[12965] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 375 Volume: 9
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Wed Aug 4 22:07:19 1999
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 19:05:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Wed, 4 Aug 1999 Volume: 9 Number: 375
Today's topics:
Re: [offtopic]RE:Quot St and the Jeop Gm (Eric Bohlman)
Re: [offtopic]RE:Quot St and the Jeop Gm <llornkcor@llornkcor.com>
Re: [offtopic]RE:Quot St and the Jeop Gm <llornkcor@llornkcor.com>
Re: [offtopic]RE:Quot St and the Jeop Gm <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Re: Auto FTP? <llornkcor@llornkcor.com>
eliminating / from a word <alan@home.net>
Re: eliminating / from a word <jeffp@crusoe.net>
eliminating a / in a word <matt@unicat.com>
Re: eliminating a / in a word (elephant)
Re: excuse me for submitting twice karl_s_eiringer@my-deja.com
Re: How can I know what modules are installed on server (Larry Rosler)
Re: How to access only last field of a split ? <Webdesigner@NewWebSite.com>
Re: How to access only last field of a split ? <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Re: How to access only last field of a split ? (elephant)
IMPORTANT: "19$year" <jeffp@crusoe.net>
Re: looking for XML comments (Eric Bohlman)
Re: Newbie has <FILE> Problem - please help (Matthew Bafford)
regexp - replace not this ones... (Karl Seiringer)
regexp - substitute everything than karl_s_eiringer@my-deja.com
regexp - substitute everything than karl_s_eiringer@my-deja.com
regexp - subtitute everything than (Karl Seiringer)
Re: Regular expression for matching an e-mail address. (Matthew Bafford)
Re: towards uploading binary files... (Eric Bohlman)
unus sed leo <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Re: Why is it.... (Eric Bohlman)
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 1 Jul 99) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 5 Aug 1999 01:03:43 GMT
From: ebohlman@netcom.com (Eric Bohlman)
Subject: Re: [offtopic]RE:Quot St and the Jeop Gm
Message-Id: <7oantf$od8@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>
llornkcor@earthlink.net (llornkcor@earthlink.net) wrote:
: I happen to _prefer_ where the comment is before the quoted text, that
: way I dont have to scroll through it all. Personal choose.
Whoa there! I think there's a hidden, unexamined assumption in your
statement of preference, namely that all or most of the text from the
previous article is going to be quoted in the followup. In that case,
where most if not all of the quoted text is in fact superfluous, it is
indeed easier to skip the superfluous text if it comes after the original
material. But if little or none of the quoted text is superfluous (i.e.
you quote only as much material is needed to indicate what you're
responding to, and liberally use constructs like "[snip]" to avoid the
impression of distorting someone else's assertions through selective
omission), then seeing the "refresher" *before* the reply makes reading a
lot easier.
So the real solution to the "scrolling" problem is simply not to include
any quoted material that could be scrolled over without affecting the
discussion.
Using Jeopardy-style quoting to overcome the problems created by
overquoting is a classic case of premature closure: Problem A (too much
quoted material) leads to symptom B (need to scroll over superfluous
material), but the "solution" amounts to treating symptom B as if it were
the root problem, instead of continuing to "trace" it back to the real
problem after identifying it.
------------------------------
Date: 04 Aug 1999 18:55:40 -0600
From: llornkcor <llornkcor@llornkcor.com>
Subject: Re: [offtopic]RE:Quot St and the Jeop Gm
Message-Id: <1zdj11wz.fsf@wind.localdomain>
> apropos ar awk basename cat cmp col colrm comm cp cut
> deroff dd diction diff du ed egrep expand fgrep file
> find fmt fold from grep glob head join ln locate look
> ls more mv paste pr rev rm rmdir sed shar sort spell
> split strings sum tac tail tar touch tr ul unexpand
> uniq uuencode wc what whatis
>
>Some may not make complete sense, but most do. Just how,
>praytell, do you expect to do these fundamental activities
>in webworld?
perl??
:o)
--
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the
field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the
laughter of the Gods." -A. Einstein
------------------------------
Date: 04 Aug 1999 19:07:00 -0600
From: llornkcor <llornkcor@llornkcor.com>
Subject: Re: [offtopic]RE:Quot St and the Jeop Gm
Message-Id: <vhavyr0r.fsf@wind.localdomain>
oh- I forgot to add, I was speaking of reading documents, not system
administration. but, of course, I do have a perl app called webmin,
that runs in a browser window that can, and does all that. Actually,
just runs those commands you mentioned, and over a network...
