[29075] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 319 Volume: 11
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Tue Apr 10 03:09:50 2007
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:09:05 -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 Tue, 10 Apr 2007 Volume: 11 Number: 319
Today's topics:
Re: Absolute Path errors usenet@DavidFilmer.com
Re: Absolute Path errors usenet@DavidFilmer.com
Re: any simple way to do this? <sisyphus1@nomail.afraid.org>
Re: Find Programming Job? <uri@stemsystems.com>
How to decoding a file handle? <wenbinye@gmail.com>
How to print just numbers includes in Subject using POP eng.john84@gmail.com
new CPAN modules on Tue Apr 10 2007 (Randal Schwartz)
Re: Parallel::Pvm and Inline C <Jonathan.Kelfer@gmail.com>
Re: Parallel::Pvm and Inline C <sisyphus1@nomail.afraid.org>
Perl + Objects = Winning combination <paduille.4061.mumia.w+nospam@earthlink.net>
Re: Perl + Objects = Winning combination <sigzero@gmail.com>
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: tadmc@augustmail.com
Re: pp question (PAR::Packer) <bart.lateur@pandora.be>
Re: prototypes - use or not? <mjcarman@mchsi.com>
Re: Why No Famous Open Source Projects From Britain/Ire <greg.ferguson@icrossing.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 9 Apr 2007 15:10:25 -0700
From: usenet@DavidFilmer.com
Subject: Re: Absolute Path errors
Message-Id: <1176156625.572866.25920@b75g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
On Apr 9, 2:59 pm, "=CE=9D=CE=AF=CE=BA=CE=BF=CF=82" <hacke...@gmail.com> wr=
ote:
> But why? The Webserver is supposed to identify both relative and
> absolute paths.
I'll say it again: the webserver is NOT servicing your file I/O.
This is being serviced directly by the operating system.
If you have a link to a document and the client clicks on the link,
the webserver will service the request and go looking for the document
(and THEN your document root matters).
But the webserver is not involved when you do file I/O directly inside
your Perl program. It does not matter that the webserver initiated the
Perl program. Perl knows nothing about your webserver (and Perl has
no idea your webserver invoked the program), and your webserver is not
involved in anything that happens inside your Perl program (your Perl
program is a 'black box' as far as your webserver is concerned).
This is why you can invoke a Perl CGI from a commandline and it will
work just as if you launched it from a browser (you can even pass HTML
parameters to the Perl program). You don't even need to have a
webserver *installed* for your Perl CGI's to work perfectly - you can
write, run, and debug Perl CGI programs on ANY machine (even without a
webserver, and which has no concept of a 'document root') and then
upload them to your webserver (lots of folks do that).
--
The best way to get a good answer is to ask a good question.
David Filmer (http://DavidFilmer.com)
------------------------------
Date: 9 Apr 2007 15:24:15 -0700
From: usenet@DavidFilmer.com
Subject: Re: Absolute Path errors
Message-Id: <1176157455.717619.50900@b75g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
On Apr 9, 3:10 pm, use...@DavidFilmer.com wrote:
> Perl knows nothing about your webserver (and Perl has
> no idea your webserver invoked the program)
I should mention, though - even though Perl knows nothing about your
webserver, your webserver will set certain environment variables prior
to invoking the Perl program. These don't affect the behavior of Perl
in any way, but you have access to them and you may use them if you
wish.
Some webservers will set $ENV{'DOCUMENT_ROOT'} which you may use
within your Perl program. But you must explicitly code this; Perl
will not make any use of this variable unless you specifically code it
yourself.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:36:37 +1000
From: "Sisyphus" <sisyphus1@nomail.afraid.org>
Subject: Re: any simple way to do this?
Message-Id: <461aea19$0$28625$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>
"Paul Lalli" <mritty@gmail.com> wrote in message
.
.
>> for(04, 4, 24, 4132) {
> ^^
>
> Be careful. That worked only because Decimal 4 happens to be
> equivalent to Octal 4. Try it with 09 or 010 and see what happens.
>
Damned octal :-)
s/04/'09'/
Cheers,
Rob
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2007 19:56:59 -0400
From: Uri Guttman <uri@stemsystems.com>
Subject: Re: Find Programming Job?
