: Permission denied

OK. When I said "works", I hadn't actually tried to _view_ on of the scripts.

I've renamed them to .pl.txt and it seems to work now. PowerHost seem to 
have that server configured in a really weird way - I'll get on to them later.

Thanks for pointing it out.

Now, do you know why [EMAIL PROTECTED] has suddenly be subscribed to this 
list? I keep getting everything twice?

Dave...



-- 
  SMS: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Data Munging with Perl 

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Jonathan Stowe]

On Mon, 26 Mar 2001, Dave Cross wrote:

> At Sun, 25 Mar 2001 22:21:52 +0100 (BST), Jonathan Stowe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Sun, 25 Mar 2001, Dave Cross wrote:
> > 
> > > I've had a bit of a go at some of these today and they're up at 
> > >  if anyone's interested.
> > >
> > 
> > You might want to change the content-type on that directory as I get a
> > funny error :)
> 
> Hmm... What error are you getting? Works ok for me.
>  


Script execution error
Unable to execute script due to a configuration problem.
Please notify the webmaster of this error.
exec() returned: 13: Permission denied



> > Anyhow what are we going to do about the 'C++' ones :)
> 
> Ignore them. Pretend they aren't there :)
> 

Oh go one,  

/J\

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Dave Cross]

At Sun, 25 Mar 2001 22:21:52 +0100 (BST), Jonathan Stowe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Mar 2001, Dave Cross wrote:
> 
> > I've had a bit of a go at some of these today and they're up at 
> >  if anyone's interested.
> >
> 
> You might want to change the content-type on that directory as I get a
> funny error :)

Hmm... What error are you getting? Works ok for me.
 
> Anyhow what are we going to do about the 'C++' ones :)

Ignore them. Pretend they aren't there :)

Dave...

Re: Not Matt's Scripts

[Jonathan Stowe]

On Sun, 25 Mar 2001, Dave Cross wrote:

> I've had a bit of a go at some of these today and they're up at 
>  if anyone's interested.
>

You might want to change the content-type on that directory as I get a
funny error :)
 
> As far as I can see, the people volunteering to provide replacements were 
> as follows:
> 
> Guestbook   JNS

Real Soon Now ... Just caught in the 'New Laptop Transition'

> WWWboardJNS

Nearly there.  I just get fucked off every time I look at the original.

> Counter
> FormmailDave C
> Random Image Displayer  Dave C
> Random Link Generator   Dave C
> Textclock   Mark F
> Countdown   Mark F
> Free For All Links  JNS

Now available as http://www.perl.gellyfish.com/source/mwffa.pl.txt

> Simple Search   JNS

Now available as http://www.perl.gellyfish.com/source/ssearch.pl.txt

> Textcounter Dave C
> HTTP Cookie Library
> SSI Random Image Generator  Dave C
> Random Text Dave C
> Animation
> 
> So it looks like we've got most of then sewn up. Anyone else want to report 
> on progress or grab one of the outstanding ones to do?

Anyhow what are we going to do about the 'C++' ones :)

/J\

Not Matt's Scripts

[Dave Cross]

I've had a bit of a go at some of these today and they're up at 
 if anyone's interested.

As far as I can see, the people volunteering to provide replacements were 
as follows:

Guestbook   JNS
WWWboardJNS
Counter
FormmailDave C
Random Image Displayer  Dave C
Random Link Generator   Dave C
Textclock   Mark F
Countdown   Mark F
Free For All Links  JNS
Simple Search   JNS
Textcounter Dave C
HTTP Cookie Library
SSI Random Image Generator  Dave C
Random Text Dave C
Animation

So it looks like we've got most of then sewn up. Anyone else want to report 
on progress or grab one of the outstanding ones to do?

Dave...



-- 
  SMS: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Data Munging with Perl 

Matt's Scripts Replacement - The name and sundry other things.

[Simon Batistoni]

> I thought that 'EasyScripts' (or, even, 'EZScripts') had most people's
> approval. I thought it ws alright - well, taking the target audience
> into account :)

...which is the *only* important factor in this equation.

I'm still enough of a newbie (those on IRC will have just experienced my joy
at using an effective 'map' statement for the first time) that I can
remember being tasked with building a site from scratch, and knowing no perl
at all.

I was ambitious enough to learn from scratch, but the 'free' scripts out
there were tempting. I knew nothing but a few lines of any language at the
time, and I almost grabbed the first thing I could make work, and shoved it
up on the server.

In the end, I had more curiosity and conscience than that, and I went
through "Learning Perl" and a database-driven site tutorial, and wrote a
system from scratch. However, from those people I've seen on communities
like monkeyjunkies and evolt, as well as IRL, most people in the market for
'free scripts' aren't like that.

They don't care if it's in perl or in swahili (or, more importantly, in
PHP), if they can make it work without a headache. And at the moment, there
are more free PHP scripts out there that work than there are perl ones.

Generally, they hve generic product names, occasionally with a nod towards
the language (phorum, for example), but really quite generic.

