[9137] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 2755 Volume: 8
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Thu May 28 20:07:35 1998
Date: Thu, 28 May 98 17:00:29 -0700
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Thu, 28 May 1998 Volume: 8 Number: 2755
Today's topics:
Re: Advanced Perl Programming Book (Craig Berry)
Re: An unwelcome and undeserved slap <wd@denx.muc.de>
Blat error-code <kliou@ichat.com>
Can't read c:\data <bluecoder@rocketmail.com>
Changing users passwords <dmehta@webspan.net>
Re: Clearly define "free software" (Earl Hood)
Re: Clearly define "free software" (le Fanttme)
Compile Perl5.4 on AIX 4.2 with Gcc 2.8.0 <alan@protix.com>
Re: Copylefting manuals (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: Copylefting manuals <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Re: Don't Know how to decrypt using PERL <lr@hpl.hp.com>
Re: Don't Know how to decrypt using PERL (Jonathan Stowe)
Re: Don't Know how to decrypt using PERL <lr@hpl.hp.com>
Re: Efficient Regex's (Martien Verbruggen)
How do I have perl script connect and open Sybase SQLan <phengl@ir-optima.com>
Re: HOWTO : UDP ping ? (Jeffrey Drumm)
Re: LABOR CRISIS: Perl SW Guru NEEDED MA Intranet Start (Mark Daku)
open () and named pipes (Scott Prater)
Re: Page redirection slide show <simsi@hotmail.com.nospam>
Re: Perl for WindowsNT? (Jonathan Stowe)
Re: perl monger tshirt??? (Andy Lester)
Re: read and write (Martien Verbruggen)
Re: reference to tom c's filehandles tutorial (Martien Verbruggen)
RegEx for breaking up HTML <fozz@mail.xmission.com>
Re: Statistics for comp.lang.perl.misc (John Stanley)
Re: Statistics for comp.lang.perl.misc (Greg Lindahl)
Re: Unix "file" function in perl? (Craig Berry)
Using Perl to configure router <rickr@mail.net>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 21:55:08 GMT
From: cberry@cinenet.net (Craig Berry)
Subject: Re: Advanced Perl Programming Book
Message-Id: <6kkmfs$t3k$1@marina.cinenet.net>
Andrew Johnson (ajohnson@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca) wrote:
: Christopher R. Redinger wrote:
: So, the animal on APP is a leopard or panther, but not a puma.
:
: ! Oh yeah, and shouldn't this be added to the FAQ? ;)
:
: it doesn't seem to be a very 'frequent' question.
No, no, he means the 'Feline Ambiguity Questions' list.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
--*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
| Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/
"Every man and every woman is a star."
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 21:46:41 GMT
From: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.muc.de>
Subject: Re: An unwelcome and undeserved slap
Message-Id: <EtosHt.Iq6.7.denx@denx.muc.de>
Ron House <house@usq.edu.au> writes:
>> Wolfgang Denk <wd@uebemc.siemens.de> writes:
>> But there's a difference. I think the GNU Linux issue is valid, whereas
>> calling Perl, GNU Perl wouldn't make sense.
...
Please check your quoting!
All of this was NOT my comment on this issue!!!
Wolfgang
--
Phone: (+49)-89-95720-110 Fax: (+49)-89-95720-112 wd@denx.muc.de
Office: (+49)-89-722-27328 wd@uebemc.siemens.de
THIS IS A 100% MATTER PRODUCT: In the Unlikely Event That This
Merchandise Should Contact Antimatter in Any Form, a Catastrophic
Explosion Will Result.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 18:07:35 -0500
From: "KLL" <kliou@ichat.com>
Subject: Blat error-code
Message-Id: <6kkhgq$ip3$1@nntp.smartdna.com>
I have the following code to send email. I am using Blat 1.5 which can
return error codes and messages. One out of maybe ten emails would fail and
return error 512. However, I did not get anything from $out. I could not
find out what error 512 is. Where can I find the list of error codes for
Blat? Any problem in my code? Thank you very much.
$out=`Blat $tmpfile -t $email -s $subject -f $sender -q`;
if ($?) {
$out="[error in sending mail]".$out;
&writeerrorlog($?,$out);
`kill -f blat.exe`;
}
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 23:46:56 GMT
From: BlueCoder <bluecoder@rocketmail.com>
Subject: Can't read c:\data
Message-Id: <6kkt1g$qq0$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
I am using perl on NT
When I try to read a directory though cgi on IIS I can't
read any files in c:\data. When I try to read any other
directory the script works fine. Same results with both
the regular perl.exe and the isapi version. Just doesn't
work for this one directory. Weird. If you have any ideas
email me please.