Message-Id: <x7zm5hrtis.fsf@mail.sysarch.com>
>>>>> "C" == Cindy <propertirumah@yahoo.com> writes:
C> Find Your Programming Job Vacancy and resources here -->
C> http://www.jobbankdata.com/job-programming.htm
sorry, jobs.perl.org is better for this group. have a nice day
uri
--
Uri Guttman ------ uri@stemsystems.com -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs ---------------------------- http://jobs.perl.org
------------------------------
Date: 9 Apr 2007 22:02:41 -0700
From: "happierbee" <wenbinye@gmail.com>
Subject: How to decoding a file handle?
Message-Id: <1176181361.703549.191560@b75g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
Hello,
I am planning to write a hexlize program that can handle multiple
encodings. A problem is that I want use function `read' to read seveal
characters after decoding. If input is a file, function `open' can use
encoding in module Encode to decode the input file. But is input is a
file handle, STDIN, how to decode it if I don't want to decode it line
by line? More important, utf-16 can't decode line by line.
Thank you for advice!
------------------------------
Date: 9 Apr 2007 18:17:29 -0700
From: eng.john84@gmail.com
Subject: How to print just numbers includes in Subject using POP3Client Module.
Message-Id: <1176167849.510622.10330@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>
How to print just numbers includes in Subject using POP3Client Module.
Please Help
use Mail::POP3Client;
$pop = new Mail::POP3Client( USER => "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
PASSWORD => "xxxxxxxxxx",
HOST => "xxxxxxxxxx" ),
TIMEOUT => 1;
for ($i = 1; $i <= $pop->Count(); $i++) {
foreach ( $pop->Head( $i ) ) {
/^(From|Subject):\s+/i and print $_, "\n";
}
print "\n";
sleep 5;
}
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 04:42:11 GMT
From: merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal Schwartz)
Subject: new CPAN modules on Tue Apr 10 2007
Message-Id: <JG9MEB.24EB@zorch.sf-bay.org>
The following modules have recently been added to or updated in the
Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). You can install them using the
instructions in the 'perlmodinstall' page included with your Perl
distribution.
CGI-Apache2-Wrapper-0.2
http://search.cpan.org/~rkobes/CGI-Apache2-Wrapper-0.2/
CGI.pm-compatible methods via mod_perl
----
Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication-Credential-JugemKey-0.04
http://search.cpan.org/~mizzy/Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication-Credential-JugemKey-0.04/
JugemKey authentication plugin for Catalyst
----
Catalyst-Plugin-FormValidator-Simple-Auto-0.15
http://search.cpan.org/~typester/Catalyst-Plugin-FormValidator-Simple-Auto-0.15/
Smart validation with FormValidator::Simple
----
DateTime-Calendar-Liturgical-Christian-0.03
http://search.cpan.org/~marnanel/DateTime-Calendar-Liturgical-Christian-0.03/
calendar of the church year
----
Devel-SmallProf-2.01
http://search.cpan.org/~salva/Devel-SmallProf-2.01/
per-line Perl profiler
----
File-chdir-0.06_01
http://search.cpan.org/~dagolden/File-chdir-0.06_01/
a more sensible way to change directories
----
Frivolity-0.7.1
http://search.cpan.org/~jmac/Frivolity-0.7.1/
A Perl implementation of the Volity game platform
----
Gungho-0.02_01
http://search.cpan.org/~dmaki/Gungho-0.02_01/
Yet Another High Performance Web Crawler Framework
----
Hash-Merge-0.10
http://search.cpan.org/~dmuey/Hash-Merge-0.10/
Merges arbitrarily deep hashes into a single hash
----
IDS-Algorithm-1.00
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-Algorithm-1.00/
An IDS algorithm for use with IDS::Test
----
IDS-Algorithm-1.01
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-Algorithm-1.01/
An IDS algorithm for use with IDS::Test
----
IDS-Algorithms-1.00
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-Algorithms-1.00/
----
IDS-Algorithms-1.01
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-Algorithms-1.01/
----
IDS-Algorithms-1.02
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-Algorithms-1.02/
----
IDS-DataSource-1.00
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-DataSource-1.00/
A data source for the IDS test framework.
----
IDS-DataSource-1.01
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-DataSource-1.01/
A data source for the IDS test framework.
