From paran01d at operamail.com Sun Aug 11 19:58:34 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Hello ... anybody out there. Message-ID: <20020812005834.18895.qmail@operamail.com> Hi, Ive recently moved to Brisbane from Birmingham England (where i was the co-founder of birmingham.pm) and my colegues and I (from Govnet in queensland government) are wondering when, where and if you guys ever have social meetings ??? as we would like to attend and if nothing is currently setup then perhaps we can organise something. Thanks Mike Bissett -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From derek at wedgetail.com Sun Aug 11 20:26:49 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Hello ... anybody out there. References: <20020812005834.18895.qmail@operamail.com> Message-ID: <3D570ED9.9030201@wedgetail.com> Mike Bissett wrote: > Hi, > Ive recently moved to Brisbane from Birmingham England > (where i was the co-founder of birmingham.pm) and my > colegues and I (from Govnet in queensland government) are > wondering when, where and if you guys ever have social > meetings ??? as we would like to attend and if nothing is > currently setup then perhaps we can organise something. Ah, a message on this list! I too am a recent subscriber. Is anyone else out there? If we get a decent number of replies, we *should* organize something. In the meantime, go and amuse yourselves by looking at my open-source (alpha) Perl ORB. It seems to talk to the C++ CORBA ORBs that I've tried (ORBacus, omniORB, and TAO). You can write CORBA clients, or implement CORBA servers! Eventually I'll add support for value types and we'll be able to talk to those pesky Enterprise Java Beans, or even implement them. Huzzah! I'm not willing to announce it too widely yet, but I'd appreciate some feedback, even of the "I can't get this silly thing to work" variety :) And I haven't had much yet feedback yet, so either it's perfect, or it doesn't work for anyone else at all. http://sourceforge.net/projects/perlorb Regards, Derek. From G.Fletcher at mailbox.gu.edu.au Mon Aug 12 03:45:13 2002 From: G.Fletcher at mailbox.gu.edu.au (Gordon Fletcher) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] group admin Message-ID: Hi I realise things have been quite quiet on the list of recent times so this posting might excite some interest / attention. As the group has always been fairly informal this might be a tricky process but I am sorry to say that I am no longer able to make the small contribution that I currently make administering the list. As I am now in Manchester(UK) it seems that someone a little more local should take up the role. I suppose nominations and a show of virtual hands would be best (the group is quite large now - around 25 if I am guessing correctly). I know there are some motivated people out there and it would be good to get some meetings and social events going - easy for me to say from the other side of the world! So... the floor is open. Do you want to create a more formal structure? I can assist with that. Or does someone want to simply take on the role of a list admin. Opinions? Discussion? Gordon From derek at wedgetail.com Mon Aug 12 21:34:52 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] group admin References: Message-ID: <3D58704C.9040103@wedgetail.com> Hi Gordon, Gordon Fletcher wrote: > > > Hi > > I realise things have been quite quiet on the list of recent times so this > posting might excite some interest / attention. > > As the group has always been fairly informal this might be a tricky > process but I am sorry to say that I am no longer able to make the small > contribution that I currently make administering the list. As I am now in > Manchester(UK) it seems that someone a little more local should take up > the role. Yes, that seems sensible. What about the web site (http://brisbane.pm.org)? > > I suppose nominations and a show of virtual hands would be best (the group > is quite large now - around 25 if I am guessing correctly). I know there > are some motivated people out there and it would be good to get some > meetings and social events going - easy for me to say from the other side > of the world! > > So... the floor is open. Do you want to create a more formal structure? I > can assist with that. What kind of structure are your considering? > Or does someone want to simply take on the role of a > list admin. Since there's been no response, although I'm already heavily commited to various open-source things, I volunteer. Some points in favour and against: + * I like Perl a whole lot. * My block of units has a large-ish BBQ area + pool, which may be useful. - * I'm already very busy with the Perl ORB, and Fnorb (the Python ORB). I'd be interested in putting together some presentations/tutorials on various aspects of Perl if people were interested. The content would depend on the needs and experience level of the group, but some topics that come to mind in areas I use (nearly) every day are: advanced Perl (references, modules etc), object-oriented Perl, parsing with Parse::RecDescent, advanced regexes, XML processing, threading in Perl 5.8, and of course distributed and interoperable applications with Perl + CORBA. Regards, Derek. From paran01d at operamail.com Thu Aug 15 20:55:15 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting Message-ID: <20020816015515.3324.qmail@operamail.com> Hi all, Due to changes in management id like to suggest we all try to get together and get brisbane.pm going again, id say the best way to do that is to arrange a social meeting in a pub in a neutral location (probably CBD). Id like to suggest Pj O'briens on charlotte street (its about the only one ive been in :)) at say 6pm. This way we can all get to meet to put faces to names, get a few beers and talk about buffy the vampire slayer :). What do you all think ?? let us know ?? dates ok ?? Thanks Mike Bissett -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From derek at wedgetail.com Thu Aug 15 21:22:00 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting References: <20020816015515.3324.qmail@operamail.com> Message-ID: <3D5C61C8.5080605@wedgetail.com> Mike Bissett wrote: > > Hi all, > Due to changes in management id like to suggest we > all try to get together and get brisbane.pm going again, > id say the best way to do that is to arrange a social > meeting in a pub in a neutral location (probably CBD). Id > like to suggest Pj O'briens on charlotte street (its about > the only one ive been in :)) at say 6pm. This way we can > all get to meet to put faces to names, get a few beers > and talk about buffy the vampire slayer :). What do you > all think ?? let us know ?? dates ok ?? I think it's a great idea, but I hope you don't mean today! That's not enough notice for me - I'm going to be working late I'm afraid. Why don't we make it next Friday? I don't believe there's any great rush, and I'm really keen on being involved. Regards, Derek. From paran01d at operamail.com Thu Aug 15 21:57:54 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting Message-ID: <20020816025754.1999.qmail@operamail.com> ooops i meant o suggest tuesday at 6pm (wont be too busy anywhere) :) but as long as there is beer involved id easily swayed :).. See ya Mike Bissett ----- Original Message ----- From: Derek Thomson Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 12:22:00 +1000 To: Mike Bissett Subject: Re: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting > Mike Bissett wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > Due to changes in management id like to suggest we > > all try to get together and get brisbane.pm going again, > > id say the best way to do that is to arrange a social > > meeting in a pub in a neutral location (probably CBD). Id > > like to suggest Pj O'briens on charlotte street (its about > > the only one ive been in :)) at say 6pm. This way we can > > all get to meet to put faces to names, get a few beers > > and talk about buffy the vampire slayer :). What do you > > all think ?? let us know ?? dates ok ?? > > I think it's a great idea, but I hope you don't mean today! That's not > enough notice for me - I'm going to be working late I'm afraid. Why > don't we make it next Friday? I don't believe there's any great rush, > and I'm really keen on being involved. > > Regards, > Derek. > > -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From derek at wedgetail.com Thu Aug 15 22:12:59 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting References: <20020816025754.1999.qmail@operamail.com> Message-ID: <3D5C6DBB.7070303@wedgetail.com> Mike Bissett wrote: > > ooops i meant o suggest tuesday at 6pm (wont be too busy > anywhere) :) but as long as there is beer involved id > easily swayed :).. Ah, I just thought you were super-keen ;) Tuesday, 6pm suits me fine. That's the date, then. I can probably rustle up at least two people from here (we use Perl for, well, everything that doesn't have to actually run on our embedded targets so there should be *some* interest). Who else can make it? Is this date suitable? Regards, Derek. From paran01d at operamail.com Thu Aug 15 22:40:04 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting Message-ID: <20020816034004.25242.qmail@operamail.com> > Ah, I just thought you were super-keen ;) > Im Commander Keen ! ! Mike Bissett -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From chris at hotmince.com Fri Aug 16 07:59:52 2002 From: chris at hotmince.com (Chris Davey) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting Message-ID: <20020816125952.516C43959@sitemail.everyone.net> Sounds good, I don't get back into the city from work until around 7pm most nights, but I'll drop in on my way through to see if any one is around.... Chris Davey --- "Mike Bissett" wrote: > >> Ah, I just thought you were super-keen ;) >> > >Im Commander Keen ! ! > >Mike Bissett >-- >_______________________________________________ >Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ > >Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ > >Powered by Outblaze _____________________________________________________________ HOTMINCE -- Free Email anywhere. http://www.hotmince.com _____________________________________________________________ Promote your group and strengthen ties to your members with email@yourgroup.org by Everyone.net http://www.everyone.net/?btn=tag From derek at wedgetail.com Fri Aug 16 10:08:08 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting References: <20020816125952.516C43959@sitemail.everyone.net> Message-ID: <3D5D1558.8010404@wedgetail.com> Chris Davey wrote: >Sounds good, > >I don't get back into the city from work until around 7pm most nights, but I'll drop in on my way through to see if any one is around.... > Allrighty, then - I'll force myself to keep drinking until at *least* 7pm! The sacrifices I make for the greater good ... :) -- D. From paran01d at operamail.com Sat Aug 17 08:47:44 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting Message-ID: <20020817134744.24129.qmail@operamail.com> > > > >I don't get back into the city from work until around 7pm most nights, but I'll drop in on my way through to see if any one is around.... > > > > Allrighty, then - I'll force myself to keep drinking until at *least* 7pm! > > The sacrifices I make for the greater good ... :) > ill still be there, though i cant forsee any comprehensibility by then. Mike Bissett -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From s1.brown at qut.edu.au Sun Aug 18 18:27:07 2002 From: s1.brown at qut.edu.au (Shane Brown) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting In-Reply-To: <20020817134744.24129.qmail@operamail.com> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20020819092445.043935a8@pop.qut.edu.au> Tuesday 20th 6pm is final? Beer good. Buffy good. How will we know each other? Will we be carrying well worn copies of the Camel book? Shane Brown - Researcher School of Management, Queensland University of Technology s1.brown@qut.edu.au ph 3864 2790 From derek at wedgetail.com Sun Aug 18 22:19:02 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting References: <4.3.2.7.2.20020819092445.043935a8@pop.qut.edu.au> Message-ID: <3D6063A6.6000107@wedgetail.com> Shane Brown wrote: > > Tuesday 20th 6pm is final? Yes, we're committed to Tuesday 20th, 6pm. > Beer good. Buffy good. How will we know > each other? Will we be carrying well worn copies of the Camel book? But the 3rd edition is far to large to cart around! :) How *do* you identify a Perl programmer on sight? I could bring my stuffed toy Camel and put it on a table, if there's one available. Just look for the archetypical Unix geek - long straggly hair, C++ beard, etc, and I'm tall enough to spot from a fair way away. -- D. From tonyob at compuserve.com Sun Aug 18 23:44:40 2002 From: tonyob at compuserve.com (Tony Obermeit) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting In-Reply-To: <3D6063A6.6000107@wedgetail.com> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20020819092445.043935a8@pop.qut.edu.au> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020819144330.00af6f88@pop.compuserve.com> I wish I could make it, I've been out of town since Wednesday and have other commitments on Tuesday evening. Enjoy the beer and have a pint or two for me :-) Tony At 01:19 PM 19/08/2002 +1000, Derek Thomson wrote: >Shane Brown wrote: >>Tuesday 20th 6pm is final? > >Yes, we're committed to Tuesday 20th, 6pm. > >>Beer good. Buffy good. How will we know >>each other? Will we be carrying well worn copies of the Camel book? > >But the 3rd edition is far to large to cart around! :) > >How *do* you identify a Perl programmer on sight? I could bring my >stuffed toy Camel and put it on a table, if there's one available. > >Just look for the archetypical Unix geek - long straggly hair, C++ beard, >etc, and I'm tall enough to spot from a fair way away. > >-- >D. From derek at wedgetail.com Mon Aug 19 00:06:05 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting References: <4.3.2.7.2.20020819092445.043935a8@pop.qut.edu.au> <5.1.0.14.0.20020819144330.00af6f88@pop.compuserve.com> Message-ID: <3D607CBD.9020909@wedgetail.com> Tony Obermeit wrote: > I wish I could make it, I've been out of town since Wednesday and have > other commitments on Tuesday evening. Enjoy the beer and have a pint or > two for me :-) Too bad. Thanks for replying anyway. It's useful for gauging interest levels. -- D. From tonyob at compuserve.com Mon Aug 19 00:54:39 2002 From: tonyob at compuserve.com (Tony Obermeit) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Social Meeting In-Reply-To: <3D607CBD.9020909@wedgetail.com> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20020819092445.043935a8@pop.qut.edu.au> <5.1.0.14.0.20020819144330.00af6f88@pop.compuserve.