[15904] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 3317 Volume: 9
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Sun Jun 11 03:10:22 2000
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 00:10:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Message-Id: <960707412-v9-i3317@ruby.oce.orst.edu>
Content-Type: text
Perl-Users Digest Sun, 11 Jun 2000 Volume: 9 Number: 3317
Today's topics:
Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!! <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!! <elaine@chaos.wustl.edu>
Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!! <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!! <dan@tuatha.sidhe.org>
Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!! <elaine@chaos.wustl.edu>
Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!! <htp@mac.com>
Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!! <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!! <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 16 Sep 99) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 18:58:20 -0700
From: "Godzilla!" <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Subject: Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!!
Message-Id: <3942F23C.E859417@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Dan Sugalski wrote:
> Godzilla! <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo> wrote:
> > John from PUNY wrote:
> You do realize that Larry was responsible for perl 5,
> the same way as he was for perl 4, perl 3, perl 2,
> perl 1, and perl 0, right?
I never would have guessed. Why have you assumed
me to be an idiot? This is repugnantly offensive
and a direct reflection on your lack of social
skills and lack of intellectual prowess. Initiating
an article response with personal insults only
results in my copping an attitude, instantly.
> > This grandiose nature is a direct reflection of
> > in-house battles of egos by self-proclaimed elitists
> > of Perl....
> No, actually, that's not the case. I don't think
> anyone's ever proclaimed themselves one of the elites
> of perl, and we really only have one ego of any size.
Most certainly is true. Some of us keep up with news and,
ironically, gossip, coming out the inner sanctum. Look
around here, you will read comments about all this
in-house fighting going on. You will read a lot of very
unhealthy fragile egos within this newsgroup. Egomania
rules supreme here, rather than logic and reason. This
is a classic ego circle jerk, not a haven for programmers.
> > Those of us who are still purist programmers expend
> > a lot of effort compensating for all those bugs and
> > glitches inherent to Perl 5....
> Such as? perlbug comes with every copy of perl, Gojira.
My moniker is Godzilla as you know, Mr. Suckalot.
However, you personally will address me as,
Ms. Schilitubi
to show respect for a change, and to amend for your
childish boorish behavior. Are you a grown man or
just another one of the little diaper boys around
this screwed up newsgroup? Well, man or boy?
> If you've found bugs, report the things and they'll
> get fixed.
Uh huh. Perl 5 has more bugs than the Roach Motel.
Anymore, Perl 5 is one big patch to cover for bugs
much like Windows 98 is one big patch. Perl 4 and
Windows 3.x are the best and most powerful. Perl 5
and Windows 98 are sorry excuses of patches for
screwing up Perl 4 and Windows 3.x to begin with,
respectively and respectfully.
> You'll note that use strict is off by default.
> Perl 5, by default,
Is this why you boys throw temper tantrums and
scream at people how stupid they are for not
using strict?
What's the deal with this telling everyone -w,
strict, check for open are mandatory rules and
people who don't use them are in error? Why are
you contradicting yourself and all others?
> identically to perl 4, with a few well-documented
> exceptions. (The biggest being that perl 5 lacks
> perl 4's buffer overrun problems)
So if Perl 5 is nearly indentical to Perl 4, why the
Hades did you boys come up with buggy bloated Perl 5?
Well?
You still don't get it. A decent programmer doesn't
need Perl 5 and would much prefer to stick with
Perl 4. Why do you boys 'force' everyone to use
six-thousand-five-hundred some odd lines of cgi.pm
to do what I can better in thirty lines of Perl 4?
Not only better, but more efficient, more powerfully
and a lot faster.
You boys scream about Perl 4 being a flea bitten camel
carcass and now you turn around and say Perl 4 and
Perl 5 are really no different. Would you mind getting
your stories straight, along with your minds? Isn't this
a problem with you Perl Professionals? You change your
stories and stance as often as Zsa Zsa Gabor changes
both husbands and dirty underwear. You boys are not
interested in discussing programming. You are interested
in protecting and feeding your fragile egos, even if you
have to constantly contradict your own words.
Sure don't read me ever changing my stance. I stand
firm and proud behind my beliefs and convictions.
I have a healthy strong ego which does not rule
my mind nor my life, but rather compliments both.
> But why are you writing code in perl anyway, Gojira?
It is my personal choice, Mr. Suckalot,
which is none of your business.
> > Perl 5 is a big fat slow gas guzzling high
> > operating expense Mercedes Benz ....
> > Perl 4 is a sleek five-hundred horsepower
> > classic Corvette Mako Shark ....
> Wow, impressive comparison! Not true, alas,
> but impressive nonetheless.
Yeah right. Perl 5 is slower and more bloated
than a five hundred pound pregnant Watusi dancer.
Perl 5 is directly proportionate in size to the
egos of the people developing Perl 5. Pure bloat.
> If you're worried about speed, why on *earth* are you
> writing code in perl? Your best bet's probably assembly,
> followed closely by Fortran. Perl's damn slow in comparison
> to both of those.