----
IDS-HTTP-1.00
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-HTTP-1.00/
----
IDS-HTTP-1.01
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-HTTP-1.01/
----
IDS-Test-1.00
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-Test-1.00/
An IDS test framework
----
IDS-Utils-1.00
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-Utils-1.00/
----
IDS-Utils-1.01
http://search.cpan.org/~ingham/IDS-Utils-1.01/
----
IO-Dirent-0.03
http://search.cpan.org/~scottw/IO-Dirent-0.03/
Access to dirent structs returned by readdir
----
IPC-System-Simple-0.05
http://search.cpan.org/~pjf/IPC-System-Simple-0.05/
Call system() commands with a minimum of fuss
----
JSON-DWIW-0.05
http://search.cpan.org/~dowens/JSON-DWIW-0.05/
JSON converter that Does What I Want
----
JSON-XS-1.11
http://search.cpan.org/~mlehmann/JSON-XS-1.11/
JSON serialising/deserialising, done correctly and fast
----
Log-Cabin-0.01
http://search.cpan.org/~jorvis/Log-Cabin-0.01/
Perl extension for blah blah blah
----
Log-Cabin-0.02
http://search.cpan.org/~jorvis/Log-Cabin-0.02/
Perl extension for blah blah blah
----
Log-Handler-0.11
http://search.cpan.org/~bloonix/Log-Handler-0.11/
A simple handler to log messages to log files.
----
Math-BigInt-1.82
http://search.cpan.org/~tels/Math-BigInt-1.82/
Arbitrary size integer/float math package
----
Math-BigInt-FastCalc-0.13
http://search.cpan.org/~tels/Math-BigInt-FastCalc-0.13/
Math::BigInt::Calc with some XS for more speed
----
Math-BigInt-GMP-1.20
http://search.cpan.org/~tels/Math-BigInt-GMP-1.20/
Use the GMP library for Math::BigInt routines
----
Math-BigRat-0.18
http://search.cpan.org/~tels/Math-BigRat-0.18/
Arbitrary big rational numbers
----
Parse-CPinfo-0.88
http://search.cpan.org/~mmlange/Parse-CPinfo-0.88/
Perl extension to parse cpinfo files
----
RT-Extension-TicketAging-0.08
http://search.cpan.org/~ruz/RT-Extension-TicketAging-0.08/
----
RTx-EmailCompletion-0.01
http://search.cpan.org/~nchuche/RTx-EmailCompletion-0.01/
Add auto completion on RT email fields
----
Search-Odeum-0.01
http://search.cpan.org/~ikebe/Search-Odeum-0.01/
Perl interface to the Odeum inverted index API.
----
Socialtext-WikiTest-0.05
http://search.cpan.org/~lukec/Socialtext-WikiTest-0.05/
Execute tests defined on wiki pages
----
UML-Class-Simple-0.08
http://search.cpan.org/~agent/UML-Class-Simple-0.08/
Render simple UML class diagrams, by loading the code
----
UML-Class-Simple-0.09
http://search.cpan.org/~agent/UML-Class-Simple-0.09/
Render simple UML class diagrams, by loading the code
----
WebService-YouTube-v1.0.1
http://search.cpan.org/~yoshida/WebService-YouTube-v1.0.1/
Perl interfece to YouTube
----
bignum-0.20
http://search.cpan.org/~tels/bignum-0.20/
Transparent BigNumber support for Perl
----
forks-0.23
http://search.cpan.org/~rybskej/forks-0.23/
drop-in replacement for Perl threads using fork()
----
forks-BerkeleyDB-0.04
http://search.cpan.org/~rybskej/forks-BerkeleyDB-0.04/
high-performance drop-in replacement for threads
If you're an author of one of these modules, please submit a detailed
announcement to comp.lang.perl.announce, and we'll pass it along.
This message was generated by a Perl program described in my Linux
Magazine column, which can be found on-line (along with more than
200 other freely available past column articles) at
http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/LinuxMag/col82.html
print "Just another Perl hacker," # the original
--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!
------------------------------
Date: 9 Apr 2007 20:28:53 -0700
From: "jon" <Jonathan.Kelfer@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Parallel::Pvm and Inline C
Message-Id: <1176175733.846512.268880@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>
Tried those things. No dice. The C compilation phase completes
without error. This is really annoying. I guess I've sorta reached
that grey area where Perl is no longer the best language choice. --jn
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:43:23 +1000
From: "Sisyphus" <sisyphus1@nomail.afraid.org>
Subject: Re: Parallel::Pvm and Inline C
Message-Id: <461b31fe$0$15781$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>
"jon" <Jonathan.Kelfer@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1176175733.846512.268880@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> Tried those things. No dice. The C compilation phase completes
> without error. This is really annoying. I guess I've sorta reached
> that grey area where Perl is no longer the best language choice. --jn
>
Perhaps so. But if it's just Inline that's creating the problem, then
there's always the solution of dispensing with Inline, and using a normal
perl extension (module) - one that offers the same functions as the Inline
script, but it does it without using Inline. Take your Inline::C/CPP
functions and rewrite them as an XS file that can be used with a
Makefile.PL, .pm file to build the perl extension in the usual way (ie 'perl
Makefile.PL', 'make', 'make test', 'make install'), without any dependence
on Inline. It's quite easy using InlineX::C2XS/InlineX::CPP2XS (both of
which can also write the Makefile.PL for you).