------------------------------
Date: 4 Aug 1999 19:42:14 -0700
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: [offtopic]RE:Quot St and the Jeop Gm
Message-Id: <37a8ebf6@cs.colorado.edu>
In comp.lang.perl.misc,
llornkcor <llornkcor@llornkcor.com> writes:
:oh- I forgot to add, I was speaking of reading documents, not system
:administration. but, of course, I do have a perl app called webmin,
:that runs in a browser window that can, and does all that. Actually,
:just runs those commands you mentioned, and over a network...
You miss the point entirely.
--tom
--
I've got plenty of inputs and outputs. I don't need the video. --Andrew Hume
------------------------------
Date: 04 Aug 1999 18:59:54 -0600
From: llornkcor <llornkcor@llornkcor.com>
Subject: Re: Auto FTP?
Message-Id: <yafryrcl.fsf@wind.localdomain>
I was just working on such a thing, groked mostly from-
perldoc -t Net::FTP
use Net::FTP;
my %options;
%options=qw(Debug 10);
$ftp = Net::FTP->new("yourhostdomainhere",%options );
$ftp->login("logingoeshere","passwordhere");
$ftp->cwd("/where/ever/the/files/go/");
$ftp->put("/www/news.shtml");
$ftp->put("/www/musicnews.shtml");
$ftp->binary;
# this just changes the ftp to binary mode- I took out the rest.
$ftp->quit;
--
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the
field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the
laughter of the Gods." -A. Einstein
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 01:37:18 GMT
From: Alan Melton <alan@home.net>
Subject: eliminating / from a word
Message-Id: <37A8EA37.309F4CDC@home.net>
Problem with eliminating a character
the character is /
ie. C/HU
this is equal to $h[0]
so that $h[0]= C/HU
and I want it to be CHU
what is a proper substitution
while (<IN>) {
chomp;
@f = unpack 'A50 A20 A4 x4 A4 x4 A4 x4 A60 A15 A3 A1 x3 A1 x8 A7',
$_;
$np=" ";
# next if $no == $str;
$count+=1;
@i= splice(@f,1,1);
@h= splice(@f,1,2);
@g= splice(@f,1,1);
@d= splice(@f,1,1);
@a= splice(@f,1,1);
@n= splice(@f,1,1);
@u= splice(@f,1,1);
@r= splice(@f,1,1);
@p= splice(@f,1,1);
# $h[0] =~ s/(^\s*|\s*$)//g;
# $h[0] =~ s/(/)//g;
$da=$d[0];
$ga=$g[0];
$ha=$h[0];
$hb=$h[1];
$hb=$h[1];
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 21:44:09 -0400
From: Jeff Pinyan <jeffp@crusoe.net>
Subject: Re: eliminating / from a word
Message-Id: <Pine.GSO.4.10.9908042141490.27740-100000@crusoe.crusoe.net>
[posted & mailed]
On Aug 5, Alan Melton blah blah blah:
> Problem with eliminating a character
> the character is /
> ie. C/HU
> this is equal to $h[0]
> so that $h[0]= C/HU
> and I want it to be CHU
Next time, post only the relevant portion of your code. Specifically:
# $h[0] =~ s/(/)//g;
TMTOWTDI, but here are two ways:
$h[0] =~ s/\///g; # this is LTS: Leaning Toothpick Syndrome
$h[0] =~ s!/!!g; # you can use a different delimiter for s///
Read the perlre and perlop manpages.
--
jeff pinyan japhy@pobox.com
japhy's little hole in the (fire) wall: http://www.pobox.com/~japhy
perl stuff japhy+perl@pobox.com
japhy's perl supposit^Wrepository: http://www.pobox.com/~japhy/perl
CPAN ID: PINYAN http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/P/PI/PINYAN
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 01:30:42 GMT
From: Matt Melton <matt@unicat.com>
Subject: eliminating a / in a word
Message-Id: <37A8E8AB.24E20DD2@unicat.com>
Problem with eliminating a character
the character is /
ie. C/HU
this is equal to $h[0]
so that $h[0]= C/HU
and I want it to be CHU
what is a proper substitution
while (<IN>) {
chomp;
@f = unpack 'A50 A20 A4 x4 A4 x4 A4 x4 A60 A15 A3 A1 x3 A1 x8 A7',
$_;
$np=" ";
# next if $no == $str;
$count+=1;
@i= splice(@f,1,1);
@h= splice(@f,1,2);
@g= splice(@f,1,1);
@d= splice(@f,1,1);
@a= splice(@f,1,1);
@n= splice(@f,1,1);
@u= splice(@f,1,1);
@r= splice(@f,1,1);
@p= splice(@f,1,1);
# $h[0] =~ s/(^\s*|\s*$)//g;
# $h[0] =~ s/(/)//g;
$da=$d[0];
$ga=$g[0];
$ha=$h[0];
$hb=$h[1];
$hb=$h[1];
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 11:47:28 +1000
From: elephant@squirrelgroup.com (elephant)
Subject: Re: eliminating a / in a word
Message-Id: <MPG.12139837e75ae237989be4@news-server>
Matt Melton writes ..
