From rbowen at rcbowen.com Sun Apr 11 14:22:10 1999 From: rbowen at rcbowen.com (Rich Bowen) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Next meeting Message-ID: <3710F662.2A4E0AA@rcbowen.com> Hey, Perl Mongers, (and you other hapless folks that I've bcc'ed on this) Just a reminder that we are (last time I checked) planning to meet for lunch at the South Broadway Jalapenos at 12:30 this Wednesday the 14th. That's 924107400 to you unix geeks. perl -MTime::ParseDate -e 'print parsedate("04/14/1999 12:30pm")' Yeah, I'm showing off, but I figure we should at least discuss a little Perl, since we are the Perl Mongers. Someone suggested that we have an agenda this time around. I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd also really like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl - whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether people actually know that you are running business-critical processes on Perl, stuff like that. So, tell anyone you know that cares about Perl, and drag them along. We need to get at least a vague idea of how many people we might have, so that we can warn the nice folks at Jalapenos. Rich, your humble secretary. lexington.pm.org ps. Patrick, I've misplaced the password for the pm.org site. I know I have it at the office, but I don't feel like going to the office to get it. If you get this before Monday, could you please send it again? Thanks. -- RCBowen.com - rbowen@rcbowen.com perl -e 'print "Just Another Perl Hacker"; # Eschew obfuscation' From patrick at cre8tivegroup.com Mon Apr 12 08:14:20 1999 From: patrick at cre8tivegroup.com (Patrick Gardella) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Next meeting In-Reply-To: <3710F662.2A4E0AA@rcbowen.com> Message-ID: On 11-Apr-99 Rich Bowen wrote: > So, tell anyone you know that cares about Perl, and drag them along. > We need to get at least a vague idea of how many people we might have, > so that we can warn the nice folks at Jalapenos. I'll be there... (Thought it was Tuesday we were meeting, but Wednesday is fine...) patrick --- Patrick S. Gardella Director of Web Development The Creative Group 1-800-804-0783 ext 29 606-858-8029 (fax) http://www.cre8tivegroup.com PGP Key ID 0xEE2D47A9 From mfiresto at mindspring.com Mon Apr 12 16:09:33 1999 From: mfiresto at mindspring.com (Michael Firestone) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Next meeting Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19990412170933.007d66f0@pop.mindspring.com> >Hey, Perl Mongers, (and you other hapless folks that I've bcc'ed on >this) >Just a reminder that we are (last time I checked) planning to meet for >lunch at the South Broadway Jalapenos at 12:30 this Wednesday the 14th. >That's 924107400 to you unix geeks. Count me in. > >Someone suggested that we have an agenda this time around. I'd really >like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd also really >like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl - whether >it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether people actually >know that you are running business-critical processes on Perl, stuff >like that. I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. Mik Firestone mfiresto@mindspring.com "Big Juju", declared the box on Trell's belt, "Much magic. Ship no fly fast, if not white"... Trell was stunned beyond words. Gak! The entire theory of chromatic space travel boiled down to two sentences? From rbowen at rcbowen.com Wed Apr 14 08:25:30 1999 From: rbowen at rcbowen.com (Rich Bowen) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Lunch today Message-ID: <3714974A.377138A3@rcbowen.com> I've got a table for (I hope) enough of us. The reservation is under the name "Mongers". I'll be the one with the camel. And, for you Windows programmers, I've also got a gecko. Rich -- perl -e "eval reverse '\'rekcaH lreP rehtonA tsuJ\' tnirp'" http://www.rcbowen.com/ From fireston at lexmark.com Mon Apr 19 11:06:57 1999 From: fireston at lexmark.com (Mik Firestone) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: It strikes me... Message-ID: <199904191605.AA16962@interlock2.lexmark.com> Since we can never seem to actually talk about perl during lunch, it occurs to me that the mailing list may actually provide a more suitable medium of exchange. It will ( likely ) increase the bandwidth of the list , but I would hope we can keep the signal/noise reasonable :) If nobody objects too strenuously, I would ask Rich to repost his questions and see what happens. Of course, if you would all prefer I get stuffed, let me know and I will shut up. Mik -- Mik Firestone fireston@lexmark.com If ever I become an Evil Overlord: One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation. From patrick at cre8tivegroup.com Mon Apr 19 11:16:11 1999 From: patrick at cre8tivegroup.com (Patrick Gardella) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: It strikes me... In-Reply-To: <199904191605.AA16962@interlock2.lexmark.com> Message-ID: On 19-Apr-99 Mik Firestone wrote: > Since we can never seem to actually talk about perl during lunch, it > occurs to me that the mailing list may actually provide a more > suitable medium of exchange. It will ( likely ) increase the > bandwidth of the list, but I would hope we can keep the signal/noise > reasonable :) That's no problem here. > If nobody objects too strenuously, I would ask Rich to repost his > questions and see what happens. Sure. Go for it. Pat --- Patrick S. Gardella Director of Web Development The Creative Group 1-800-804-0783 ext 29 606-858-8029 (fax) http://www.cre8tivegroup.com PGP Key ID 0xEE2D47A9 From rbowen at rcbowen.com Mon Apr 19 11:37:49 1999 From: rbowen at rcbowen.com (Rich Bowen) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call ... References: <199904191605.AA16962@interlock2.lexmark.com> Message-ID: <371B5BDD.C0DB15E9@rcbowen.com> By way of Roll Call, please take a moment or two to answer the following, if you will. If, on the other hand, you are a lurker and determined to remain so, well, OK then, be that way. I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd also really like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl - whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether people actually know that you are running business-critical processes on Perl, stuff like that. I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. Rich -- RCBowen.com - rbowen@rcbowen.com perl -e 'print "Just Another Perl Hacker"; # Eschew obfuscation' From rbowen at rcbowen.com Mon Apr 19 12:12:45 1999 From: rbowen at rcbowen.com (Rich Bowen) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call ... References: <199904191605.AA16962@interlock2.lexmark.com> <371B5BDD.C0DB15E9@rcbowen.com> Message-ID: <371B640D.4E04F3B1@rcbowen.com> Rich Bowen wrote: > > By way of Roll Call, please take a moment or two to answer the > following, if you will. If, on the other hand, you are a lurker and > determined to remain so, well, OK then, be that way. > > I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd > also really like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl > - whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether > people actually know that you are running business-critical processes on > Perl, stuff like that. > > I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, > how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. OK, I'll go first. Hi. My name is Rich, and I'm a Perl Hacker. I'm using Perl mainly for CGI and NT system administration. CGI on BSD with Apache, Linux with Apache, NT with Apache, NT with IIS, and NT with Netscape, and Win95 with Omni. NT sysadmin stuff, like purging old files, system performance monitoring, database admin stuff. My former manager knew that I used something called Perl, but I don't think that he really knew what it was, and I don't think that he knew that 'Perl' and 'CGI' were not the same thing. He was a good manager, but knew nothing about programming or about the Internet. My current manager is a BSD nut from long back. He was using Perl back in version 1. In fact, when I was in grad school, and I put up my first web page at http://somemachine/~rbowen, he was actually the sysadmin. He recognizes the value of Perl, and actually had NT system adminstration utility development in Perl listed on my official task list. It's kinda cool - I develop apps on company time, and put them on CPAN. Since this is a spftware development company, a lot of people are aware of Perl. Most of them think that it is an inferior language to, say, C or Java. Some of them really recognize the power that Perl has, and a few of them are veritable Perl hackers that I have just not convinced to come to PM yet. I discovered Perl in a rather scary manner, looking back. My first Perl experiences were hacking on code by Matt Wright. In fact, for a long time, I could actually say that Matt Wright taught me everything I knew. **shudder** Anyways, I have (I hope) advanced a little more since them. I would say that the most beneficial things in increasing my Perl proficiency were "Advanced Perl Programming", "Efficient Perl Programming", The Perl Conference, and "Mastering Regular Expressions". In addition to my real job, I also run a business on the side - RCBowen.com - where I write custom Perl CGI applications for a variety of customers. My biggest customer is General Motors Desert Proving Ground, but I also have done work for Dell, Budweiser, Textron, and a bunch of other companies that you have not heard of. And, finally, I also teach Perl courses for the HTML Writers Guild (http://www.hwg.org/). The next one