Cheers,
Rob
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2007 23:55:17 GMT
From: "Mumia W." <paduille.4061.mumia.w+nospam@earthlink.net>
Subject: Perl + Objects = Winning combination
Message-Id: <FnASh.135993$_73.3182@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>
After writing a previous version of this program
http://home.earthlink.net/~mumia.w.18.spam/games_fever/index.html
I received feedback that the lightest of the green squares were
difficult to distinguish from the gray background. Fortunately, I'd
written the program in Perl-Tk using object oriented features.
I decided, for reasons of personal aesthetics, that I would make only
minimal changes to the color scheme. Instead of changing the colors, I
wanted to put a border around the "selected" squares--which are really
just Tk-labels.
The problem with borders is that they take up space. Any label that I
put a border around would be slightly larger than the labels around it
(if those others didn't also have borders), so I needed to put borders
around /all/ labels. My initial plan was to make all borders the same
color as the background (e.g. invisible border) and highlight labels by
making the border black; however, alas, Tk does not seem to allow a
Tk::Label to have a border of one color and font text in another color.
I came to the conclusion that Tk::Label wasn't going to do it.
This had the potential to stop my new feature right out of the starting
gate because all of my GUI code assumed that it was dealing with
Tk::Labels. I didn't want to rewrite all that code, so I needed to
subclass Tk::Label.
And it was the easiest thing in the world. I created a new object type,
YOYO::Label, that inherited from Tk::Label. That object consists of a
label within a frame; the frame has one color, and the label has
another. I now have perfect labels with black text and gray borders.
After adding to my program one 54-line module (YOYO::Label) and two
lines in the main program, I have the desired feature. And it took me
all of twenty minutes to add it, and ten of that was spent reading the
POD for Tk::Options.
Perl-Tk is *better* than TCL/TK. TCL is not object-oriented. I would've
written the first version of the program with TCL/TK Label widgets, and
when the change to a new type of label was needed, I'd have to do reams
of modifications in the main portion of the GUI code since there is no
subclassing in the procedural language TCL.
This is how programming is supposed to be done. Small changes should
require a small amount of work, and when you do OO right, that what you get.
Perl plus objects and Tk is a winning combination. Yahoo!
------------------------------
Date: 9 Apr 2007 18:52:18 -0700
From: "Robert Hicks" <sigzero@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Perl + Objects = Winning combination
Message-Id: <1176169938.566231.307860@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>
On Apr 9, 7:55 pm, "Mumia W." <paduille.4061.mumia.w
+nos...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Perl-Tk is *better* than TCL/TK. TCL is not object-oriented. I would've
> written the first version of the program with TCL/TK Label widgets, and
> when the change to a new type of label was needed, I'd have to do reams
> of modifications in the main portion of the GUI code since there is no
> subclassing in the procedural language TCL.
>
I happen to not agree here and I have used both. If you want OO with
Tcl you have XOTcl or Snit or iTcl. Better yet Tcl 8.5 is going to
have an minimist OO framework added to the core. Also with Tcl you get
all the changes to Tk at once. If you want that you have to use Tkx or
something similiar.
Robert
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 2007 06:10:02 GMT
From: tadmc@augustmail.com
Subject: Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.7 $)
Message-Id: <461b2a3a$0$3157$ae4e5890@news.nationwide.net>
Outline
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
- Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Check the other standard Perl docs (*.pod)
Really Really Should
- Lurk for a while before posting
- Search a Usenet archive
If You Like
- Check Other Resources
Posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Is there a better place to ask your question?
