[11096] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 4696 Volume: 8
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Wed Jan 20 00:05:44 1999
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 99 21:01:24 -0800
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Tue, 19 Jan 1999 Volume: 8 Number: 4696
Today's topics:
Re: Perl Criticism topmind@technologist.com
Re: Perl Criticism topmind@technologist.com
Re: Perl Criticism topmind@technologist.com
Re: Perl Criticism (Sam Holden)
Re: Perl Password Hiding Challenge (Daniel E. Macks)
Re: protecting scripts <eugene@snailgem.org>
SHTML output? (Glen Gower)
ssl. <ckdasari@cs.hku.hk>
Re: Verify an email address (Bob)
Special: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 12 Dec 98 (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 04:11:16 GMT
From: topmind@technologist.com
Subject: Re: Perl Criticism
Message-Id: <783l0u$ajk$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
In article <36a4c0de.56708275@news.highwayone.net>,
richardc@tw2.com (Richard Clamp) wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Jan 1999 16:55:55 GMT, topmind@technologist.com wrote:
>
> >What exactly is special about Perl or Perlers that makes Perl
> >*more* readable? I have seen nothing yet to set Perl apart.
>
> At the risk of being obtuse, you're probably not looking carefully
> enough, or maybe you're looking too hard.
>
> Since you're not finding it by looking at Perl you probably need to
> look at the other vector, Perl programmers.
>
> In my personal experience most[1] programmers who use Perl are
> experienced, seasoned hackers who use Perl as a matter of preference
> and whould be churning out readable code in whichever language they
> were using[2] as a matter of pride.
>
I find the idea that Perlers are habitually reader-oriented
programmers a rather strange claim. I cannot contradict your
personal experience, but it is hard for one to swallow.
"Seasoned Hackers" == reader-oriented ??????????
Hacking and readability are rarely associated in peoples
minds, including my own.
> Now of course you'll get bad programmers, and if they were in a
> newspeak-style language which prevented bad ideas they might be safe,
> but I doubt it.
>
> I guess my point is, you just have to be selective about your
> programmers, if they're bad then avoid them, don't wrap all of them in
> bubble-wrap, only the kinky ones will enjoy it.
>
I have no control of what other companies do. I only end up
maintaining the code of cryptologists.
The problem can be compared to the situation with OS's like
Windows 3.1 that assume and hope that applications cooperate and
do not step on each other. Guess what, applications DO step
on each other.
Self policing does not work and managers are not trained
or have no incentive on weeding out the cryptologists in
a good many cases.
Bleep happens, and so does bad code.
> Richard
>
> [1] excluding that shady group calling themselves Perl Mongers :)
> [2] excluding of course VBScript ASP, but then you have to be
> sympathetic in some cases
>
> --
> Richard Clamp
> richardc@tw2.com
> London.pm's brummie mascot
>
-tmind-
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/6888/
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
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------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 04:20:35 GMT
From: topmind@technologist.com
Subject: Re: Perl Criticism
Message-Id: <783lia$b21$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
In article <x767a3g6h3.fsf@home.sysarch.com>,
Uri Guttman <uri@home.sysarch.com> wrote:
> >>>>> "TM" == Tad McClellan <tadmc@metronet.com> writes:
>
> TM> ... Adolph Hitler is a celebrity!
>
> TM> And with that, this thread is now free to ride off into
> TM> the sunset.
>
> DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!
>
> this thread is officially over. ten rounds of brutal logical
> arguments. and the loser is:
>
> bottommind, who reesed himself unconcious. never once did he back up his
> flaming and ranting with any actual working code,
I asked for examples from yous of indespensable Perl cryptology
and nobody showed any. Unless you produce some Uri, you are
a hypocrite.
> in perl on any other
> language. he resorted to poor quality verbal abuse and cursing
I only chewed out those who tried to use other non-computer
hobbies and muck digging to attack me personally instead of
the merit of ideas. I bet less than 3% of my messages have cursing.