starts on May 10th or 12th or somewhere around there. Rich -- perl -e "eval reverse '\'rekcaH lreP rehtonA tsuJ\' tnirp'" http://www.rcbowen.com/ From fireston at lexmark.com Mon Apr 19 13:15:41 1999 From: fireston at lexmark.com (Mik Firestone) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call Message-ID: <199904191813.AA05897@interlock2.lexmark.com> Rich Bowen wrote: > > By way of Roll Call, please take a moment or two to answer the > following, if you will. If, on the other hand, you are a lurker and > determined to remain so, well, OK then, be that way. > > I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd > also really like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl > - whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether > people actually know that you are running business-critical processes on > Perl, stuff like that. > > I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, > how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. As a certified Perl Bigot ( no really, I have the certificate ), I use perl every where. As a sysadmin, I mostly use perl to rip text files but ( in true UN*X tradition ), it is all just a text file in the end. I have written client/server apps, I have interfaced with Oracle databases, I have written large automation programs, I have made my life as a sysadmin easier... oh, and I am currently rewriting majordomo/cool. My boss knows and actively encourages my perl use - I was hired primarily due to a few mutual friends describing me ( somewhat incorrectly ) as a local perl diety. Managers further up the line seem more concerned with results and not too worried about how I got there. My first introduction to perl was v5.001m. I was a sysadmin for a bank and wanted to run SATAN on my network, which required the aformentioned version of perl. It took some doing - the bank had very strict policies about downloading and using "freeware". I ignored them, located the necessary CDROM distributions ( "back in the days" of 9600 Kbaud modems, downloading the perl source code just wasn't an option ) and installed. At which point, SATAN broke and I started to fix it. Sigh. I have advanced my skills most by actively trying to advance my skills. The nature of perl will allow a person to write perl that looks and reads an awful lot like C. Everytime I found myself using C methodology, I read the Camel and the man pages to find the true Perl way. I also used "Mastering Regular Expressions" to further my understanding of regex in general, but perl's engine in particular. I still feel perl's true power is to be found in the regex engine. I have also found the "Perl Cookbook" to be invaluable, but I use it mostly when I am being lazy and don't want to think of the problem too hard :) Add to that a deeper understanding of perl's namespace than I ever actually wanted ( ack ) and I seem to have become something of a magician. Wizardry, though, still evades me. Sigh. Mik PS - What's the address for (un)subscribing? I need to subscribe my work address. -- Mik Firestone fireston@lexmark.com If ever I become an Evil Overlord: I will not order my trusted lieutenant to kill the infant who is destined to overthrow me-I'll do it myself. From rbowen at rcbowen.com Mon Apr 19 13:21:10 1999 From: rbowen at rcbowen.com (Rich Bowen) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call References: <199904191813.AA05897@interlock2.lexmark.com> Message-ID: <371B7416.249B7EC0@rcbowen.com> Mik Firestone wrote: > ... > I am currently rewriting majordomo/cool. Couple questions ... Do the folks at Majordomo know that you are doing this? (If there is such a thing) What are you using to send mail? That is, are you using Mail::Sendmail, or sendmail itself, or just making your own socket connections? Why are you doing this? Will you make the end result available to the rest of the world? > PS - What's the address for (un)subscribing? I need to subscribe my work > address. >From the pm.org web site ... How To Subscribe All lists are run by majordomo running as . To subscribe, send in the body of your email: subscribe You should receive a confirmation of your subscription along with general information about the list. How To Unsubscribe Unsubscribing is similar to subscribing. Send to in the body of your email: unsubscribe Where is lexington-pm-list -- perl -e "eval reverse '\'rekcaH lreP rehtonA tsuJ\' tnirp'" http://www.rcbowen.com/ From fireston at lexmark.com Mon Apr 19 14:18:59 1999 From: fireston at lexmark.com (Mik Firestone) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call (fwd) Message-ID: <199904191917.AA14548@interlock2.lexmark.com> (Sorry Rich. Didn't see this had gone to the list as well. Sigh. More coffee will fix this problem... ). On Mon, 19 Apr 1999, Rich Bowen wrote: > > Couple questions ... > Do the folks