From magnus at huckvale.net Tue Apr 2 01:48:17 2002 From: magnus at huckvale.net (Magnus Huckvale) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm Tonight - April 2nd References: <000001c1ca89$18bfae30$4a5f5cc3@Ephemeros> <20020313145357.GA27901@ns0> Message-ID: <00c901c1da1a$c06c9170$265f5cc3@netcraft.com> It being the first Tuesday of the month, we're meeting tonight - 6:30pm in the Hobgoblin. See you there! Magnus From magnus at huckvale.net Thu Apr 4 14:11:07 2002 From: magnus at huckvale.net (Magnus Huckvale) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report Message-ID: <000801c1dc14$dbf815d0$2cb387d9@Ephemeros> Present - * Dave H, I Lose Track * Gary, J&G Web Design * Dr Jon W, Netcraft * Jez, CTO Netcraft * Magnus, Netcraft * Richard Smedley Apologies - * Jason * The tragic passing of HRH The Queen Mother was noted * Template Toolkit is mentioned - Views are described as 'crack-fuelled' - Magnus notes that he installed Win32 Perl & TT via 'some package management thingy' painlessly on his XP laptop * Vegetenaneariaonism is discussed - Pigs are more intelligent than dogs c.f Babe - Jon to make Eddie Izzard's "Pavlov's Cats" sketch available * Dave waffles about some unix stuff - qmail - plex - something to do with locate databases that took more than 24 hours to build * Dave describes the Netcraft database as 'bodacious' * Gary describes SQL as 'quite a nice little language' * Lord of the Rings - Magnus says it was too short by a factor of 50% - Dave says it was like having teeth extracted - Jez says it was robbed at the oscar's - Dave wonders where the black actors were in LotR - Richard turns up with a green pint * The Scots - Will they or won't they be supporting England in the World Cup - Richard points out that we supported Scotland in 1978 - Richard quotes song lyrics at us - "I wanna be a punk rocker but mummy wouldn't let me" From daveh at davehodgkinson.com Thu Apr 4 15:03:14 2002 From: daveh at davehodgkinson.com (Dave Hodgkinson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: <000801c1dc14$dbf815d0$2cb387d9@Ephemeros> References: <000801c1dc14$dbf815d0$2cb387d9@Ephemeros> Message-ID: "Magnus Huckvale" writes: > - something to do with locate databases that took more than 24 hours > to build I found out why. A directory with a million files in it takes a LONG time to traverse. -- Dave Hodgkinson, Wizard for Hire http://www.davehodgkinson.com Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.thehighwaystar.com Interim Technical Director, Web Architecture Consultant for hire From Philip.Newton at datenrevision.de Fri Apr 5 01:16:15 2002 From: Philip.Newton at datenrevision.de (Newton, Philip) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report Message-ID: Magnus Huckvale wrote: > * Lord of the Rings > - Magnus says it was too short by a factor of 50% My wife agrees, FWIW ;) (And she named the same factor. That is, if I understood it correctly as "the length is 50% of what it should have been" not "one could have added another 50% to the present length".) Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton All opinions are my own, not my employer's. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. From Philip.Newton at datenrevision.de Fri Apr 5 01:19:53 2002 From: Philip.Newton at datenrevision.de (Newton, Philip) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report Message-ID: Dave Hodgkinson wrote: > "Magnus Huckvale" writes: > > > - something to do with locate databases that took more > > than 24 hours to build > > I found out why. A directory with a million files in it takes a LONG > time to traverse. Especially with linked-list file structures such as ext[23]. German computer magazine c't had an article about journaling file systems recently and they said that tree structures such as B+ or B* trees (as used, for example, in ReiserFS, XFS, and IBM's JFS, but not in ext3) are more scalable to more files per directory, but that the difference is only noticeable when you have thousands of files in one directory. I suppose "a million files" would fall into that range ;) Would it make sense to put that directory on a ReiserFS partition? (Though I suppose that if you want to go through all files anyway, it shouldn't matter that much what data structure is used; that only comes into play when you want to find a *particular* file, or when you want to delete a file[1].) Cheers, Philip [1] Apparently it can be pretty important in which order you delete files from a really huge directory -- there can be worst-case and best-case orders depending on the file system used. -- Philip Newton All opinions are my own, not my employer's. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. From magnus at huckvale.net Fri Apr 5 02:30:39 2002 From: magnus at huckvale.net (Magnus Huckvale) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report References: Message-ID: <013c01c1dc7c$2ad879d0$265f5cc3@netcraft.com> > Magnus Huckvale wrote: > > * Lord of the Rings > > - Magnus says it was too short by a factor of 50% > > My wife agrees, FWIW ;) > > (And she named the same factor. That is, if I understood it correctly as > "the length is 50% of what it should have been" not "one could have added > another 50% to the present length".) Personally I think it was slightly too long to watch in the cinema, so they should have split it into two - it's 6 books anyway, in 3 volumes. 