We need the name of this archive to be similarly generic. The fact the
scripts are in perl only matters to the target users 6 months to a year
after they install them, when they want to tweak them, or finally get
curious about how their site actually works.

I'm a big fan of "EasyScripts" as a name. It may be cheesy, but I'm guessing
the majority of the target audience will lap it up. And it's available (or
was) as a domain. It's simple to remember, and simple to type, meaning it
will get spread by word of mouth.

And while I'm semi-ranting, there is *no* argument to be had on the .zip vs
.tar.gz files front. Anyone who knows any Linux at all will be able to unzip
.zips on a linux box, or unzip them in windows and upload the contents
afterwards. OTOH, there are plenty of newbies who will be scared shitless by
the sight of a .tar.gz, and be even more disconcerted by Winzip's frankly
confusing method of opening them. Ergo, the scripts should be distributed as
.zips (and no, a choice between 2 formats is not acceptable - people will
get confused).


*Lowest* *Common* *Denominator*


On a separate, but important note, I know a fair few people at evolt, so I
will submit an article on the archive as soon as it's in a publically
presentable state, explaining what's wrong with Matt, even from the
"but-I-don't-care" user's point of view, and why these scripts are a few
million times better.

There are a *lot* of newbies over there, and it should give us a reasonable
kick in terms of publicity.

And (bear with me - I'm in a stream of consciousness now) has anyone given
any thought to "powered-by" icons? Should the scripts incorporate them into
their output (a bit intrusive for my tastes), or should we just make them
optional? What does Matt do on this front? Who is a G1MP Ma573r?

that is all.

--
Simon Batistoni   userfrenzy
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
+44 7209 4117

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Dominic Mitchell]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 06:27:51PM +0100, Philip Newton wrote:
> Dominic Mitchell wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 06:19:27PM +0100, Philip Newton wrote:
> > [unzip]
> >
> > > Which, according to its home page at
> > > http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/UnZip.html , is "the 
> > > third most portable program in the world".
> > 
> > Probably after kermit and "hello world".  :-)
> 
> You read the web page, didn't you.

Nope, just guessing, based upon years of spending too much time staring
at source code.  *sigh*.  Must remember to get a life one of these
days...

-Dom

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Philip Newton]

Dominic Mitchell wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 06:19:27PM +0100, Philip Newton wrote:
> [unzip]
>
> > Which, according to its home page at
> > http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/UnZip.html , is "the 
> > third most portable program in the world".
> 
> Probably after kermit and "hello world".  :-)

You read the web page, didn't you.

Footnote: "* ``Hello, world'' would be the first, of course. C-Kermit is
probably second, sigh... "

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: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Dominic Mitchell]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 06:19:27PM +0100, Philip Newton wrote:
> Robin Szemeti wrote:
> > On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, you wrote:
> > 
> > > BTW - I've just had some fun trying to uncompress a .zip 
> > > file on Linux!  tar gzip and gunzip don't seem to want to
> > > know. Guess that makes me a luser!
> > 
> > you need the  unzip(1)
> 
> Which, according to its home page at
> http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/UnZip.html , is "the third most portable
> program in the world".

Probably after kermit and "hello world".  :-)

-Dom

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Philip Newton]

Robin Szemeti wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, you wrote:
> 
> > BTW - I've just had some fun trying to uncompress a .zip 
> > file on Linux!  tar gzip and gunzip don't seem to want to
> > know. Guess that makes me a luser!
> 
> you need the  unzip(1)

Which, according to its home page at
http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/UnZip.html , is "the third most portable
program in the world".

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: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Jonathan Stowe]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, David Cantrell wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:48:25PM +, Michael Stevens wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:38:09PM +, David Cantrell wrote:
> > > Then they deserve to be hurt.  Really.  We can't possibly support
> > > dribbling idiots, and frankly, I have no wish to do so.  If someone is
> > > scared by a .tar.gz extension then they have no business installing
> > > software.  Even if just for their own use.
> > 
> > I thought one of the goals of this project was to support "dribbling
> > idiots"?
> 
> Idiots maybe, but not those who are sooo lacking in necessary skills that
> they are scared by gzipped tarballs.  Don't forget, these morons are
> going to have to know how to get the files to their server, do the
> appropriate chmodding, tweak config variables in the script - if you're
> clueless enough to be scared off by .tar.gz then you're guaranteed to
> fail anyway.
> 

So then they go and download the buggy, insecure, crap script from MSA and
when they fail they decide that Perl is crap 


/J\
-- 
Jonathan Stowe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.gellyfish.com

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Robin Szemeti]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, you wrote:

> BTW - I've just had some fun trying to uncompress a .zip file on Linux!  tar
> gzip and gunzip don't seem to want to know. Guess that makes me a luser!

you need the  unzip(1)

NAMEunzip  -  list, test and extract compressed files in a ZI
 archive  

DESCRIPTIONunzip  will  list,  test,  or  extract  files  from  a ZIP
archive, commonly found on MS-DOS  systems.The  default   
behavior  (with no options) is to extract into the current   
directory (and subdirectories below it) all files from the   
specified ZIP archive.  A companion program, zip(1), creates
ZIP  archives;  both  programs  are  compatible  with archives
created by PKWARE's PKZIP and PKUNZIP for MS-DOS, but in many
cases the program options or default behaviors differ.   