Simply to annoy you Perl Professionals by writing
programs which do amazing and astounding 'things'
none of you experts possess the skills to write,
or even copy and duplicate. This is most likely
so, your inability, because you don't know how
to program in Perl 4 or have forgotten how. You
are copy and paste techno-geeksters now. Nothing
more than Tinker Toy builders.
My background is in Basic, Visual Basic, Fortran,
Pascal and Turbo Pascal, dating back to our early
eighties decade. You boys make too many assumptions.
I choose Perl 4 because it fits my needs for a language
with a native feel, plenty of plain English and is
quite logical in flow lending well to a typist, such
as myself, operating at one-hundred words per minute
plus, code or straight English.
Point is, Perl 5 is no improvement over Perl 4 at all.
Perl 5 is bloated Perl 4. I will concede, modules are
an excellent concept, no doubt on that. However, modules
have become an ego contest to see who can get on the
Great and Glorious module list. Majority of modules
are pure garbage written to placate, if not masturbate
a fragile ego. Only module I've found to be of really
excellent quality and good use, is LWP.
Be sure you are clear on this. My personal viewpoint
on those self-proclaimed elitists of Perl, those who
appear to be in charge, is they are more interested in
cutting each others throats in a battle of egos, more
interested in an Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame,
than programming. This is shameful behavior for
alleged professionals. Perl is dead. Perl lacks
any effective and decisive leadership. It is us
little people, us peons, who keep Perl alive,
for now.
Ms. Schilitubi
Educator, Professor of English
University Of California
Corvette Mako Shark Collector
... and more proud to be a rock & roll cellist mom.
http://la.znet.com/~callgirl3/nikita.mid
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 02:07:59 GMT
From: Elaine Ashton <elaine@chaos.wustl.edu>
Subject: Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!!
Message-Id: <B5686CC1.5EB7%elaine@chaos.wustl.edu>
in article 3942AD46.5F417EEC@stomp.stomp.tokyo, Godzilla! at
godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo quoth:
> Further emphasis is place on this overall lack of
> organization of Perl 5 by CPAN being a jungle of
> Salvador Dali style structuring. Trying to find
> simple basic information at CPAN takes hours of
> searching and jumping through pretzel hula hoops
> to find what should take only seconds. CPAN is a
> data base on LSD; it's enough to make you suffer
> hallucinations of a grandiose nature.
"Simple basic information at CPAN?"
CPAN is an archive, nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't make coffee for
you in the morning and it won't write your code for you either. The
hierarchy may take some getting used to but what 'simple basic information'
do you refer to? The onus is on the module authors to document their modules
but since it is strictly voluntary, this doesn't always happen.
http://search.cpan.org/ is Graham Barr's search engine for CPAN and there is
also Randy Kobes' WAIT search engine.
Perhaps you have suggestions to make it more orderly?
> Mother Perl 4 is dead like Janis Joplin.
> Bury her and rock on.
Oh, I'm sure there is a nostalgia tour somewhere in the states this year
where she is touring with Garcia....
e.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 20:08:53 -0700
From: "Godzilla!" <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Subject: Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!!
Message-Id: <394302C5.B6FA3E7D@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Elaine Ashton wrote:
> in article 3942AD46.5F417EEC@stomp.stomp.tokyo, Godzilla! at
> godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo quoth:
I am remiss. I need to give Jarkko Hietaniemi credit
for his extensive efforts with little, if any, rewards.
It is unfair of me to fault him for his voluntary work.
He is a blessing for our Perl community. It was not
my intent to imply he does not do good work. I should
be more careful with my wording.
> > Further emphasis is place on this overall lack of
> > organization of Perl 5 by CPAN being a jungle of
> > Salvador Dali style structuring....
> "Simple basic information at CPAN?"
> CPAN is an archive, nothing more, nothing less....
Yes, an archive which is virtually inaccessible despite
Jarkko Hietaniemi's hard work.
Often, you will read this as a reference within
an article answering a question:
posix::strftime
If you (plural) are capable of being objective and
capable of being honest, qualities I question due
to long term abuse within this group, if you can set
aside your personal bigotry and be truly scientific,
use posix::strftime as a search term, just like any
ordinary relatively fresh to Perl person would do.
If you are objective and set aside your already
developed skills in working CPAN, you will quickly
realize, CPAN is so frustrating, most will give up.
Go here:
http://search.cpan.org/
Enter:
posix::strftime
Hit search as any ordinary person would and,
note what happens.
If you are still being objective and scientific,
try to find information on 'substring' at:
http://search.cpan.org/
Enter substring or substr .. see what happens.
If you are honest about this, you will never
find any information on substring which is of
any true benefit for basic conceptual info.
After you have witnessed it is impossible
to find simple information on substring,
I would challenge anyone to translate this
into understandable sensible Plain English:
http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/doc/manual/html/pod/perlfunc/substr.html
It is pure gibberish, nonsense, nothing more.
This is what I mean by CPAN and many Perl
related sites being a Salvador Dali Jungle,
and what I mean by a lack of decent skills
in English amongst those responsible for
writing Perl documentation.
CPAN is worthless due to very poor indexing
and search functions. This is ludicrous for
sites operated by skilled programmers. An
average search at most Perl related sites
will take at least an hour for an average
person to find what he wants, if he can
find it at all. Should he find a reference
to what he wants, say substring, he will
be presented with documentation which might
as well be written in Pig Latin for all the
sense it makes.