Here is the script:
print "Content-type: text/html \n\n" ;
print << "end_of_html" ;
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
end_of_html
opendir(DIR, "c:\\data") ;
@dir = readdir(DIR) ;
closedir(DIR) ;
$dirsize = @dir ;
print "$dirsize<BR>" ;
foreach $d (@dir)
{
print "$d<BR>\n" ;
} ;
print "</BODY>\n" ;
print "</HTML>\n" ;
BlueCoder
bluecoder@rocketmail.com
May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 18:03:23 -0400
From: "Devendra Mehta" <dmehta@webspan.net>
Subject: Changing users passwords
Message-Id: <6kkmsv$dr3@news.webspan.net>
Hi there,
does someone know how i can change the password on a user
the file with the username and password is just a text file using the
following style.
username:password
Any help would be appreciated
d
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 21:46:35 GMT
From: ehood@geneva.acs.uci.edu (Earl Hood)
Subject: Re: Clearly define "free software"
Message-Id: <6kklvr$kb0@news.service.uci.edu>
In article <F613C8D937F47A61.2683127A41EBB9A4.A56F4E30F76EEA89@library-proxy.airnews.net>,
le Fanttme <fantome/@/usa/./net> wrote:
>Maybe one of these days, people will learn to read and understand and
>not act stupid. Where have I suggested that I use anything but vim for
>code editing?
You suggest it by refering to editors that are designed for editing
text and code: editors not designed to be WYSIWYG. As for using them
for document generation, it is done quite often. If you include all
the non-WYSIWYG authoring tools in use, a large portion of the worlds
documents are generated with such tools. I believe you are familiar
with publishing concept where authoring is done separate from
typesetting.
>Rather, I have taken the opposite approach: why the hell
>should I require that someone who wants to write a letter to the
>editor (or whatever) use a text/code editor?
Depends on the needs and skills of the user. I see no mandate
from FSF that "you must use emacs for all document authoring needs."
>That's the foolish
>response I've gotten from you and Mr. Wooding. Oh, sorry, you've told
>me to use LaTeX, too. Right.
I never told you such thing. Mr Wooding may have, but your wording
and ambiguous use of the pronoun "you" does not make it clear.
>No, you're not a typical consumer. What do you use to write your
>letters to the editor, or to your parents, or your reports for your
>boss? If you say that you use LaTeX, you're not a typical consumer.
I do not use LaTeX. I prefer markup languages like SGML.
>If
>you use emacs and pica to print, then you're once again not a typical
>consumer. To ask that people stoop to your pitiful expectations for
>presentations and the like is to ask a fool's errand. Given that there
>are a hell of a lot more computer users for whom the computer
>experience is a nightmare, and would be a worse nightmare under your
>scenario, you might start learning what the fuck you're talking about
>before you spout off like a fool.
It appears you are making assumptions on how I use computers with
no basis to do so to make your point.
>If you've read that from what I say, then you have to take a remedial
>course in reading. The FSF specifically needs to get its head out of
>its ass and start encouraging the development of programs that your
>grandmother might use.
Since this is the crux of your argument, you should not use the term
"consumer-grade". Consumers vary in there needs and abilities and
could not use the term "consumer" to properly refer to a particular
class of consumers. For example, there are major companies (medical,
pharmaceutical, news, aerospace, government, etc) out there that do not
use WYSWIG authoring tools to do there authoring (authoring and
typesetting are separate processes). Now are the tools they use not
considered "consumer" grade.
This seems to be the main source of disagreement with what you are
saying. Your argument is based upon a certain class of consumers to
bash others with how they do things. Just because a given group does
not produce software that fits your particular idea of how software
should work, does not make it non-consumer-grade. For example, many
will argue that Linux is more "consumer-grade" than MS Windows/WinNT
because it is more stable and easier to administor. People do choose
to use Linux in real computing environments.
Now I am not intimate with FSF's agenda. If there goal is to try to
develop software for ignorant users, then your concerns may have some
validity. However, the concept of what makes something "useable" is
debatable. I have seen people be intimidate by your so-called
"consumer-grade" software that is to be supposedly simple. Just like
we take lessons and get guidance on how to drive a car, the same
applies to software (and most consumer goods). I have seen computer
inexperienced users thrive really well with software that you would
consider "too difficult". From my experience, the successful use of
software tends to be more driven by the capabilities of the user. Just
like there are bad drivers, and no matter what you do, they will always
be bad drivers.
Instead of complaining about FSF, maybe you should start designing user
interfaces that you believe to be more useable to inexperienced users,
keeping in mind that when the user becomes more experienced, the
interface does not become a hinderance when trying to do more advanced
tasks.
--ewh
--
Earl Hood | University of California: Irvine
ehood@medusa.acs.uci.edu | Electronic Loiterer
http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/ | Dabbler of SGML/WWW/Perl/MIME
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 23:43:08 GMT
From: fantome/@/usa/./net (le Fanttme)
Subject: Re: Clearly define "free software"
Message-Id: <829985C182C2968E.3371AC30B092CB41.AD9A90B9A0B796C0@library-proxy.airnews.net>
On Thu, 28 May 1998 15:17:57 GMT, pudge@pobox.com (Chris Nandor)
wrote:
>So? Why should most software NOT hide things? Most software is used by
>people who WANT things hidden because they wouldn't know what to do with
>them if they weren't. The software does not dumb-down the users, it meets
>them at the level they are already at. They are "dumb". They should be
>treated as dumb.