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020819155301.00af0a00@pop.compuserve.com> It is good to see some activitity at last on the Brisbane PM list. I've been using perl for about 5 years and really like the language, particularly when I first started with it. Don't do a lot of perl these days but am still interested in what is happening with it in Brisbane. Tony At 03:06 PM 19/08/2002 +1000, Derek Thomson wrote: >Tony Obermeit wrote: >>I wish I could make it, I've been out of town since Wednesday and have >>other commitments on Tuesday evening. Enjoy the beer and have a pint or >>two for me :-) > >Too bad. Thanks for replying anyway. It's useful for gauging interest levels. > >-- >D. From paran01d at operamail.com Mon Aug 19 01:10:47 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] meeting Message-ID: <20020819061047.18716.qmail@operamail.com> I could bring my > stuffed toy Camel and put it on a table, if there's one available. > Good idea on the camel ill be getting there early (around 5ish) so ill make sure i get a table. Anyone got an inflateable bannana ?? MikeB -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From d.bussenschutt at mailbox.gu.edu.au Mon Aug 19 01:29:19 2002 From: d.bussenschutt at mailbox.gu.edu.au (David Bussenschutt) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] meeting Message-ID: So where was it going to be again...? I think I deleted that email by mistake after seeing the words "stuffed camel" ;-) I got the Tuesday, 6:00pm thing, and I remember it'll involve drinking for most (not me). I just can't remember where ;-( -------------------------------------------------------------------- David Bussenschutt Email: D.Bussenschutt@mailbox.gu.edu.au Senior Computing Support Officer & Systems Administrator/Programmer RedHat Certified Engineer. Member of Systems Administrators Guild of Australia. Location: Griffith University. Information Technology Services Brisbane Qld. Aust. (TEN bldg. rm 1.33) Ph: (07)38757079 -------------------------------------------------------------------- "Mike Bissett" Sent by: owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org 19/08/2002 04:10 PM To: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org cc: Subject: [BNE-PM] meeting I could bring my > stuffed toy Camel and put it on a table, if there's one available. > Good idea on the camel ill be getting there early (around 5ish) so ill make sure i get a table. Anyone got an inflateable bannana ?? MikeB -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From derek at wedgetail.com Mon Aug 19 01:48:11 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] meeting References: Message-ID: <3D6094AB.9040306@wedgetail.com> David Bussenschutt wrote: > > I got the Tuesday, 6:00pm thing, and I remember it'll involve drinking for > most (not me). I just can't remember where ;-( PJ O'Brien's on Charlotte St is what we were told. Does any one have a more precise address? (ie the cross street? I think it's Edward from memory). -- D. From derek at wedgetail.com Mon Aug 19 02:11:42 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] meeting References: <6FF7E6BDEE399D4A91C6B04F0696B7781CE3F5@SATURN> Message-ID: <3D609A2E.10206@wedgetail.com> Phil Greenway wrote: > Yeh it's at:- > > 127 Charlotte St, Brisbane > Adrenalin Sports (knob) bar is upstairs. Thanks, Phil. I did in fact have a completely different one in mind. Lucky ... so it's definitely 127 Charlotte St. Stupid generic Irish pubs :( Regards, Derek. From derek at wedgetail.com Mon Aug 19 02:44:32 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: <3D60A1E0.5070305@wedgetail.com> Hi, Just for the sake of starting a thread, I want to get some idea of what everyone is using Perl for in their workaday existences. I use Perl for everything I can, so I'll just pick the most interesting. I am implementing a C SSL toolkit for embedded systems. I generate the SSL presentation layer C code that reads and writes specific SSL handshake messages directly from the SSL specification with a Perl program. The SSL spec has it's own simple language for describing the message format, so it's simply a matter of parsing that and then writing out corresponding C data structures and functions. This way I can easily cope with changes to message formats, and add new messages for supporting different SSL versions easily. It also means I can generate "Dump" functions for each message type that output an SSL message in a very nicely formatted and indented way - much more readable than the hex dumps you get with other SSL packages. To do this I use the unbelievably wonderful Parser::RecDescent module from CPAN (http://www.cpan.org). -- D. From s1.brown at qut.edu.au Mon Aug 19 18:27:12 2002 From: s1.brown at qut.edu.au (Shane Brown) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: <3D60A1E0.5070305@wedgetail.com> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20020820090949.00b31f30@pop.qut.edu.au> >brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Mostly text/content analysis uses for me. Lots of splitting up text to analysis chunks then implementing a variety of dictionaries & word county type things. I've also used it a bit for accessing online content for text analysis or just data gathering via HTML::Parser and ::TreeBuilder. Latest (and most sophisticated) use has been to create a custom browsing/charting/analysis database interface for looking at the course experience questionnaire stuff that Oz tertiary students complete after graduating. DBI::, Text::Query::Advanced & the beautiful Tk:: family helped me out here. Love the Tk - although I *really really* need to print multiple pages of a large canvas object and it doesn't seem to want to oblige. I don't have an IT background so I'm still trying to drag myself out of the clueless newbie box. Cheers. Shane Brown - Researcher School of Management, Queensland University of Technology s1.brown@qut.edu.au ph 3864 2790 From tonyob at compuserve.com Mon Aug 19 20:10:16 2002 From: tonyob at compuserve.com (Tony Obermeit) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: <3D60A1E0.5070305@wedgetail.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820110545.00af62d8@pop.compuserve.com> My development is categorised in three areas, application development (web/html applications with database (sql/oracle) back ends), build scripts to support application development, ad-hoc scripts. Previously I used perl for all three of these areas, now I use java for application development, ant for build scripts and perl for ad-hoc scripts. cheers Tony At 05:44 PM 19/08/2002 +1000, Derek Thomson wrote: >Hi, > >Just for the sake of starting a thread, I want to get some idea of what >everyone is using Perl for in their workaday existences. > >I use Perl for everything I can, so I'll just pick the most interesting. > >I am implementing a C SSL toolkit for embedded systems. I generate the SSL >presentation layer C code that reads and writes specific SSL handshake >messages directly from the SSL specification with a Perl program. > >The SSL spec has it's own simple language for describing the message >format, so it's simply a matter of parsing that and then writing out >corresponding C data structures and functions. This way I can easily cope >with changes to message formats, and add new messages for supporting >different SSL versions easily. > >It also means I can generate "Dump" functions for each message type >that output an SSL message in a very nicely formatted and indented way - >much more readable than the hex dumps you get with other SSL packages. > >To do this I use the unbelievably wonderful Parser::RecDescent module from >CPAN (http://www.cpan.org). > >-- >D. From paran01d at operamail.com Mon Aug 19 20:26:43 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: <20020820012643.6937.qmail@operamail.com> Well, Ive used perl since I was at high school, generally for dynamic template driven websites with and sql backeds (the most famous site I can claim a hand to is the register - http://www.theregister.co.uk) which uses perl and mysql. At present where I work now (queensland government) we use perl to interface with our LDAP and X500 direcrtory services. We use perl to deal with replication, management, email updates, direct updates and of course for the background for the web frontends for browsing and updates. Id never user Directories like LDAP before i came here and now i wish id used them for most of the stuff ive done before, there great. My favourite modules must be DBI::, Template::Toolkit, mod_perl and Date::Manip ( i know Date::Manip is slow but you can give it next tuesday as an input date and it works !!). I always seem to end up making web based diaries and organisers... Mike Bissett ----- Original Message ----- From: Derek Thomson Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 17:44:32 +1000 To: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? > Hi, > > Just for the sake of starting a thread, I want to get some idea of what > everyone is using Perl for in their workaday existences. > > I use Perl for everything I can, so I'll just pick the most interesting. > > I am implementing a C SSL toolkit for embedded systems. I generate the > SSL presentation layer C code that reads and writes specific SSL > handshake messages directly from the SSL specification with a Perl program. > > The SSL spec has it's own simple language for describing the message > format, so it's simply a matter of parsing that and then writing out > corresponding C data structures and functions. This way I can easily > cope with changes to message formats, and add new messages for > supporting different SSL versions easily. > > It also means I can generate "Dump" functions for each message type that > output an SSL message in a very nicely formatted and indented way - > much more readable than the hex dumps you get with other SSL packages. > > To do this I use the unbelievably wonderful Parser::RecDescent module > from CPAN (http://www.cpan.org). > > -- > D. > > -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From paran01d at operamail.com Mon Aug 19 20:56:19 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: <20020820015619.5224.qmail@operamail.com> Don, We use openLDAP/dbm to store and access our directory and service information like for instance the Government Staff Directory we also used it recently to inplement a web based services locator, all the services were in a directory and accessed via LDAP. LDAP is a lot more slimline than using the full DAP/X500 stuff and therfore works better with webservers etc... LDAP works well when reads take priority over writes, it doesnt matter in our Government staff directory if it takes a few minutes for data to update but it would be a problem if it took a few minutes to gfet at the data.. Hope i sound clear im well know for gibbering like a fool :) Mike Bissett > Hi Mike, > Excuse my ignorance, but what do you use LDAP for? > cheers > Don > -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From derek at wedgetail.com Mon Aug 19 21:02:50 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? References: <20020820012643.6937.qmail@operamail.com> Message-ID: <3D61A34A.1000307@wedgetail.com> Mike Bissett wrote: > > Well, > Ive used perl since I was at high school, > generally for dynamic template driven websites with and > sql backeds (the most famous site I can claim a hand to is > the register - http://www.theregister.co.uk) which uses > perl and mysql. I read it all the time. It's acerbic tone appeals to me. > At present where I work now (queensland > government) we use perl to interface with our LDAP and > X500 direcrtory services. We use perl to deal with > replication, management, email updates, direct updates and > of course for the background for the web frontends for > browsing and updates. Id never user Directories like LDAP > before i came here and now i wish id used them for most of > the stuff ive done before, there great. Everyone here at Wedgetail is very pleased with the Perl LDAP support. It's nice to get stuff that "just works", and CPAN modules do give you that nearly all the time. > My favourite > modules must be DBI::, Template::Toolkit, mod_perl and > Date::Manip ( i know Date::Manip is slow but you can give > it next tuesday as an input date and it works !!). > > I always seem to end up making web based diaries and > organisers... You know I've never done any "web programming" (CGI/mod_perl) in Perl? Even though that's supposedly the Perl "killer-app" ... I'd really like a "quick intro to mod_perl" if we ever get these tutorials/presentations off the ground. Regards, Derek. From fc at maths.uq.edu.au Mon Aug 19 21:24:02 2002 From: fc at maths.uq.edu.au (Francis Clark) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: <3D61A34A.1000307@wedgetail.com> Message-ID: ok, ok, I'll come out from under my rock.. there's been enough mail over the last few days to convince me that there may actually be life out there.. Unfortunately I'm rather busy and stressed trying to finish a thesis at the moment, otherwise I'd come along tonight and generally be a more enthusiastic perl monger. However, I'd be interested to know how many other silent mongers are hiding behind their terminals out there? For my part I'm a computational biologist, and what you might call a basic perl user, although I do some reasonablely sophisticated things with my unsophisticated perl scripts. Mostly munging big text files, but also a little bit of process management (breaking up course grained jobs to run them in parallel and bringing all the results together at the end). I suppose my weakness is that I view other peoples code as being a little like their toothbrushes - fine for them, but I'm not going to use it (especially if it means working out what this object oriented business is). So, although I can write and use my own basic modules, and know that there is this thing called CPAN out there (and something called BioPerl also), I've never made the time to work out how useful it might be to me. Anyone else out there like this? Francis -- Francis Clark, General Crazy Person until thesis is done, Advanced Computational Modeling Centre within the Department of Mathematics, University of Queensland, Australia. From paran01d at operamail.com Mon Aug 19 22:30:10 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: <20020820033010.27604.qmail@operamail.com> > Anyone else out there like this? > I generally think its a good idea to not re-invent the wheel too much and CPAN is a good way of doing this, though if you really want to work things out for yourself and have something simple thats cool as well. Thats what i love about perl you can do it how you want to do it.. BTW if you can make your own modules chances are your doing this object oriented thingy anyway :) Mike Bissett -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From derek at wedgetail.com Mon Aug 19 23:14:02 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? References: Message-ID: <3D61C20A.70206@wedgetail.com> Hi Francis, Francis Clark wrote: > > ok, ok, I'll come out from under my rock.. there's been enough mail over > the last few days to convince me that there may actually be life out > there.. > > Unfortunately I'm rather busy and stressed trying to finish a thesis at the > moment, otherwise I'd come along tonight and generally be a more > enthusiastic perl monger. No, that's fine. I'm more than happy to see people just contributing to the list! > However, I'd be interested to know how many other > silent mongers are hiding behind their terminals out there? > > For my part I'm a computational biologist, and what you might call a basic > perl user, although I do some reasonablely sophisticated things with my > unsophisticated perl scripts. Apparently, Perl is quite popular in the biological sciences. Did you know that there are 2 bioinformatic Perl books? http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/begperlbio/ http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bioskills/ > Mostly munging big text files, but also a > little bit of process management (breaking up course grained jobs to run > them in parallel and bringing all the results together at the end). I'd like to hear more about Perl (and computing in general) being used in science. Perhaps you can explain it to us at some future get together? > > I suppose my weakness is that I view other peoples code as being a little > like their toothbrushes - fine for them, but I'm not going to use it > (especially if it means working out what this object oriented business > is). Yes, that's a fine way to use Perl - to automate a task that only you may actually have to do. Don't worry about the object-oriented stuff - it's really just a way of separating code into "modules" (or "classes"), so that other people can use them (*). To use (say) the Perl XML modules you don't necessarily have to understand how it's done ... perhaps I should include "using objected oriented modules" in my (hopefully) upcoming "advanced Perl" tutorial, and leave the real meat of how to do OO in Perl to the propellor heads amongst us. (*) yes, that's an incomplete explanation, but I'm trying to explain it so that a non-gearhead can see the usefulness of a really abstract concept. > So, although I can write and use my own basic modules, and know that > there is this thing called CPAN out there (and something called BioPerl > also), I've never made the time to work out how useful it might be to me. > Anyone else out there like this? If so, perhaps we should organize some sort of tutorial or presentation to introduce people to the wide world of Perl modules? How to find them, install them and use them, plus a quick outline of some of the more useful ones (XML, CGI, DBI, ... ?) Regards, Derek. From derek at wedgetail.com Mon Aug 19 23:28:12 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820110545.00af62d8@pop.compuserve.com> Message-ID: <3D61C55C.6060809@wedgetail.com> Tony Obermeit wrote: > My development is categorised in three areas, application development > (web/html applications with database (sql/oracle) back ends), build > scripts to support application development, ad-hoc scripts. The Perl DBI database integration is very good, indeed. And it comes with a command line tool that is sometimes superior to the one shipped with the product (I'm looking at you, Oracle :). > Previously > I used perl for all three of these areas, now I use java for application > development, ant for build scripts and perl for ad-hoc scripts. > Okay, my question is: what technical reason is there for using Java for web applicatoins instead of Perl? I haven't ever done any web applications, so I really don't know, but my experience with Java is that it's large, slow, not very portable really, and the database integration support just doesn't measure up to Perl's DBI module, and it takes a *lot* more code to get anywhere. That was in 1999, maybe things have changed (but I still have to run Java GUIs that are too slow and suck up 46M!!). Is there any real advantage over, say Apache + mod_perl + Perl? Regards, Derek. From tonyob at compuserve.com Mon Aug 19 23:31:03 2002 From: tonyob at compuserve.com (Tony Obermeit) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: <3D61C20A.70206@wedgetail.com> References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820142855.00af8300@pop.compuserve.com> > >Apparently, Perl is quite popular in the biological sciences. Did you know >that there are 2 bioinformatic Perl books? > >http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/begperlbio/ >http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bioskills/ I have done a bit of work in the bioinformatics space and have the Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics book if you want to borrow it as I'm not using it (at the moment). I didn't end up doing the bioinfo stuff I had to do in perl but the book was a good help to get me started. Tony From Don.Simonetta at mincom.com Mon Aug 19 23:46:05 2002 From: Don.Simonetta at mincom.com (Don.Simonetta@mincom.com) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: Good question Derek. The only "good" reason I can think of is the level of commercial support for the technologies. I suppose its a bit like saying "why are you buying a $200k Ferrari when you can build a faster car from a kit for less than $50k". Apart from suppotability all other arguments would probably be non-technical. Tony Obermeit wrote: > Previously > I used perl for all three of these areas, now I use java for application > development, ant for build scripts and perl for ad-hoc scripts. > Okay, my question is: what technical reason is there for using Java for web applicatoins instead of Perl? I haven't ever done any web applications, so I really don't know, but my experience with Java is that it's large, slow, not very portable really, and the database integration support just doesn't measure up to Perl's DBI module, and it takes a *lot* more code to get anywhere. That was in 1999, maybe things have changed (but I still have to run Java GUIs that are too slow and suck up 46M!!). Is there any real advantage over, say Apache + mod_perl + Perl? Regards, Derek. -- This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential information. If you have received this transmission in error, please delete it and notify the sender. The contents of this e-mail are the opinion of the writer only and are not endorsed by the Mincom Group of companies unless expressly stated otherwise. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.pm.org/archives/brisbane-pm/attachments/20020820/0f3db16a/attachment.htm From tonyob at compuserve.com Tue Aug 20 00:01:51 2002 From: tonyob at compuserve.com (Tony Obermeit) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: <3D61C55C.6060809@wedgetail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820110545.00af62d8@pop.compuserve.