- Question should be about Perl, not about the application area
How to participate (post) in the clpmisc community
- Carefully choose the contents of your Subject header
- Use an effective followup style
- Speak Perl rather than English, when possible
- Ask perl to help you
- Do not re-type Perl code
- Provide enough information
- Do not provide too much information
- Do not post binaries, HTML, or MIME
Social faux pas to avoid
- Asking a Frequently Asked Question
- Asking a question easily answered by a cursory doc search
- Asking for emailed answers
- Beware of saying "doesn't work"
- Sending a "stealth" Cc copy
Be extra cautious when you get upset
- Count to ten before composing a followup when you are upset
- Count to ten after composing and before posting when you are upset
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Posting Guidelines for comp.lang.perl.misc ($Revision: 1.7 $)
This newsgroup, commonly called clpmisc, is a technical newsgroup
intended to be used for discussion of Perl related issues (except job
postings), whether it be comments or questions.
As you would expect, clpmisc discussions are usually very technical in
nature and there are conventions for conduct in technical newsgroups
going somewhat beyond those in non-technical newsgroups.
The article at:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
describes how to get answers from technical people in general.
This article describes things that you should, and should not, do to
increase your chances of getting an answer to your Perl question. It is
available in POD, HTML and plain text formats at:
http://www.augustmail.com/~tadmc/clpmisc.shtml
For more information about netiquette in general, see the "Netiquette
Guidelines" at:
http://andrew2.andrew.cmu.edu/rfc/rfc1855.html
A note to newsgroup "regulars":
Do not use these guidelines as a "license to flame" or other
meanness. It is possible that a poster is unaware of things
discussed here. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and just
help them learn how to post, rather than assume that they do
know and are being the "bad kind" of Lazy.
A note about technical terms used here:
In this document, we use words like "must" and "should" as
they're used in technical conversation (such as you will
encounter in this newsgroup). When we say that you *must* do
something, we mean that if you don't do that something, then
it's unlikely that you will benefit much from this group.
We're not bossing you around; we're making the point without
lots of words.
Do *NOT* send email to the maintainer of these guidelines. It will be
discarded unread. The guidelines belong to the newsgroup so all
discussion should appear in the newsgroup. I am just the secretary that
writes down the consensus of the group.
Before posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
Must
This section describes things that you *must* do before posting to
clpmisc, in order to maximize your chances of getting meaningful replies
to your inquiry and to avoid getting flamed for being lazy and trying to
have others do your work.
The perl distribution includes documentation that is copied to your hard
drive when you install perl. Also installed is a program for looking
things up in that (and other) documentation named 'perldoc'.
You should either find out where the docs got installed on your system,
or use perldoc to find them for you. Type "perldoc perldoc" to learn how
to use perldoc itself. Type "perldoc perl" to start reading Perl's
standard documentation.
Check the Perl Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Checking the FAQ before posting is required in Big 8 newsgroups in
general, there is nothing clpmisc-specific about this requirement.
You are expected to do this in nearly all newsgroups.
You can use the "-q" switch with perldoc to do a word search of the
questions in the Perl FAQs.
Check the other standard Perl docs (*.pod)
The perl distribution comes with much more documentation than is
available for most other newsgroups, so in clpmisc you should also
see if you can find an answer in the other (non-FAQ) standard docs
before posting.
It is *not* required, or even expected, that you actually *read* all of
Perl's standard docs, only that you spend a few minutes searching them
before posting.
Try doing a word-search in the standard docs for some words/phrases
taken from your problem statement or from your very carefully worded
"Subject:" header.
Really Really Should
This section describes things that you *really should* do before posting
to clpmisc.
Lurk for a while before posting
This is very important and expected in all newsgroups. Lurking means
to monitor a newsgroup for a period to become familiar with local
customs. Each newsgroup has specific customs and rituals. Knowing
these before you participate will help avoid embarrassing social
situations. Consider yourself to be a foreigner at first!
Search a Usenet archive
There are tens of thousands of Perl programmers. It is very likely
that your question has already been asked (and answered). See if you
can find where it has already been answered.
One such searchable archive is:
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search
If You Like
This section describes things that you *can* do before posting to
clpmisc.
Check Other Resources
You may want to check in books or on web sites to see if you can
find the answer to your question.
But you need to consider the source of such information: there are a
lot of very poor Perl books and web sites, and several good ones
too, of course.
Posting to comp.lang.perl.misc
There can be 200 messages in clpmisc in a single day. Nobody is going to
read every article. They must decide somehow which articles they are
going to read, and which they will skip.
Your post is in competition with 199 other posts. You need to "win"
before a person who can help you will even read your question.