6 movies would have been about right. Magnus From mark at profero.com Fri Apr 5 02:55:13 2002 From: mark at profero.com (Mark Fowler) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: <000801c1dc14$dbf815d0$2cb387d9@Ephemeros> Message-ID: On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, Magnus Huckvale wrote: > * Template Toolkit is mentioned > - Views are described as 'crack-fuelled' Pswah and Poppycock: http://www.tt2.org/pipermail/templates/2002-March/002982.html > - Magnus notes that he installed Win32 Perl & TT via 'some package > management thingy' painlessly on his XP laptop Activestate's ppm I should imagine. And by "Win32" perl you mean Activestate Perl (not cywin perl or otherwise compiled perl.) > * Vegetenaneariaonism is discussed > - Pigs are more intelligent than dogs c.f Babe Yes, but they also taste better (so I've been told) > * Gary describes SQL as 'quite a nice little language' Gah, SQL sucks. It doesn't lend itself well to being constructed by computers, which, 99% of time is what's happening. You tend not to enter that much SQL by hand. > * Lord of the Rings > - Magnus says it was too short by a factor of 50% Actually it was too Long. I think they should have ended it when they got out of the Caves. Later. Mark. -- Mark Fowler Technology Developer http://www.indicosoftware.com/ From cms at beatworm.co.uk Fri Apr 5 03:42:34 2002 From: cms at beatworm.co.uk (Colin M Strickland) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: References: <000801c1dc14$dbf815d0$2cb387d9@Ephemeros> Message-ID: <15533.29066.950400.10452@mojo.beatworm.home> Dave Hodgkinson writes: > > I found out why. A directory with a million files in it takes a LONG > time to traverse. > "photography" collection ? -- Regards, Colin M Strickland -- "Tape My Beatworm!" From cms at beatworm.co.uk Fri Apr 5 03:58:25 2002 From: cms at beatworm.co.uk (Colin M Strickland) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: References: <000801c1dc14$dbf815d0$2cb387d9@Ephemeros> Message-ID: <15533.30017.50612.684915@mojo.beatworm.home> Mark Fowler writes: > > Gah, SQL sucks. It doesn't lend itself well to being constructed by > computers, which, 99% of time is what's happening. You tend not to enter > that much SQL by hand. > SQL is a *rocking* language, it does one thing and does it well. 99% of your SQL is machine generated ?; Weird , how often does your data schema change ?. Of course you need a proper SQL implementation. Refuse to consider anything without UNION sets and subqueries. -- Regards, Colin M Strickland -- "Tape My Beatworm!" From greg at mccarroll.demon.co.uk Sat Apr 6 03:05:13 2002 From: greg at mccarroll.demon.co.uk (Greg McCarroll) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: <000801c1dc14$dbf815d0$2cb387d9@Ephemeros>; from magnus@huckvale.net on Thu, Apr 04, 2002 at 09:11:07PM +0100 References: <000801c1dc14$dbf815d0$2cb387d9@Ephemeros> Message-ID: <20020406100513.A11344@mccarroll.demon.co.uk> * Magnus Huckvale (magnus@huckvale.net) wrote: > > * The Scots > - Will they or won't they be supporting England in the World Cup > - Richard points out that we supported Scotland in 1978 Speaking as a Northern Irish person who supports England and who lived in Scotland for a while - the Scots won't support England, they have even supported the Germans, during various England vs. Germany[1] games of recent years. The laughed when fat boy Maradonna scored the hand of god goal. In general they seem to have some chip on their shoulder about ``those english bastards who rule our land''. And for some of them it isn't a bit of friendly rivalry, they really do hate you. Greg [1] My wife (scottish) was strangely quiet after the recent 5-1 gubbing of Germany. -- Greg McCarroll http://217.34.97.146/~gem/ From daveh at davehodgkinson.com Sat Apr 6 13:46:37 2002 From: daveh at davehodgkinson.com (Dave Hodgkinson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: <20020406100513.A11344@mccarroll.demon.co.uk> References: <000801c1dc14$dbf815d0$2cb387d9@Ephemeros> <20020406100513.A11344@mccarroll.