>Problem with eliminating a character
>the character is /
>ie. C/HU
>this is equal to $h[0]
>so that $h[0]= C/HU
>and I want it to be CHU
>what is a proper substitution
perldoc perlre
it's got all your answers
--
jason - elephant@squirrelgroup.com -
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 01:33:53 GMT
From: karl_s_eiringer@my-deja.com
Subject: Re: excuse me for submitting twice
Message-Id: <7oapm1$c83$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
i'm sorry...
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 18:42:36 -0700
From: lr@hpl.hp.com (Larry Rosler)
Subject: Re: How can I know what modules are installed on server?
Message-Id: <MPG.12128be540273ba0989dd6@nntp.hpl.hp.com>
In article <37a8d8a9.9611744@spamkiller.newsfeeds.com> on Thu, 05 Aug
1999 00:28:06 GMT, Lou Hevly <lou@visca.com> says...
...
> #!/usr/bin/perl -w
>
> use strict;
> use diagnostics;
>
> my $pmlist = '/www/visca/test.txt';
> open (PM, ">$pmlist") or die "Can't open $pmlist because $!\n";
>
> my @pms = ();
> my $dirsep = '/'; # "\\" for Windows
But '/' works just fine on Windows also, and simplifies a whole lot of
what follows. That is The Best-Kept Secret.
...
--
(Just Another Larry) Rosler
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Larry_Rosler/
lr@hpl.hp.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 01:23:51 GMT
From: Floyd Morrissette <Webdesigner@NewWebSite.com>
Subject: Re: How to access only last field of a split ?
Message-Id: <7oap2s$br6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
In article <37A62A55.47C87020@mail.cor.epa.gov>,
David Cassell <cassell@mail.cor.epa.gov> wrote:
>
> BTW, please post according to official Usenet guidelines,
> placing your replies *after* the phrases to which you are
> responding. Others will be happier with you, and you will
> be happy that no one is calling you bad names.
>
I did not know there were any official Usenet guidelines. Where can I
read them?
--
Get your web site from http://www.NewWebSite.com
Consultation is always free.
Help with cgi scripts.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
Date: 4 Aug 1999 19:45:17 -0700
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: How to access only last field of a split ?
Message-Id: <37a8ecad@cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
In comp.lang.perl.misc,
Floyd Morrissette <Webdesigner@NewWebSite.com> writes:
:I did not know there were any official Usenet guidelines. Where can I
:read them?
And you wonder why we have these problems? Alas.
Hie thee to news.announce.newusers and return not before
reading all the documents periodically posted thereto.
It's a shame that people get now get posting privileges before
they sign that they've read those. It was not always so.
--tom
--
"Make is like Pascal: everybody likes it, so they go in and change it. "
--Dennis Ritchie
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 11:55:46 +1000
From: elephant@squirrelgroup.com (elephant)
Subject: Re: How to access only last field of a split ?
Message-Id: <MPG.12139a2c24d57ad2989be5@news-server>
[ item posted to comp.lang.perl.misc and CCed to Floyd Morrissette ]
Floyd Morrissette writes ..
>I did not know there were any official Usenet guidelines. Where can I
>read them?
in news.announce.newusers .. start with the article entitled "Welcome to
Usenet!" and work your way through
--
jason - elephant@squirrelgroup.com -
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 21:34:50 -0400
From: Jeff Pinyan <jeffp@crusoe.net>
Subject: IMPORTANT: "19$year"
Message-Id: <Pine.GSO.4.10.9908042129110.27740-100000@crusoe.crusoe.net>
Ok. I've taken all I can, I can't take no more.