These sections describe how you can help keep your article from being
one of the "skipped" ones.
Is there a better place to ask your question?
Question should be about Perl, not about the application area
It can be difficult to separate out where your problem really is,
but you should make a conscious effort to post to the most
applicable newsgroup. That is, after all, where you are the most
likely to find the people who know how to answer your question.
Being able to "partition" a problem is an essential skill for
effectively troubleshooting programming problems. If you don't get
that right, you end up looking for answers in the wrong places.
It should be understood that you may not know that the root of your
problem is not Perl-related (the two most frequent ones are CGI and
Operating System related), so off-topic postings will happen from
time to time. Be gracious when someone helps you find a better place
to ask your question by pointing you to a more applicable newsgroup.
How to participate (post) in the clpmisc community
Carefully choose the contents of your Subject header
You have 40 precious characters of Subject to win out and be one of
the posts that gets read. Don't waste them. Take care while
composing them, they are the key that opens the door to getting an
answer.
Spend them indicating what aspect of Perl others will find if they
should decide to read your article.
Do not spend them indicating "experience level" (guru, newbie...).
Do not spend them pleading (please read, urgent, help!...).
Do not spend them on non-Subjects (Perl question, one-word
Subject...)
For more information on choosing a Subject see "Choosing Good
Subject Lines":
http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/D/DM/DMR/subjects.post
Part of the beauty of newsgroup dynamics, is that you can contribute
to the community with your very first post! If your choice of
Subject leads a fellow Perler to find the thread you are starting,
then even asking a question helps us all.
Use an effective followup style
When composing a followup, quote only enough text to establish the
context for the comments that you will add. Always indicate who
wrote the quoted material. Never quote an entire article. Never
quote a .signature (unless that is what you are commenting on).
Intersperse your comments *following* each section of quoted text to
which they relate. Unappreciated followup styles are referred to as
"top-posting", "Jeopardy" (because the answer comes before the
question), or "TOFU" (Text Over, Fullquote Under).
Reversing the chronology of the dialog makes it much harder to
understand (some folks won't even read it if written in that style).
For more information on quoting style, see:
http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/nnq/nquote.html
Speak Perl rather than English, when possible
Perl is much more precise than natural language. Saying it in Perl
instead will avoid misunderstanding your question or problem.
Do not say: I have variable with "foo\tbar" in it.
Instead say: I have $var = "foo\tbar", or I have $var = 'foo\tbar',
or I have $var = <DATA> (and show the data line).
Ask perl to help you
You can ask perl itself to help you find common programming mistakes
by doing two things: enable warnings (perldoc warnings) and enable
"strict"ures (perldoc strict).
You should not bother the hundreds/thousands of readers of the
newsgroup without first seeing if a machine can help you find your
problem. It is demeaning to be asked to do the work of a machine. It
will annoy the readers of your article.
You can look up any of the messages that perl might issue to find
out what the message means and how to resolve the potential mistake
(perldoc perldiag). If you would like perl to look them up for you,
you can put "use diagnostics;" near the top of your program.
Do not re-type Perl code
Use copy/paste or your editor's "import" function rather than
attempting to type in your code. If you make a typo you will get
followups about your typos instead of about the question you are
trying to get answered.
Provide enough information
If you do the things in this item, you will have an Extremely Good
chance of getting people to try and help you with your problem!
These features are a really big bonus toward your question winning
out over all of the other posts that you are competing with.
First make a short (less than 20-30 lines) and *complete* program
that illustrates the problem you are having. People should be able
to run your program by copy/pasting the code from your article. (You
will find that doing this step very often reveals your problem
directly. Leading to an answer much more quickly and reliably than
posting to Usenet.)
Describe *precisely* the input to your program. Also provide example
input data for your program. If you need to show file input, use the
__DATA__ token (perldata.pod) to provide the file contents inside of
your Perl program.
Show the output (including the verbatim text of any messages) of
your program.
Describe how you want the output to be different from what you are
getting.
If you have no idea at all of how to code up your situation, be sure
to at least describe the 2 things that you *do* know: input and
desired output.
Do not provide too much information
Do not just post your entire program for debugging. Most especially
do not post someone *else's* entire program.
Do not post binaries, HTML, or MIME
clpmisc is a text only newsgroup. If you have images or binaries
that explain your question, put them in a publically accessible
place (like a Web server) and provide a pointer to that location. If
you include code, cut and paste it directly in the message body.
