[15906] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 3319 Volume: 9
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Sun Jun 11 09:05:25 2000
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 06:05:13 -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: <960728713-v9-i3319@ruby.oce.orst.edu>
Content-Type: text
Perl-Users Digest Sun, 11 Jun 2000 Volume: 9 Number: 3319
Today's topics:
Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!! (Bart Lateur)
Re: Capturing frames <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
Re: Database program <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
Re: dividing a string into array..? <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
Re: excluding certain domains in e-mails <dzapped@theramp.net>
Re: Extracting hash elements based on an array <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
Re: file date parse routine <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
how to check for integer? <mariska@excite.nl>
Re: how to check for integer? (jason)
Re: how to check for integer? <thoren@southern-division.com>
Re: how to check for integer? <Hans.de.Bruin@Chello.nl>
how to escape a slash <andrew.g.bacchi@hitchcock.org>
Re: how to escape a slash <abe@ztreet.demon.nl>
Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com! <lr@hpl.hp.com>
Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com! <lr@hpl.hp.com>
Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com! (Bart Lateur)
Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com! <htp@mac.com>
Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com! <htp@mac.com>
Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com! <cmcurtin@interhack.net>
Re: No offense but Larry Wall should do the maths !! (Bart Lateur)
Re: No offense but Larry Wall should do the maths !! <htp@mac.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 16 Sep 99) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 08:47:46 GMT
From: bart.lateur@skynet.be (Bart Lateur)
Subject: Re: ANSI Perl: No Way !!!
Message-Id: <39474ab7.4599858@news.skynet.be>
Godzilla! wrote:
>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.
Perl 5 is a lready 5 years old. It predates Windows95, Java, ASP, ansd
even Bill Gates' believe in internet. I don't see how Perl could, in any
way, be an attempt at a response to those.
--
Bart.
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jun 2000 21:53:44 +0100
From: Jonathan Stowe <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
Subject: Re: Capturing frames
Message-Id: <8hu9so$lco$1@orpheus.gellyfish.com>
On Sat, 10 Jun 2000 19:58:07 +0200 Abe Timmerman wrote:
> On 10 Jun 2000 12:47:39 +0100, Jonathan Stowe <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 09 Jun 2000 17:22:33 +0200 Abe Timmerman wrote:
>> > On Fri, 09 Jun 2000 14:19:22 GMT, newbie@db-networks.com wrote:
>> >
>> >> On 8 Jun 2000 23:58:34 GMT, ebohlman@netcom.com (Eric Bohlman) wrote:
>> > ...
>> >>
>> >> |For a framed page, that will give you the content of the frameset
>> >> |document. You'll have to parse that, using something like
>> >> |HTML::TokeParser, to get the URLs to the individual content pages and
>> >> |then retrieve each of them.
>> >>
>> >> When I type the address and error web page stating that they only
> ^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> >> support browsers with frames. There is nothing to parse. Is there
> an
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I take this be to be a <NOFRAMES> section.
>> >> updated librairy of LWP::UserAgent or another one?
>> >
>> > Look at the 'lwpcook' man page for the way you could make the server
>> > believe you are (your program is) Mozilla. (I wouldn't try 8 though,
>> > this is probably IIS with that _very_ broken browscap.ini thing)
>> >
>>
>> This has nothing to do with whether the server thinks the UserAgent can
>> handle frames so fiddling with the UserAgent header will not have any
>> effect on the result.
>
> It does if some nitwit ASP or CGI writer makes it send an error-message.
> A _server_ couldn't (shouldn't) care less what UserAgent requests that
> page, or even what it does with it for that matter.
>
Well If some arse has done that then all bets are off - as are any which
about fetching web pages - I would recommend that no-one should answer
questions about fetching web pages if we are going to have to deal with
sundry individuals screwing around in this manner.
> Your 'Gelzilla/666' would probably have got the same error message from
> that page, regardless of the fact that it actualy _is_ frames-capable.
> Why do you think MSIE still sends out 'Mozilla 4.0' as its main
> UserAgent header?
>
Er how am I supposed to know that without seeing the actual page in
question. Anyhow WTF has *this* to do with Perl.