All you need is an honest and objective
viewpoint to realize these truisms. A bit
of old fashion honesty will lead you to
realize many answers given here to simple
questions, lead a person on a frustrating
wild goose chase.
If Perl Professionals where truly professional,
they would be humiliated by this garbage, pitch
in and give Jarkko Hietaniemi a hand in getting
CPAN correctly and reasonably indexed. Seems
more importance is placed on ego shows than
on professional pride.
CPAN and Perl FAQ, are rarely a good answer.
This is why I send people here, if I know
an answer is there for them,
http://wdvl.com/Authoring/Languages/Perl/PerlfortheWeb/toc.html
It is well written and understandable, affording
much benefit to all, beginner and expert alike.
Godzilla!
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 04:08:33 GMT
From: Dan Sugalski <dan@tuatha.sidhe.org>
Subject: Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!!
Message-Id: <5hE05.110178$hT2.432409@news1.rdc1.ct.home.com>
The AI that would be Gojira <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo> wrote:
> Dan Sugalski wrote:
>> You do realize that Larry was responsible for perl 5,
>> the same way as he was for perl 4, perl 3, perl 2,
>> perl 1, and perl 0, right?
> I never would have guessed. Why have you assumed
> me to be an idiot? This is repugnantly offensive
> and a direct reflection on your lack of social
> skills and lack of intellectual prowess. Initiating
> an article response with personal insults only
> results in my copping an attitude, instantly.
No insult was intended--that was in there specifically to clarify the
point. You've repeatedly proclaimed perl 4 to be great, and
perl 5 to be some sort of abomination, and in the article I responded to
you went on about the circle of folks ego-stroking their way through
development. That's fine, but Larry Wall != "circle of folks".
Larry was directly responsible for both perl 4 and perl 5. The underlying
design of both was his idea and his implementation.
>> > This grandiose nature is a direct reflection of
>> > in-house battles of egos by self-proclaimed elitists
>> > of Perl....
>
>> No, actually, that's not the case. I don't think
>> anyone's ever proclaimed themselves one of the elites
>> of perl, and we really only have one ego of any size.
> Most certainly is true. Some of us keep up with news and,
> ironically, gossip, coming out the inner sanctum.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm *in* the 'inner sanctum', such
as it is. (And, as inner sanctums go, it could use a new coat of paint) Go
ahead, grep for my name in the changelog if you want. Nobody on the
perl5-porters list has proclaimed themselves to be one of the perl elite.
Whether or not anyone in this, or any other, newsgroup has is pretty much
irrelevant, as it's the perl5-porters, and Gurusamy Sarathy and Larry Wall
particularly, that have the first, last, and only say as to what goes into
the standard distribution of perl.
> Look
> around here, you will read comments about all this
> in-house fighting going on.
So? It's mostly second and third hand gossip here. The first-hand stuff's
not all that big a deal.
> You will read a lot of very
> unhealthy fragile egos within this newsgroup.
Once again, the goings on in this newsgroup is almost entirely irrelevant
to the development of perl.
>> > Those of us who are still purist programmers expend
>> > a lot of effort compensating for all those bugs and
>> > glitches inherent to Perl 5....
>
>> Such as? perlbug comes with every copy of perl, Gojira.
> My moniker is Godzilla as you know, Mr. Suckalot.
I prefer Gojira. You want to use the version of perl that perl 5 sprang
from, and I'll use the version of the lizard that Godzilla sprang from.
fair is, after all, fair.
As for the "suckalot" thing, I think you need to try again. As an insult
it's not that great--you got the same number of syllables, but there's not
much of a resemblance between the sounds. I mean, you *are* an instructor
of English. I expected something somewhat better. (I had hoped that you
would stay calm through this, but that apparently hasn't happened)
I should point out, however, that you have hurled all the insults in this
particular conversation.
> However, you personally will address me as,
> Ms. Schilitubi
> to show respect for a change, and to amend for your
> childish boorish behavior.
If that's how you want to be addressed, that's fine, Gojira. Sign your
postings with that name and I'll be happy to.
> Are you a grown man or
> just another one of the little diaper boys around
> this screwed up newsgroup? Well, man or boy?
Adult.
>> If you've found bugs, report the things and they'll
>> get fixed.
> Uh huh. Perl 5 has more bugs than the Roach Motel.
So file bug reports and they'll be fixed. Details, Gojira, post details.
Statements with no backing evidence are meaningless. This is freshman
English stuff--if a student in one of your classes handed in a paper that
made broad statements with no proof, you'd at best mark them down.
Do please back your statements up with concrete proof.
> Anymore, Perl 5 is one big patch to cover for bugs
> much like Windows 98 is one big patch. Perl 4 and
> Windows 3.x are the best and most powerful. Perl 5
> and Windows 98 are sorry excuses of patches for
> screwing up Perl 4 and Windows 3.x to begin with,
> respectively and respectfully.
File bug reports please. Any place that perl 5 deviates from perl 4 may be
a bug. Without bug reports those bugs won't get fixed.