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820143209.00b10780@pop.compuserve.com> Derek, I appreciate your comments and questions. Please take my comments as my perspective, I don't want to start a flame war.... At 02:28 PM 20/08/2002 +1000, Derek Thomson wrote: >Tony Obermeit wrote: >>My development is categorised in three areas, application development >>(web/html applications with database (sql/oracle) back ends), build >>scripts to support application development, ad-hoc scripts. > >The Perl DBI database integration is very good, indeed. And it comes with >a command line tool that is sometimes superior to the one shipped with the >product (I'm looking at you, Oracle :). I agree that the perl dbi database integration is very good, it is one of the compelling reasons to choose perl over other scripting languages for shell scripting type of tasks. >>Previously I used perl for all three of these areas, now I use java for >>application development, ant for build scripts and perl for ad-hoc scripts. > >Okay, my question is: what technical reason is there for using Java for >web applicatoins instead of Perl? When using perl as a language for developing an application that will be deployed to many sites, with a variety of configurations, I found perl to be challenging. Some of the issues I had were: (1) I didn't want to ship my source code. With java I am able to ship only compiled .class files. This gives me a significantly higher level of confidence that a bug hasn't occurred because someone hacked the source code. (2) When I installed my perl scripts, I had to edit each script to replace the path to the perl interpreter if the perl interpreter was installed in a different directory to mine, particularly worse when trying to keep the application working on unix and Windows NT/2k. This caused me concern in regard to the installation of my application. (3) I had challenges getting dbi/dbd::oracle working in a linux environment, with java, jdbc just seemed to work in any environment. (4) Ease of installation of a finished application, with perl I had numerous scripts (.pl, .pm) to install. Java was much easier, I could ship a single .jar file that included the entire compiled code of the application, including the web server, the jdbc drivers and my application, that made it easy to install the application, copy a single .jar file to a directory and run with a single command java -jar jarfilename.jar. There can be issues if the version of java on the target system is older than what you expect but the same applies to perl. Once I got in to java, I also found that much more design material was available in regards to object oriented development than was available in perl. Topics such as design patterns are well covered in a variety of java books and white pages. Many examples of Model/View/Controller (MVC) patterns are around in java, that didn't even seem to get discussed much in the perl world. A topic associated with this is development methodologies, the Agile Methodologies including Extreme Programming are well supported in the java world with junit. I'd be interested to hear from others who have used perl and Extreme Programming and what conclusions they have drawn from the experience. >I haven't ever done any web applications, so I really don't know, but my >experience with Java is that it's large, slow, not very portable really, >and the database integration support just doesn't measure up to Perl's DBI >module, and it takes a *lot* more code to get anywhere. Web applications are much different in java than non-web applications. With non-web applications in java the java GUI is not pretty, your comments below about java guis that are slow and large are quite applicable). With web applications, java generates the html and the performance isn't really an issue. One issue in perl's favour is that the breadth of available libraries is much better and richer than java in certain areas such as generation of png charts, etc. The newer versions of java (many since 1999) are much better performance wise. The number of api's being released with each version of java are staggering. Having used DBI and JDBC extensively, I can't see where java's database integration doesn't measure up to perl's dbi. They are both quite similar to use. I haven't looked at how to do database connection pooling in dbi but it is quite easy now in java with jdbc2. It can take more code in java to get some things done in perl but the object orientation in java is better than it was in perl. I have found it easier to make java applications portable across unix/Windows than perl. >That was in 1999, maybe things have changed (but I still have to run Java >GUIs that are too slow and suck up 46M!!). Is there any real advantage >over, say Apache + mod_perl + Perl? Overall, I would say the servlet api provides better capabilities than Apache + mod_perl but I believe a dedicated perl developer can build just as fast (if not faster) applications using perl with mod_perl. One limitation with that is being tied to Apache. With the advent of a number of pure java web servers, BEA, Orion, for example, being tied to apache can be a limitation. I would also say that part of my choice in using java over perl in application development had to do with career goals. Java has become much more the language of choice in the enterprise size of organisations compared to perl. Organisations like IBM, Oracle, BEA, Borland and Sun have made significant investment in java. For some, the fact that java is not open source is an issue, my answer to that, choose perl if that bothers you. Perl is a really great language, it has many strengths, the same applies to java, I continue to use both languages and encourage others to do the same. The learning curve for me was significantly larger with java compared to perl, yet I have several friends who took up perl on the basis of my ravings about it and both of them struggled with learning perl. That was hard for me to understand because I found perl extremely easy to learn. cheers Tony From derek at wedgetail.com Tue Aug 20 00:19:26 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? References: Message-ID: <3D61D15E.6060301@wedgetail.com> Don.Simonetta@mincom.com wrote: > > Good question Derek. > The only "good" reason I can think of is the level of commercial support > for the technologies. Commercial support for Java is a bit of a non-sequitor. I've submitted quite a few bugs to Sun WRT the Swing toolkit that were never fixed, last I looked. The reality is that Sun only have N people supporting Java, and I'm betting N is an order of magnitude smaller than the hordes that support Perl, based on my experience getting issues resolved with both. You can also buy commercial support, if that helps with tick-a-box management, but I'd never imagine needing it ... > I suppose its a bit like saying "why are you > buying a $200k Ferrari when you can build a faster car from a kit for > less than $50k". A slightly better analogy - "Why buy a Ferrari for $200K when you can have instantaneous matter transport for nothing?" Answer: Because a Ferrari is "cool", even though it takes you much longer to get anywhere :) Regards, Derek. From paran01d at operamail.com Tue Aug 20 00:23:31 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: <20020820052331.26556.qmail@operamail.com> Well if your post does cause a flame war it wouldnt be your fault, thanks for the great reply ive never heard the java over perl debate put so well before. Mike Bissett -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From derek at wedgetail.com Tue Aug 20 00:55:12 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820110545.00af62d8@pop.compuserve.com> <5.1.0.14.0.20020820143209.00b10780@pop.compuserve.com> Message-ID: <3D61D9C0.5070804@wedgetail.com> Tony Obermeit wrote: > Derek, I appreciate your comments and questions. Please take my > comments as my perspective, I don't want to start a flame war.... You don't! What kind of attitude is that? ;) >>> Previously I used perl for all three of these areas, now I use java >>> for application development, ant for build scripts and perl for >>> ad-hoc scripts. >> >> >> Okay, my question is: what technical reason is there for using Java >> for web applicatoins instead of Perl? > > > When using perl as a language for developing an application that will be > deployed to many sites, with a variety of configurations, I found perl > to be challenging. Some of the issues I had were: > > (1) I didn't want to ship my source code. With java I am able to ship > only compiled .class files. This gives me a significantly higher level > of confidence that a bug hasn't occurred because someone hacked the > source code. I would reply, compilation != encryption, and I'm happy for anyone to have my source. Yes this causes "friction" with management, so I do see your point ... As for modifying ... if they modify it they get what they deserve? Just run a digest over the source directories, if it comes up different, tell them to put it back. Or, just make the source files read-only! > > (2) When I installed my perl scripts, I had to edit each script to > replace the path to the perl interpreter if the perl interpreter was > installed in a different directory to mine, There are ways (I'm told) of arranging things so that you can ship a "complete" application. You can even go as far as shipping Perl with the application, which is what a lot of Java developers do (in effect) when they demand Java 1.3.x by VendorY (usually Sun). > particularly worse when > trying to keep the application working on unix and Windows NT/2k. This > caused me concern in regard to the installation of my application. Desupport Windows? :) Actually I've almost zero Windows experience, but our Perl test framework seems to run all right. > > (3) I had challenges getting dbi/dbd::oracle working in a linux > environment, with java, jdbc just seemed to work in any environment. I had just the opposite experience. That one just comes down to what you're used to, I guess. > > (4) Ease of installation of a finished application, with perl I had > numerous scripts (.pl, .pm) to install. Apparently, you can package all this up in nice ways. I've not tried it but that's what I'm told. > Java was much easier, I could > ship a single .jar file that included the entire compiled code of the > application, including the web server, the jdbc drivers and my > application, that made it easy to install the application, copy a single > .jar file to a directory and run with a single command java -jar > jarfilename.jar. There can be issues if the version of java on the > target system is older than what you expect but the same applies to perl. Yes, but I often find that running a Java program or installing a Java library is a lot of painful fiddlework with PATHS and JAVAPATH. With Perl I just go: $ cpan > install Parse::RecDescent > quit $ ... and I'm done. > > Once I got in to java, I also found that much more design material was > available in regards to object oriented development than was available > in perl. Topics such as design patterns are well covered in a variety > of java books and white pages. Many examples of Model/View/Controller > (MVC) patterns are around in java, that didn't even seem to get > discussed much in the perl world. I totally agree. Which is odd, as Perl's OO system is much more powerful than Java's, although it's strange at first. Get Damian Conway's OO Perl book - not only does it make Perl OO understandable, but it explores interesting OO topics that are impossible or hard to do in static languages like Java or C++. A quick example - XML::Parser can not only parse XML, but create classes for each kind of element encountered on the fly. This kind of meta-programming can't happen in Java, and it's something that's hard to live without once you start using it! > A topic associated with this is > development methodologies, the Agile Methodologies including Extreme > Programming are well supported in the java world with junit. I'd be > interested to hear from others who have used perl and Extreme > Programming and what conclusions they have drawn from the experience. There is a testing framework built into Java. But I'll leave XP for another flame war :) > >> I haven't ever done any web applications, so I really don't know, but >> my experience with Java is that it's large, slow, not very portable >> really, and the database integration support just doesn't measure up >> to Perl's DBI module, and it takes a *lot* more code to get anywhere. > > > Web applications are much different in java than non-web applications. > With non-web applications in java the java GUI is not pretty, your > comments below about java guis that are slow and large are quite > applicable). And ugly, and *incredibly* hard to make simple stuff behave correctly and consistently. Perl/TK, OTOH, is amazingly easy for GUI work. > With web applications, java generates the html and the > performance isn't really an issue. One issue in perl's favour is that > the breadth of available libraries is much better and richer than java > in certain areas such as generation of png charts, etc. The newer > versions of java (many since 1999) are much better performance wise. I keep hearing that, but it never seems to translate into reality ... just look at how long javac takes compared to jikes! > The number of api's being released with each version of java are > staggering. Yes. > > Having used DBI and JDBC extensively, I can't see where java's database > integration doesn't measure up to perl's dbi. At the time JDBC driver support was abysmal. > They are both quite > similar to use. I haven't looked at how to do database connection > pooling in dbi but it is quite easy now in java with jdbc2. It can take > more code in java to get some things done in perl but the object > orientation in java is better than it was in perl. No, I'd say the object orientation in Java is not better in Perl. Try the Class::Contract module, which gives you class invariants, abd true pre and post conditions (and the pre conditions can refer to the previous state of the object!). You can't do that in Java! (Java still doesn't have multiple inheritence - and don't tell me I don't need it!) > > I have found it easier to make java applications portable across > unix/Windows than perl. I haven't, but that's just been our respective experiences. People do make porting harder by using Perl to call Unix utilities, but I just slap them until they don't do it any more :) > >> That was in 1999, maybe things have changed (but I still have to run >> Java GUIs that are too slow and suck up 46M!!). Is there any real >> advantage over, say Apache + mod_perl + Perl? > > > Overall, I would say the servlet api provides