at Majordomo know that you are doing this? (If there is > such a thing) No - I am filling a rather specialized need and I: o Do not need most of what majordomo has to offer o Need to rework majorcool something fierce As the two are tightly coupled, I need to rework both of them. Basically, I have ( and I am not kidding ) 2,286 lists and the number will only grow. Add to that majordomo creating something like 6 aliases for each list, I now have +12,000 aliases. Management is a nightmare. As it goes, I really only need the subscribe/unsubscribe functionality of majordomo. So I will rewrite that. Minordomo is close, but I would have to change too much of my current methods to make it go. Now, majorcool sucks wind on that many lists. I have already changed majorcool to use reverse look up files[0] and that has resulted in a massive improvement. If I can find the time, I will like submit those patches to majorcool. However, it just plain takes a long time to render that much data and the format is confusing. I am trying to design a more intuitive interface ( believe it or not, the 2300 lists are created by something like 70 metalists ) so that the data becomes information[1]. > What are you using to send mail? That is, are you using Mail::Sendmail, > or sendmail itself, or just making your own socket connections? No. sendmail is optimized much better than anything I could write, and I need that level of optimization. One incoming bit of mail could generate a *lot* of outgoing mail. Sendmail also provides other little tricks that I just plain couldn't code. > Why are you doing this? I enjoy pain? I was somehow getting a life and thought this would put a stop that? My phone at work wasn't ringing enough? I like listening to user's whine? Frankly, I am doing this because my boss oversold some software[2] and I am now tasked in attempting to deliver on his promises. > Will you make the end result available to the rest of the world? I do not think so. My needs ( with the exception of the reverse lookups ) are highly specialized and I do not believe they would benefit anybody else. I started with majordomo/cool as a proof of concept. -- Mik Firestone fireston@lexmark.com If ever I become an Evil Overlord: I will have young lads/lasses in strange clothes, with foreign accents, REGULARLY climb some monument in the main sqaure of my capital and denounce me, claim to know the secret of my power, rally the masses to rebellion, etc. That way, the citizens will be jaded in case the real thing ever comes along. [0] See, default majorcool has to open each and every mailing list file to discover a user's subscriptions. When operating on 2300 files, you would not believe how long this takes - last I saw, it was something like 10 minutes. My brain flash was to create a series of files, one per email address. A user's subscriptions are stored in this file. This way, no matter how many mailing lists I create, majorcool will open 1 file to discover what a user's membership. [1] Something of a catch phrase of mine: Information is the distillate of data Knowledge is the distillate of information Understand is the distillate of knowledge. Computers are good at the first step, but only if the software is designed very carefully. [2] Say no to proprietary software, boys and girls. -- Mik Firestone fireston@lexmark.com If ever I become an Evil Overlord: I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum-a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well. From Loren.Lang at Columbia.net Mon Apr 19 14:54:01 1999 From: Loren.Lang at Columbia.net (Lang Loren) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: RE: Roll call ... Message-ID: <66B429EB7AB4D1119A180000F81F6787013CD77A@LOUEX01> Well - I guess I'm the wannabe of the group. I have only recently entered the Perl arena more out of a desire to stretch my mind a bit and cram yet a few more things in there. Unfortunately, my current job does not afford me the time to actually DO anything with it. (I'm working on changing that, but it hasn't happened yet.) Network/system management is only a small piece of what I do and I'm trying to find something where I can specialize more. Future plans for Perl usage include network/system monitoring, automation of some administrative tasks that I'm currently doing at a command line, writing a specialized utility that'll create a consolidated summary report out of several reports with way too much "other" stuff in them, and maybe writing a front-end report viewer so we can stop printing all these stupid reports that people pull one or two number off of and then throw away. Won't be able to start playing with it much until at least July the way things stand right now, though. Loren > -----Original Message----- > From: Rich Bowen [SMTP:rbowen@rcbowen.com] > Sent: Monday, April 19, 