/J\
--
fortune oscar homer
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jun 2000 21:31:25 +0100
From: Jonathan Stowe <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
Subject: Re: Database program
Message-Id: <8hu8it$lbf$1@orpheus.gellyfish.com>
On Thu, 8 Jun 2000 18:04:00 +0200 Raphael Pirker wrote:
> Jim Ray <jim.ray@west.boeing.com> wrote in message
> news:FvuAn3.n2u@news.boeing.com...
>> What is the easiest way to handle a simple database need? Here is
>> what I have. A list of names and address, by regions and email.
>>
>> I want to be able to build a list sorted by last name or company.
>> I also want to have control over what the output looks like. Also,
>> I want to be to place an mailto around the email address.
>>
>> Now, my host will not support MySql, so that one is out. I currently
>> have the information in a text file. What would be my next best
>> thing to do?
>>
>> Any help and direction would be helpful.
>
> www.webteacher.com
>
Yeah but that looks like a piece of commercial software that is entirely
incompatible with DBI and thus being a deadend in Perl database
connectivity.
/J\
--
fortune oscar homer
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 2000 12:12:22 +0100
From: Jonathan Stowe <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
Subject: Re: dividing a string into array..?
Message-Id: <8hvs6m$npd$1@orpheus.gellyfish.com>
On Fri, 09 Jun 2000 19:08:50 GMT happyhippi@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> I've decided to make a game where a player guesses letters from some
> unknown word and after all tries to guess the whole word.
>
I remember that someone posted something similar to this a little while
ago - lessee - ah yes :
<quote>
From jdf@pobox.com Sun Apr 05 18:48:24 1998
Path: neptunium.btinternet.com!btnet-peer!btnet!feeder.qis.net!news-xfer.netaxs.com!panix!news.panix.com!usenet
From: Jonathan Feinberg <jdf@pobox.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc
Subject: Re: Hangman
Date: 05 Apr 1998 13:48:24 -0400
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC
Lines: 70
Sender: Administrator@JOSHUA
Message-ID: <ogyg9n2v.fsf@mailhost.panix.com>
References: <35268DB5.1FDA@sonic.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: jdf.dialup.access.net
To: star@sonic.net
X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.4.66/Emacs 19.34
Xref: neptunium.btinternet.com comp.lang.perl.misc:117662
~arthur <star@sonic.net> writes:
[posted and mailed]
> I am trying to find (or write) a hangman program. Not a cgi - just a
> perl hangman program. Can anyone help me. I am bringing it to a juvenile
> detention hall where there is no access to the web but they have
> computers in school.
Oh, why not?
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
$|++;
use constant MAX_MISSES => 6;
my $words_file = shift or die "Please specify words file on command line.\n";
GAMES:
while (1) {
open(WORDS, "<$words_file") or die "Can't open $words_file: $!";
my $word;
rand($.) < 1 && ($word = $_) while <WORDS>;
close WORDS or die "Can't close $words_file: $!";
chomp $word;
my $misses_left = MAX_MISSES;
my %letters = map {$_ => 1} split //, $word;;
my %guesses = ();
GUESSES:
while ($misses_left) {
print "\n\n\nYou have guessed: ", join(' ', sort keys %guesses), "\n";
print "You have $misses_left misses left.\n\n";
print join(' ', map {exists $guesses{$_} ? $_ : '_'} split //, $word), "\n";
my $guess;
GET_GUESS:
{
print "\nGuess a letter: ";
chop($guess = lc <STDIN>);
if ($guess !~ /^[a-z]$/) {
print "Please enter a single letter guess.\n";
redo GET_GUESS;
}
if (exists $guesses{$guess}) {
print qq(You\'ve already guessed "$guess".\n);
redo GET_GUESS;
}
}
$guesses{$guess}++;
if (exists $letters{$guess}) {
delete $letters{$guess};
keys %letters or last GUESSES;
} else {
--$misses_left;
}
}
if ($misses_left) {
print "\nYou guessed it: $word!";
} else {
print qq(\nOops... you\'re hanged. The word was "$word.");
}
print "\n\n\nPlay again? (Y/N): ";
chop (my $again = <STDIN>);
last GAMES unless $again =~ /^y/i;
}
</quote>
It does work ... Any screwing up of the indentation is probably my fault.