better capabilities than > Apache + mod_perl but I believe a dedicated perl developer can build > just as fast (if not faster) applications using perl with mod_perl. One > limitation with that is being tied to Apache. With the advent of a > number of pure java web servers, BEA, Orion, for example, being tied to > apache can be a limitation. > Do any of these Java web servers show up on http://netcraft.com? I think Apache's the clear winner, and by implication much more trustworthy than any of these other things. It comes down to the "only N engineers" argument that applies to all proprietary development. And what if the company vanishes, forces you to "upgrade", or silently desupports the product chasing the latest over hyped bandwagon (Web services, anyone)? > I would also say that part of my choice in using java over perl in > application development had to do with career goals. Java has become > much more the language of choice in the enterprise size of organisations > compared to perl. You mean, like Amazon or IMDB? :) > Organisations like IBM, Oracle, BEA, Borland and Sun > have made significant investment in java. But if you can do exactly the same thing in 1/10th the time, and not have to pay for an "Enterprise" server (whatever that is this week :) then I think you're better off. > For some, the fact that java > is not open source is an issue, my answer to that, choose perl if that > bothers you. I guess I've done enough Java GUIs and server-side work to tick that box. I didn't really like it, I'd pick C++ over it any day, as my work reflected Sun's engineering quality, not mine. I also missed the consistent typing and collection type-safety - and not grappling with the GUI bugs. > > Perl is a really great language, it has many strengths, the same applies > to java, I continue to use both languages and encourage others to do the > same. The learning curve for me was significantly larger with java > compared to perl, yet I have several friends who took up perl on the > basis of my ravings about it and both of them struggled with learning > perl. That was hard for me to understand because I found perl extremely > easy to learn. > Everyone should start by reading "Learning Perl" by Schwarz and Phoenix. "It is the only way" ... Regards, Derek. From paran01d at operamail.com Tue Aug 20 01:08:39 2002 From: paran01d at operamail.com (Mike Bissett) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:57 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: <20020820060839.18465.qmail@operamail.com> This isnt a flame war its more like tennis, I count 2 games to 1 match point to Derek and perl :)) (i could be a bit biased towards perl though). Mike Bissett -- _______________________________________________ Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ Powered by Outblaze From derek at wedgetail.com Tue Aug 20 01:15:12 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? References: <20020820060839.18465.qmail@operamail.com> Message-ID: <3D61DE70.5060707@wedgetail.com> Mike Bissett wrote: > > This isnt a flame war its more like tennis, I count 2 > games to 1 match point to Derek and perl :)) (i could be a > bit biased towards perl though). No, I don't think we've descended into flame war territory just yet. I'm genuinely interested in knowing, if I was asked to do a web application, why I shouldn't just use Perl. Some interesting reasons are coming out of the woodwork, like packaging. -- D. From derek at wedgetail.com Tue Aug 20 01:19:24 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820110545.00af62d8@pop.compuserve.com> <5.1.0.14.0.20020820143209.00b10780@pop.compuserve.com> <3D61D9C0.5070804@wedgetail.com> Message-ID: <3D61DF6C.5080900@wedgetail.com> Derek Thomson wrote: > > No, I'd say the object orientation in Java is not better in Perl. I meant: "I'd say the object orientation in Java is not better than in Perl." ^^^^ D'oh! From Don.Simonetta at mincom.com Tue Aug 20 01:26:28 2002 From: Don.Simonetta at mincom.com (Don.Simonetta@mincom.com) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: Of course if you wanted to start a real flame war you might start talking about creating web applications under IIS/ASP. After all, this technology probably has more market share than java. You could probably use all the same arguments for using ASP as those for using java (eg packaging, distributed source code etc). BTW: when I posted my reply to Tony/Derek's original message I had assumed the web app would only be on a single machine and that issues like distribution would not enter into the equation. Derek Thomson Sent by: owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org 20-08-2002 16:15 To: Mike Bissett cc: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Fax to: Subject: Re: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Mike Bissett wrote: > > This isnt a flame war its more like tennis, I count 2 > games to 1 match point to Derek and perl :)) (i could be a > bit biased towards perl though). No, I don't think we've descended into flame war territory just yet. I'm genuinely interested in knowing, if I was asked to do a web application, why I shouldn't just use Perl. Some interesting reasons are coming out of the woodwork, like packaging. -- D. -- This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential information. If you have received this transmission in error, please delete it and notify the sender. The contents of this e-mail are the opinion of the writer only and are not endorsed by the Mincom Group of companies unless expressly stated otherwise. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.pm.org/archives/brisbane-pm/attachments/20020820/50fac703/attachment.htm From tonyob at compuserve.com Tue Aug 20 01:44:37 2002 From: tonyob at compuserve.com (Tony Obermeit) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: <3D61D9C0.5070804@wedgetail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820110545.00af62d8@pop.compuserve.com> <5.1.0.14.0.20020820143209.00b10780@pop.compuserve.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820161648.00b1fd00@pop.compuserve.com> Thanks for your comments, you have raised some interesting points. I would also say that my original comments have demonstrated there are technical as well as non-technical reasons to drive the decision. >>(1) I didn't want to ship my source code. With java I am able to ship >>only compiled .class files. This gives me a significantly higher level >>of confidence that a bug hasn't occurred because someone hacked the >>source code. > >I would reply, compilation != encryption, and I'm happy for anyone to have >my source. Yes this causes "friction" with management, so I do see your >point ... My perspective on this is purely from a support point of view. I have a packaged application that I have developed and I am trying to minimise risk of problems in as many areas as possible. >As for modifying ... if they modify it they get what they deserve? Just >run a digest over the source directories, if it comes up different, tell >them to put it back. Or, just make the source files read-only! From a support perspective, they may get what they deserve but I still end up using valuable support resources and time determining the cause of such a problem. >>(3) I had challenges getting dbi/dbd::oracle working in a linux >>environment, with java, jdbc just seemed to work in any environment. > >I had just the opposite experience. That one just comes down to what >you're used to, I guess. :-) >>Java was much easier, I could ship a single .jar file that included the >>entire compiled code of the application, including the web server, the >>jdbc drivers and my application, that made it easy to install the >>application, copy a single .jar file to a directory and run with a single >>command java -jar jarfilename.jar. There can be issues if the version of >>java on the target system is older than what you expect but the same >>applies to perl. > >Yes, but I often find that running a Java program or installing a Java >library is a lot of painful fiddlework with PATHS and JAVAPATH. With Perl >I just go: > >$ cpan > > install Parse::RecDescent > > quit >$ > >... and I'm done. CLASSPATH is the root of all problems with java configuration. It took me a while to get used to that, now, whenever a java application won't run as expected, I first ensure that CLASSPATH is set up correctly. I even wrote a utility to help me debug my classpath. >>With non-web applications in java the java GUI is not pretty, your >>comments below about java guis that are slow and large are quite applicable). > >And ugly, and *incredibly* hard to make simple stuff behave correctly and >consistently. Perl/TK, OTOH, is amazingly easy for GUI work. I agree, and I hear the learning curve for swing is signficant as well. >>They are both quite similar to use. I haven't looked at how to do >>database connection pooling in dbi but it is quite easy now in java with >>jdbc2. It can take more code in java to get some things done in perl but >>the object orientation in java is better than it was in perl. > >No, I'd say the object orientation in Java is not better in Perl. Try the >Class::Contract module, which gives you class invariants, abd true pre and >post conditions (and the pre conditions can refer to the previous state of >the object!). You can't do that in Java! I'm hoping that pre and post conditions will come in to java in the future, some interesting work is being done in this regard under the title of Aspect Oriented Programming and a java implementation (AspectJ - www.aspectj.org) is available. >(Java still doesn't have multiple inheritence - and don't tell me I don't >need it!) I wouldn't presume to tell you that, I will tell you, however, that I don't need it... :-). An interesting perspective on inheritance that is being stated by a number of the OO gurus is that when designing we should favour Object Composition over Inheritance which in my view diminishes the arguments for multiple inheritance. Aspect Oriented Programming gets around some of the issues one would solve with multiple inheritance by providing "aspects" that stripe different functional areas of an application. >>Overall, I would say the servlet api provides better capabilities than >>Apache + mod_perl but I believe a dedicated perl developer can build just >>as fast (if not faster) applications using perl with mod_perl. One >>limitation with that is being tied to Apache. With the advent of a >>number of pure java web servers, BEA, Orion, for example, being tied to >>apache can be a limitation. > >Do any of these Java web servers show up on http://netcraft.com? I think >Apache's the clear winner, and by implication much more trustworthy than >any of these other things. It comes down to the "only N engineers" >argument that applies to all proprietary development. And what if the >company vanishes, forces you to "upgrade", or silently desupports the >product chasing the latest over hyped bandwagon (Web services, anyone)? I'd say it doesn't really matter if these servers show up on netcraft. If you want to, implement servlets using Apache, that gives you all the strengths you mentioned and you have the choice of jserv or tomcat. I'm just saying that with servlets you aren't as limited as you are with mod_perl/apache, mind you, you can always drop the mod_perl and go for straight cgi but then I'd say servlets will likely perform better. >>Organisations like IBM, Oracle, BEA, Borland and Sun have made >>significant investment in java. > >But if you can do exactly the same thing in 1/10th the time, and not have >to pay for an "Enterprise" server (whatever that is this week :) then I >think you're better off. I agree, but keep in mind you can do plenty of java without paying for any Enterprise servers, the open source support for java is huge. cheers Tony From derek at wedgetail.com Tue Aug 20 01:45:54 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? References: <20020820012643.6937.qmail@operamail.com> <3.0.6.32.20020820143757.00d4b810@puma.qimr.edu.au> Message-ID: <3D61E5A2.5010404@wedgetail.com> Damian James wrote: > At 12:02 PM 20/08/2002 +1000, Derek Thomson wrote: > >>I'd really like a "quick intro to mod_perl" if we ever get these >>tutorials/presentations off the ground. > > > Lincoln Stein and Doug MacEachern, _Writing Apache modules in Perl and C_ > is the definitive intro. It is very, very good. Sits next to the other > book by Stein, _Network Programming with Perl_ on my bookshelf at ork. > > I'd be happy to put together and give such a talk if we can get to > such a stage. That would be appreciated. There's so many topics that apply to Perl (and computing in general), that's it's nice to get a knowledgable overview so you can find out if you're really interested - before you decide to invest lots of money and time checking it out. It's also nice to know what books are