1999 12:38 PM > To: Lexington Perl Mongers mailing list > Subject: LPM: Roll call ... > > By way of Roll Call, please take a moment or two to answer the > following, if you will. If, on the other hand, you are a lurker and > determined to remain so, well, OK then, be that way. > > I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd > also really like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl > - whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether > people actually know that you are running business-critical processes on > Perl, stuff like that. > > I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, > how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. > > Rich > -- > RCBowen.com - rbowen@rcbowen.com > perl -e 'print "Just Another Perl Hacker"; # Eschew obfuscation' From aarond at ewl.uky.edu Mon Apr 19 16:57:43 1999 From: aarond at ewl.uky.edu (Aaron B. Dossett) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call ... In-Reply-To: <371B5BDD.C0DB15E9@rcbowen.com> from "Rich Bowen" at Apr 19, 99 12:37:49 pm Message-ID: <199904192157.RAA26756@ewl.uky.edu> > > I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd > also really like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl > - whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether > people actually know that you are running business-critical processes on > Perl, stuff like that. > I don't use Perl all that much at my current job, just some miscellaneous text-file ripping (as someone else described it). That usually works pretty well (of course), and the ease of which I can do it impresses the heck out of my non-Perl programming coworkers. I really cut my teeth at a co-op I had during college. The group I worked with supported a huge set of perl tools for the source control and build process management for a large group of hardware developers. > I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, > how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. > I picked up a copy of Learning Perl when I was bored one summer. I played with it a lot, but didn't really get into hardcore perl until the above mentioned job. -Aaron Dossett From jgibson at dcr.net Mon Apr 19 20:36:06 1999 From: jgibson at dcr.net (John Gibson) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Re: Roll call ... Message-ID: <004401be8ace$29b35ff0$4a644dc7@anarchy> Hi all I am John Gibson and I enjoy programming with Perl. >By way of Roll Call, please take a moment or two to answer the >following, if you will. If, on the other hand, you are a lurker and >determined to remain so, well, OK then, be that way. > >I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd >also really like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl >- whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether >people actually know that you are running business-critical processes on >Perl, stuff like that. I use Perl to support a huge set of Perl tools for source cotrol and build process management. We also use it to automate tools and general Sysadmin type programs. As far as my managements attitude toward Perl, He supports any thing that I can learn or do with Perl. > >I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, >how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. > I first cut my teeth at Perl whe I first became a CO-OP that required me to do some automization to a testing setup I had. You know why do something in 10 min. that would take 6 months to automate. Perl was great for that. Ever since then I have aspired to learn as much as I can about Perl and make my life easier. Thanks John Gibson jgibson@lexmark.com, jgibson@dcr.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Rules to live by. 1. Never high five a pallbearer. 2. Pigs do fly, given sufficient thrust. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ From michael at swri.edu Mon Apr 19 21:40:24 1999 From: michael at swri.edu (Michael A. Wallace) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call ... In-Reply-To: <371B5BDD.C0DB15E9@rcbowen.com> References: <199904191605.AA16962@interlock2.lexmark.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.19990419214024.2a57ee68@pop.uky.edu> First, an introduction is in order since probably none of you even know I exist. I am Mike Wallace, and a senior at UK. I am currently on a co-op for a research & development company in San Antonio, Texas. I just happened to be on the Perl web site one day and came across a list of Perl Mongers across the nation. When I saw that Lexington was on the list, I subscribed myself. My original impetus for subscribing was just to learn about Perl. I am not a big Perl programmer and I have used it sparingly at most. This is mostly because what I am doing does not naturally lend itself to Perl. Of course, if I knew more about the power of the language, that might be different. I consider myself more of a C/C++ programmer. I first ran into Perl during my freshman year at UK. As for my bosses, they are in favor of any language that will get the job done easily, effectively, etc. If I were to say that I wanted to use Perl, and could give a good reason, they'd let me. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Michael Wallace Southwest Research Institute 210.522.4778 mwallace@swri.edu -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- At 12:37 PM 4/19/99 -0400, Rich Bowen wrote: >By way of Roll Call, please take a moment or two to answer the >following, if you will. If, on the other hand, you are a lurker and >determined to remain so, well, OK then, be that way. > >I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd >also really like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl >- whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether >people actually know that you are running business-critical processes on >Perl, stuff like that. > >I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, >how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. > >Rich >-- >RCBowen.com - rbowen@rcbowen.com >perl -e 'print "Just Another Perl Hacker"; # Eschew obfuscation' > > From shelda at ibm.net Wed Apr 21 00:12:39 1999 From: shelda at ibm.net (Wesley) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call ... References: <199904191605.AA16962@interlock2.lexmark.com> <371B5BDD.C0DB15E9@rcbowen.com> Message-ID: <371D5E47.7D20986A@ibm.net> Rich Bowen wrote: > I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd > also really like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl > - whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether > people actually know that you are running business-critical processes on > Perl, stuff like that. > > I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, > how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. > > Rich I'm not entirely sure, but I think my boss sees Perl as something I went and installed on about a dozen Win95 machines for dubious purposes. Last week I had to hand over the Artistic License, Community License, and GPL that come with ActivePerl to convince him it wasn't bootlegged. (Also confessed to installing emacs on my own machine...) Those machines use Perl to figure out if the server's version of our MS-Access front-end is more current than their local version, and replaces the local version if it is. That was my first real perl script, written sometime last Fall. It's probably much longer than it needs to be, but it works. What my boss may or may not know is that I also wrote a major EDI application in Perl this past winter. This thing runs a bunch of queries against a SQL Server, writes results to a few files, runs statistics on those results, than creates a standard X12 file to send to JCAHO. It takes about 20-25 minutes to run (40% of that spent connecting/disconnecting), but otherwise runs fine. I've looked at using perl for some NT admin stuff, but I haven't found the time to figure out those modules, plus I personally don't spend that much time administering NT to start with. I started with the Camel book last fall, and got Advanced Perl Programming and Mastering Regular Expressions for Christmas, just in time for the EDI project. I got interested partly from hearing Rich go on and on about it for years, and partly because I tried using Visual Basic last year and grew frustrated with it. I've also been messing with linux for nearly a year at home, and decided that perl is a good skill to learn that will help me both here at home and at work. Besides learning more and better perl, I'd be glad to hear any strategies for perl advocacy in an NT/AS400 shop where most of us program in either VB or RPG. Since the biggest reason we use VB is for the GUI results, does anyone have any experience with perl/Tk? -- Wes shelda@ibm.net -- THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK -- From patrick at cre8tivegroup.com Wed Apr 21 07:47:43 1999 From: patrick at cre8tivegroup.com (Patrick Gardella) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:17 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call ... In-Reply-To: <371B5BDD.C0DB15E9@rcbowen.com> Message-ID: On 19-Apr-99 Rich Bowen wrote: > By way of Roll Call, please take a moment or two to answer the > following, if you will. If, on the other hand, you are a lurker and > determined to remain so, well, OK then, be that way. > > I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd > also really like to know the general attitude of management towards > Perl - whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, > whether people actually know that you are running business-critical > processes on Perl, stuff