-- 
Robin Szemeti

The box said "requires windows 95 or better"
So I installed Linux!

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Gareth Harper]

- Original Message -
From: "Robert Shiels" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 6:47 PM
Subject: Re: Matt's Scripts Projects


> .tar.gz - wtf is that, why isn't there a zip file.
>
> People keep misunderstanding this point: just because someone is using
> windows/mac doesn't make them a moron. They may well be, but I know quite
a
> few unix morons too. It is a different skillset.

True and also winzip makes the tar.gz file have a nice little zip icon, just
like a .zip file, so they won't actually know the difference.


Gareth

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Robert Shiels]

> On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, David Cantrell wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:48:25PM +, Michael Stevens wrote:
> > > On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:38:09PM +, David Cantrell wrote:
> > > > Then they deserve to be hurt.  Really.  We can't possibly support
> > > > dribbling idiots, and frankly, I have no wish to do so.  If someone
is
> > > > scared by a .tar.gz extension then they have no business installing
> > > > software.  Even if just for their own use.
> > >
> > > I thought one of the goals of this project was to support "dribbling
> > > idiots"?
> >
> > Idiots maybe, but not those who are sooo lacking in necessary skills
that
> > they are scared by gzipped tarballs.  Don't forget, these morons are
> > going to have to know how to get the files to their server, do the
> > appropriate chmodding, tweak config variables in the script - if you're
> > clueless enough to be scared off by .tar.gz then you're guaranteed to
> > fail anyway.

Seems to me you don't really understand windows very well :-)

ws-ftp/ ftp explorer - drag and drop files onto your server

chmod - who needs that, the directory is executable already, all files are
too.

tweak config files - notepad will allow the user to either add or remove a #
from the appropriate lines in the file - these will be marked.

.tar.gz - wtf is that, why isn't there a zip file.

People keep misunderstanding this point: just because someone is using
windows/mac doesn't make them a moron. They may well be, but I know quite a
few unix morons too. It is a different skillset.

If a Mac user is trying to set up some perl scripts on a windows machine, he
may well have had no exposure to .tar.gz files (hqx, sit, zip, pak, arc
maybe). Files should be available in the format that is most commonly used
for the OS.



/Robert

BTW - I've just had some fun trying to uncompress a .zip file on Linux!  tar
gzip and gunzip don't seem to want to know. Guess that makes me a luser!

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Aaron Trevena]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, David Cantrell wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:48:25PM +, Michael Stevens wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:38:09PM +, David Cantrell wrote:
> > > Then they deserve to be hurt.  Really.  We can't possibly support
> > > dribbling idiots, and frankly, I have no wish to do so.  If someone is
> > > scared by a .tar.gz extension then they have no business installing
> > > software.  Even if just for their own use.
> > 
> > I thought one of the goals of this project was to support "dribbling
> > idiots"?
> 
> Idiots maybe, but not those who are sooo lacking in necessary skills that
> they are scared by gzipped tarballs.  Don't forget, these morons are
> going to have to know how to get the files to their server, do the
> appropriate chmodding, tweak config variables in the script - if you're
> clueless enough to be scared off by .tar.gz then you're guaranteed to
> fail anyway.

I don't know - maybe in your inexperience you have a windowsy perl book
(there are some out there) or a poor cgi book to work from that never
mentions tgz or .tar.gz - its an additional obstacle - they'd only go an
use MSA.

A.

-- 
http://termisoc.org/~betty"> Betty @ termisoc.org 
"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: Matt's Scripts Projects

[David Cantrell]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:48:25PM +, Michael Stevens wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 05:38:09PM +, David Cantrell wrote:
> > Then they deserve to be hurt.  Really.  We can't possibly support
> > dribbling idiots, and frankly, I have no wish to do so.  If someone is
> > scared by a .tar.gz extension then they have no business installing
> > software.  Even if just for their own use.
> 
> I thought one of the goals of this project was to support "dribbling
> idiots"?

Idiots maybe, but not those who are sooo lacking in necessary skills that
they are scared by gzipped tarballs.  Don't forget, these morons are
going to have to know how to get the files to their server, do the
appropriate chmodding, tweak config variables in the script - if you're
clueless enough to be scared off by .tar.gz then you're guaranteed to
fail anyway.

-- 
David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/

This is a signature.  There are many like it but this one is mine.

** I read encrypted mail first, so encrypt if your message is important **

 PGP signature

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[David Cantrell]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 11:43:08AM -0500, Chris Devers wrote:

> ...except that the Windows extension hiding feature only applies to files seen 
>through the normal filesystem tools (Windows Explorer, various dialog boxes, etc), 
>and not Internetty stuff. People might still be scared off by seeing a web or ftp 
>site that doesn't have any .zip files...