You are unsubstantiated.
> (he would
> have won more point on the judge's card if he were creative in that
> arena). he was too stupid to even know when he was beaten like the upper
> class twits of the year. oh my god, he just ran himself over with his
> own car!
>
> what amazes me is why we get these bozos, who even in the face of
> superior logic and intelligence, keep trying to convert the great masses
> of perl hackers to some straightjacketed, do it my way or else
> language. we are Perl hackers and we are proud of the choices we have.
>
> TIMTOWTDI!
>
> uri
>
> --
> Uri Guttman ----------------- SYStems ARCHitecture and Software Engineering
> Perl Hacker for Hire ---------------------- Perl, Internet, UNIX Consulting
> uri@sysarch.com ------------------------------------ http://www.sysarch.com
> The Best Search Engine on the Net ------------- http://www.northernlight.com
>
"DING DING" on you and your internal empty victory.
-tmind-
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/6888/langopts.htm
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
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------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 04:33:54 GMT
From: topmind@technologist.com
Subject: Re: Perl Criticism
Message-Id: <783mbi$brf$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
In article <m3vhi32m1s.fsf@moiraine.dimensional.com>,
Daniel Grisinger <dgris@moiraine.dimensional.com> wrote:
> [I wasn't going to reply to this thread anymore, but couldn't
> help myself]
>
> topmind@technologist.com writes:
>
> > Come on now. I switch between dozens of languages.
>
> Dozens? Really? I think that you are lying, please list them.
> Include code samples (ability to write `hello, world' does not
> count as knowing a language).
>
I have used Pascal, Java, VB, DEC-Basic, C, Xbase, Perl,
Fortran, Transact-SQL, DOS scripting, and a few modem languages.
Not all of them under paid basis though.
> The reason that I don't believe you is that all of your criticisms
> are in line with what I would expect from someone with minimal
> fluency in one language who is trying to acquire a second.
>
Come on now, these general, vague insults are annoying. It has
been about a year since I last used Perl, so my Perl is now
rusty. (I studied it intensly for about 6 months.)
That is no reason to insult someone.
> > Am I the only one with this problem?
>
> I believe so.
I do not think you are being fair minded here. You appear to
be looking for insult windows like a fading
comedy star desparate for points.
>
> > Do you all use only one
> > language and/or always keep them strait?
>
> I regularly program in C, Java, Python, Lisp, Perl, and C++. I have
> no difficulty keeping everything straight.
1. You should not extroplate your grand abilities to all others.
(Keeping them strait may be admirable, but there are other criteria
to judge people on.)
2. Most of those listed are UNIX/C-ish derived languages that
use similar syntax. You don't get around enough IMO.
> In addition, I have been
> playing recently with Intercal and Prolog and am planning on playing
> with Smalltalk as soon as I get some free time (yeah, right :-).
>
> > (I am sure a few
> > do keep them strait, but don't exprapolate your greatness
> > in such a narrow area to everybody else.)
>
> Ability to use your tools is not a sign of greatness. I think that it
> is reasonable to expect _programmers_ to know how to use programming
> languages. That you find it difficult is more a reflection of your
> mental inadequacy than anything else.
>
> dgris
> --
> Daniel Grisinger dgris@moiraine.dimensional.com
> perl -Mre=eval -e'$_=shift;;@[=split//;;$,=qq;\n;;;print
> m;(.{$-}(?{$-++}));,q;;while$-<=@[;;' 'Just Another Perl Hacker'
>
-tmind-
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/6888/
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------------------------------
Date: 20 Jan 1999 04:58:34 GMT
From: sholden@pgrad.cs.usyd.edu.au (Sam Holden)
Subject: Re: Perl Criticism
Message-Id: <slrn7aaojq.sbd.sholden@pgrad.cs.usyd.edu.au>
On Wed, 20 Jan 1999 04:33:54 GMT, topmind@technologist.com wrote:
>In article <m3vhi32m1s.fsf@moiraine.dimensional.com>,
> Daniel Grisinger <dgris@moiraine.dimensional.com> wrote:
>> [I wasn't going to reply to this thread anymore, but couldn't
>> help myself]
>>
>> topmind@technologist.com writes:
>>
>> > Come on now. I switch between dozens of languages.