good, and what modules are useful and in what situations. (eg there's lots of XML modules, but not all are suitable for all uses, but OTOH I've not seen one yet that is clearly redundant) > My current gig is developing web applications with Perl, > Apache and MySQL but I am mostly acting as a sysadmin which tends to > detract from the time I can spend coding. Do you want to weigh in on the Java/Web debate? Have you tried Java for this? Does anything about it make you want to switch (apart from job ad critical mass)? > > So I am writing weird stuff, like scripts for migrating NT roaming > profiles over samba shares on the unix side, but updating a Windows > PDC afterwards. > > Tip: use more than one of the perls available for Windows, if you > are forced to use that platform. Activestate is good for access to > more of the Win32API stuff, while cygwin is better if you need real > UNIX-like system calls. which it emulates. I find that doing without > select(2) when writing network utilities is an exercise in frustration. Yes, Perl definitely makes Windows more usable. No wonder MS throw money at the Windows port - it's more sensible than trying to extend the "batch file" mess. And yes, I did just say MS did something sensible :) -- D. From tonyob at compuserve.com Tue Aug 20 01:51:51 2002 From: tonyob at compuserve.com (Tony Obermeit) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820164815.02d3b9d8@pop.compuserve.com> Wow, what a treat to have such a sleeper of a list as BNE-PM only to see it wake up as it has recently... At 04:26 PM 20/08/2002 +1000, Don.Simonetta@mincom.com wrote: >Of course if you wanted to start a real flame war you might start talking >about creating web applications under IIS/ASP. After all, this technology >probably has more market share than java. You could probably use all the >same arguments for using ASP as those for using java (eg packaging, >distributed source code etc). Interestingly, organisations such as Gartner and the Meta Group list J2EE and .NET as the only two architectures to be considered in the Enterprise space. Other technologies don't get a mention any more. Mind you, it is with .NET that perl fits in to that equation with Active State''s .NET implementation of perl. Has anyone used that? Is it a viable perl product? Tony From tonyob at compuserve.com Tue Aug 20 01:54:24 2002 From: tonyob at compuserve.com (Tony Obermeit) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: <20020820060839.18465.qmail@operamail.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820165321.00b1f780@pop.compuserve.com> WHAT???? A biased umpire? I cry FOUL!!!!, or should that be FOWL? :-) Tony At 04:08 PM 20/08/2002 +1000, Mike Bissett wrote: > > >This isnt a flame war its more like tennis, I count 2 >games to 1 match point to Derek and perl :)) (i could be a >bit biased towards perl though). > >Mike Bissett >-- >_______________________________________________ >Download the free Opera browser at http://www.opera.com/ > >Free OperaMail at http://www.operamail.com/ > >Powered by Outblaze From Don.Simonetta at mincom.com Tue Aug 20 02:07:51 2002 From: Don.Simonetta at mincom.com (Don.Simonetta@mincom.com) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] win32 perl Message-ID: Hi Damian, Could you please elloborate on the use of more than one Windows perls. I'm particularly interested as we have programs that run on both unix & win32. We use activestate on win32 so have problems with the lack of `select`. Where is cygwin available from? What are the other differences between the 2 perls? Any other tips on mix n match? Damian James wrote: > Tip: use more than one of the perls available for Windows, if you > are forced to use that platform. Activestate is good for access to > more of the Win32API stuff, while cygwin is better if you need real > UNIX-like system calls. which it emulates. I find that doing without > select(2) when writing network utilities is an exercise in frustration. -- This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential information. If you have received this transmission in error, please delete it and notify the sender. The contents of this e-mail are the opinion of the writer only and are not endorsed by the Mincom Group of companies unless expressly stated otherwise. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.pm.org/archives/brisbane-pm/attachments/20020820/1fe17d2c/attachment.htm From Don.Simonetta at mincom.com Tue Aug 20 02:30:12 2002 From: Don.Simonetta at mincom.com (Don.Simonetta@mincom.com) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] OO perl Message-ID: Well I've learned something new today - I'd never heard of Class::Contract until now. I've managed to track it down on cpan (http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/D/DC/DCONWAY/Class-Contract-1.00.readme). This sounds like it plugs a few of the deficiencies in perl's OO. Having only read a book on java and never coded in it, I would have said that java is nicer for OO. Especially in terms of syntax. Tony, can you give a breif summary of object composition and aspect oriented programming? Is this a move away from one of the fundamentals of OO -namely inheritance? >>They are both quite similar to use. I haven't looked at how to do >>database connection pooling in dbi but it is quite easy now in java with >>jdbc2. It can take more code in java to get some things done in perl but >>the object orientation in java is better than it was in perl. > >No, I'd say the object orientation in Java is not better in Perl. Try the >Class::Contract module, which gives you class invariants, abd true pre and >post conditions (and the pre conditions can refer to the previous state of >the object!). You can't do that in Java! I'm hoping that pre and post conditions will come in to java in the future, some interesting work is being done in this regard under the title of Aspect Oriented Programming and a java implementation (AspectJ - www.aspectj.org) is available. >(Java still doesn't have multiple inheritence - and don't tell me I don't >need it!) I wouldn't presume to tell you that, I will tell you, however, that I don't need it... :-). An interesting perspective on inheritance that is being stated by a number of the OO gurus is that when designing we should favour Object Composition over Inheritance which in my view diminishes the arguments for multiple inheritance. Aspect Oriented Programming gets around some of the issues one would solve with multiple inheritance by providing "aspects" that stripe different functional areas of an application. -- This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential information. If you have received this transmission in error, please delete it and notify the sender. The contents of this e-mail are the opinion of the writer only and are not endorsed by the Mincom Group of companies unless expressly stated otherwise. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.pm.org/archives/brisbane-pm/attachments/20020820/858a7536/attachment.htm From d.bussenschutt at mailbox.gu.edu.au Tue Aug 20 04:31:39 2002 From: d.bussenschutt at mailbox.gu.edu.au (David Bussenschutt) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: Ah, Packaging a perl app (and all dependancies) into a single binary perhaps? Well, that's easy..use PerlApp..it's .just not completely free. I'm normally opposed to non-free products, but I gave this one a go out of necessity, and it's really good, and well supported (and not a bad price either). PerlApp is part of the activestate Perl Developers Kit, and has versions for HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows http://www.activestate.com/Products/Perl_Dev_Kit/ I bundle a couple of my perl Tk apps up into a single .exe each, and then corporately we use them on all the other non perl-ized Windose PC's. Internally it's not brain surgery at all, really quite simple....internally, it figures out all module dependancies at the source level, and then includes all of them, and the perl binary into one .exe file that extracts the modules/source into memory at runtime. I'm just a happy customer. David. ( P.S. sorry i didn't make it to the get-together...still at work...writing perl ;-) ) -------------------------------------------------------------------- David Bussenschutt Email: D.Bussenschutt@mailbox.gu.edu.au Senior Computing Support Officer & Systems Administrator/Programmer RedHat Certified Engineer. Member of Systems Administrators Guild of Australia. Location: Griffith University. Information Technology Services Brisbane Qld. Aust. (TEN bldg. rm 1.33) Ph: (07)38757079 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Derek Thomson Sent by: owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org 20/08/2002 04:15 PM To: Mike Bissett cc: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: Re: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Mike Bissett wrote: > > This isnt a flame war its more like tennis, I count 2 > games to 1 match point to Derek and perl :)) (i could be a > bit biased towards perl though). No, I don't think we've descended into flame war territory just yet. I'm genuinely interested in knowing, if I was asked to do a web application, why I shouldn't just use Perl. Some interesting reasons are coming out of the woodwork, like packaging. -- D. From chris at hotmince.com Tue Aug 20 07:12:22 2002 From: chris at hotmince.com (Chris Davey) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: <20020820121222.2CE6C3953@sitemail.everyone.net> I use perl day to day at work for simple web applications, website replication, template management and with mysql. For my own interests I use perl with xml and the ming modules (http://ming.sourceforge.net) mainly because I arrived at this computing thing through an interest in graphics. Some examples of weird and wonderful projects can be found at http://cd.xbolt.net (see the projects section). The ming libs generate SWF output so you will need the flash 5+ plugin, if you're interested. I'd say the most interesting thing I've had a chance to do with perl is the project I've called "fwalk" (http://cd.xbolt.net/cgi-bin/fwalk.pl). Missed the get togethor on Tuesday have alot of nasty documentation to write at the moment...due to that fact, I am not human for the next week or so... Chris --- "David Bussenschutt" wrote: >Ah, Packaging a perl app (and all dependancies) into a single binary >perhaps? Well, that's easy..use PerlApp..it's .just not completely free. > I'm normally opposed to non-free products, but I gave this one a go out >of necessity, and it's really good, and well supported (and not a bad >price either). > >PerlApp is part of the activestate Perl Developers Kit, and has versions >for HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows >http://www.activestate.com/Products/Perl_Dev_Kit/ > >I bundle a couple of my perl Tk apps up into a single .exe each, and then >corporately we use them on all the other non perl-ized Windose PC's. > >Internally it's not brain surgery at all, really quite >simple....internally, it figures out all module dependancies at the source >level, and then includes all of them, and the perl binary into one .exe >file that extracts the modules/source into memory at runtime. > >I'm just a happy customer. > >David. >( P.S. sorry i didn't make it to the get-together...still at >work...writing perl ;-) ) > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- >David Bussenschutt Email: D.Bussenschutt@mailbox.gu.edu.au >Senior Computing Support Officer & Systems Administrator/Programmer >RedHat Certified Engineer. >Member of Systems Administrators Guild of Australia. >Location: Griffith University. Information Technology Services > Brisbane Qld. Aust. (TEN bldg. rm 1.33) Ph: (07)38757079 >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > >Derek Thomson >Sent by: owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org >20/08/2002 04:15 PM > > > To: Mike Bissett > cc: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org > Subject: Re: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? > > >Mike Bissett wrote: >> >> This isnt a flame war its more like tennis, I count 2 >> games to 1 match point to Derek and perl :)) (i could be a >> bit biased towards perl though). > >No, I don't think we've descended into flame war territory just yet. I'm >genuinely interested in knowing, if I was asked to do a web application, >why I shouldn't just use Perl. Some interesting reasons are coming out >of the woodwork, like packaging. > >-- >D. _____________________________________________________________ HOTMINCE -- Free Email anywhere. http://www.hotmince.com _____________________________________________________________ Promote your group and strengthen ties to your members with email@yourgroup.org by Everyone.net http://www.everyone.net/?btn=tag From tonyob at compuserve.com Tue Aug 20 16:21:00 2002 From: tonyob at compuserve.com (Tony Obermeit) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] OO perl In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020821070614.02be9a90@pop.compuserve.com> >Tony, can you give a breif summary of object composition and aspect >oriented programming? Is this a move away from one of the fundamentals of >OO -namely inheritance? Object composition One problem with inheritance is that it breaks encapsulation because a subclass depends on how it's superclass is implemented. Instead of extending an existing class, give your new class a private field that references an instance of the existing class, this is what is referred to in composition. Do a search on google of +favor +composition +over +inheritance to get links to articles and books that provide more detailed examples of this. This shouldn't be taken as a view to ban the use of inheritance, but rather to treat it more carefully than we might have otherwise. Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) This isn't seen by it's promoters as a move away from the fundamentals of OO, but rather an enhancement to or continuing evolution of OO. Aspect oriented programming helps to implement contract by design which is tied to the pre and post conditional tests mentioned previously in this thread. AspectJ implements AOP by providing a precompiler. This precompiler generates the constructs necessary to implement aspects in java. One example of an aspect is the creation of a compile time warning if code sets a non-public fields outside of the scope of a setter method. Another example is enforcing a rule that states that all our factory methods must not return a null object. It's outside the scope of my response to properly describe AOP, I recommend the following article for an overview or go to www.aspectj.org for other links. You will need to register to get the following article but that experience wasn't too painful for me. http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/s=7134/sdm0205b/0205b.htm cheers Tony From tonyob at compuserve.com Tue Aug 20 16:22:18 2002 From: tonyob at compuserve.com (Tony Obermeit) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020821072120.02bf5338@pop.compuserve.com> I remembering buying a copy of PerlApp about 3 years ago. Does it allow that kind of bundling for cgi or mod_perl applications? Tony At 07:31 PM 20/08/2002 +1000, David Bussenschutt wrote: > >Ah, Packaging a perl app (and all dependancies) into a single binary >perhaps? Well, that's easy..use PerlApp..it's .just not completely free. > I'm normally opposed to non-free products, but I gave this one a go out >of necessity, and it's really good, and well supported (and not a bad >price either). > >PerlApp is part of the activestate Perl Developers Kit, and has versions >for HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows >http://www.activestate.com/Products/Perl_Dev_Kit/ > >I bundle a couple of my perl Tk apps up into a single .exe each, and then >corporately we use them on all the other non perl-ized Windose PC's. > >Internally it's not brain surgery at all, really quite >simple....internally, it figures out all module dependancies at the source >level, and then includes all of them, and the perl binary into one .exe >file that extracts the modules/source into memory at runtime. > >I'm just a happy customer. > >David. >( P.S. sorry i didn't make it to the get-together...still at >work...writing perl ;-) ) > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- >David Bussenschutt Email: D.Bussenschutt@mailbox.gu.edu.au >Senior Computing Support Officer & Systems Administrator/Programmer >RedHat Certified Engineer. >Member of Systems Administrators Guild of Australia. >Location: Griffith University. Information Technology Services > Brisbane Qld. Aust. (TEN bldg. rm 1.33) Ph: (07)38757079 >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > >Derek Thomson >Sent by: owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org >20/08/2002 04:15 PM > > > To: Mike Bissett > cc: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org > Subject: Re: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? > > >Mike Bissett wrote: > > > > This isnt a flame war its more like tennis, I count 2 > > games to 1 match point to Derek and perl :)) (i could be a > > bit biased towards perl though). > >No, I don't think we've descended into flame war territory just yet. I'm >genuinely interested in knowing, if I was asked to do a web application, >why I shouldn't just use Perl. Some interesting reasons are coming out >of the woodwork, like packaging. > >-- >D. From Don.Simonetta at mincom.com Tue Aug 20 17:27:31 2002 From: Don.Simonetta at mincom.com (Don.Simonetta@mincom.com) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: I sent this yesterday. But I suspect it failed to get to the list (due to my email address changing in the 12 months or so since joining the list). In summary I use perl predominantly to develop portable software. We have software that runs on both unix & win32; many/all flavours of unix; many different DBMS (oracle, db2 and sometimes sybase, informix). Occassionaly used for cgi too. ----- Forwarded by Don Simonetta/ATEQ/Mincom on 21-08-2002 08:19 ----- I too use perl for almost everything. Probably the most interesting of these is for monitoring purposes: We have developed software (written entirely in perl) that monitors many aspects of computer systems including: availability; resource usage (eg cpu, disk etc); database availability/utilisation (eg oracle & sqlserver tablespace); application-specific monitoring etc etc. It runs on both unix & win32. Architecture: daemon process on each client machine to kick off processes according to a customisable cron-like schedule; client daemons communicate back to the call centre's Remedy system (via another daemon process) to instigate alarms/emails/pages/sms. A "server" machine has 2 further daemons for monitoring the availability of the remote hosts (& their daemons) and for gathering statistics from the remote machines and storing them in an oracle database. There is also a web interface into all this for the purpose of maintaining schedules, pushing out new/updated modules, remote configurations etc. I am implementing a C SSL toolkit for embedded systems. I generate the SSL presentation layer C code that reads and writes specific SSL handshake messages directly from the SSL specification with a Perl program. The SSL spec has it's own simple language for describing the message format, so it's simply a matter of parsing that and then writing out corresponding C data structures and functions. This way I can easily cope with changes to message formats, and add new messages for supporting different SSL versions easily. It also means I can generate "Dump" functions for each message type that output an SSL message in a very nicely formatted and indented way - much more readable than the hex dumps you get with other SSL packages. To do this I use the unbelievably wonderful Parser::RecDescent module from CPAN (http://www.cpan.org). -- D. -- This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential information. If you have received this transmission in error, please delete it and notify the sender. The contents of this e-mail are the opinion of the writer only and are not endorsed by the Mincom Group of companies unless expressly stated otherwise. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.pm.org/archives/brisbane-pm/attachments/20020821/7338924c/attachment.htm From d.bussenschutt at mailbox.gu.edu.au Tue Aug 20 19:38:31 2002 From: d.bussenschutt at mailbox.gu.edu.au (David Bussenschutt) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? Message-ID: In my opinion it's not good sense to build a (supposedly fast) cgi application that has to (slow) de-package (ie pull out all dependancies it requires or might require from a .exe into memory) every single time it's executed... and in regards to mod_perl i doubt it even more, as the purpose of PerlApp is to create stand-alone/portable apps, and not be reliant on other installed components (like Apache) ;-). Windows and IIS does allow you to configure it to run a .exe as a cgi, so I spose it MIGHT be possible to do this, but I haven't done it, and wouldn't do it, it feels to me like "bad form". David. -------------------------------------------------------------------- David Bussenschutt Email: D.Bussenschutt@mailbox.gu.edu.au Senior Computing Support Officer & Systems Administrator/Programmer RedHat Certified Engineer. Member of Systems Administrators Guild of Australia. Location: Griffith University. Information Technology Services Brisbane Qld. Aust. (TEN bldg. rm 1.33) Ph: (07)38757079 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Tony Obermeit Sent by: owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org 21/08/2002 07:22 AM To: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org cc: Subject: Re: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? I remembering buying a copy of PerlApp about 3 years ago. Does it allow that kind of bundling for cgi or mod_perl applications? Tony At 07:31 PM 20/08/2002 +1000, David Bussenschutt wrote: > >Ah, Packaging a perl app (and all dependancies) into a single binary >perhaps? Well, that's easy..use PerlApp..it's .just not completely free. > I'm normally opposed to non-free products, but I gave this one a go out >of necessity, and it's really good, and well supported (and not a bad >price either). > >PerlApp is part of the activestate Perl Developers Kit, and has versions >for HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows >http://www.activestate.com/Products/Perl_Dev_Kit/ > >I bundle a couple of my perl Tk apps up into a single .exe each, and then >corporately we use them on all the other non perl-ized Windose PC's. > >Internally it's not brain surgery at all, really quite >simple....internally, it figures out all module dependancies at the source >level, and then includes all of them, and the perl binary into one .exe >file that extracts the modules/source into memory at runtime. > >I'm just a happy customer. > >David. >( P.S. sorry i didn't make it to the get-together...still at >work...writing perl ;-) ) > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- >David Bussenschutt Email: D.Bussenschutt@mailbox.gu.edu.au >Senior Computing Support Officer & Systems Administrator/Programmer >RedHat Certified Engineer. >Member of Systems Administrators Guild of Australia. >Location: Griffith University. Information Technology Services > Brisbane Qld. Aust. (TEN bldg. rm 1.33) Ph: (07)38757079 >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > >Derek Thomson >Sent by: owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org >20/08/2002 04:15 PM > > > To: Mike Bissett > cc: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org > Subject: Re: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? > > >Mike Bissett wrote: > > > > This isnt a flame war its more like tennis, I count 2 > > games to 1 match point to Derek and perl :)) (i could be a > > bit biased towards perl though). > >No, I don't think we've descended into flame war territory just yet. I'm >genuinely interested in knowing, if I was asked to do a web application, >why I shouldn't just use Perl. Some interesting reasons are coming out >of the woodwork, like packaging. > >-- >D. From blhouston at austarnet.com.au Tue Aug 20 20:03:01 2002 From: blhouston at austarnet.com.au (Brian Houston) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Greetings, I am a developer working for Austar here on the Gold Coast. With all this talk of Perl and Web applications I thought I would chime in with my two cents - for what it's worth. I have moved almost completely to PHP for all light/medium duty Web work. It has the same syntax that we all know and love, but allows me to hop in and out of standard HTML. I have tried mod_perl, but I get bogged down in the reusability of variables. I think it is just my sloppy coding practices, but it has rubbed me the wrong way. I'm also starting to use Mason a bit, which is quite interesting. Has anyone else had experience with Mason? I'd be interested in opinions, as I am just starting with it. Cheers, Brian -----Original Message----- From: owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org [mailto:owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org]On Behalf Of David Bussenschutt Sent: Wednesday, 21 August 2002 10:39 To: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: Re: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In my opinion it's not good sense to build a (supposedly fast) cgi application that has to (slow) de-package (ie pull out all dependancies it requires or might require from a .exe into memory) every single time it's executed... and in regards to mod_perl i doubt it even more, as the purpose of PerlApp