Then they deserve to be hurt.  Really.  We can't possibly support
dribbling idiots, and frankly, I have no wish to do so.  If someone is
scared by a .tar.gz extension then they have no business installing
software.  Even if just for their own use.



-- 
David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/

This is a signature.  There are many like it but this one is mine.

** I read encrypted mail first, so encrypt if your message is important **

 PGP signature

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Robin Szemeti]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, you wrote:
> All this is pre-ir35:
> > as a employee of a limited company you would be paid national minimum
> > wage (4 quid an hour) .. you pay NIC and tax on that ... (minimal) .. you
> > claim expenses off the (ie your own) company for all the driving around
> > you do and having to buy things and accomodation whilst away from home etc
> > ... and  whats left in the company coffers is profit. This has advance
> > corporation tax paid at 20% and ends up in the pockets of the
> > shareholders as tax free income upto 30K each a year
> 
> Rubbish ;)  its NIC free, not tax free.

true, technically its not tax free ..  as the company has paid 20% on
it which is only 2% less (or is it 3%) less than basic rate. the big
saving is if you are able to split it across 2 shareholders eg you and
your wife, thus avoiding the 40% thing. for reasons less than clear to me
this money is treated as being +10% gross (ie for every 1000 pounds you
get it counts as 1100 pounds of tax-paid income .. but hey, thats what I
pay the accountant for, to understand this sort of nonsense.


> >  .. and if the share
> > holders happen to be say, you and your wife then thats a cute way of
> > getting 70K from a contract into your pockets and only paying ~ 15% tax
> > overall on it ...  now do you see why they introduced IR35 as a way of
> > trying to stop it .. ;)))
> 
> No, thats what the self-assessment form is for at the end of the year.

so long as you have paid your NIC and PAYE throughout the year and kept a
careful eye on how much the divvies come to then there should be little
else to pay ... 80~85% in your pocket is quite achievable... this is of
course when you suddenly reallise that youve been giving out divvies far
too frequently and you had an effective income of 60K each .. and that
you;ve already spent it all and owe the taxman $LOTS. ;)

the other big advantage of a limited company is that it allows you to
decide when to release the money .. as a sole trader if you earn shed
loads one year it all counts as income for that year .. with a limited
company you might decide that the dividend would not be paid until say ..
the end of April, thus it would count towards your income for next year
and avoid the 40% thing .. which if you take a lot of holidays or find it
difficult to get a contract could be advantageous to be able to do that
sort of thing from time to time.

-- 
Robin Szemeti

The box said "requires windows 95 or better"
So I installed Linux!

RE: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Chris Devers]

At 04:07 PM 20.3.2001 +, you wrote:
>> Not neccesary from a techical point of view.  Neccesary from a 
>> social point of view (What's this extension!  I don't understand!  
>> What's going on!  
>
>Except that windows machines tend not to even show the extension by
>default, and so the file will just have a little WinZip icon[0], which 
>means they should be happy. 

...except that the Windows extension hiding feature only applies to files seen through 
the normal filesystem tools (Windows Explorer, various dialog boxes, etc), and not 
Internetty stuff. People might still be scared off by seeing a web or ftp site that 
doesn't have any .zip files...

>Oh no, wait a minute, I think it uncompresses the .gz bit then prompts 
>for what to do with the .tar bit, which might scare them off.

That too -- that's a pain in the arse: it ends up adding a seemingly superfluous step 
to the process that could be off-putting to Win-natives. 



--
Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Redvers Davies]

All this is pre-ir35:
> as a employee of a limited company you would be paid national minimum
> wage (4 quid an hour) .. you pay NIC and tax on that ... (minimal) .. you
> claim expenses off the (ie your own) company for all the driving around
> you do and having to buy things and accomodation whilst away from home etc
> ... and  whats left in the company coffers is profit. This has advance
> corporation tax paid at 20% and ends up in the pockets of the
> shareholders as tax free income upto 30K each a year

Rubbish ;)  its NIC free, not tax free.

>.. and if the share
> holders happen to be say, you and your wife then thats a cute way of
> getting 70K from a contract into your pockets and only paying ~ 15% tax
> overall on it ...  now do you see why they introduced IR35 as a way of
> trying to stop it .. ;)))

No, thats what the self-assessment form is for at the end of the year.

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Robin Szemeti]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, you 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)

nope nothing like.

as sole trader all monies received (- expenses) are treated as income ..
thus you pay NIC on the whole lot .. tax at 23% or whatever up to 30K and
then tax at 40% above 30k(ish). 

as a employee of a limited company you would be paid national minimum
wage (4 quid an hour) .. you pay NIC and tax on that ... (minimal) .. you
claim expenses off the (ie your own) company for all the driving around
you do and having to buy things and accomodation whilst away from home etc
... and  whats left in the company coffers is profit. This has advance
corporation tax paid at 20% and ends up in the pockets of the
shareholders as tax free income upto 30K each a year  .. and if the share
holders happen to be say, you and your wife then thats a cute way of
getting 70K from a contract into your pockets and only paying ~ 15% tax
overall on it ...  now do you see why they introduced IR35 as a way of
trying to stop it .. ;)))

-- 
Robin Szemeti

The box said "requires windows 95 or better"
So I installed Linux!