>>
>> Dozens? Really? I think that you are lying, please list them.
>> Include code samples (ability to write `hello, world' does not
>> count as knowing a language).
>>
>
>
>I have used Pascal, Java, VB, DEC-Basic, C, Xbase, Perl,
>Fortran, Transact-SQL, DOS scripting, and a few modem languages.
>Not all of them under paid basis though.
So far that is not even one dozen let alone 'dozens'...
And 'have used' doesn't cut it, you said 'switch between' that implies
you move backwards and forwards between them on a regular basis, otherwise
syntax differences wouldn't matter.
Counting 'modem languages' is a bit far fetched as well... unless they
are can do a lot more than I think they can (with my zero exposure).
>> The reason that I don't believe you is that all of your criticisms
>> are in line with what I would expect from someone with minimal
>> fluency in one language who is trying to acquire a second.
>>
>
>Come on now, these general, vague insults are annoying. It has
>been about a year since I last used Perl, so my Perl is now
>rusty. (I studied it intensly for about 6 months.)
>That is no reason to insult someone.
How you could study perl 'intensly' and not know about little things
like CPAN is a bit beyond me... but benefit of the doubt and all that.
>
>
>> > Am I the only one with this problem?
>>
>> I believe so.
>
>
>I do not think you are being fair minded here. You appear to
>be looking for insult windows like a fading
>comedy star desparate for points.
If you don't want answers then don't use question marks...
>>
>> > Do you all use only one
>> > language and/or always keep them strait?
>>
>> I regularly program in C, Java, Python, Lisp, Perl, and C++. I have
>> no difficulty keeping everything straight.
>
>1. You should not extroplate your grand abilities to all others.
>(Keeping them strait may be admirable, but there are other criteria
>to judge people on.)
You asked a question, and someone answered it.. cope with it...
>
>2. Most of those listed are UNIX/C-ish derived languages that
>use similar syntax. You don't get around enough IMO.
Probably due to the fact that most languages in real-world use are...
Although Lisp was mentioned. Regularly program was also mentioned, I'm
sure more languages are known but not to the degree they would be listed.
I don't see much venture into the functional, logical, and concurrent
worlds in your list either...
>
>
>> In addition, I have been
>> playing recently with Intercal and Prolog and am planning on playing
>> with Smalltalk as soon as I get some free time (yeah, right :-).
Oh look some more non 'UNIX/C-ish' derived languages...
--
Sam
testing? What's that? If it compiles, it is good, if it boots up it is
perfect.
--Linus Torvalds
------------------------------
Date: 20 Jan 1999 04:40:16 GMT
From: dmacks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Daniel E. Macks)
Subject: Re: Perl Password Hiding Challenge
Message-Id: <783mng$8bd$1@netnews.upenn.edu>
jbharvey@auspex.net said:
: I have a question to pose to the upper echelons of the perl user community,
:
: Say someone has coded a script to access a website or database and it is not
: going to be run interactively. In order for the script to access said
: website or database it must provide a username and password to the API of
: it's choosing for the request, and since it's running from cron, you cannot
: ask a user for a password. How do you securely store the user/pass in the
: script or module? I don't think you can. Here are a few points:
Well I'm only upper-middle-class, but this just popped into my
head... write a small proxy-like daemon that actually does the
password-protected request. You start the daemon by hand; it prompts
you for a password which is keeps in memory (so someone'd have to
crack root our your account and then either read through memory or
force a core-dump in order to read the password). Your CGI script
figures out what it wants, calls on the proxy to actually do it (the
proxy runs on some port or some other IPC mechanism) and returns the
results to your CGI script, which then does whatever. Not quite sure
how to keep a Black-Hat root from accessing your remote host via the
proxy, but at least the damage is limitted to "only what the proxy is
programmed to be able to do."