>> You'll note that use strict is off by default.
>> Perl 5, by default,
> Is this why you boys throw temper tantrums and
> scream at people how stupid they are for not
> using strict?
I speak for nobody else, Gojira, and I've not screamed at anyone that I
can think of.
The point is, nonetheless, true. Strict is off by defalt.
> What's the deal with this telling everyone -w,
> strict, check for open are mandatory rules and
> people who don't use them are in error?
Got me. I don't say that.
> Why are
> you contradicting yourself and all others?
I'm not contradicting myself, as the statements you've brought up are ones
I've not made. And, honestly, what other folks say has nothing to do with
this.
>> identically to perl 4, with a few well-documented
>> exceptions. (The biggest being that perl 5 lacks
>> perl 4's buffer overrun problems)
> So if Perl 5 is nearly indentical to Perl 4
Perl 5, by default, presents a backward-compatible superset of perl 4's
environment, just as it does for perl 3, 2, and 1. It's so people, like
yourself, with significant amounts of perl 4 code can continue to run that
code without changes.
> why the
> Hades did you boys come up with buggy bloated Perl 5?
"We boys" came up with nothing. Larry decided that perl 4 had reached the
end of its useful life. As there were a number of fundamental
architectural limits it had hit it was a reasonable decision.
> You still don't get it. A decent programmer doesn't
> need Perl 5 and would much prefer to stick with
> Perl 4.
I don't actually know of any decent programmers that prefer perl 4 to perl
5. You say you do, and that's fine, but I have some misgivings as to your
skill as a programmer. I have seen exactly two examples of your knowledge
of perl (You may have posted more, but I've not seen them) and in both
cases your knowledge was, at best, lacking.
> Why do you boys 'force' everyone to use
> six-thousand-five-hundred some odd lines of cgi.pm
> to do what I can better in thirty lines of Perl 4?
If you can do it better in thirty lines, I'm impressed. Most people who
try that inevitably get it wrong.
> Not only better, but more efficient, more powerfully
> and a lot faster.
More efficiently and faster, perhaps. More powerfully? No. You can't wrap
the functionality of CGI.pm into thirty lines no matter how much you try.
> You boys scream about Perl 4 being a flea bitten camel
> carcass and now you turn around and say Perl 4 and
> Perl 5 are really no different.
That turns out not to be the case. Perl 5 is backwards-compatible with
perl 4. That does not make it "no different".
> Would you mind getting
> your stories straight, along with your minds? Isn't this
> a problem with you Perl Professionals? You change your
> stories and stance as often as Zsa Zsa Gabor changes
> both husbands and dirty underwear. You boys are not
> interested in discussing programming. You are interested
> in protecting and feeding your fragile egos, even if you
> have to constantly contradict your own words.
I haven't contradicted myself with you to date, Gojira. You may have
misinterpreted what I said, but that just means I wasn't clear enough.
>> > Perl 5 is a big fat slow gas guzzling high
>> > operating expense Mercedes Benz ....
>> > Perl 4 is a sleek five-hundred horsepower
>> > classic Corvette Mako Shark ....
>> Wow, impressive comparison! Not true, alas,
>> but impressive nonetheless.
> Yeah right. Perl 5 is slower and more bloated
> than a five hundred pound pregnant Watusi dancer.
Another nice image, but once again quite incorrect. Your wild
exaggerations are amusing though.
> Perl 5 is directly proportionate in size to the
> egos of the people developing Perl 5. Pure bloat.
Once again, perl 5 is the responsibility of Larry Wall, who's ego is quite
small. Perl 5 is also a better design under the hood than perl 4 was.
>> If you're worried about speed, why on *earth* are you
>> writing code in perl? Your best bet's probably assembly,
>> followed closely by Fortran. Perl's damn slow in comparison
>> to both of those.
> Simply to annoy you Perl Professionals by writing
> programs which do amazing and astounding 'things'
> none of you experts possess the skills to write,
> or even copy and duplicate.
Like what? Post code, please.
> This is most likely
> so, your inability, because you don't know how
> to program in Perl 4 or have forgotten how. You
> are copy and paste techno-geeksters now. Nothing
> more than Tinker Toy builders.
Once again, you miss the mark here.
> My background is in Basic, Visual Basic, Fortran,
> Pascal and Turbo Pascal, dating back to our early
> eighties decade. You boys make too many assumptions.
Which assumptions would those be? The statement this was in response to
proposed using assembly or Fortran if you were interested in speed. What
does that have to do with when you started writing code?
> I choose Perl 4 because it fits my needs for a language
> with a native feel, plenty of plain English and is
> quite logical in flow lending well to a typist, such
> as myself, operating at one-hundred words per minute
> plus, code or straight English.
> Point is, Perl 5 is no improvement over Perl 4 at all.
> Perl 5 is bloated Perl 4. I will concede, modules are
> an excellent concept, no doubt on that.
The first and third sentences contradict. If modules are an excellent
concept, then perl 5 is an improvement on perl 4.
> However, modules
> have become an ego contest to see who can get on the
> Great and Glorious module list.
Getting on the module list requires sending a single piece of e-mail to
the modules list. There's no ego involved, and it's not at all difficult.