/J\
--
** This space reserved for venue sponsor for yapc::Europe **
<http://www.yapc.org/Europe/>
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 07:10:04 -0500
From: Z-man <dzapped@theramp.net>
Subject: Re: excluding certain domains in e-mails
Message-Id: <3943819C.AF548B90@theramp.net>
Hello all,
O.k. I figured out the suggested method,but that does exactly the opposite
of what I need to do.What I have know is a script that will only allow you
to register if you have an e-mail address with the hotmail.com domain.So
I'm back to the question Is there any way to block certain domains?
Thanks in advance
Denis
Dave Brondsema wrote:
> Z-man <dzapped@theramp.net> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > I have a registration script that requires an e-mail address what i'd
> > like to do is exclude certain domains from registering i.e.
> > someone@hotmail .com is this possable and if so how currently the
> > e-mail part reads this
> > &error("missing email address") if (!$in{'email'});
> > &error("invalid email address") if ($in{'email'} !~ /\@/);
>
> Use the same logic as the check for @
> if ($in{'email'} !~ /\@/ || $in{'email'} !~ /anytextyouwant/);
> || means or
>
> > any help appreciated
> >
> > Denis
> >
> >
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 2000 10:42:07 +0100
From: Jonathan Stowe <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
Subject: Re: Extracting hash elements based on an array
Message-Id: <8hvmtf$nha$1@orpheus.gellyfish.com>
On Sat, 10 Jun 2000 23:55:09 GMT Philip Taylor wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Jun 2000 15:13:38 -0700, Tom Phoenix <rootbeer@redcat.com>
> wrote:
>
>>Inside the braces is a list expression whose value is the list of indices.
>>If the list is qw/ code name age / , then the resulting value from the
>>slice is the same as ($player{code}, $player{name}, $player{age}) .
>
> I understand slices now (I think), but iy doesn't solve my problem
> completely.
>
That most excellent of hackers Uri Guttman has a tutorial on Hash Slices at
his web site <http://www.sysarch.com> .
/J\
--
** This space reserved for venue sponsor for yapc::Europe **
<http://www.yapc.org/Europe/>
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 2000 11:53:50 +0100
From: Jonathan Stowe <gellyfish@gellyfish.com>
Subject: Re: file date parse routine
Message-Id: <8hvr3u$nnl$1@orpheus.gellyfish.com>
On Fri, 9 Jun 2000 14:40:28 -0700 Lauren Smith wrote:
>
> Perldoc (lowercase that 'P')
>
Dont tell me your newsreader *forces* you to capitalize that 'perldoc' :)
I'm sure you will have read Bart's bijou rantette on this topic viz the
usage of 'Crypt' in the manpage ...
/J\
--
** This space reserved for venue sponsor for yapc::Europe **
<http://www.yapc.org/Europe/>
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 09:25:56 +0200
From: "Mariska" <mariska@excite.nl>
Subject: how to check for integer?
Message-Id: <394340db$0$8238@reader2>
Hi all
I don't know how to check if a number is an integer.
I need to do something when a number is even.
i divide a number by 2 and i want to check if the result is an integer or
not.
Mariska van Schie
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 09:32:20 GMT
From: elephant@squirrelgroup.com (jason)
Subject: Re: how to check for integer?
Message-Id: <MPG.13adf9c8e49f904f989723@news>
Mariska writes ..
>I don't know how to check if a number is an integer.
>I need to do something when a number is even.
>i divide a number by 2 and i want to check if the result is an integer or
>not.
if your end goal is just to determine whether an integer is even or not
then the following Perlistic method is hard to beat
$var =~ /[02468]$/;
if you don't know whether it'll be an integer or not then a small change
to
$var =~ /^\d*[02468]$/;
will make sure it's an integer also (of course - it doesn't distinguish
between odd and non-integer - but your spec didn't seem to care about
that)
--
jason - elephant@squirrelgroup.com -
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 13:24:16 +0200
From: "Thoren Johne" <thoren@southern-division.com>
Subject: Re: how to check for integer?