I have said this before elsewhere: the user interface should expose
exactly the information and controls that the user needs. No less, no
more. Unix tools fail on the "no more" part, and too many Windows apps
fail on the "no less" part.
But the Windows apps usually have simple ways of expanding the detail,
while it's a pain in the butt for the average user to reduce too much
data.
-f
--
austin ziegler * fantome*@*vnet*.*net * http://fantome.vnet.net/
---------------* aziegler*@*vcela*.*com * -------------------------
Remove the stars to email me * Ni bhionn an rath ach
my words my opinions my ideas * mar a mbionn an smacht
-- I Argue Ideas, Not Beliefs: Give Up Your Dogma --
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 17:27:34 -0500
From: "Alan Fahrner" <alan@protix.com>
Subject: Compile Perl5.4 on AIX 4.2 with Gcc 2.8.0
Message-Id: <6kko4o$cl9$1@grandprime.binc.net>
Hi All...
Has anyone successfully compiled perl 5.4.4 on AIX 4.2 using the gcc 2.8.0
compiler?
I can get it to compile, but it then fails about 17% of the tests.
On the surface, it appears that it is choking when it hits an "__END__"
tag -- but not in every case (FileHandle.pm works if the __END__ tag is
pulled out).
I appreciate any suggestions on where I should go from here (any special
config things you set, etc., etc. to make it work). Maybe a "perl -V" if
possible on a successful compile?
Thanks
Alan
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 17:12:41 -0500
From: les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell)
Subject: Re: Copylefting manuals
Message-Id: <6kkngp$j14$1@Jupiter.Mcs.Net>
In article <oCkb1.51$443.1394311@cam-news-reader1.bbnplanet.com>,
Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com> wrote:
>>Rewriting a program chunk means you have to test everything again and
>>there is no reason to expect it to work. After all, if you knew how
>>to do it yourself you wouldn't have bought the book. There is certainly
>>value in using previously tested code.
>
>Certainly. But that doesn't mean that it falls under the fair use
>exception in copyright law. If you want to use someone else's code in your
>program, you normally need to get his permission. That the code is in a
>manual rather than another program doesn't necessarily change this.
>However, I'm not a legal scholar, so I don't know precisely how the fair
>use doctrine would apply. That's why I hoped for an IP lawyer to supply
>some insight (I don't know how many of them hang out in this newsgroup -- I
>could probably get an answer if I added misc.int-property to the
>cross-posting, but I'm loathe to expand this moby thread to an
>unsuspecting, innocent newsgroup like that).
Yes, I wish someone would. If you are trying to make something work
from (say) Stevens TCP books I don't think you want to wax poetic
with arbitrary changes and hope it still works. If you are prohibited
from using anything you have read in technical books where you can't
make random changes, why would anyone ever look at a book?
Les Mikesell
les@mcs.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 23:33:24 GMT
From: Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Subject: Re: Copylefting manuals
Message-Id: <8vmb1.55$443.1516569@cam-news-reader1.bbnplanet.com>
In article <6kkngp$j14$1@Jupiter.Mcs.Net>, Leslie Mikesell <les@MCS.COM> wrote:
>Yes, I wish someone would. If you are trying to make something work
>from (say) Stevens TCP books I don't think you want to wax poetic
>with arbitrary changes and hope it still works. If you are prohibited
>from using anything you have read in technical books where you can't
>make random changes, why would anyone ever look at a book?
I don't know which books you read, but most of the text in most of the
books I'm familiar with are in human languages, not computer languages.
I've never bought a book with the express purpose of copying software from
it, I buy them to increase my general knowledge about the subject matter,
so that I can synthesize programs and techniques. I've occasionally copied
some one-liners from a Perl book (there's not too many ways to convert a
hex string into the corresponding ASCII), but I bought the book as a way to
learn Perl and as a convenient reference manual, not so that I could copy
programs verbatim.
I scanned through the O'Reilly "Programming Perl, 2nd Edition" book, and
picked a couple of pages of examples at random (I chose the examples
starting from p.268). I don't see any way that I could use those examples
precisely unless I happened to be making a database of cartoon characters.
However, I could certainly get some ideas about using hashes that I could
apply to my own programs in the future, and there's nothing wrong with
that. I assume books like this are for disemminating knowledge, not
programs (actually, since the examples from this book are also distributed
on the CPAN web sites and the ftp.oreilly.com FTP site, I expect that it's
OK to use them, but that's because those distribution sites explicitly
grant this, not because of fair use).
--
Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Cambridge, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 15:22:04 -0700
From: "Larry Rosler" <lr@hpl.hp.com>
Subject: Re: Don't Know how to decrypt using PERL
Message-Id: <6kko25$btl@hplntx.hpl.hp.com>
[courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
Tom Christiansen wrote in message
<6kkj69$o90$2@csnews.cs.colorado.edu>...