RE: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Matthew Jones]

> Not neccesary from a techical point of view.  Neccesary from a social
> point of view (What's this extension!  I don't understand!  
> What's going on!  

Excewpt that windows machines tend not to even show the extension by
default, and so the file will just have a little WinZip icon[0], which means
they should be happy. 

Oh no, wait a minute, I think it uncompresses the .gz bit then prompts for
what to do with the .tar bit, which might scare them off.

Just shut up, matt. 

-- 
matt
"'scuse me trooper, will you be needing any packets today?
hey, baby, don't be pulling on my socket, okay?"

[0] Or whatever handles .tar.gz on their machine.

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Redvers Davies]

> here.  Those of you who have yor own company.  Did you set yourselves up as
> a Limited Company, or as a Sole Trader.  If you set yourself up as a limited
> company did/do you have liability insurance etc.

Ltd, with insurance.

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[brianr]

Marty Pauley writes:
 > On Tue Mar 20 11:46:25 2001, Gareth Harper wrote:
 > > On a completely off topic note I'm appealing to the contractors among you
 > > here.  Those of you who have yor own company.  Did you set yourselves up as
 > > a Limited Company, or as a Sole Trader.  If you set yourself up as a limited
 > > company did/do you have liability insurance etc.
 > 
 > Limited Company.  Clients and agents all seem happier when dealing with
 > a Limtied Company.  Many just assume you have one and you could have a
 > few problems getting paid if you don't.
 > 
 > I don't have liability insurance, but don't look at me as a good
 > example: I paid my tax a year late, and keep forgetting to send in my
 > VAT returns!

That pretty much describes me too.

Regarding insurance, the PCG (http://www.pcgroup.org.uk) have arranged
deals on professional indemnity and medical insurance which may be
worth a butchers.

-- 
Brian Raven

My arthritic pinkies are already starting to ache just thinking about =.
 -- Larry Wall in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Simon Wilcox]

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: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Gareth Harper]

- 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)

Thanks

Gareth Harper

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Robin Szemeti]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, you wrote:
> On Tue Mar 20 11:46:25 2001, Gareth Harper wrote:
> > On a completely off topic note I'm appealing to the contractors among you
> > here.  Those of you who have yor own company.  Did you set yourselves up as
> > a Limited Company, or as a Sole Trader.  If you set yourself up as a limited
> > company did/do you have liability insurance etc.
> 
> Limited Company.  Clients and agents all seem happier when dealing with
> a Limtied Company.  Many just assume you have one and you could have a
> few problems getting paid if you don't.

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.

If the money was paid to you as a salary you'd be lucky to see 50% of
it.  It also reduces the NIC burden on the employer... by removing the
12.2% employers contribution, so they can afford to pay you even more :)) 

So Limited Company everytime if you can .. works best for both sides. The
costs of setup are small, the costs (in terms of time to admin it) is
small (1 hour a week max, plus a couple of days at some poin tduring hte
year to get it all together and hassle the accountant) but the benfits,
financially are significant.

-- 
Robin Szemeti

The box said "requires windows 95 or better"
So I installed Linux!

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Marty Pauley]

On Tue Mar 20 11:46:25 2001, Gareth Harper wrote:
> On a completely off topic note I'm appealing to the contractors among you
> here.  Those of you who have yor own company.  Did you set yourselves up as
> a Limited Company, or as a Sole Trader.  If you set yourself up as a limited
> company did/do you have liability insurance etc.

Limited Company.  Clients and agents all seem happier when dealing with
a Limtied Company.  Many just assume you have one and you could have a
few problems getting paid if you don't.

I don't have liability insurance, but don't look at me as a good
example: I paid my tax a year late, and keep forgetting to send in my
VAT returns!

-- 
Marty

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Gareth Harper]

- Original Message -
From: "Robert Shiels" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 12:12 PM
Subject: Re: Matt's Scripts Projects


> > - Original Message -
> > From: "Jonathan Stowe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > Dave Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> >
> > > > * Bundling. Need to build gzipped tarballs of our new versions (I
> > > guess
> > > > this should be built on top of the CVS stuff). Matt makes pkzipped
> > > > versions avaiable as well - so should we.
> >
> > Winzip (what most windows users these days use to unzip) handlers tar.gz
> by
> > default so that may not be neccesary.
>
> If all the files are created in unix, they may well not have \n\r at the
end
> of the lines, which make them a bugger to edit in notepad (wordpad and
even
> edit handle them OK though.) So I think the archive should have windows
> versions of the text files that work in notepad.
>

CVS (I use GNU winCVS in windows) handles all these conversions for you, but
if someone wants to download a zip (whatever format) or a certain script (or
doesn't care about CVS) then the zip will need to contain the \n\r.