For ANYONE here who has a Perl program that does ANYTHING with the date,
PLEASE check to see that it does not do THIS:
$date = "19$year";
This is a very wretched thing to do. Here, look at this from the perldoc
for localtime():
=item localtime EXPR
Converts a time as returned by the time function to a 9-element array
with the time analyzed for the local time zone. Typically used as
follows:
# 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) =
localtime(time);
All array elements are numeric, and come straight out of a struct tm.
In particular this means that $mon has the range 0..11 and $wday has
the range 0..6 with sunday as day 0. Also, $year is the number of
years since 1900, that is, $year is 123 in year 2023.
Do you see that? $year is NOT that last two digits of the year. $year is
the current year - 1900.
Do not accept ANY substitutes.
$date = 1900 + $year;
If you don't fix this, you will look rather foolish when January 1, 2000
-- or should I say, 19101 -- comes around.
--
jeff pinyan japhy@pobox.com
japhy's little hole in the (fire) wall: http://www.pobox.com/~japhy
perl stuff japhy+perl@pobox.com
japhy's perl supposit^Wrepository: http://www.pobox.com/~japhy/perl
CPAN ID: PINYAN http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/P/PI/PINYAN
------------------------------
Date: 5 Aug 1999 01:10:36 GMT
From: ebohlman@netcom.com (Eric Bohlman)
Subject: Re: looking for XML comments
Message-Id: <7oaoac$od8@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>
David Cassell (cassell@mail.cor.epa.gov) wrote:
: Abigail wrote:
: > As you might know, this is comp.lang.PERL.misc. Perl. The programming
: > language Perl. We do not discuss marbles here. We do not discuss the
: > Roman empire here. Nor do we discuss moose mousse.
:
: Can we still discuss the Spanish Inquisition?
*Nobody* expects discussion of the Spanish Inquisition! Wait, *nobody*
expects discussion of discussion of the Spanish Inquisition!
: Can we at least apply to certain posters?
Job postings are off topic here.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 01:27:46 GMT
From: *@dragons.duesouth.net (Matthew Bafford)
Subject: Re: Newbie has <FILE> Problem - please help
Message-Id: <slrn7qhovu.p3h.*@dragons.duesouth.net>
[
Please place your quotes under the message you are replying to.
Your reply to elephant is almost correct, but it could use a little
snippage.
]
[CC'd]
On Wed, 04 Aug 1999 20:17:26 -0400, Eric Larson <rlarson@monmouth.com>
was attempting to recharge the laptop battery by typing:
: when I typed my message I used C syntax instead of perl - it
: should have been open(FILE,$filename) of course.
Just general advice for the future.
If you type your code into your message rather than just inserting the
file, you are likely to insert more errors into your script.
Or, your brain might kick in and fix the error when you retype it,
without you even noticing.
We really can't help if you don't show us the exact code you're using.
So, by inserting or cutandpasting, you help yourself and everyone else
out.
Hope This Helps,
--Matthew
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1999 17:23:44 -0800
From: karl@t0.or.at (Karl Seiringer)
Subject: regexp - replace not this ones...
Message-Id: <RF5q3.1540$001.738247@WReNphoon3>
ok - the question:
file:
<HTML>
<BODY ...>
bla<P>
bla<P>
<!--123-->
things i dont want to<P>
really not
<!---end123-->
<!--156-->
this i<P>
need<!---end156-->
<!--237-->
this i do really <P>
need<!---end237-->
<!--345-->
things i dont want to<P>
really not
<!---end345-->
bla<P>
<IMG SRC="some.thing.gif">
bla<P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
[EOF]
so the structure is:
html_blablabla followed by
commentbrackets with the syntax
'<!--(\d)+-->
blablabla
<!--end\1-->'
follow by html_blablabla
@not_to_replace = ("156","237");
_______
so the only way i found was something like
s{
( <!--(\d+)> ) # match comment
}{
do {
$tag=$1; # save the tag
$tag =~ m{ < /? (?:156|137) \b }ix # should we keep it?
? $tag # then do so
: ""; # or replace with nothing
}
}gex;
but is there another (better;) solution?
thx
karl.