Message-Id: <8hvt3t$54i$11$1@news.t-online.com>
Mariska <mariska@excite.nl> wrote in message news:394340db$0$8238@reader2...
> I don't know how to check if a number is an integer.
if ( $number == int $number ) {
print "$number is integer\n";
}
> I need to do something when a number is even.
if ( $number == int $number ) {
unless ( $number % 2 ) {
print "$number is even";
}
}
if you don't think that 0 is even, use
unless ( $number % 2 or $number == 0 )
instead of
unless ( $number % 2 )
also read
perldoc -f int
perldoc perlop
gruß
thoren
8#X
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thoren Johne - 8#X - thoren@southern-division.com
Southern Division Classic Bikes - www.southern-division.com
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 11:46:29 GMT
From: Hans <Hans.de.Bruin@Chello.nl>
Subject: Re: how to check for integer?
Message-Id: <39437BAB.9FEA5FAE@Chello.nl>
Mariska wrote:
>
> Hi all
> I don't know how to check if a number is an integer.
Unless you tell perl to use integers it will use any type it seems fit.
So you better supect it to use floats.
> I need to do something when a number is even.
Instead of the regex from jason you could also use ($var%2)==0 or
($var&1)==0. If $var was a float perl will convert the value to an
integer so 2.3 is even.
> i divide a number by 2 and i want to check if the result is an integer or
> not.
if somehow the "even" number you test became a float like 4.00000000123
your test wil not show it to be an even number.
Hans
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 07:36:14 -0400
From: "Andrew G. Bacchi" <andrew.g.bacchi@hitchcock.org>
Subject: how to escape a slash
Message-Id: <394379AE.4C40848A@hitchcock.org>
I've tried a number of things, but can't make this work. I would
appreciate your help.
I am trying to concatenate a path to a directory and a file name.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my $runfile = '/usr/home/seti/running.0';
open(RUNN,"$runfile") || die "Can't open $runfile: $!";
my $working = <RUNN>; close RUNN;
print "The working directory is $working\n";
!So far this works and $working prints correctly.
my $dir = "/usr/andrew/setiathome/cache/0/";
my $file = "state.txt";
my $wkdir = "$dir\/$working\/$file;"
print STDOUT $wkdir\n;
The error in my $wkdir is if I leave out the backslash the statement
tries to divide to the right of $dir. $working is read as $working and
not as a scaler variable. How can I concatenate these three scalers
into one path to a file? Thanks.
Please help, before I do something drastic.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 15:02:04 +0200
From: Abe Timmerman <abe@ztreet.demon.nl>
Subject: Re: how to escape a slash
Message-Id: <s327ks02gokbeqtr9rs4rlnffjvgq6vdur@4ax.com>
On Sun, 11 Jun 2000 07:36:14 -0400, "Andrew G. Bacchi"
<andrew.g.bacchi@hitchcock.org> wrote:
...
> my $wkdir = "$dir\/$working\/$file;"
^^^
Syntax error
my $wkdir = "$dir/$working/$file";
No need to escape the '/', it doesn't do anything special during
interpolation.
> print STDOUT $wkdir\n;
^^^
Syntax error
print "$wkdir\n";
Both are obviously caught by perl. This means you either didn't test the
code before posting or you didn't copy/paste the code into your message.
> Please help, before I do something drastic.
Don't write that sort of thing, it doesn't help your case.
--
Good luck,
Abe
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 00:53:43 -0700
From: Larry Rosler <lr@hpl.hp.com>
Subject: Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com!
Message-Id: <MPG.13ace55d1b887df198ab5d@nntp.hpl.hp.com>
In article <htp-55075D.14324911062000@news.metropolis.net.au>,
htp@mac.com says...
> In article <pKs05.110113$hT2.431098@news1.rdc1.ct.home.com>, Dan
> Sugalski <dan@tuatha.sidhe.org> wrote:
...
> > A standard *is* documentation, very formal documentation, of how
> > something should work.
s/formal/careful/
> Agreed. A standard is very formal, and hence very _unapproachable_
> documentation that no-one except masochists bother reading. If no-one
> reads it, why bother writing it?
