[Chicago-talk] What does dollar sign followed by a period represent?

[Sean Blanton]

Small thing… I don’t use the word “scripts” anymore. They are programs and
as you say they should be treated as such.

I’ve found if something is called a script, people will lower their code
quality standards. The name even suggests it’s no more than a sequence of
commands

For Junior programmers or ops or testing people, having them write
“programs” makes   them feel empowered and more integrated into the team
with developers. Some companies have this hierarchy or wall between
developers and support people

No, this is not something dramatic and may not apply to all people or all
teams - it’s subtle, but I’ve seen it chip away at the stress of non-fte
developers who are struggling to write code in support roles

It can help communicate your standard process also - “there are no scripts
anymore. Everyone writes programs and all programs go through code review!”
Then you’ve also eliminated a whole category of IT asset that needs to be
managed. Hth

Regards,
Sean

Sean Blanton
sean at blanton.com


On Wed, Dec 27, 2023 at 12:22 PM J L <joel.limardo at forwardphase.com> wrote:

> 1. Have code reviews with pass/fail prior to committing code to a release
> (yes, scripts should be considered software and as such subject to release
> cycles)
> 2. If you cannot, at first glance, understand a regex during this then,
> 2.1 Save it using a meaningful variable with qr and then use it
> 2.2 Use the /x modifier and document it (
> https://perldoc.perl.org/perlre#%2Fx-and-%2Fxx )
> 3. Store metrics on how long your organization spends per quarter/year on
> problems like this one and adopt structural practices to reduce/eliminate
> them. I have found the #1 waster is failing to use a well tested CPAN
> module that does a better job in lieu of barely tested (and, no surprise,
> largely undocumented) code that 'promised' to save time.
>
> People are trying to avoid/refactor Perl scripts because they beleive that
> six months down the road they will inevitably fall into this type of
> problem. The fact is however there have been several ways to avoid it in
> the core language available for decades.
>
> On Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 4:57 PM Richard Reina <richard at rushlogistics.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> A few years ago I hastily wrote some code that I did not comment very
>> well. In it I found:
>>
>>  $switch = $. if m!^[0-3]?[0-9]/[0-3]?[0-9]/(?:[0-9]{2})?[0-9]{2}$!; #
>> match date
>>
>> Can anyone tell me what $. means?
>>
>> Thanks for any help.
>>
>> Richard
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