> Majority of modules
> are pure garbage written to placate, if not masturbate
> a fragile ego.
So? Some modules are bad. Big deal.
> Only module I've found to be of really
> excellent quality and good use, is LWP.
LWP requires the functionality of perl 5 to work with any speed. If it was
implemented in the language subset available with perl 4 it would be
significantly slower, quite a bit bigger, and probably wouldn't exist at
all. I really doubt Gisle or Martijn would've even bothered. Perl 4 throws
up far too many roadblocks to have made it worthwhile.
> Be sure you are clear on this. My personal viewpoint
> on those self-proclaimed elitists of Perl, those who
> appear to be in charge, is they are more interested in
> cutting each others throats in a battle of egos, more
> interested in an Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame,
> than programming.
That may be your personal viewpoint, but it's hardly the truth. You're
apparently also assuming that this newsgroup is something that it isn't.
> This is shameful behavior for
> alleged professionals.
Who's alleging the people you've got a beef with are professionals? This
is Usenet--anyone with internet access can get on and participate.
> Perl is dead. Perl lacks
> any effective and decisive leadership. It is us
> little people, us peons, who keep Perl alive,
> for now.
Perl is far from dead, and does have significant leadership. That you are
unfamiliar with them means that perhaps you need to do some more
background research first.
> Ms. Schilitubi
> Educator, Professor of English
> University Of California
Out of curiosity, which branch? None of the UCal branches have any record
of anyone with that name as faculty or staff.
Dan
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 04:33:41 GMT
From: Elaine Ashton <elaine@chaos.wustl.edu>
Subject: Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!!
Message-Id: <B5688EE6.5EBE%elaine@chaos.wustl.edu>
in article 394302C5.B6FA3E7D@stomp.stomp.tokyo, Godzilla! at
godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo quoth:
> I am remiss. I need to give Jarkko Hietaniemi credit
> for his extensive efforts with little, if any, rewards.
> It is unfair of me to fault him for his voluntary work.
> He is a blessing for our Perl community. It was not
> my intent to imply he does not do good work. I should
> be more careful with my wording.
Nor was it taken that way but there are lots of unsung people behind CPAN.
nic.funet.fi and it's admins for offering the box and network it resides
upon free of charge, the mirrors, the authors, Andreas Koenig for PAUSE, Tim
Bunce, etc. CPAN is a labour of love and despite its flaws, it works.
> If you (plural) are capable of being objective and
> capable of being honest, qualities I question due
> to long term abuse within this group, if you can set
> aside your personal bigotry and be truly scientific,
> use posix::strftime as a search term, just like any
> ordinary relatively fresh to Perl person would do.
We aren't plural at the moment but I am trying to be objective.
POSIX is part of the Perl distribution so it is treated a bit differently in
the database. Searching on "POSIX" will produce a different result than what
you see, but I take your point. The search engine is a work in progress done
by Graham when he has [ haha ] spare time. tucs@search.cpan.org is a good
place to send bug reports, oddities, and suggestions if you are so inclined.
> CPAN is worthless due to very poor indexing
> and search functions. This is ludicrous for
> sites operated by skilled programmers. An
> average search at most Perl related sites
> will take at least an hour for an average
> person to find what he wants, if he can
> find it at all. Should he find a reference
> to what he wants, say substring, he will
> be presented with documentation which might
> as well be written in Pig Latin for all the
> sense it makes.
Worthless is a bit strong...difficult to navigate for the newbie yes, but
for someone who knows a bit and is tenacious it has quite a lot of
worthwhile stuff. Is this ideal? No, it isn't, but the way things have been
with the infighting, the people who set the pace, I'm happy that certain
things like CPAN are almost sacrosanct. And there isn't anything that can be
everything to everyone all the time...YMMV. Lots of people are quick to
criticise yet flee at the call for volunteers.
> If Perl Professionals where truly professional,
> they would be humiliated by this garbage, pitch
> in and give Jarkko Hietaniemi a hand in getting
> CPAN correctly and reasonably indexed. Seems
> more importance is placed on ego shows than
> on professional pride.
Well, since he gave up P5P and configure I hear he has time for some much
needed attention to projects on CPAN...something on the FAQ about virgins
and moonlight....
And there are a few historical artifacts that keep a complete revamp of the
structure from happening overnight. From space, the earth looks quite
peaceful and serene too.
I'm surprised that you care about CPAN though :)
> CPAN and Perl FAQ, are rarely a good answer.
> This is why I send people here, if I know
> an answer is there for them,
It depends what they are looking for...I've yet to find a good book for the
completely lazy clueless guy who wants a program to write itself or to
instruct someone how to be a good system admin in 24 hours or less. At some
point you just have to leave them to try and get a clue.
"Unix is user friendly, it's just picky about its friends" :) So is Perl.
Fangs in, richard.
e.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 14:54:10 +0930
From: Henry <htp@mac.com>
Subject: Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!!