is to create stand-alone/portable apps, and not be reliant on other installed components (like Apache) ;-). Windows and IIS does allow you to configure it to run a .exe as a cgi, so I spose it MIGHT be possible to do this, but I haven't done it, and wouldn't do it, it feels to me like "bad form". David. -------------------------------------------------------------------- David Bussenschutt Email: D.Bussenschutt@mailbox.gu.edu.au Senior Computing Support Officer & Systems Administrator/Programmer RedHat Certified Engineer. Member of Systems Administrators Guild of Australia. Location: Griffith University. Information Technology Services Brisbane Qld. Aust. (TEN bldg. rm 1.33) Ph: (07)38757079 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Tony Obermeit Sent by: owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org 21/08/2002 07:22 AM To: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org cc: Subject: Re: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? I remembering buying a copy of PerlApp about 3 years ago. Does it allow that kind of bundling for cgi or mod_perl applications? Tony At 07:31 PM 20/08/2002 +1000, David Bussenschutt wrote: > >Ah, Packaging a perl app (and all dependancies) into a single binary >perhaps? Well, that's easy..use PerlApp..it's .just not completely free. > I'm normally opposed to non-free products, but I gave this one a go out >of necessity, and it's really good, and well supported (and not a bad >price either). > >PerlApp is part of the activestate Perl Developers Kit, and has versions >for HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows >http://www.activestate.com/Products/Perl_Dev_Kit/ > >I bundle a couple of my perl Tk apps up into a single .exe each, and then >corporately we use them on all the other non perl-ized Windose PC's. > >Internally it's not brain surgery at all, really quite >simple....internally, it figures out all module dependancies at the source >level, and then includes all of them, and the perl binary into one .exe >file that extracts the modules/source into memory at runtime. > >I'm just a happy customer. > >David. >( P.S. sorry i didn't make it to the get-together...still at >work...writing perl ;-) ) > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- >David Bussenschutt Email: D.Bussenschutt@mailbox.gu.edu.au >Senior Computing Support Officer & Systems Administrator/Programmer >RedHat Certified Engineer. >Member of Systems Administrators Guild of Australia. >Location: Griffith University. Information Technology Services > Brisbane Qld. Aust. (TEN bldg. rm 1.33) Ph: (07)38757079 >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > >Derek Thomson >Sent by: owner-brisbane-pm-list@pm.org >20/08/2002 04:15 PM > > > To: Mike Bissett > cc: brisbane-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org > Subject: Re: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? > > >Mike Bissett wrote: > > > > This isnt a flame war its more like tennis, I count 2 > > games to 1 match point to Derek and perl :)) (i could be a > > bit biased towards perl though). > >No, I don't think we've descended into flame war territory just yet. I'm >genuinely interested in knowing, if I was asked to do a web application, >why I shouldn't just use Perl. Some interesting reasons are coming out >of the woodwork, like packaging. > >-- >D. From mcarthur at dstc.edu.au Tue Aug 20 21:11:29 2002 From: mcarthur at dstc.edu.au (Robert McArthur) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? In-Reply-To: <3D60A1E0.5070305@wedgetail.com> Message-ID: Hi Derek - as of a week or so ago, I'm no longer in Brisbane but have temporarily moved to Canberra. However, I'm happy to contribute if anyone's interested :-) I have been using Perl since about 1991. There I was analysing drought data across Australia trying to model whether, from past data, there's any hope of prediction. Now, I'm using it tas a quick scripting language for myself for pretty much anything, to being the frontend for one of our production (see http://www.guidebeam.com ), to research in extracting tacit knowledge from online communities (texutal analysis mixed with maths using the PDL libraries). Currently we're using OO Perl - Damian Conway's book is an absolute must. I've used a lot of the modules over the years, especially CGI, DBI & MySQL or Postgres, GD, PDL, Templte Toolkit. For example, I recently needed to download all messages from a Yahoo group. This took only about 20-30 mins to write in Perl - debugging the beast took the longest as I was scraping the HTML! Good idea for a thread! Cheers Robert (apologies for spelling mistakes - this is a shocking line and it's almost impossible to go backwards to delete mistakes! Back to the dark(er) ages) --- Robert McArthur CRC for Enterprise Distributed System Technology BSc(Hons) Ph. +61 7 3365 4310 Brisbane, Australia MInfTech Fax +61 7 3365 4311 Grad.Cert.Ed. mcarthur@dstc.edu.au On Mon, 19 Aug 2002, Derek Thomson wrote: > Just for the sake of starting a thread, I want to get some idea of what > everyone is using Perl for in their workaday existences. From derek at wedgetail.com Thu Aug 22 21:03:44 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020820164815.02d3b9d8@pop.compuserve.com> Message-ID: <3D659800.2080608@wedgetail.com> Tony Obermeit wrote: >> Of course if you wanted to start a real flame war you might start >> talking about creating web applications under IIS/ASP. After all, this >> technology probably has more market share than java. You could >> probably use all the same arguments for using ASP as those for using >> java (eg packaging, distributed source code etc). > > > Interestingly, organisations such as Gartner and the Meta Group list > J2EE and .NET as the only two architectures to be considered in the > Enterprise space. Other technologies don't get a mention any more. I wonder why? What is this term "Enterprise", anyway? I've yet to see a definition that wasn't "what we're hyping this quarter". Why isn't C++ or Perl, or anything else, on that list? Puzzling ... It's also interesting that J2EE makes the list, but CORBA doesn't. Considering the "Enterprise" in J2EE is EJB, and that's just a design pattern running over CORBA (CORBA IIOP is the on-the-wire protocol, and JTS is a rebadged CORBA OTS for example). And yes, Don, that's the answer to your "no-one uses CORBA" jab at the meeting - everyone *does*, they just don't know it anymore. That's why the Perl ORB is going to be so cool ... the whole idea of using and implementing EJBs in Perl is, well, going to break a few preconceptions. If I get it that far, that is :) > Mind you, it is with .NET that perl fits in to that equation with Active > State''s .NET implementation of perl. Has anyone used that? Is it a > viable perl product? I do know that Python.NET was DOA. It was just enough to show simple examples, but to all practical uses utterly worthless, compared to the wonderousness that is Jython (Python on a JVM). Since Perl is much more complex than Python, I'd be suprised if Perl.NET came to anything. The other problem is that the "common typing" mechanism in dotnet is biased towards static languages such as C++, Java and C#. If you wanted to do "real" Perl in dotnet you'd lose the ability for your objects to interoperate with the other dotnet languages - which was the whole point (same goes for Python, LISP, etc). Regards, Derek. From derek at wedgetail.com Thu Aug 22 21:14:34 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] What do you use Perl for? References: Message-ID: <3D659A8A.3060208@wedgetail.com> David Bussenschutt wrote: > Ah, Packaging a perl app (and all dependancies) into a single binary > perhaps? Well, that's easy..use PerlApp..it's .just not completely free. > I'm normally opposed to non-free products, but I gave this one a go out > of necessity, and it's really good, and well supported (and not a bad > price either). I actually think selling software is fine. Someone does need to make *some* money for their good work, and eventually the ideas filter into open source / free / public domain software, and during that window the originators get to (rightly) profit from it. And there are some really good commercial software products, like Purify, which was great - in about 1995, before Rational bought it and just milked it without improving it much for years. It's people who try to lock onto eternal profits (and eternal growth) via patents and copyrights that really irritates me, and it's never the original authors doing this, its just the company into whose lap the rights have fallen. No one has the right to make a profit forever off one idea, IMHO. Everyone builds on ideas in the public domain, and eventually yours should enter into public use, too (I'm looking at you, Rational Purify - but your day is done, thanks to valgrind!). > > PerlApp is part of the activestate Perl Developers Kit, and has versions > for HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows > http://www.activestate.com/Products/Perl_Dev_Kit/ Sound great, I'm going to have to try this. -- D. From Don.Simonetta at mincom.com Thu Aug 22 21:27:06 2002 From: Don.Simonetta at mincom.com (Don.Simonetta@mincom.com) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] corba & j2ee Message-ID: Hi Derek, Good to see you retained enough brain cells after that "meeting" to remember that jab :-) OK I admit it - I had no idea that CORBA played a part in J2EE. Sounds like you'll have to start with the basics when you get around to doing your talk on the perl ORB to the brisabne.pm community. cheers Don Tony Obermeit wrote: >> Of course if you wanted to start a real flame war you might start >> talking about creating web applications under IIS/ASP. After all, this >> technology probably has more market share than java. You could >> probably use all the same arguments for using ASP as those for using >> java (eg packaging, distributed source code etc). > > > Interestingly, organisations such as Gartner and the Meta Group list > J2EE and .NET as the only two architectures to be considered in the > Enterprise space. Other technologies don't get a mention any more. I wonder why? What is this term "Enterprise", anyway? I've yet to see a definition that wasn't "what we're hyping this quarter". Why isn't C++ or Perl, or anything else, on that list? Puzzling ... It's also interesting that J2EE makes the list, but CORBA doesn't. Considering the "Enterprise" in J2EE is EJB, and that's just a design pattern running over CORBA (CORBA IIOP is the on-the-wire protocol, and JTS is a rebadged CORBA OTS for example). And yes, Don, that's the answer to your "no-one uses CORBA" jab at the meeting - everyone *does*, they just don't know it anymore. That's why the Perl ORB is going to be so cool ... the whole idea of using and implementing EJBs in Perl is, well, going to break a few preconceptions. If I get it that far, that is :) -- This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential information. If you have received this transmission in error, please delete it and notify the sender. The contents of this e-mail are the opinion of the writer only and are not endorsed by the Mincom Group of companies unless expressly stated otherwise. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.pm.org/archives/brisbane-pm/attachments/20020823/61f70667/attachment.htm From derek at wedgetail.com Thu Aug 22 22:29:32 2002 From: derek at wedgetail.com (Derek Thomson) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:58 2004 Subject: [BNE-PM] Re: corba & j2ee References: Message-ID: <3D65AC1C.1070204@wedgetail.com> Don.Simonetta@mincom.com wrote: > > Hi Derek, > Good to see you retained enough brain cells after that "meeting" to > remember that jab :-) > > OK I admit it - I had no idea that CORBA played a part in J2EE. Sounds > like you'll have to start with the basics when you get around to doing > your talk on the perl ORB to the brisabne.pm community. It's something I learned only a few weeks ago. Imagine my suprise! So it turns out that my little experimental Perl ORB might have a whole new application domain to play in, once I implement the rest of the CORBA 2.0 types. And I've built two CORBA Object Transaction Services [OTS] in the dim dark past (one for HP, and one for OOC/IONA), so suddenly I'm a JTS expert as well :) I really want to build an OTS/JTS in Perl now, as it's perfect for the job i.e. the important thing is easy database integration, and Perl has that in spades. Performance doesn't matter, as it's limited by the disk writes needed as you start and end transactions. As long as that's the bottleneck, the runtime cost of Perl won't enter into it (I think). And the world *really* needs a trule portable, free OTS/JTS. I don't think you can sensibly do distributed computing without one. But since they've banned human cloning, I probably won't get to that for some time :) -- D.