> [courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
>
>In comp.lang.perl.misc,
> "Larry Rosler" <lr@hpl.hp.com> writes:
>:I sympathise with those who answer questions here by RTFM or RTFFAQ or
>:even point to DejaNews (provided they provide suitable pointers for
how
>:to do so). But I am astounded by an answer that says RTF Unix manual!
>
>I'm sorry this should bother you, but we cannot teach the
>full C library that Perl has access to. What a horrible burden.
Yes, and you have correctly focused the issue on the C library rather
than on Unix.
I started a search for C library documentation online (using +ANSI
+library because C is ignored) and have about 50K references to sort
through to find one or several useful archives. Perhaps this
documentation can be gathered and made available on CPAN and
<URL:http://www.perl.com>, so that responders can point to it as readily
as they now point to the CGI documentation. At least then they wouldn't
have to respond `man 3 crypt` or whatever.
Would that help to resolve this issue?
--
Larry Rosler
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
lr@hpl.hp.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 22:32:13 GMT
From: Gellyfish@btinternet.com (Jonathan Stowe)
Subject: Re: Don't Know how to decrypt using PERL
Message-Id: <356dd835.1861243@news.btinternet.com>
On Thu, 28 May 1998 16:53:57 -0400, Brian Mathis wrote :
>Larry Rosler wrote:
>> <RANT ON>
>>
>> I sympathise with those who answer questions here by RTFM or RTFFAQ or
>> even point to DejaNews (provided they provide suitable pointers for how
>> to do so). But I am astounded by an answer that says RTF Unix manual!
>> As far as I know, that is neither part of any Perl distribution nor
>> available on line (if so, where is the suitable pointer in your
>> response?).
>[...]
>> --
>> Larry Rosler
>
>What is typically referred to as "the man pages" can also be found, identically,
>in perldoc format. Perl is distributed with man pages as well as pod
>documentation (man pages are in /usr/local/man/man1, but most UNIX installations
>are braindead to the entire /usr/local/man hierarchy). Many times, saying "man
>pages" simply means "documentation", but "man" is easier to type. It also
>implies that the use should be using UNIX, because *everyone* should be using
>UNIX.. :)
>
>Regaurdless of what format the information is in, the point that is made is
>"read the documantation, most of what you need to know is in there".
>
I Think the point that Larry was trying to make was about the Unix
manual per-se (the ubiquitous manpages) and not the Perl documentation
(in whatever format). brian refered to crypt(3) which is the unix
manpage for a function which just happens to have an equivalent in
perl.
/J\
Jonathan Stowe
Some of your questions answered:
<URL:http://www.btinternet.com/~gellyfish/resources/wwwfaq.htm>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 16:00:52 -0700
From: "Larry Rosler" <lr@hpl.hp.com>
Subject: Re: Don't Know how to decrypt using PERL
Message-Id: <6kkqau$cgq@hplntx.hpl.hp.com>
[courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
Brian Mathis wrote in message <356DCEE5.A514A2A7@kodak.com>...
>Larry Rosler wrote:
>> <RANT ON>
>>
>> I sympathise with those who answer questions here by RTFM or RTFFAQ
or
>> even point to DejaNews (provided they provide suitable pointers for
how
>> to do so). But I am astounded by an answer that says RTF Unix
manual!
>> As far as I know, that is neither part of any Perl distribution nor
>> available on line (if so, where is the suitable pointer in your
>> response?).
>[...]
>> --
>> Larry Rosler
>
>What is typically referred to as "the man pages" can also be found,
identically,
>in perldoc format. Perl is distributed with man pages as well as pod
>documentation (man pages are in /usr/local/man/man1, but most UNIX
installations
>are braindead to the entire /usr/local/man hierarchy). Many times,
saying "man
>pages" simply means "documentation", but "man" is easier to type. It
also
>implies that the use should be using UNIX, because *everyone* should be
using
>UNIX.. :)
/usr/local/man/man1/perl* documents Perl, not the C library (see the
correspondence with Tom C). And it doesn't help those who don't have
Unix, in any case.
I have a C compiler on my Unix workstation, the ANSI C manual, Bill
Plauger's book on the Standard C Library, etc. But the only electronic
access I have to C library documentation is (believe it or not) via M$
Visual C++ -- or at least to their idiosyncratic version of it.
>Regaurdless of what format the information is in, the point that is
made is
>"read the documantation, most of what you need to know is in there".
Yes. As always, the question is how to find it.