-**** Posted from RemarQ, http://www.remarq.com/?c ****-
Search and Read Usenet Discussions in your Browser
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 01:30:49 GMT
From: karl_s_eiringer@my-deja.com
Subject: regexp - substitute everything than
Message-Id: <7oapg9$c7e$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
ok - the question:
file:
<HTML>
<BODY ...>
bla<P>
bla<P>
<!--123-->
things i dont want to<P>
really not
<!---end123-->
<!--156-->
this i<P>
need<!---end156-->
<!--237-->
this i do really <P>
need<!---end237-->
<!--345-->
things i dont want to<P>
really not
<!---end345-->
bla<P>
<IMG SRC="some.thing.gif">
bla<P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
[EOF]
so the structure is:
html_blablabla followed by
commentbrackets with the syntax
'<!--(\d)+-->
blablabla
<!--end\1-->'
follow by html_blablabla
@not_to_replace = ("156","237");
_______
so the only way i found was something (in this
newsgroup) like
s{
( <!--(\d+)> ) # match comment
}{
do {
$tag=$1; # save the tag
$tag =~ m{ < /? (?:156|137) \b }ix #
should we keep it?
? $tag # then do so
: ""; # or replace with nothing
}
}gex;
but is there another (better;) solution?
thx
karl.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 01:30:45 GMT
From: karl_s_eiringer@my-deja.com
Subject: regexp - substitute everything than
Message-Id: <7oapg6$c7c$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
ok - the question:
file:
<HTML>
<BODY ...>
bla<P>
bla<P>
<!--123-->
things i dont want to<P>
really not
<!---end123-->
<!--156-->
this i<P>
need<!---end156-->
<!--237-->
this i do really <P>
need<!---end237-->
<!--345-->
things i dont want to<P>
really not
<!---end345-->
bla<P>
<IMG SRC="some.thing.gif">
bla<P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
[EOF]
so the structure is:
html_blablabla followed by
commentbrackets with the syntax
'<!--(\d)+-->
blablabla
<!--end\1-->'
follow by html_blablabla
@not_to_replace = ("156","237");
_______
so the only way i found was something (in this
newsgroup) like
s{
( <!--(\d+)> ) # match comment
}{
do {
$tag=$1; # save the tag
$tag =~ m{ < /? (?:156|137) \b }ix #
should we keep it?
? $tag # then do so
: ""; # or replace with nothing
}
}gex;
but is there another (better;) solution?
thx
karl.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1999 17:43:11 -0800
From: karl@t0.or.at (Karl Seiringer)
Subject: regexp - subtitute everything than
Message-Id: <F06q3.1545$001.740681@WReNphoon3>
ok - the question:
file:
<HTML>
<BODY ...>
bla<P>
bla<P>
<!--123-->
things i dont want to<P>
really not
<!---end123-->
<!--156-->
this i<P>
need<!---end156-->
<!--237-->
this i do really <P>
need<!---end237-->
<!--345-->
things i dont want to<P>
really not
<!---end345-->
bla<P>
<IMG SRC="some.thing.gif">
bla<P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
[EOF]
so the structure is:
html_blablabla followed by
commentbrackets with the syntax
'<!--(\d)+-->
blablabla
<!--end\1-->'
follow by html_blablabla
@not_to_replace = ("156","237");
_______
so the only way i found was something like
s{
( <!--(\d+)> ) # match comment
}{
do {
$tag=$1; # save the tag
$tag =~ m{ < /? (?:156|137) \b }ix # should we keep it?
? $tag # then do so
: ""; # or replace with nothing
}
}gex;
but is there another (better;) solution?
thx
karl.
-**** Posted from RemarQ, http://www.remarq.com/?c ****-
Search and Read Usenet Discussions in your Browser
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 01:27:48 GMT
From: *@dragons.duesouth.net (Matthew Bafford)
Subject: Re: Regular expression for matching an e-mail address.
Message-Id: <slrn7qhp9r.p3h.*@dragons.duesouth.net>
And so it happened, on 5 Aug 1999 00:07:48 GMT, revjack
<revjack@radix.net> typed random characters into perl, and ended up with
the following posted to comp.lang.perl.misc:
: Has anyone ever typed in Jeffrey Friedl's monster regex, so we can point
: the questioner to it on the web, like Abigail's regex for URLs? That
: should drive the point home.
I imagine JF did when he wrote the book... :-)
> http://www.ora.com/
---> Perl Center
------> Mastering Regular Expressions
---------> Author's Page
------------> Examples from the book.
HTH,
--Matthew
------------------------------
Date: 5 Aug 1999 01:17:38 GMT
From: ebohlman@netcom.com (Eric Bohlman)
Subject: Re: towards uploading binary files...