I'm curious to know if you have ever read the ANSI/ISO C standard? If
not, on what do you base your blanket indictment, other than sheer
prejudice?
...
> > Formal definitions of
> > language behavior (which is what a standard *is*) is what gets you
> > stability. Otherwise you risk breaking things, and perl has definitely
> > done that in the past. (I think every point release has broken something
> > somewhere)
>
> Evolution is painful. That's life. That's the way it's _supposed_ to
> be. Standards constrict and confine evolution. They limit diversity.
> They have a NEGATIVE IMPACT on the survival of the species.
Nonsense. They may be necessary for commercial acceptance.
You have confused the need for newcomer-accessible tutorial
documentation with the need for careful descriptive documentation aimed
at implementers and experienced users. For Perl, the former is provided
by introductory books and some online tutorials. The latter is provided
by the perldocs.
The perldocs are loosely organized but carefully written. From the
point of view of formal standards, they would provide an adequate Base
Document. With lots more work they could evolve into a language
description that would be invaluable to those who need it. Whether that
turned into a formal standard would depend on evaluation of the
perceived benefit for the commercial world.
I've enjoyed watching this controversy enlarge. Maybe some direction
will develop.
--
(Just Another Larry) Rosler
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Larry_Rosler/
lr@hpl.hp.com
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 01:03:05 -0700
From: Larry Rosler <lr@hpl.hp.com>
Subject: Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com!
Message-Id: <MPG.13ace7984e3846fd98ab5e@nntp.hpl.hp.com>
In article <htp-C7C097.15125511062000@news.metropolis.net.au>,
htp@mac.com says...
...
> Relenquishing control of Perl to a standards body means that, instead of
> having to win the hearts and minds of (dare I say it) millions of
> intelligent programmers around the world on the basis of _merit_, which
> they have so far utterly failed to do, the Evil Empire (Microsoft) will
> only have to lobby, threaten, bribe, stack, coerce, etc., a tiny number
> of bureaucrats (on a committee), and prevail on the basis of greed.
I would be interested in knowing how many meetings of ANSI Technical
Committees you have attended or observed, and which bureaucrats you have
identified on those committees. Obviously you wouldn't present such
disparaging views without strong evidence to support your observations.
--
(Just Another Larry) Rosler
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Larry_Rosler/
lr@hpl.hp.com
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 08:47:38 GMT
From: bart.lateur@skynet.be (Bart Lateur)
Subject: Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com!
Message-Id: <39444399.2777667@news.skynet.be>
Henry wrote:
>My comments are about Perl's documentation, not the language itself.
>Perl is actually a very _easy_ language for a newbie to pick up,
>providing they have documentation which caters to their experience
>level. That documentation doesn't exist. That's the problem.
Maybe it doesn't exist from the official Per lsources. It's the second
time I point to this huge online tutorial that I accidently found this
week. It might fill the gap you're talking about.
http://www.cm.cf.ac.uk/Dave/PERL/
--
Bart.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 19:26:36 +0930
From: Henry <htp@mac.com>
Subject: Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com!
Message-Id: <htp-FEE257.19263611062000@news.metropolis.net.au>
In article <MPG.13ace55d1b887df198ab5d@nntp.hpl.hp.com>, Larry Rosler
<lr@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>> Agreed. A standard is very formal, and hence very _unapproachable_
>> documentation that no-one except masochists bother reading. If
>> no-one reads it, why bother writing it?
>
> I'm curious to know if you have ever read the ANSI/ISO C standard? If
> not, on what do you base your blanket indictment, other than sheer
> prejudice?
n843 (a while back) was my last 'exposure' - is there a more recent one?
If not, then the thing's still just a doorstop. A very big, heavy,
solid doorstop.
Dump 150 pages of pompous waffle and hire someone who actually knows
something about layout and maybe, just maybe, the document could be
coerced into a high-brow language reference.
>> Evolution is painful. That's life. That's the way it's _supposed_
>> to be. Standards constrict and confine evolution. They limit
>> diversity. They have a NEGATIVE IMPACT on the survival of the species.