--
Larry Rosler
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
lr@hpl.hp.com
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 23:27:14 GMT
From: mgjv@comdyn.com.au (Martien Verbruggen)
Subject: Re: Efficient Regex's
Message-Id: <6kkrsi$34n$1@comdyn.comdyn.com.au>
In article <wwilliam-2605981134210001@10.0.0.2>,
wwilliam@cisco.com (Wade Williams) writes:
> Ok, don't kill me to badly on this one. :)
>
> I've got a program that needs to read through a 2.8 MB file every 5
> minutes. The file looks like:
>
> ID,wade
> fired,54000
> hits,23000
>
> etc - record after record. While the fields are static, the length of
> each field is not - i.e. fired could be 40 instead of 54000.
>
> Naturally, I did something like
>
> while (<MYFILE>)
> {
> /^ID,(\d+)$/ && do
> {
> $id=$1;
> last;
> };
>
> /^fired,(\d+)$/ && do
> {
> $myhash{"$id"}{fired}=$1;
> last;
> };
>
> /^hits,(\d+)$/ && do
> {
> $myhash{"$id"}{hits}=$1;
> last;
> };
> }
Maybe you're looking for something like:
my %myhash;
my $id = 'unknown';
while (<DATA>)
{
# get rid of the newline
chomp;
# split on a comma
my ($name, $value) = split(/,/);
if ($name eq 'ID')
{
$id = $value;
}
else
{
$myhash{$id}{$name} = $value;
}
}
__DATA__
ID,wade
fired,54000
hits,23000
ID,harry
fired,12
hits,13
This assumes the following things:
- There is only one comma in each line
Martien
--
Martien Verbruggen |
Webmaster www.tradingpost.com.au | In the fight between you and the world,
Commercial Dynamics Pty. Ltd. | back the world - Franz Kafka
NSW, Australia |
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 21:45:01 GMT
From: "Pheng Lay" <phengl@ir-optima.com>
Subject: How do I have perl script connect and open Sybase SQLanywhere DB?
Message-Id: <01bd8a81$a28e7020$b28fd9cf@pheng-lay>
I have Sybase SQLanywhere 5.0 running on NT 4.0 with SP3 and IIS 3.0. I'm
using the perl script as the CGI. Essentially, I call the perl script from
my java applet browser to connect and open the SQL database so I can add,
update, or delete data on the table. I'm able to call the perl script from
the java script already, but I don't know how to have perl script connect
to the Sybase SQL server database. How do I have perl connect to Sybase
SQL database? What do I need to have running to accomplish this? Thank
You for any help.
phengl@ir-optima.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 22:56:21 GMT
From: drummj@mail.mmc.org (Jeffrey Drumm)
Subject: Re: HOWTO : UDP ping ?
Message-Id: <3573eb3f.250834041@news.mmc.org>
On Thu, 28 May 1998 09:30:52 -0700, Matthew Purdon
<playinmantis@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I've been following this thread because I have a similar problem.
>
>I have yet to get either the ping or pingecho method to work for any
>protocol using the net::ping module in Sarathy's Win32 binary version.
>
>No one replied to my posting from two days ago, so I have a feeling, no
>one else has ever successfully used this module in win32.
>
>Any solutions would be greatly appreciated.
The only ping method that works on NT is ICMP (at least, using the GSAR
port). Without alarm() and the fork() on which it's dependent, the other
methods simply can't work.
--
Jeffrey R. Drumm, Systems Integration Specialist
Maine Medical Center Information Services
420 Cumberland Ave, Portland, ME 04101
drummj@mail.mmc.org
"Broken? Hell no! Uniquely implemented." -me
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 18:34:37 -0400
From: daku@nortel.ca (Mark Daku)
Subject: Re: LABOR CRISIS: Perl SW Guru NEEDED MA Intranet Start-up 80K+>+Equity
Message-Id: <esqk97610ua.fsf@nortel.ca>
> Possible, but there is a large component of hoaxiness (hoaxicity?) in the
> "Software Labor Shortage". If you'd like to read some well-researched and
> well-written documents on the subject, visit prof. Matloff's summary page
> at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.others.html, where you will find links
> to a lot of interesting reading on the topic.
>
> One of prof Matloff's theses is that the software industry has a widespread
> practice of complaining loudly about a labor shortage, while most of the
> companies actually interview only a tiny percentage of applicants, and make
> offers to an even tinier number. This isn't due to the "unqualified" nature
> of the applicants, since the training period for the typical job is much
> shorter than it takes to fill the position, but companies go to great lengths
> to avoid retraining even their current employees, preferring to take a long
> time finding someone who is "already trained". This is so extremely illogical
> and counterproductive that it can't possibly by the true explanation; a much
> more credible explanation is that the employers are making up fake requirements
> and fake shortages as a technique of keeping pay scales low.
This thesis is from a Prof. Well that should tell you that it must be viewed
with a grain of salt.
The software industry is having problems hiring. Two of the factors
that contribute to the problem I see everyday.
1. Corps have a horrible record of keeping the valuable people. A
person is often labled as a critical resource. However when that
person gets an offer for a better job or a situation has occurred in
the work place that makes it no longer viable for that employee to
stay they let that person go. No fight, no increase in pay etc etc.