Just my coupla yen,
dan
--
Daniel Macks
dmacks@a.chem.upenn.edu
dmacks@netspace.org
http://www.netspace.org/~dmacks
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 23:49:06 -0500
From: Eugene Sotirescu <eugene@snailgem.org>
Subject: Re: protecting scripts
Message-Id: <36A56042.B5DFBF7B@snailgem.org>
KernelKlink@webtv.net wrote:
>
> Don't know if this is what you had in mind but you could put your
> scripts in a password protected directory on your website and let people
> test drive the scripts via HTML pages on your site; a guestbook form for
> example. They could see the results and decide if they want to buy the
> right to use the source.
>
> I'm not sure that you can compile Perl, but even if you can, I wouldn't
> be surprised if there are tools that can decompile to source. Seems the
> best way to do it might be to keep the source secret until you get paid
> and then decorate the source with copyright information.
The short answer is: forget it.
--
Eugene
"I have an Apache Web Server that uses CGI forms written in COBOL."
Post in clpm
------------------------------
Date: 20 Jan 1999 03:29:06 GMT
From: ggower@chat.carleton.ca (Glen Gower)
Subject: SHTML output?
Message-Id: <783ii2$g6b$1@bertrand.ccs.carleton.ca>
I'm trying to get a CGI script to output an *shtml* page, instead of a
*html* page. I thought it would be a simple thing to do, just change:
sub return_html {
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
^^^^
to
sub return_html {
print "Content-type: text/shtml\n\n";
^^^^^
Unfortunately, that doesn't work. My browser asks me if I want to
save/download file type SHTML -- I'm using NS4.
Is there away to instruct the script to return a shtml page, instead of html?
----
Glen Gower (glengower@ottawa.com)
OTTAWASTART.COM: http://www.ottawastart.com
DIEFENBAKER WEB: http://diefenbaker.ottawa.com
OBSESSIVE FAN SITES: http://countingdown.com/fans
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 12:35:23 +0800
From: "D.C.Karthikeyan" <ckdasari@cs.hku.hk>
Subject: ssl.
Message-Id: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9901201234080.12679-100000@virtue.csis.hku.hk>
Is there any perl package out there to connect to a HTTPS server and
retrive data. I know that the LWP module has functionality to connect to a
HTTP server and retrive data. But I want to retrieve data from a secure
server. Any help would be appreciated.
Karthik
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 06:18:34 GMT
From: bob@iminet.com (Bob)
Subject: Re: Verify an email address
Message-Id: <39AA1B46F1CB8C3F.9D90E62920A8703D.1B47C46A1270036C@library-proxy.airnews.net>
On Wed, 20 Jan 1999 01:37:06 +0100, "Henk Slaaf" <henk@crash.nu>
wrote:
>http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/
>
>Go there and you will find what you're looking for. However, you could have
>found this by yourself, by looking at www.perl.com....
>
I thank you for the help.. I did find it after digging around on the
cpan site for awhile.. I finally figured out where the search engine
was and I was on my way.. I ended up having to install several things
to get it to work.. but it works great with the demo code that was
given..
Now my next question.. on the same subject..
Can anyone break these terms out a little so I can understand what its
doing. I have no problem with making it work.. but it would be nice to
understand a little more at what its doing..
use Email::Valid;
while ($address = <DATA>) {
chomp $address;
$valid = new Email::Valid;
if ($valid->address( -address => $address)) {
print "$address is valid\n";
} else {
print "$address is not valid\n";
}
}
------------------------------
Date: 12 Dec 98 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Special: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 12 Dec 98)
Message-Id: <null>
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]Date: 21 Sep 1998 19:53:43 -0700
]Subject: comp.lang.perl.moderated available via e-mail
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V8 Issue 4696
**************************************