Don't attach anything to the message. Don't post vcards or HTML.
Many people (and even some Usenet servers) will automatically filter
out such messages. Many people will not be able to easily read your
post. Plain text is something everyone can read.
Social faux pas to avoid
The first two below are symptoms of lots of FAQ asking here in clpmisc.
It happens so often that folks will assume that it is happening yet
again. If you have looked but not found, or found but didn't understand
the docs, say so in your article.
Asking a Frequently Asked Question
It should be understood that you may have missed the applicable FAQ
when you checked, which is not a big deal. But if the Frequently
Asked Question is worded similar to your question, folks will assume
that you did not look at all. Don't become indignant at pointers to
the FAQ, particularly if it solves your problem.
Asking a question easily answered by a cursory doc search
If folks think you have not even tried the obvious step of reading
the docs applicable to your problem, they are likely to become
annoyed.
If you are flamed for not checking when you *did* check, then just
shrug it off (and take the answer that you got).
Asking for emailed answers
Emailed answers benefit one person. Posted answers benefit the
entire community. If folks can take the time to answer your
question, then you can take the time to go get the answer in the
same place where you asked the question.
It is OK to ask for a *copy* of the answer to be emailed, but many
will ignore such requests anyway. If you munge your address, you
should never expect (or ask) to get email in response to a Usenet
post.
Ask the question here, get the answer here (maybe).
Beware of saying "doesn't work"
This is a "red flag" phrase. If you find yourself writing that,
pause and see if you can't describe what is not working without
saying "doesn't work". That is, describe how it is not what you
want.
Sending a "stealth" Cc copy
A "stealth Cc" is when you both email and post a reply without
indicating *in the body* that you are doing so.
Be extra cautious when you get upset
Count to ten before composing a followup when you are upset
This is recommended in all Usenet newsgroups. Here in clpmisc, most
flaming sub-threads are not about any feature of Perl at all! They
are most often for what was seen as a breach of netiquette. If you
have lurked for a bit, then you will know what is expected and won't
make such posts in the first place.
But if you get upset, wait a while before writing your followup. I
recommend waiting at least 30 minutes.
Count to ten after composing and before posting when you are upset
After you have written your followup, wait *another* 30 minutes
before committing yourself by posting it. You cannot take it back
once it has been said.
AUTHOR
Tad McClellan <tadmc@augustmail.com> and many others on the
comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 05:42:17 GMT
From: Bart Lateur <bart.lateur@pandora.be>
Subject: Re: pp question (PAR::Packer)
Message-Id: <gq8m13ld4sah7gui1h4uaepgr65i03peqv@4ax.com>
Yakov wrote:
>When I compile perl code with pp ( PAR::Packer),
>does pp pack all used modules into same executable ?
Yes, and no. PAR needs to extract the modules to a temporary directory
when trying to run the script. So, it's bogus. The other, commercial
packers (Perl2exe, PerlApp) don't need to do that.
--
Bart.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 01:27:30 GMT
From: Michael Carman <mjcarman@mchsi.com>
Subject: Re: prototypes - use or not?
Message-Id: <6KBSh.44150$oV.29213@attbi_s21>
On 4/9/2007 4:08 PM, gf wrote:
>
> I also stopped using positional parameters in subroutines and instead follow
> Conway's recommendation to use hashes or hash-refs. [...] It makes for more
> typing as I write the code initially, but I think my reuse goes up over time.
It also makes it a lot easier to read/debug when you can tell what's what from
the call. :D That said I find that functions with <= 3 parameters are usually
clearer with positional notation.
-mjc
------------------------------
Date: 9 Apr 2007 17:14:09 -0700
From: "gf" <greg.ferguson@icrossing.com>
Subject: Re: Why No Famous Open Source Projects From Britain/Ireland?
Message-Id: <1176164049.356132.286480@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>
On Apr 9, 2:03 pm, "Robert" <callin...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hey.
> How come there are no famous and widely-used open source products that
> were founded and (more or less) developed from the United Kingdom or
> Ireland? I find that odd.
You're missing the forest for the trees... The UK and Ireland have
been heavily involved in the OSS movement, but in a support role.
They're designing and developing awesome ales, stouts and porters that
keep those OSS ideas flowing. :-)
------------------------------
Date: 6 Apr 2001 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Users-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01)
Message-Id: <null>
Administrivia:
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V11 Issue 319
**************************************