Result this critical resource is lost. To replace will require 3
years of hands on training. I'm talking in general about the truly
valuable people. These people often have the entire product in there
head. What takes them hours takes others weeks.
2. The inability to find a job candidate that actually lives up to
what they bill themselves as. I would rather have a position empty
that have some shmuck take the job and actually cause negative
production. It is not uncommon in the software industry to encounter
people that actually have a negative effect on overall productivity.
Most of the candidates that I have interviewed have been like this.
In some cases I have been forced to fill the position by management
when I did not want any of the candidates. Guess what I'd rather they
stayed at home and get paid by us than have them actually writing
code. People can be trained as a software developer but actually
after years of training still have no ability in this field. I'm
seeing more and more people go into the industry simply because they
think they can find the golden job. Result dead weight cluttering up
the resource pool.
I completely disagree with the statement "the training period for the
typical job is much shorter than it takes to fill the position
... This is so extremely illogical and counterproductive that it can't
possibly by the true explanation;". Yes I could hire some one and put
them through the training. Yet after this person is "trained" they
are still completely useless. I'd rather wait for a candidate that
can fill the job properly. It not only is it logical but it is also
practical. Note we have actually hired several people that have never
touched a computer in there lives. Why, it is clear that when talking
to this person that they actually have a head on there shoulders. So
it takes a year to get this person up to speed. So what. They
actually contribute to the product. In my experience 90% of all
master degree graduates that I have worked with I would rather they
stay the hell away from the product. Yet most of the so called
unskilled people we have I would give them much more responsibility.
People are born with certain abilities that can be molded into
skills. Not all people have the same abilities, thus not all of
us can attain the same skill level. It is evidently clear to me
that in the software industry that only a small portion of society
will ever have the skills that it takes to be a productive employee.
We will always be in a labour shortage as long as say 10% of population
is required to maintain the demand for software designers. (10% is just
a random number used to illustrate my point )
The part about "employers are making up fake requirements and fake
shortages as a technique of keeping pay scales low." makes absolutely
no sense. Econ 101 applies. Supply and demand. If demand is high
prices rise. I don't see how inflating demand causes a reduction in
pay. However it is getting rather clear to me that in the high tech
corridors of North America that pay is no were near what it should be.
These zones have extremely large problems with attracting enough
qualified people. There seems to be an unwritten rule in these zones
that we do not use the technique of I will pay you 20% more than
company X down the street. This tech of course would result in wage
inflation to the extreme. It is clear that this is avoided at all
cost. Only the startups get into this game. All the big guys don't.
The problem now is that software is no longer regional, people will
move out of state, time zone, planet to get a better job. yet employers
will not adjust salaries to compete against global markets.
Another big factor in the salary problem is that it is often financially
more viable to add perks to the contract rather than cash. Why
the company usually has a better ability to write these off than they
do a persons salary. So it is often easier and cheaper to build
a Corp gym and golf course than pay it's people more. ( A company
in Ottawa is currently building a golf course as we speak for it's
employees. )
I've got some of the reasons why our salaries are low. But it is
clear that I don't have them all. There is something else my head is
missing. Yes I do believe that salaries are low. Very low. Some of
us out there have made the companies we work for millions yet we get
paid thousands.
My statements are not of theory but rather real world observation.
> It's all very interesting reading, especially for those of us trying to make
> a living in the software biz. It's also a useful antidote to those economic
> theories that describe "The Market" as rational.
Mark Daku
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 22:44:27 GMT
From: sprater@zephyr.adp.wisc.edu (Scott Prater)
Subject: open () and named pipes
Message-Id: <6kkpcb$5v8$1@news.doit.wisc.edu>
Keywords: FIFO, named pipe, open
what is the difference between
open(TMP, "</tmp/file")
and
open(TMP, "/tmp/file")?
>From what I can determine from a close reading of perl documentation, there
is no difference.
Yet, when reading from a named pipe, the first option works, but the second
one doesn't.
Any ideas why?
Scott Prater
sprater@doit.wisc.edu
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 22:45:45 GMT
From: "Simmo" <simsi@hotmail.com.nospam>
Subject: Re: Page redirection slide show
Message-Id: <01bd89c0$ed069680$68c348c2@is>
I got round this by putting the URLs in a file and using a REFRESH meta tag
in the Perl HTML call creating a slideshow effect. I actually then created
a web interface so i could update the file of URLs from my location to
create a dynaimc slideshow while chatting to someone.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Ian Sims
AlexLesniara@my-dejanews.com wrote in article
<6kk1c1$dng$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> I know I can use print "Location: ....
> to redirect to other pages on the web.
> But I would like to be able to do something like this:
>
> print "Location: http://www.domain1.com\n\n";
> print "Location: http://www.domain2.com\n\n";
> print "Location: http://www.domain3.com\n\n";
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 22:32:15 GMT
From: Gellyfish@btinternet.com (Jonathan Stowe)
Subject: Re: Perl for WindowsNT?