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Robert Shiels]

> - Original Message -
> From: "Jonathan Stowe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Dave Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
>
> > > * Bundling. Need to build gzipped tarballs of our new versions (I
> > guess
> > > this should be built on top of the CVS stuff). Matt makes pkzipped
> > > versions avaiable as well - so should we.
>
> Winzip (what most windows users these days use to unzip) handlers tar.gz
by
> default so that may not be neccesary.

If all the files are created in unix, they may well not have \n\r at the end
of the lines, which make them a bugger to edit in notepad (wordpad and even
edit handle them OK though.) So I think the archive should have windows
versions of the text files that work in notepad.

/Robert

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Dominic Mitchell]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 11:51:26AM +, Michael Stevens wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 11:46:25AM -, Gareth Harper wrote:
> > Winzip (what most windows users these days use to unzip) handlers tar.gz by
> > default so that may not be neccesary.
> 
> Yes, but I think we should have .zip files because the users may
> not know this.

Also, we have nice easy zip-creation tools under Unix, so it shouldn't
be a bear.  If you've got a module using MakeMaker, you can do "make
zipdist" for an example of how to go about using them.

-Dom

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Mark Fowler]

On the subject of having zip archives as well as tarballs on the server,
Gareth Harper said:
 
> Winzip (what most windows users these days use to unzip) handlers tar.gz by
> default so that may not be neccesary.

Not neccesary from a techical point of view.  Neccesary from a social
point of view (What's this extension!  I don't understand!  What's going
on!  What are all these weird charges from AOL?  etc)

Later.

Mark.

-- 
print "\n",map{my$a="\n"if(length$_>6);' 'x(36-length($_)/2)."$_\n$a"} (
   Name  => 'Mark Fowler',Title => 'Technology Developer'  ,
   Firm  => 'Profero Ltd',Web   => 'http://www.profero.com/'   ,
   Email => '[EMAIL PROTECTED]',   Phone => '+44 (0) 20 7700 9960'  )

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Gareth Harper]

- Original Message -
From: "Jonathan Stowe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Dave Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:



> > * Bundling. Need to build gzipped tarballs of our new versions (I
> guess
> > this should be built on top of the CVS stuff). Matt makes pkzipped
> > versions avaiable as well - so should we.
> >
>
> This should probably done on the CVS server.

Winzip (what most windows users these days use to unzip) handlers tar.gz by
default so that may not be neccesary.

On a completely off topic note I'm appealing to the contractors among you
here.  Those of you who have yor own company.  Did you set yourselves up as
a Limited Company, or as a Sole Trader.  If you set yourself up as a limited
company did/do you have liability insurance etc.

Thanks
Gareth Harper

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Jonathan Stowe]

Dave Cross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:

> 
> Seems like we've made a reasonable start on this project. We already
> have a few scripts written - anyone want to report progress on any 
of 
> the others?

I have Guestbook, FFA and simple search all ready to for testing 
elsewhere - I'll package and upload them somewhere this evening.

I looked at wwwboard as well and discovered that I had got as far as 
making it strict and use CGI.pm so whover is working on that can have 
my work in progress if they want :)

> 
> What we need now is to start to impose some structure on the 
project.
> Here are a few ideas:
> 
> * CVS Repository (on Penderel?)
> 
> * Testing both our versions and the originals on as many platforms 
as
> possible. Ensuring that our scripts do the same thing as Matt's.
> 
> * Licensing. Matt has a huge great license on all of his scripts. We
> should replace it with the standard "under the same tersm as Perl
> itself" statement.
> 
> * Copyright. All the scripts (and the HTML pages) have Matt's 
copyright.
> We should change that to ours.
> 
> * HTML. Most of the scripts have associated HTML pages. I've not 
looked
> at them yet, but judging by the HTML I've seen in the scripts I've 
> looked at, Matt's HTML isn't much better than his Perl. I'd 
recommend
> changing all the HTML to XHTML.
>

I have run tidy over all of it and converted it to HTML 4 
Transitional but XHTML would be just as easy.  I can download the 
rest of the scripts and then fix the associated HTML too.
 
> * Bundling. Need to build gzipped tarballs of our new versions (I 
guess
> this should be built on top of the CVS stuff). Matt makes pkzipped
> versions avaiable as well - so should we.
> 

This should probably done on the CVS server.

> * Web page. Need somewhere to point potential users at. Probably two
> versions - one for the developers and one for the users. This can be
> a subdirectory on london.pm.org.
> 

Unfortunately because I am without laptop at the moment things are a 
bit difficult - I have had to press my very old machine into service.

Oh BTW are we allowing POSIX in ?  I had used that in the Guestbook 
for strftime ...

/J\
-- 
I'm obviously challenged at the moment give me a break.