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: Greg McCarroll writes: ? In general they seem to have some chip on their > shoulder about ``those english bastards who rule our land''. Currently the other way round methinks. Devolution for England please. -- Dave Hodgkinson, Wizard for Hire http://www.davehodgkinson.com Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.thehighwaystar.com Interim Technical Director, Web Architecture Consultant for hire From daveh at davehodgkinson.com Sat Apr 6 13:47:15 2002 From: daveh at davehodgkinson.com (Dave Hodgkinson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "Newton, Philip" writes: > [1] Apparently it can be pretty important in which order you delete files > from a really huge directory -- there can be worst-case and best-case orders > depending on the file system used. rm -rf managed in under 24 hours ;-) -- Dave Hodgkinson, Wizard for Hire http://www.davehodgkinson.com Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.thehighwaystar.com Interim Technical Director, Web Architecture Consultant for hire From aaron.trevena at droogs.org Sun Apr 7 15:18:19 2002 From: aaron.trevena at droogs.org (Aaron Trevena) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:48 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: <15533.30017.50612.684915@mojo.beatworm.home> Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Apr 2002, Colin M Strickland wrote: > Mark Fowler writes: > > > > Gah, SQL sucks. It doesn't lend itself well to being constructed by > > computers, which, 99% of time is what's happening. You tend not to enter > > that much SQL by hand. Pah! Have you tried generating Javascript, VB, Perl or cobol ? SQL is a piece of piss to generate. > > SQL is a *rocking* language, it does one thing and does it well. 99% > of your SQL is machine generated ?; Weird , how often does your data > schema change ?. More important is to design the database with this kind of thing in mind - dealing with DB's designed by people who use Access is really fucking unpleasent, when you design the database knowing that what goes in and what comes out will be handled entirely by software and make sure it is consistent, predictable and **normalised**. > Of course you need a proper SQL implementation. Refuse to consider > anything without UNION sets and subqueries. ..coming from someone who only finished migrating to Postgres from MySQL a few months ago ;) I have just been building a small library for a freelance project - it does all the database tasks required, abstracting away the actual SQL and queries - By designing the database naming, etc in such a way as to ease automation I was able to work out side tables, joins, etc and provide 8 functions for all the database access in the application. The small drawback is that some of the code that calls it can be a bit less effective than if the Queries were in the 'layer' above instead of in a database library - but the ease of maintainence and adding new functions, etc makes it well worth while. regards, A. (In sunny cornwall, converting a VB shop to Perl script by script) -- Aaron J Trevena - Perl Hacker, Kung Fu Geek, Internet Consultant AutoDia --- Automatic UML and HTML Specifications from Perl, C++ and Any Datasource with a Handler. http://droogs.org/autodia From aaron.trevena at droogs.org Tue Apr 9 15:03:29 2002 From: aaron.trevena at droogs.org (Aaron Trevena) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:49 2004 Subject: [announce] Heron 0.0.4 - an ickle search engine Message-ID: hi guys, I've just release v 0.4 of the Heron Search engine - its kinda OO but not very much, written in perl and using Template Toolkit - it does fuzzy phrase matching and is fairly extensible. Hopefully I plan to add better phrase matching (the indexer can get a tad confused when words in a phrase are seperated by too many spaces or html tags), and possibly other magic. you can find heron at http://droogs.org/heron/ where there is a demo search engine that runs on an index of the autodia site. hope bath and surrounding area is having nice weather - cornwall was closed all week for TV news presenters to ask every person in the whole county how moving the Queen Mothers funeral was, while repeating footage of the wake and cortege and lying in state over and over. A. -- Aaron J Trevena - Perl Hacker, Kung Fu Geek, Internet Consultant AutoDia --- Automatic UML and HTML Specifications from Perl, C++ and Any Datasource with a Handler. http://droogs.org/autodia From cms at beatworm.co.uk Wed Apr 10 04:55:49 2002 From: cms at beatworm.co.uk (Colin M Strickland) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:49 2004 Subject: [announce] Heron 0.0.4 - an ickle search engine In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <15540.3109.472497.331450@mojo.beatworm.home> Aaron Trevena writes: > hi guys, > > I've just release v 0.4 of the Heron Search engine - its kinda OO but not > very much, written in perl and using Template Toolkit - it does fuzzy > phrase matching and is fairly extensible. Excellent Timing ! Just when my next project is about to start.. "build and implement a search engine" - set phasers on steal ! -- Regards, Colin M Strickland -- "Tape My Beatworm!" From cms at beatworm.co.uk Sun Apr 14 08:28:25 2002 From: cms at beatworm.co.uk (Colin M Strickland) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:49 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: References: <15533.30017.50612.684915@mojo.beatworm.home> Message-ID: <15545.33785.876058.789947@mojo.beatworm.home> Aaron Trevena writes: > > ..coming from someone who only finished migrating to Postgres from MySQL a > few months ago ;) Over a year ago, actually , and hardly my fault it took so long to come about . In fact that particular database migration project was initiated under my suggestion, I had immediately argued the inadequacies of MySQL for the sort of database usage the company in question was attempting from my very first day on the job. This informed by a decade of experience designing relational database systems, some of them terrifyingly large. I merely meant to express solidarity with the idea of SQL being considered a crap language; it is if you only have access to crippled impementations of it. > > I have just been building a small library for a freelance project - it > does all the database tasks required, abstracting away the actual SQL and > queries - By designing the database naming, etc in such a way as to ease > automation I was able to work out side tables, joins, etc and provide 8 > functions for all the database access in the application. This sort of stuff can work very well for certain applications. It can also lead to suboptimal performance for others. As you said, it all depends on the definition, and to a certain degree the complexity of the underlying data model. Sometimes excessively normal models can impose an unrealistic performace overhead, while providing a flexibility the application space will never need. As ever in the real world the rulebook can only ever be considered as heuristics. Always these shades of grey , always ruining my beautiful application design principles .. -- Regards, Colin M Strickland -- "Tape My Beatworm!" From aaron.trevena at droogs.org Sun Apr 14 09:39:07 2002 From: aaron.trevena at droogs.org (Aaron Trevena) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:49 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: <15545.33785.876058.789947@mojo.beatworm.home> Message-ID: On Sun, 14 Apr 2002, Colin M Strickland wrote: > Aaron Trevena writes: > > > > ..coming from someone who only finished migrating to Postgres from MySQL a > > few months ago ;) > [ Colins brave fight against the legion of database problems and > implementations snipped ] Yes, you are brave man. Unfortunately you will continue to get ever harder database problems to solve until you reach for a high velocity rifle and climb to a suitable vantage point ;) > > I have just been building a small library for a freelance project - it > > does all the database tasks required, abstracting away the actual SQL and > > queries - By designing the database naming, etc in such a way as to ease > > automation I was able to work out side tables, joins, etc and provide 8 > > functions for all the database access in the application. > > This sort of stuff can work very well for certain applications. It can > also lead to suboptimal performance for others. As you said, it all > depends on the definition, and to a certain degree the complexity of > the underlying data model. Sometimes excessively normal models can > impose an unrealistic performace overhead, while providing a > flexibility the application space will never need. My plan is to use an abstraction layer for 95% of the work (which it should do well 95% of the time) and then hack the remaining 5% using something else but still asbtracted. Using non-standard code to solve non-standard problems seems entirely reasonable. I am especially pleased about how succesful the library has been - I'm already working on a new version that is much improved and has a better API. One of the main benefits is that the database is designed to work with the software we have, and even when it doesn't it is predictable enough and consistent enough to make programming around its limitations easier. The important thing is that it saves development time. If its quicker to not use it I don't, but so far that hasn't happened. Unlike at work where 90% of the time its quicker to embed SQL in your code rather than call dodgy VB objects that call even dodgier Stored Procedures... urgh! The best bit is that most of web development and content management etc uses only a very limited set of DB logic. And the bits that aren't within that subset are the interesting bits you want to spend your time on :) A. -- Aaron J Trevena - Perl Hacker, Kung Fu Geek, Internet Consultant AutoDia --- Automatic UML and HTML Specifications from Perl, C++ and Any Datasource with a Handler. http://droogs.org/autodia From cms at beatworm.co.uk Sun Apr 14 11:07:33 2002 From: cms at beatworm.co.uk (Colin M Strickland) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:49 2004 Subject: aaron's magical database tricks [ was Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report] In-Reply-To: References: <15545.33785.876058.789947@mojo.beatworm.home> Message-ID: <15545.43333.880445.21744@mojo.beatworm.home> Aaron Trevena writes: > My plan is to use an abstraction layer for 95% of the work (which it > should do well 95% of the time) and then hack the remaining 5% using > something else but still asbtracted. Using non-standard code to solve > non-standard problems seems entirely reasonable. It all sounds