Message-Id: <htp-B4AE3A.14541011062000@news.metropolis.net.au>
In article <RvA05.110150$hT2.432156@news1.rdc1.ct.home.com>, Dan
Sugalski <dan@tuatha.sidhe.org> wrote:
> You'll note that use strict is off by default. Perl 5, by default, behaves
> identically to perl 4, with a few well-documented exceptions. (The
> biggest being that perl 5 lacks perl 4's buffer overrun problems)
Golly!
With such _consistent_ behaviour across a major revision, and such
_good_ documentation to boot, one wonders why a formal standard is
required at all!
Hang on...
Your name looks familiar...
Wasn't it _you_ who was arguing in another thread that the whole reason
we need formal standardisation is because Perl's behaviour is
_inconsistent_ from one version to the next?
Could you please make up your mind - it's hard to shoot down a moving
target.
Henry.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 22:55:53 -0700
From: "Godzilla!" <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Subject: Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!!
Message-Id: <394329E9.FB66C7AB@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Dan Sugalski wrote:
> No insult was intended--
pffftt... mule manure. Again you are assuming
me to be an idiot. Yours was intentional insult
reducing your credibility to zero, with me. This
is a risk you took and lost. Research Ad Hominem
as logical fallacy. I debate strictly by the rules
of Socratic based philosophy and debate, along with
tossing in a barbed comment when justified. You will
discover Socratic Irony one of my strongest points
leading many to foolish statements, revealing truth.
> > Most certainly is true. Some of us keep up with news and,
> > ironically, gossip, coming out the inner sanctum.
> Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm *in* the 'inner sanctum', such
> as it is. (And, as inner sanctums go, it could use a new coat of paint)
No, this cabal needs to be razed and rebuilt, fresh.
You boys need to be dumped in my old turf, East LA,
for a weekend to pick up some street smarts and a
lick of common sense. Packing heat not allowed.
Tell ya the truth, I don't have a clue of who all is with
this.. umm.. cabal. I really don't care. Over the years,
I've only come across a few Perl experts whom I consider
to be decent people per my unrealistic high standards,
Joseph Hall
Aaron Weiss
Selena Sol
If I had it my way, Selena Sol would be in charge
of Perl, in charge of its future direction, not so
much its hard coding. She knows what she is doing
and displays no ego problems. She is down-to-earth
and lacking those qualities inherent to a snob.
> Once again, the goings on in this newsgroup is almost
> entirely irrelevant to the development of perl.
Mule manure. I say this because not listening to peons
around here, not tending to trends within the Perl
community, is, well, flat out stupid. Keeping in touch
with the working class, keeping in touch with those of
us in a caste bearing no colorful dot between our eyes,
doing this, will help you retain your scalp. Your statement
of goings on in this newsgroup is "irrelevant" indicates
to me those of your cabal look down your noses at us
common folks. Have you watched "Braveheart" yet?
> > My moniker is Godzilla as you know, Mr. Suckalot.
> I prefer Gojira. You want to use the version of perl
> that perl 5 sprang from, and I'll use the version of
> the lizard that Godzilla sprang from. fair is,
> after all, fair.
I will consider this an open license to insult you
in any manner I wish with no objection from you.
Fair is fair, meathead. I have asked for a bit
of common courtesy which you have refused. You
are exceptionally rude and arrogant. Certainly
not a lady's man. Certainly a man-boy.
> > However, you personally will address me as,
> > Ms. Schilitubi
> > to show respect for a change, and to amend for your
> > childish boorish behavior.
> If that's how you want to be addressed, that's fine,
> Gojira. Sign your postings with that name and I'll
> be happy to.
I did sign my article with my name. You have not
addressed me as requested. You are telling an
obvious lie. Credibility is now in negative numbers.
It is stunning to read such an obvious lie.
> I speak for nobody else, Gojira, and I've not screamed at
> anyone that I can think of.
Oh?
> > What's the deal with this telling everyone -w,
> > strict, check for open are mandatory rules and
> > people who don't use them are in error?
> Got me. I don't say that.
Hmm.. yeah could be you don't. This is not something
I would research being so unimportant. Annoys me though
to read so many here using pragma as a tool of personal
abuse. This is personally offensive and a display these
experts screaming about pragmas, don't have a clue on
what they are screaming about.
> I don't actually know of any decent programmers that
> prefer perl 4 to perl 5.
This is evidence your arrogant elitist cabal
can't be bothered with ordinary people. I know
a lot of people who prefer Perl 4 over Perl 5.
However, I have a lot of friends within our
programming community, not being a snob but
rather a decent person with manners mingling
with the lower caste, my caste.
Your comments would be valid if you had credibility.
You have none with me resulting from your inappropriate
behavior and lack of good manners. Anything and everything
you state I treat with high skepticism as you have, now,
as in the past, displayed malice intent. You cannot be
trusted, that simple.
> > Why do you boys 'force' everyone to use
> > six-thousand-five-hundred some odd lines of cgi.pm
> > to do what I can better in thirty lines of Perl 4?
> If you can do it better in thirty lines, I'm impressed.
> Most people who try that inevitably get it wrong.
Be impressed then, because I do this on a regular basis.
Surprising, by inference, you cannot do what I can in
Perl programming, quite surprising.
> > Not only better, but more efficient, more powerfully
> > and a lot faster.