>
> Nonsense. They may be necessary for commercial acceptance.
[I'm assuming you disagree with my application of evolutionary theory to
standards, and not evolutionary theory in general.]
Companies exploit resources for short-term, primarily greed-driven goals
and then discard the husk that's left after they're done with it.
Sure, an ANSI certified and standardised form of Perl would be good for
companies, but _are_companies_good_for_Perl_?
I am not a big fan of parasitic relationships.
> You have confused the need for newcomer-accessible tutorial
> documentation with the need for careful descriptive documentation aimed
> at implementers and experienced users.
Actually, NO, I haven't. It's just that better documentation for the
former will lead to better documentation for the latter. We can kill
two birds with one stone by treating the source of the problem, not its
symptoms. Sure, there'll be a time-lag, but that'll be _nothing_
compared to the glacial pace of an ISO approach.
> I've enjoyed watching this controversy enlarge. Maybe some direction
> will develop.
I'm curious...
In your interview, you said "I am less concerned about individual
programmers' decisions for their own projects and more concerned about
major corporations or government agencies that reject Perl because of
lack of formal support and lack of standardization."
If you don't mind me asking, _why_ do you feel there is a need for Perl
to be accepted by major corporations and government agencies?
The culture which gave birth to, and surrounds Perl is home to
anarchists and rebels - it is a culture TOTALLY INCOMPATIBLE with that
mandated by the suits in major corporations and government agencies.
What reward is so important, so valuable, that it justifies killing the
goose that laid the golden egg?
Henry.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 20:34:24 +0930
From: Henry <htp@mac.com>
Subject: Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com!
Message-Id: <htp-7279AD.20342411062000@news.metropolis.net.au>
In article <39444399.2777667@news.skynet.be>, bart.lateur@skynet.be
(Bart Lateur) wrote:
>> My comments are about Perl's documentation, not the language itself.
>> Perl is actually a very _easy_ language for a newbie to pick up,
>> providing they have documentation which caters to their experience
>> level. That documentation doesn't exist. That's the problem.
>
> Maybe it doesn't exist from the official Per lsources. It's the second
> time I point to this huge online tutorial that I accidently found this
> week. It might fill the gap you're talking about.
>
> http://www.cm.cf.ac.uk/Dave/PERL/
Web resources are good, but not optimal. The only thing that will cut
it, IMHO, is a (God-forbid) "documentation" folder in the standard
distribution which is chock-fulla basic tutorials.
That folder, and its contents, needs to referenced in the first couple
of paragraphs of the README.
That said, it would be a great idea to have URLs like the one above
featured on a website somewhere, along with some sort of complexity
rating so the visiting newbie can jump into the pool at the _shallow_
end rather than accidentally plunging into the deep end.
Something akin to:
http://dir.yahoo.com/computers_and_internet/programming_languages/perl/
...but preferably hosted on a dedicated Perl site, without all the ads,
and with more room for descriptors.
"The one and only URL a Perl newbie would ever need."
Or does such a beast already exist?
Henry.
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jun 2000 09:01:50 -0400
From: Matt Curtin <cmcurtin@interhack.net>
Subject: Re: Larry Rosler interview on perl.com!
Message-Id: <xlxd7lo9xs1.fsf@gold.cis.ohio-state.edu>
>>>>> "Larry" == lvirden <lvirden@cas.org> writes:
[This is kind of long. Sorry.]
Larry> What exactly do people expect to 'standardize'?
This is a good question.
It is true that there is only "One Perl", we still have a number of
difficult issues to address. One is that even the One Perl doesn't
behave the same way on all platforms. The example of a multithreaded
network daemon, for example, behaves "properly" under FreeBSD, but
under Solaris, when a child that services an individual connection
exits, so does the parent. One can work around this with a (gack)
goto. Is this a bug? Or is it just how Perl works on Solaris?
Despite Perl's Fine Manual, we're still lacking a specification for
the language against which issues like this can be measured to
determine which behavior is correct.