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Simon Wilcox]

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

[Simon Wistow]

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 ...

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Chris Devers]

At 01:12 PM 19.3.2001 +, Simon Wilcox wrote:
>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 ;-)

Probably, as is "The Matt's Wrong Archive", which is probably far 
too negative & obvious anyway... ;)




--
Chris Devers [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Robert Shiels]

From: "Simon Wilcox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: 19 March 2001 13:34
Subject: 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 :) ?
> 
EZPS, pronounced Easy Peas :-)

/Robert 

RE: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Simon Batistoni]

> 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 :) ?

My own two-penn'orth would be that it's better without the 'perl'. It's
easier to say, easier to type, and to be honest, the target audience for
Matt's archive don't give a monkeys what language the script is written in.
They're told they want "a guestbook script", they go get "a guestbook
script."

Perl can be emphasised in the text of the page, and brought to the fore when
you come to optimise the page to be found in search engines, etc etc.


It's also more generic, which means you can legitimately 'funnel in'
websurfers who are looking for PHP scripts, and then brainwash^Weducate them
as to why they don't want that shit, they want *this* shit.

--
Simon Batistoni   userfrenzy
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
+44 7209 4117

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Simon Wilcox]

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

[Dave Cross]

At Mon, 19 Mar 2001 12:27:57 + (GMT), jo walsh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > * CVS Repository (on Penderel?)
> i can sort this, perhaps with veeghelp.
> for leon and marcel's aspect oriented programming project we started a
> /home/projects directory, we could put the not-matt stuff in there 
> and CVS all of it, and make a dev group as well as the www group we 
> are using now would we want public access to part or all of the cvs 
> repository?

Sounds like a good plan to me. No strong opinions here about public
access to CVS. Anyone else?

Dave...

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Mark Fowler]

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.
 
> >  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.)

Later.

Mark.

-- 
print "\n",map{my$a="\n"if(length$_>6);' 'x(36-length($_)/2)."$_\n$a"} (
   Name  => 'Mark Fowler',Title => 'Technology Developer'  ,
   Firm  => 'Profero Ltd',Web   => 'http://www.profero.com/'   ,
   Email => '[EMAIL PROTECTED]',   Phone => '+44 (0) 20 7700 9960'  )

RE: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Clarke, Darren]

Title: RE: Matt's Scripts Projects





I was going to suggest 'Perl Is Simply Super' but frankly the acronym lets it down :¬P


Regards,


Darren Clarke
Neophyte
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Simon Wilcox]

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

[Mark Fowler]

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.
 b) That is should have a name that appeals to newbies.
 c) It should sound at least semi-professional[1].

But apart from that we've been useless

Later.

Mark.

[1] Okay, so I added this one myself, but I think it's a good idea.

-- 
print "\n",map{my$a="\n"if(length$_>6);' 'x(36-length($_)/2)."$_\n$a"} (
   Name  => 'Mark Fowler',Title => 'Technology Developer'  ,
   Firm  => 'Profero Ltd',Web   => 'http://www.profero.com/'   ,
   Email => '[EMAIL PROTECTED]',   Phone => '+44 (0) 20 7700 9960'  )

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[jo walsh]

> * CVS Repository (on Penderel?)
i can sort this, perhaps with veeghelp.
for leon and marcel's aspect oriented programming project we started a
/home/projects directory, we could put the not-matt stuff in there and CVS
all of it, and make a dev group as well as the www group we are using now
would we want public access to part or all of the cvs repository?

jo



ps sorry about the bounces from abduction.org btw :(

Re: Matt's Scripts Projects

[Mark Fowler]

On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Dave Cross wrote:

> * Web page. Need somewhere to point potential users at. Probably two
> versions - one for the developers and one for the users. This can be
> a subdirectory on london.pm.org.

I don't mind doing this bit of it.  I would quite like the idea of
creating a few web pages for someone other than myself or for work for a
bit, unless anyone's got any objections...

Later.

Mark.

-- 
print "\n",map{my$a="\n"if(length$_>6);' 'x(36-length($_)/2)."$_\n$a"} (
   Name  => 'Mark Fowler',Title => 'Technology Developer'  ,
   Firm  => 'Profero Ltd',Web   => 'http://www.profero.com/'   ,
   Email => '[EMAIL PROTECTED]',   Phone => '+44 (0) 20 7700 9960'  )

Matt's Scripts Projects

[Dave Cross]

Seems like we've made a reasonable start on this project. We already
have a few scripts written - anyone want to report progress on any of 
the others?

What we need now is to start to impose some structure on the project.
Here are a few ideas:

* CVS Repository (on Penderel?)

* Testing both our versions and the originals on as many platforms as
possible. Ensuring that our scripts do the same thing as Matt's.

* Licensing. Matt has a huge great license on all of his scripts. We
should replace it with the standard "under the same tersm as Perl
itself" statement.

* Copyright. All the scripts (and the HTML pages) have Matt's copyright.
We should change that to ours.