Message-Id: <7oaoni$od8@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>
irf@netexecutive.com wrote:
: %% read(STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
: %% $dat=$buffer;
:
: >THAT IS WRONG!
:
: eh? no it's not. i'm using it now, and thanks to a nudge from sexy larry
: (what a great pic on your homepage, man) :) it works. it's better to
: check bytes,and this whole thing is probably ultra-insecure, but it
: isn't WRONG.
Funny, my definition of "wrong" includes "works as desired only under
best-case conditions." What you mean by "works" is "it's never failed so
far." What I mean by "works" is "it won't fail for *any* input that it can
be expected to get."
Matt's Script Archive is full of message board programs, guestbook
programs, etc. that will "work" when they're so lightly loaded that two
people are never using them at the same time. But they suddenly stop
working and start trashing their data once traffic picks up.
------------------------------
Date: 4 Aug 1999 19:29:00 -0700
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: unus sed leo
Message-Id: <37a8e8dc@cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting mailed to cited author]
In comp.lang.perl.misc, David Cassell <cassell@mail.cor.epa.gov> writes:
:Well, for every arena there is Spartacus, and there
:are lion-burgers.
A quote I just read springs to mind for this situation. It's from Aesop,
and is what the lioness replied to the vixen who had been boasting about
how she had so many offspring, but the lioness only had one.
"Unus sed leo", says the lioness, meaning "One, but [it is] a lion."
Innumerable stories are recounted of tiger teams of programming gods
who, in a few days of Herculean labor, recreate in blinding clarity
and dramatic improvemnt the work of scores of drones who'd strugled
over something for months and months. Rumor has it that at the Labs
someone once decided that the optimal way to get nearly any software
project done in the least time, the least cost, and the highest quality
(all by several orders of magnitude) was to lock away Ken and a couple
of his pals into a hacking room for a long weekend of work.
The connections between the lions, tigers, and Ken Thompson, and the
meaning of this our story, these things I leave up to you my humble
readers--should there be any of you about. :-)
--tom
--
"Any computer scientist who praises orthogonality should be sentenced to
use an Etch-a-Sketch." --Larry Wall
------------------------------
Date: 5 Aug 1999 01:46:42 GMT
From: ebohlman@netcom.com (Eric Bohlman)
Subject: Re: Why is it....
Message-Id: <7oaqe2$od8@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>
Tom Christiansen (tchrist@mox.perl.com) wrote:
: Some people have a knack for programming, but most people don't.
: Not everyone is born to do everything. As far as the case at hand is
: concerned, not everyone has the raw mental horsepower combined with
: that special problem-solving thinking style that it takes to be a good
: programmer. Nobody wants to hear it said, but their unwillingness to
: listen does not render any less true the observation that not everyone
: is cut out for programming. That's just the way it is, and the sooner
: people recognize and accept this, the sooner they'll be able to cease
Actually, it's been my experience that stubborness, not stupidity, is
behind most bad programming technique. The problem isn't inability to
learn, it's *unwillingness* to learn. All learning begins with a simple
realization: "there's something I don't know." The clueful person follows
this up with "let me see how I can convert this to something I *do* know"
and applies his intelligence to the task of learning. The clueless person
follows this up with "admitting I don't know something means I'm a
failure, so I better pretend I do know it" and applies his intelligence to
the task of BSing.
This difference in attitude can create *enormous* differences in the
quality and productivity of programmers whose raw cognitive abilities are
too close to distinguish using standard psychometric instruments. I tend
to agree with Gerald Weinberg's observation that variation in
intelligence accounts for little if any variation in programming ability
among people who actually write programs because people whose
intelligence is inadequate for the task simply don't attempt it to any
great extent, but that variation in personality accounts for a much
greater portion of the variation because there's no built-in screening
mechanism or entry barrier for people who aren't temperamentally suited
to programming.
The "hacker" in the classic sense is motivated by a love of learning.
The script kiddie is motivated by an aversion to learning. The latter is
seldom the result of lack of cognitive ability; it's more often the
result of a screwed-up value system, which can be easily instilled in
someone (by emphasizing the trappings of achievement over the substance
of achievement, by using fear to keep someone from learning things we
don't want him to learn, etc.) and rather difficultly un-instilled
(through cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques, etc.). The former is
harder to instill, and IMHO has to be instilled early in life or not at all.
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jul 99 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Users-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 1 Jul 99)
Message-Id: <null>
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V9 Issue 375
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