There is also something to be said for having the ability to choose
among vendors. As the other Larry pointed out, this is critical in
some organizations. What makes Perl any more (or less) a "real
language" than Visual Basic? Both are informally specified single-
vendor languages. If the provider goes away, there's a problem. At
least with Perl, we have Larry (Wall) at the helm, and he has shown
himself to be more than trustworthy. But what happens if Larry can't
work on Perl anymore or decides that his true calling is to be a Lisp
programmer? Naturally, with Perl, we also have the source, and a
license that will allow us perpetual use of it, so even if operating
systems change, we can port Perl to our new target and have our code
work. (Hopefully.)
Standardization of the language will also have another effect on the
language: slowing its evolution. Not _freezing_ its evolution, but
slowing it. This is a Good Thing. We have some features of Perl that
have been talked about for years and exist in partially-working
implementations, but don't really "work". If Perl standardizes and
adding a new feature to it involves much more than talking someone
into committing a patch, maybe all of these energetic Perl hackers
will find a way to make threads or the compiler stuff work properly.
Maybe we could have a smarter garbage collector.
Wouldn't that be grand?
Perl is quirky as it is today and that's probably part of the reason
why so many of us were drawn to it in the first place, or at least
inclined to stick with it as long as some of us have. (I can't
believe it, but it's been almost 10 years since the Dr. Dobb's article
that Larry Wall wrote about Perl and my first experiences with the
language.)
I have written a lot of Perl code. I have written free stuff,
commercial stuff, open source, closed source, throwaway stuff,
production stuff, and about every other kind of stuff that one could
write with Perl. Even a Perl haiku. Perl has been very influential
on my view of the world and is often a metric by which I judge other
languages. (Frightening, isn't it?) Presently, I am the Perl guru
for a large site and support it and a whole bunch of CPAN for more
than 4000 users.
Without delving into technical details, suffice it to say that
upgrading Perl is getting more and more painful. I have to do more
testing, and despite my insistence (which some might kindly describe
as "animated") that stuff works cleanly with -w and strict.pm, I need
to make some code changes every time there is an upgrade.
Is this because I'm now supporting much more Perl than I did?
Possibly. Is it because the Perl development that I'm helping to
facilitate is more complicated than what had to work before?
Possibly. Is Perl becoming something of a headache for me, making me
consider seriously recommending other languages instead? Definitely.
I like Java. It has a single-vendor specification, which troubles me,
and isn't viable in the long term. But at least it does have a formal
specification and I could write my own Java compiler if that became
necessary. The third "other favorite" language I have is Common
Lisp. It has a formal specification and multiple implementations from
which to choose. It also has problems, but I talk about that on
comp.lang.lisp.
So the points about bureaucratic rigamarole and the status of Larry
Wall's Perl as the "standard" are well-taken, but I don't think that
it's supportable in the long term. Not all behavior is the same on
all platforms, even in the standard Perl distribution. If we can fix
these things, maybe the stamp of approval will be as unnecessary as
many will assert. But for the time being, they're broken, and they
need to be fixed. Before they can be fixed, the correct behavior has
to be determined and that's typically done by the specification.
--
Matt Curtin cmcurtin@interhack.net http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 08:47:41 GMT
From: bart.lateur@skynet.be (Bart Lateur)
Subject: Re: No offense but Larry Wall should do the maths !!
Message-Id: <394544a4.3045151@news.skynet.be>
Henry wrote:
>ABBA said it best:
>
>for (1..6) {
> print "I Do\n";
>}
Heh, I tought they sang it only 5 times.
--
Bart.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 19:49:18 +0930
From: Henry <htp@mac.com>
Subject: Re: No offense but Larry Wall should do the maths !!
Message-Id: <htp-30FEED.19491811062000@news.metropolis.net.au>
In article <394544a4.3045151@news.skynet.be>, bart.lateur@skynet.be
(Bart Lateur) wrote:
>> ABBA said it best:
>>
>> for (1..6) {
>> print "I Do\n";
>> }
>
> Heh, I tought they sang it only 5 times.
Sorry, must have been having a bad math day.
Henry.
------------------------------
Date: 16 Sep 99 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
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Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 16 Sep 99)
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End of Perl-Users Digest V9 Issue 3319
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