Message-Id: <356dd98b.2203645@news.btinternet.com>
On Thu, 28 May 1998 10:04:59 GMT, WarezSpider@Warez.web/\oo/\ (/\oo/\
the original) wrote :
>Hey there, if someone else hasn't already told you, you can evenrun
>perl on Win95 but to build workable server scripts you'll need a
>descent server like IIS on NT4
>
descent ? does that mean its always going down ?
/J\
Jonathan Stowe
Some of your questions answered:
<URL:http://www.btinternet.com/~gellyfish/resources/wwwfaq.htm>
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 22:04:58 GMT
From: petdance@maxx.mc.net (Andy Lester)
Subject: Re: perl monger tshirt???
Message-Id: <6kkn2a$peg$1@supernews.com>
: There's at least one other: the "Learning Perl" shirts from
: O'Reilly. Unfortunately, I don't think they're available anymore, so
: I'll be keeping mine in a climate-controlled environment (i.e., Chicago).
Is climate control like rent control? If so, I don't know what part of
Chicago YOU live in.
I got a camel shirt from Borders but have never worn it and so I don't
remember what's on it. I'm pretty sure it's got the gecko AND the camel.
I got it 'cause I complained to O'Reilly that a Borders clerk said they
didn't carry the leopard book, and it got back to the Home Office, I
guess, and so they sent me a shirt. Whee!
xoxo,
Andy
--
--
Andy Lester: <andy@petdance.com> http://tezcat.com/~andy/
Chicago Shows List: <shows@ChicagoMusic.com> http://ChicagoMusic.com/
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 23:05:57 GMT
From: mgjv@comdyn.com.au (Martien Verbruggen)
Subject: Re: read and write
Message-Id: <6kkqkl$313$1@comdyn.comdyn.com.au>
In article <6kkcj1$1m2$1@mathserv.mps.ohio-state.edu>,
ilya@math.ohio-state.edu (Ilya Zakharevich) writes:
> [A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to Martien Verbruggen
> <mgjv@comdyn.com.au>],
> who wrote in article <6kj28f$s08$1@comdyn.comdyn.com.au>:
>
>> I think I have to disagree. An empty file has 0 byte size.
>>
>> $a = <FILE>
>>
>> would return the next line of the file, or undef at the end of file.
>> Since the file contains 0 bytes, the end of file condition is
>> encountered on first read. In other words: there is no line to read.
>>
>> In Perl, I think that this is a logical thing to do. Doing it
>> otherwise makes it hard to distinguish between a file that contains
>> nothing, or a file that contains only one line separator.
>
> How so? One cannot disambiguate between '' and "\n" in $_ ?
>
> But if one takes manual *literally*, this is what should happen.
> Which is very unfortunate, since one cannot be sure that after
>
> $/ = undef;
> $contents = <FOO>;
>
> what is in $contents is the contents of the file.
You're right. That was stupid of me.
In fact, I thought a bit more about this on the ferry home yesterday,
and realised that for the sake of consistency, you were right.
Imagine four files with the contents:
1: "line"
2: "line\n"
3: ""
4: "\n"
and the following script:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my @files = qw ( 1 2 3 4 );
foreach (@files)
{
open (FF, $_) || die "$_ : $!";
my @lines = <FF>;
close (FF);
print "$_ has " . scalar(@lines) . " lines\n";
}
Output is:
1 has 1 lines
2 has 2 lines
3 has 0 lines
4 has 2 lines
It does indeed seem a bit inconsistent that 3 should return a
different result from 1.
The byte sizes of the files, as reported by ls are:
-rw-r--r-- 1 mgjv staff 5 May 29 08:50 1
-rw-r--r-- 1 mgjv staff 6 May 29 08:50 2
-rw-r--r-- 1 mgjv staff 0 May 29 08:56 3
-rw-r--r-- 1 mgjv staff 2 May 29 08:50 4
We can see here that 1, 2 and 4 contain 1 byte more than the content.
This is most likely where the difference originates. Once there is
nothing in the file, nothing gets stored, while having something in
the file starts a file off at '1 line'. Every newline adds another
'line' even if it isn't followed by anything.
vi also reports
"1" 1 line, 5 characters
"2" 2 lines, 6 characters
"3" 0 lines, 0 characters
"4" 2 lines, 2 characters
While this may seem inconsistent, it does seem to be an accepted way
of looking at these things. It probably is a result of the way the c
libraries are implemented (in particular the fgets(3) function), and
perl probably just implements this functionality.
Wether it would be a Good or a Bad Thing(tm) to change perl's behaviour is
another question, but I suspect that it would be a Bad Thing(tm).
Martien
--
Martien Verbruggen |
Webmaster www.tradingpost.com.au | Unix is user friendly. It's just
Commercial Dynamics Pty. Ltd. | selective about it's friends.