> More efficiently and faster, perhaps. More powerfully?
> No. You can't wrap the functionality of CGI.pm into thirty
> lines no matter how much you try.
You, like Mr. Schwartz, are trying to compare apples and
alligators. This is illogical and senseless. I question
your knowledge of Perl and skill level in Perl for this
inane blunder in comparison and contrast. A true expert
in Perl would know better than state something this
absolutely ludicrous.
> Once again, perl 5 is the responsibility of Larry Wall,
> who's ego is quite small. Perl 5 is also a better
> design under the hood than perl 4 was.
> Perl is far from dead, and does have significant leadership.
> That you are unfamiliar with them....
Mule manure. First you speak of an inner sanctum, people
responsible for Perl development. Now you cast all blame
and responsibility on Mr. Wall. Then you speak of "them".
Yet again you are clearly contradicting yourself and,
quite frankly, being deceitful. I know better. I am not
the idiot you assume me to be.
> > Simply to annoy you Perl Professionals by writing
> > programs which do amazing and astounding 'things'
> > none of you experts possess the skills to write,
> > or even copy and duplicate.
> Like what? Post code, please.
As if. No way will I ever give away my techniques. Being
more sincere, for now, my sites average five break-in
attempts for every seven days. Lets call it, a break-in
attempt every other day. Dozens, literally dozens of
people here, have been trying for months to obtain copies
of my scripts. One person, someone I know, a regular here
who appears as at least a dozen different people, both
male and female, has been trying for slightly over a year
to obtain copies of my scripts. I am being quite sincere.
Some here know of this having to deal with formal complaints
of hacking I filed. My scripts are highly sought by those who
are aware of what all they, meaning my androids, can do. When
I say androids, I mean androids so life like in conversation,
people truly believe they are talking to me or another living
breathing yahoo human.
I posted a challenge while back for any Perl expert to
develop a Perl based graphical draw poker game like mine,
a game many here have watched in action. No Perl expert
has succeeded at this challenge.
My androids, Robby and Roberta, I won't even challenge anyone
to try to duplicate them. Qualified best of my knowledge, I am
the only Perl programmer to develop anything remotely like those
two, with Perl. Both could win our yearly Turing contest hands
down. They will never be entered because it is a open source
code contest. To give them away, in my mind, would be to betray
their trust in me, as friends.
I don't need to post code, Mr. Meathead. I am estimating more
than two-hundred people from this group or passing through
this group, have witnessed my programs in action. Laughs,
or have been given the boot by my androids, post haste.
Buzz off. You know better than issue a lame brain
challenge like this. You know I never bluff. Rattle
your sabre around me and I will punch your lights out
with hard dose of Josie Wells reality.
> LWP requires the functionality of perl 5 to work with
> any speed. If it was implemented in the language subset
> available with perl 4 it would be significantly slower,
> quite a bit bigger, and probably wouldn't exist at
> all. I really doubt Gisle or Martijn would've even
> bothered. Perl 4 throws up far too many roadblocks to
> have made it worthwhile.
Wait.. you just said Mr. Wall is solely responsible
for development of Perl. Who are these other people
or are you suffering a credibility crisis?
I have stated, quite clearly, my opinion is modules
are an excellent concept. In this sense, Perl 5 makes
darn good sense. Yes, modules make Perl 5 worthwhile,
only in this aspect. However, modules could have been
very easily incorporated into Perl 4 without having to
introduce buggy bloated Perl 5. You are practicing
a logical fallacy again; deceit by concealment. You and
myself both know Perl 5 is not needed for modular tech.
My personal viewpoint is, Perl 5 has been developed to
counter a market share being grabbed by other languages,
such as Java and Microsoft's Active Server Programming.
Don't even try this gateway fallacy on me. Perl is not
like other programming languages but competition still
exists, at least in terms of ego. Perl 5 is a piss poor
attempt at Plug N Play technology. There is no big profit
to be made with Perl, it is open source code for all to
use and, this is a blessing. Perhaps some profit is
made in spin-off events, such as selling T-shirts
and sponsered events. This is reasonable.
However, twisting Perl around into Plug N Play
technology is a slap at all Perl programmers who
love to program, in its purist form. Perl 4 left
responsibility up to the programmer. Each programmer
shouldered accountability for all things related to
his or her programming. Perl 4 has no babysitters,
nothing to slap your hand when you make a boo-boo.
Perl 4 does use strict; you must strictly know what
you are doing or else. Perl 4 generated high quality
programmers, a lot of us. Now those of us who wish
to stick with Perl 4, have to struggle to keep Perl
5 from puking because of imaginative programming.
Perl 5, this is child's play. Perl 5 has created a
new generation of "programmers" who specialize in
copy and paste without truly understanding what lies
under those words they paste onto paper. They use
the ink with no notion of the depth this ink soaks
in. To this new generation, it's Pacman, not much
more. Perl 5 has rendered quality programmers, a
dying breed. Perl is no longer an art, it is a
coloring book for children who claim to be
fancy dancy programmers.
I am giving your article and you personally,
a big red F for failure. You are practicing
Ad Hominem, deceit by concealment, semantic
slipperies, blame it on higher authority,
unrealistic attitudes, displays of no logic
and, most annoying, poorly veiled insults.