great. Abstracting all of the SQL away from the application layer is definitely the best approach(thank the Lord for DBI too). If only I could break my stored procedure habit. But at least postgresql lets me write them in perl. And postgresql 7.2.x has "untrusted" perl as a server side language now [1], which means you can use modules, hurray ! > The best bit is that most of web development and content management etc > uses only a very limited set of DB logic. And the bits that aren't within > that subset are the interesting bits you want to spend your time on :) > I often think that a lot of web based projects don't really need an RDBMS, which is probably why so many of them use MySQL for the purpose :-P . But you're quite right, its a tightly defined domain. Most (all) of my database nightmares have come from situations where a single giant DBMS is used to back multiple different applications, all of which then amusingly fight against each other , in a manner oddly reminiscent of "Robot Wars". [1] http://www3.uk.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/7.2/postgres/plperl.html -- Regards, Colin M Strickland -- "Tape My Beatworm!" From daveh at davehodgkinson.com Sun Apr 14 15:14:57 2002 From: daveh at davehodgkinson.com (Dave Hodgkinson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:49 2004 Subject: aaron's magical database tricks [ was Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report] In-Reply-To: <15545.43333.880445.21744@mojo.beatworm.home> References: <15545.33785.876058.789947@mojo.beatworm.home> <15545.43333.880445.21744@mojo.beatworm.home> Message-ID: Colin M Strickland writes: > I often think that a lot of web based projects don't really need an > RDBMS, which is probably why so many of them use MySQL for the purpose > :-P . Sig material! -- Dave Hodgkinson, Wizard for Hire http://www.davehodgkinson.com Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star http://www.thehighwaystar.com Interim Technical Director, Web Architecture Consultant for hire From acme at astray.com Mon Apr 15 03:07:35 2002 From: acme at astray.com (Leon Brocard) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:49 2004 Subject: Bath.pm April 2 Meeting Report In-Reply-To: References: <15545.33785.876058.789947@mojo.beatworm.home> Message-ID: <20020415080735.GA12070@ns0> Aaron Trevena sent the following bits through the ether: > Yes, you are brave man. Unfortunately you will continue to get ever harder > database problems to solve until you reach for a high velocity rifle and > climb to a suitable vantage point ;) Until, that is, we all get object databases that actually work at a decent speed... Leon -- Leon Brocard.............................http://www.astray.com/ Nanoware...............................http://www.nanoware.org/ ... Human equality is a contingent fact of history From acme at astray.com Thu Apr 18 09:35:06 2002 From: acme at astray.com (Leon Brocard) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:57:49 2004 Subject: install fest in bristol Message-ID: <20020418143506.GA8116@ns0> [ed: approved zool's post] i don't know if this mail will ever reach you or be approved but i am casting it into the void relentless. there is this installfest happening in bristol on saturday, thats sort of your patch isn't it, a couple of london.pm people should be going. there should be wireless. take it cheesy, z -- "No, your thinking is masturbatory." --blech ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> ********************************************* >> * * >> * LINUX INSTALL FESTIVAL * >> * * >> ********************************************* >> >> Linux is an operating system >> >> Linux is free >> >> Linux is secure >> >> Linux is extremely adaptable >> >> Linux is powerful >> >> Linux is the future! >> >> Drop in and see for yourself. >> >> Saturday April 20th 10.30 am - 4 pm >> >> Bristol IT Co-Op and Windmill Hill City Farm Computer Centre >> present a whole day of alternative Operating Systems. >> >> Bring your old windows box, the one that keeps crashing, >> running slooooow, won't boot. We've got a version of Linux >> that will run on it somewhere, and we won't even have to >> wipe your hard drive if you don't want!!! >> >> - marvel at the Linux Terminal Server and it's 486 clients >> - build a smootwall ADSL router/firewall from scratch for free >> - small linux, big linux, desktop linux, server linux >> - we have broadband access for the day >> - the Farm is one of the nicest days out in Central Bristol >> it's possible to have : bring the Kids and make a day of it. >> >> Donations of kit, knowledge and kash gratefully accepted. >> >> >> For more information contact info@bitcoop.co.uk or ring 0117 9231032 _______________________________________________ stuff mailing list stuff@lists.london.genderchangers.org http://lists.london.genderchangers.org/listinfo/stuff -- Leon Brocard.............................http://www.astray.com/ Nanoware...............................http://www.nanoware.org/ ... Took an hour to bury the cat. Damned thing kept moving.