like that. > > I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, > how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. I suppose I have a moment or two now before the phone starts ringing ;) I use Perl extensively in my work. Perl is just so wide spread that I can develop it here, and run it nearly everywhere with a few changes. We develop sites hosted on WinNT, Un*x, and Macs, so that's important. As far as what I do with it, the biggest thing is to query a database to customize a web page. One of our clients works to lobby Congress, so we have a database of all the past actions of Congress on this particular issue. The Perl script queries the database so the user can get an overview of a particular member of Congress. There's all the back end stuff of updating that as well. It's all web based. We have also started to customize graphics using Perl. Using GD, you can do simple graphics with Perl. That's handy for on the fly graphics (Like putting a person's name in a graphic header, or changing a number or date in a header). But Perl's real power comes into play when you can do graphic manipulation to create the gifs. Using a database, and instructions from our graphic designers, you can write simple programs to customize huge numbers of graphics. No more tedious work for the graphics people for repetitive work. Of course, I also use perl for system admin work on my FreeBSD systems. The management here is convinced that Perl is a programming language. They've seen what we can do with it, and that was enough. The clients are a little more difficult to convince. They wonder why we should use free software. "Why would anyone give away software?" "How can they make any money?" "If it's free, it must not be any good." Ususally this comes from users of Microsoft products, who pay more for the really good stuff. (The same goes for my choice of OS, and nearly everything I use.) I learned Perl about three years ago on the job. (We were using Pascal, PDP-11 assembly, and LISP in college when I graduated.) I was hired by a local company to work on a web site. It started with just HTML, but quickly expanded. I borrowed a copy of Learning Perl from another programmer there (who was using Perl), and learned as I went. (As someone else said, Matt's Script Archive provided a place to learn what to do, and not to do.) Since then, I read everything I can on Perl. I've managed to get myself onto two publishers' review lists, so I get copies of nearly every Perl book published by them. Typically, it's the client that drives my learning, however, since they ask for something that I don't know how to do *yet*. And someone has almost always done it already in Perl. Patrick --- Patrick S. Gardella Director of Web Development The Creative Group 1-800-804-0783 ext 29 606-858-8029 (fax) http://www.cre8tivegroup.com PGP Key ID 0xEE2D47A9 From markh at delos.kcr.uky.edu Wed Apr 21 11:10:10 1999 From: markh at delos.kcr.uky.edu (Mark Hartley) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:18 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call ... In-Reply-To: <371B5BDD.C0DB15E9@rcbowen.com> Message-ID: <2568A85931@delos.kcr.uky.edu> > I'd really like to know how people are using Perl in their work. I'd I am mostly using Perl for some basic network admin tasks (on the Solaris - Sun platform). I have written a few fairly simple scripts that help me to automate some of the routine tasks I do. Perl is also used for some web based scripts that we use. I work at the Kentucky Cancer Registry, so we have all of the data on cases of cancer in Kentucky for the last 8 or so years. We use Perl to generate the web pages that display this data (http://www.kcr.uky.edu) > also really like to know the general attitude of management towards Perl > - whether it is accepted as a 'real' programming language, whether > people actually know that you are running business-critical processes on > Perl, stuff like that. Perl is accepted as a real language in my office. My supervisor uses it, as well as C to do his job. He knows Perl much better than I do. He has no problem if I use Perl for whatever I need to do. > I would like to know a more about how people first "discovered" perl, > how they developed and enhanced their proficiency, etc. I first discovered Perl when I had something I wanted to get done at work. I asked my supervisor (who is a programmer) for some hints on how to get done what I wanted. He handed me his Perl (Camel) book. As far as becoming proficient in Perl, that hasn't happened for me yet, mostly due to a lack of time and a lack of a need for Perl programming in my job. Mark. *********************************************** Mark Hartley Systems Analyst/Programmer Kentucky Cancer Registry - Markey Cancer Center markh@delos.kcr.uky.edu Phone: (606)257-7182 Fax: (606)323-4787 *********************************************** From rbowen at rcbowen.com Wed Apr 21 10:34:03 1999 From: rbowen at rcbowen.com (Rich Bowen) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:18 2004 Subject: LPM: Our next meeting Message-ID: <371DEFEB.67626492@rcbowen.com> Hey, Perl Mongers, (and, again, all the hapless folks that I have shamelessly Bcc'ed on this) Since we appear to have outgrown our space at Jalapenos, and since there seem to be several people introducing themselves that we have not seen at our previous meetings, I'm looking around for other options. I've tentatively reserved the 'gallery' at Joseph Beth - that's the big meeting room in the back of the Joseph Beth Cafe - for the next meeting. I'll call to confirm if folks think that this is a good idea. It's real convenient for me, since I work just behind Lex Green. How 'bout the rest of you? At the very least, it's a lot quieter than Jalapenos, and it gives you an excuse to visit Joseph Beth. As for the charge for using it - basically there's a $50 minimum order - if we eat more than $50, there's no additional charge. I think that we paid about $70 for 12 of us at Jalapenos last time, and if some of you other folks show up, I think that we will easily go over $50, so there's no additional charge. The room hold 32 or so, and so it should be sufficient for at least a little while. Rich ps. If I copied you on this, and you really don't want to get these notices, please let me know. OTOH, if I copied you and you really want to get these notices, please just subscribe to the list. See http://lexington.pm.org/ for details. I don't know who I'm sending multiple copies to, so let me know. -- You can surrender without a prayer, but never really pray without surrender. --Rush, 'Resist' (Test for Echo, 1996) From patrick at cre8tivegroup.com Wed Apr 21 11:07:49 1999 From: patrick at cre8tivegroup.com (Patrick Gardella) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:18 2004 Subject: LPM: Our next meeting In-Reply-To: <371DEFEB.67626492@rcbowen.com> Message-ID: On 21-Apr-99 Rich Bowen wrote: > I've > tentatively reserved the 'gallery' at Joseph Beth - that's the big > meeting room in the back of the Joseph Beth Cafe - for the next > meeting. Sounds like a good place. > I think that we will easily go over $50, so there's no additional > charge. Especially considering the prices Joseph Beth Cafe charges on things. We may need to be careful with that, because some people will bring their own lunches if things get too expensive. That would bring our bill down. I suspect that if 7 people buying lunch, we should be able to cover it. (And I'll buy that desert for me to push us over the $50 mark, if necessary!) Patrick --- Patrick S. Gardella Director of Web Development The Creative Group 1-800-804-0783 ext 29 606-858-8029 (fax) http://www.cre8tivegroup.com PGP Key ID 0xEE2D47A9 From patrick at cre8tivegroup.com Wed Apr 21 11:09:06 1999 From: patrick at cre8tivegroup.com (Patrick Gardella) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:18 2004 Subject: LPM: Roll call ... In-Reply-To: <2568A85931@delos.kcr.uky.edu> Message-ID: On 21-Apr-99 Mark Hartley wrote: > My supervisor uses it, as well as C to do his job. He knows Perl > much better than I do. He has no problem if I use Perl for whatever > I need to do. Let's get Eric to the next lunch then! Pat --- Patrick S. Gardella Director of Web Development The Creative Group 1-800-804-0783 ext 29 606-858-8029 (fax) http://www.cre8tivegroup.com PGP Key ID 0xEE2D47A9 From fireston at lexmark.com Wed Apr 21 12:12:09 1999 From: fireston at lexmark.com (Mik Firestone) Date: Thu Aug 5 00:06:18 2004 Subject: LPM: Our next meeting In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <199904211710.AA23801@interlock2.lexmark.com> On Wed, 21 Apr 1999, Patrick Gardella wrote: > > On 21-Apr-99 Rich Bowen wrote: > > I've > > tentatively reserved the 'gallery' at Joseph Beth - that's the big > > meeting room in the back of the Joseph Beth Cafe - for the next > > meeting. > > Sounds like a good place. > > > I think that we will easily go over $50, so there's no additional > > charge. > > Especially considering the prices Joseph Beth Cafe charges on things. > We may need to be careful with that, because some people will bring > their own lunches if things get too expensive. That would bring our I do not remember it being that bad - something like $6.50 + a drink. It is a bit more expensive than Jalapeno's, but I do not think by that much. But you can count on me for a lunch, drink, coffee and desert. Mik -- Mik Firestone fireston@lexmark.com If ever I become an Evil Overlord: Any and all magic and/or technology that can miraculously resurrect a secondary character who has given up his/her life through self sacrifice will be outlawed and destroyed.