You are no professional, by a long shot.
Godzilla!
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 23:31:51 -0700
From: "Godzilla!" <godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Subject: Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!!
Message-Id: <39433257.2B8DA185@stomp.stomp.tokyo>
Elaine Ashton wrote:
>
> in article 394302C5.B6FA3E7D@stomp.stomp.tokyo, Godzilla! at
> godzilla@stomp.stomp.tokyo quoth:
> ... there are lots of unsung people behind CPAN.
Yes, many unsung heroes who deserve more credit
than they are receiving. Perhaps instead of creating
pages to slander people, a worthwhile project would
be to create pages to give credit to these people
working hard for all of us, with little credit.
> POSIX is part of the Perl distribution so it is
> treated a bit differently in the database.
> Searching on "POSIX" will produce a different
> result than what you see, but I take your point.
> The search engine is a work in progress done
> by Graham when he has [ haha ] spare time.
> tucs@search.cpan.org is a good place to send
> bug reports, oddities, and suggestions if you
> are so inclined.
> > CPAN is worthless due to very poor indexing
> > and search functions.
> Worthless is a bit strong...
Yes, you are right. Worthless is a poor choice
of expression. Could be worse, CPAN could not
exist at all. This would be worthless. I retract
my use of worthless and will say, CPAN has a lot
of potential yet to be developed.
> difficult to navigate for the newbie yes, but
> for someone who knows a bit and is tenacious it
> has quite a lot of worthwhile stuff. Is this ideal?
> No, it isn't, but the way things have been with the
> infighting, the people who set the pace, I'm happy
> that certain things like CPAN are almost sacrosanct.
> And there isn't anything that can be everything to
> everyone all the time...YMMV. Lots of people are quick
> to criticise yet flee at the call for volunteers.
Unsnipped. Very realistic, direct and to the point.
It would be wrong of me to not support your thoughts.
> > If Perl Professionals where truly professional,
> > they would be humiliated by this garbage, pitch
> > in and give Jarkko Hietaniemi a hand in getting
> > CPAN correctly and reasonably indexed.
> Well, since he gave up P5P and configure I hear he
> has time for some much needed attention to projects
> on CPAN...something on the FAQ about virgins
> and moonlight....
I would encourage him to go for moonlit virgins..
> And there are a few historical artifacts that keep
> a complete revamp of the structure from happening
> overnight. From space, the earth looks quite
> peaceful and serene too.
> I'm surprised that you care about CPAN though :)
Yes, I care about CPAN, all Perl sites and most
importantly, I care about Perl itself. I am zealot
when it comes to keeping Perl pure and fresh. It
is like no other language, it is unique and special.
It is clear my hackles jump up and fry with static
electricity when I read these yahoos in here, doing
nothing but masturbating their egos at the expense
of others, in the name of Perl. I take this personally.
These people are messing with "my Perl" and giving
everyone a bad name.
Perl shouldn't be a tool of personal abuse. Perl
should be a common ground for all of us to meet
and share ideas, Perl should be a diplomatic
language for us to speak to each other, in very
civilized ways.
Here, Perl is a tool of hatred for the most part.
This pisses me off.
> It depends what they are looking for...I've yet to
> find a good book for the completely lazy clueless
> guy who wants a program to write itself or to
> instruct someone how to be a good system admin
> in 24 hours or less. At some point you just have
> to leave them to try and get a clue.
Agreed. This is way I sometimes say "No" to people
on requests for additional help. Recently I told
someone to roll up his sleeves and get to work.
It is very difficult to know where to draw a line
between helping and babysitting. I do try hard to
lend help but still hold back a bit of information,
or even at times, code in a deliberate bug or
fubar, to force a person to roll up his or her
sleeves and solve some problems. It is rare I do
not post some code which doesn't have something
which makes cop codes wet their pants. However,
I am here to help, not to babysit nor drag a
person along by the hand.
Bad enough as it is trying to figure out which
articles are fakes written by regulars here with
malice intent and, which are sincere requests
for help. This is frustrating because I know
there are some I pass, not sure if I am dealing
with a real person or a fake. Darn if there aren't
a lot, a way lot of fake articles here.
Anyhow, yes I agree completely. There is a line
to be drawn between helping and babysitting.
I do wish more experts here, those with the
right skills, would pitch in and help over
at CPAN. The potential there is so great,
if average people could just access well
written informative articles or archives,
directed specifically at an average audience,
this would help to create good programmers
and enhance Perl's reputation. Who knows,
might generate enough interest in Perl to
make it a leader of programming languages.
I will not entertain arguments Perl is not
a programming language.
Aaron Weiss and Selena Sol, I believe set a
good example for how a site should be written.
CPAN has the potential to be a site for those
new to Perl and, clearly, has the potential
to be an excellent tech reference for old pros.
Nice article Ms. Ashton.
Godzilla!
------------------------------
Date: 16 Sep 99 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Users-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 16 Sep 99)
Message-Id: <null>
Administrivia:
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or:
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To request back copies (available for a week or so), send your request
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V9 Issue 3317
**************************************