NSW, Australia |
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 23:30:07 GMT
From: mgjv@comdyn.com.au (Martien Verbruggen)
Subject: Re: reference to tom c's filehandles tutorial
Message-Id: <6kks1v$34n$2@comdyn.comdyn.com.au>
In article <Pine.BSF.3.96.980526094829.6765E-100000@shell6.ba.best.com>,
"matthew d. p. k. lanier" <lanier@shell6.ba.best.com> writes:
> about 3 weeks ago tom c posted an enlightening tutorial on using globs to
> pass filehandles around in a much quicker way than using the FileHandle
> module.
>
> if anyone has a copy of that, could you please reforward it to me, or
> repost it?
You should learn to use dejanews. It's very very handy.
http://www.dejanews.com
Search: ~g comp.lang.perl.misc & ~a tchrist* & ~s FMTEYEWTK
HTH
Martien
--
Martien Verbruggen |
Webmaster www.tradingpost.com.au | I think I think, therefore I think I
Commercial Dynamics Pty. Ltd. | am.
NSW, Australia |
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 16:30:05 -0600
From: "Doran L. Barton" <fozz@mail.xmission.com>
Subject: RegEx for breaking up HTML
Message-Id: <356DE56D.D8723BEF@mail.xmission.com>
I need a RegEx that will return a list of HTML elements and non-HTML
elements in a stream. For example, a file looks like this:
<H1>Hello</H1>
<p>My name is <i>Bob</i>.
I want the RegEx to return the following list:
("<H1>", "Hello", "</H1>", "<p>", "My name is ", "<i>", "Bob", "</i>",
".")
And I can't for the life of me figure it out. *screams*
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
-=Fozz
--
========================================================================
Doran L. Barton = fozz@xmission.com && http://www.xmission.com/~fozz/;
"Where do you want Microsoft to go today?" --Ron Barry <ronb@cc.usu.edu>
"This may seem a bit weird, but that's okay, because it is weird."
-- Larry Wall <lwall@sems.com> in the Perl v5 man page
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 22:23:54 GMT
From: stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley)
Subject: Re: Statistics for comp.lang.perl.misc
Message-Id: <6kko5q$cev$1@news.NERO.NET>
In article <6kklre$e3q$5@info.uah.edu>, Greg Bacon <gbacon@cs.uah.edu> wrote:
>I believe the issue Tom brought to the table was of interest to the Perl
>community. Further, I think had it been posted to a moderated group,
>the flamefest might have been easier to control.
The whole FSF flamefest was off-topic for any perl group. The FSF task
list has no relevance to perl or the perl community as a whole. It may
be of interest to some, just like model railroads might interest some
people in the perl community. That doesn't mean we should discuss model
railroads here.
There goes the hope that a moderated group would save us from the 'Young
Man on the Beach' and 'what does free mean' nonsense.
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 22:28:28 GMT
From: lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Subject: Re: Statistics for comp.lang.perl.misc
Message-Id: <6kkoec$bdn@news1.newsguy.com>
gbacon@cs.uah.edu (Greg Bacon) writes:
> I've reread Tom's article, and I don't believe that it was primarily an
> advocacy post (although when anyone dares to speak out against the FSF,
> it usually results in an ugly flame war).
Have you considered the possibility that Tom's generation of flames
has to do with the senseless nature of his initial flame, not that he
was "daring to speak out against the FSF?" It boggles my mind that you
would find such senseless flaming, especially Tom's initial blast, to
be appropriate for a moderated Perl forum which isn't supposd to
contain advocacy.
-- greg (who uses and contributes to perl as well as much FSF software)
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1998 23:02:21 GMT
From: cberry@cinenet.net (Craig Berry)
Subject: Re: Unix "file" function in perl?
Message-Id: <6kkqdt$t3k$2@marina.cinenet.net>
Andrew Hamilton (hamiltaj@cray.com) wrote:
: Any suggestions?
If this is to run on a single dir, or a small number of dirs, you might
consider preloading the type list with a single call to file, then pulling
types from that as needed later in your script:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
chomp ( @fileinfo = `file .* *` );
%filetype = map { split /:\s*/ } @fileinfo;
@tests = qw( .cshrc foo Mail );
foreach (@tests) {
print "$_ is $filetype{$_}\n";
}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
--*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
| Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/
"Every man and every woman is a star."
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 18:01:02 -0700
From: "rickr" <rickr@mail.net>
Subject: Using Perl to configure router
Message-Id: <356ded1f.0@news1.ibm.net>
I'd like to write a program that will run under Windows 95, prompt for a
network address, and then set router configurations based on that network
address. My rudimentary attempts have thus far yielded:
print "Enter network address: ";
chomp ($host = <>);
open (ROUTER, "|telnet $host");
print ROUTER "7";
print ROUTER "y";
print ROUTER "set -config 10.100.1.1"
The problem is, the open command opens a telnet session under Windows 95,
but then none of the print commands get passed on.
Would someone mind offering some insight? Thanks.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Mar 97 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97)
Message-Id: <null>
Administrivia:
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V8 Issue 2755
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