* HTML. Most of the scripts have associated HTML pages. I've not looked
at them yet, but judging by the HTML I've seen in the scripts I've 
looked at, Matt's HTML isn't much better than his Perl. I'd recommend
changing all the HTML to XHTML.

* Bundling. Need to build gzipped tarballs of our new versions (I guess
this should be built on top of the CVS stuff). Matt makes pkzipped
versions avaiable as well - so should we.

* Web page. Need somewhere to point potential users at. Probably two
versions - one for the developers and one for the users. This can be
a subdirectory on london.pm.org.

Anyone fancy taling any of that on?

Dave...

Re: Matt's Scripts

[Jonathan Stowe]

On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Dave Cross wrote:

> OK, here's a list of Matt's scripts. If you'd like to have a go at 
> rewriting one or two under the rules we've discussed (no external modules, 
> -T, use strict, -w, etc), put you name next to it on this list.
> 
> Guestbook  jns
> WWWboard   jns
> Counter
> Formmail
> Random Image Displayer
> Random Link Generator
> Textclock
> Countdown
> Free For All Links jns
> Simple Search  jns
> Textcounter
> HTTP Cookie Library
> SSI Random Image Generator
> Random Text
> Animation
> 

/J\
-- 
Jonathan Stowe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.btinternet.com/~gellyfish/
http://www.gellyfish.com

Re: Matt's Scripts

[Jonathan Stowe]

On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Dave Cross wrote:

> OK, here's a list of Matt's scripts. If you'd like to have a go at 
> rewriting one or two under the rules we've discussed (no external modules, 
> -T, use strict, -w, etc), put you name next to it on this list.
> 
> Simple Search

Oh I have done that one as well :)

/J\
-- 
Jonathan Stowe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.btinternet.com/~gellyfish/
http://www.gellyfish.com

Re: Matt's Scripts - Rand image..

[Dave Cross]

At 16:44 16/03/2001, you wrote:
>Leo Lapworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > This is not the same as those which daveh is writting,
> > main difference is it doesn't have configuration files
> > or code!
>
>Ah. This is probably a good time to back out. One of the other Daves
>beat me to it, and far better than I would have done it and I've got
>my VAT to do before I go to Tokyo.
>
>I'll buy whoever _does_ do mine a beer or two at the next pm meeting
>we're both at.

I did the random _text_ one. Anyone else want to take on the rest of Dave 
H's stuff as I took one over from Alex earlier this week.

Dave...



-- 
  SMS: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Data Munging with Perl 

Re: Matt's Scripts - Rand image..

[Dave Hodgkinson]

Leo Lapworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> This is not the same as those which daveh is writting,
> main difference is it doesn't have configuration files
> or code!

Ah. This is probably a good time to back out. One of the other Daves
beat me to it, and far better than I would have done it and I've got
my VAT to do before I go to Tokyo.

I'll buy whoever _does_ do mine a beer or two at the next pm meeting
we're both at.

-- 
Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org
Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star   http://www.deep-purple.com
  Interim CTO, web server farms, technical strategy
   

Re: Matt's Scripts - Rand image..

[Leo Lapworth]

Hi Guys,

I've created a random image generator (not Matt complient)
that I needed for a friend. Please feel fee to put it
in the collection.

This is not the same as those which daveh is writting,
main difference is it doesn't have configuration files
or code!

http://totoro.cuckoo.org/rand_image.txt

Thanks to the folks on IRC for some tidying ideas.

Cheers

Leo

Re: Matt's Scripts

[Robert Shiels]

Subject: Re: Matt's Scripts


> > > is there an idiot-proof graphical front-end for scp? windows?
> > 
> > On Windows I use pscp which comes from the same people as putty. It
> > works well, but it doesn't have a pretty graphical front-end.
> 
> Yes there is.  http://www.i-tree.org/ixplorer.htm. 
> 
> I suggest you peeps read http://www.openssh.org/windows.html which lists
> alternatives

FYI

I've found a site that looks pretty useful, and the following link

http://www.cotse.com/secureftp.htm

gave me a nice overview, with links, on the secure ftp topic.

/Robert

Re: Matt's Scripts

[Robin Szemeti]

On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, you wrote:
> >  now where is 
> > 'merlin' when you need him :) 
> 
> ITYM 'merlyn' (or 'q[merlyn]').

ahh yes .. you have the better of me there.

-- 
Robin Szemeti

The box said "requires windows 95 or better"
So I installed Linux!

Re: Matt's Scripts

[Dave Hodgkinson]

David Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> It is indeed lovely.  Although you don't need to do tunnelling magic:
>   rsync -options -e ssh source-list me@myserver:/destination

rsync is a wonderful beast. The -a and -z options, accompanied by
--progress (if they're big files) and --delete (for true mirroring).



-- 
Dave Hodgkinson, http://www.hodgkinson.org
Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star   http://www.deep-purple.com
  Interim CTO, web server farms, technical strategy