From david_v_wright at yahoo.com Tue Jan 1 14:52:09 2008 From: david_v_wright at yahoo.com (david wright) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:52:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [oak perl] Can anyone recommend a good web site to learn perl? In-Reply-To: <200712310134.lBV1Y3s7012503@kzsu.stanford.edu> Message-ID: <746318.43856.qm@web31815.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 12/30/07, Joe Brenner wrote: > From: Joe Brenner > Subject: Re: [oak perl] Can anyone recommend a good web site to learn perl? > To: "Oakland Perl Mongers" > Date: Sunday, December 30, 2007, 8:34 PM > David Fetter wrote: > > Dan Dascalescu wrote: > > > David Fetter wrote: > > > > Michael wrote: > > > > > > I have been programming in perl for a > few years, but am always > > > > > looking to expland my experience. Has > anyone come across a good > > > > > site? > > > > > Any of Randal Schwartz's books from > O'Reilly should do. Ask before > > > > buying any other O'Reilly titles, as the > quality varies widely. > > > > > > In my opinion, the best web site to learn Perl > that I know of, is > > > > http://www.sthomas.net/oldpages/roberts-perl-tutorial.htm > > > > After a quick browse through that one, I just plain > can't agree. The > > idioms used in there are basically from perl4, and a > lot of the > > recommendations, in my humble opinion, are just plain > wrong. > > Um... I can't say it looks quite that bad to me, though > there are things > I might complain about (it delays talking about "use > strict;" for too > long, for example). > > I would suggest starting here: > > http://perldoc.perl.org/perlintro.html > > (which is the same content as "man perlintro" on > a unix box). Here are some additional resources you may want to consider. If you've been programming in perl a few years, you probably know about these two books. Learning Perl http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/index.html Intermediate Perl http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/intermediateperl/index.html if not your should pick those up and go through them. (do the exercises) Otherwise here are some must have books. Books: 1. Perl Best Practices By Damian Conway http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlbp/ - defacto, current state of the art, a must own! 2. Object Oriented Perl http://www.manning.com/conway/ - another great conway book, older but 'thee' perl OO book sample: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/PDF/cyberdigest.pdf 3. Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perltestingadn/ - increase the quality of your code apply xp and tdd practices to perl. Module I find handy: http://search.cpan.org/~thaljef/criticism-1.01/lib/criticism.pm use criticism 'brutal'; - this enforces many best practices and increases maintainable coding practices Online: try a search for something interesting on http://search.cpan.org/ try to use a module you've never used, read it's code, etc. also, in general read the code of well known perl coders. perl and design patterns: http://perldesignpatterns.com/?PerlDesignPatterns - perl as it relates to design patterns, more OOP http://affy.blogspot.com/p5be/index.htm Welcome to Perl 5 by Example by David Medinets - an older resource (has many non PBP examples..) but has lots of thought provoking exercises, since IMHO, you learn perl by using it. although, generally I'm wary of any site that has the terms 'learn perl' and 'CGI scripting.' in the same paragraph. It usually means it hasn't been updated for years... HTH, david From merlyn at stonehenge.com Tue Jan 1 15:42:10 2008 From: merlyn at stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:42:10 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Can anyone recommend a good web site to learn perl? In-Reply-To: <746318.43856.qm@web31815.mail.mud.yahoo.com> (david wright's message of "Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:52:09 -0800 (PST)") References: <746318.43856.qm@web31815.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <86zlvpun8t.fsf@blue.stonehenge.com> >>>>> "david" == david wright writes: david> If you've been programming in perl a few years, you probably know about these two books. david> Learning Perl david> http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/index.html We're up to 4th edition for this: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learnperl4/ david> Intermediate Perl david> http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/intermediateperl/index.html And don't forget Mastering Perl, the final step of the trilogy: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527242/ Wow. that has an ugly URL. :) -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training! From george at metaart.org Wed Jan 2 15:41:27 2008 From: george at metaart.org (George Woolley) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 15:41:27 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Fwd: Join O'Reilly at Macworld 2008 -- Booth #S-2218 Message-ID: <200801021541.27870.george@metaart.org> ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Join O'Reilly at Macworld 2008 -- Booth #S-2218 Date: Wednesday 02 January 2008 14:00 From: "Jessica Boyd" ... O'Reilly at Macworld 2008 Spreading the knowledge of innovators -- Macworld, January 15-18, 2008 Stop by our booth, #S-2218, to see our new Mac and digital media titles, and listen to presentations by O'Reilly authors--David Pogue, Derrick Story, Mikkel Aaland, Deke McClelland, and more! Free Expo Hall Pass O'Reilly Media is excited to invite you to visit us at the 2008 Macworld Conference & Expo. We are pleased to extend a free pass to the first 100 people who respond. With this complimentary pass you will have full access to the exhibit hall. Register at this link: http://rcsreg.com/macworld/08-G-PC218 Discount Registration If you miss the cut-off for the first 100, we can still offer you a discounted registration opportunity for $10 (a $45 value). You will also have full access to the exhibit hall. Register at this link: http://rcsreg.com/macworld/08-G-SP218 Free gift with purchase at the show! Buy any book and get a Leopard Quick Ref Card with tips and tricks for navigating Apple's newest OS X. Free T-shirt Offer The first 200 people to visit our booth and present this email to any member of O'Reilly's booth staff will receive a free Missing Manual t-shirt. Good while supplies last. For more information and updates on O'Reilly happenings at Macworld 2008, please visit our new Spotlight Page at: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/mwsf/ ... ------------------------------------------------------- From cba at groundworkopensource.com Wed Jan 2 16:49:07 2008 From: cba at groundworkopensource.com (Chris B. Anderson) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 16:49:07 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] BayLISA Monitoring SIG: Weds, Jan 9 2008, 7PM Message-ID: (Hi: You're invited to the BayLISA Monitoring SIG, Weds, Jan 9 2008, 7PM. See the meeting announcement pasted below: feel free to post it and/or forward it along to anyone else who might be interested. Many thanks, and hope to see you there!) ================================================= Monitoring SIG XIII: Nagios Integration in Hyperic HQ Hyperic will present on Nagios integration and using Hyperic HQ's new Nagios plugin, which provides Nagios-like functionality out of HQ, including the use of Nagios plugins and configuration files, Come ready to share your own Nagios and Hyperic experiences, and be prepared to ask probing questions. Or bring the requirements for your proposed monitoring deployment and we'll compare and contrast it to this solution. What: BayLISA Monitoring SIG XIII: Nagios Integration in Hyperic HQ Who: Anyone interested in IT monitoring issues and tools (newbies particularly welcome!) When: Wednesday, Jan 9 2008, 7PM Where: GroundWork Open Source, 139 Townsend St., San Francisco How: 139 Townsend St. is very near AT&T Ballpark. It is one and a half blocks from the CalTrain Depot. Take the MUNI N, T or J trolley to 2nd and King (ballpark stop) or take the 30 or 45 bus (among others) crosstown. Free evening street parking can probably be found, and there are several fee-based parking garages around in case of parking difficulty. Cost: Free!! New Year's hot pizza, late vintage bubbly refreshments (i.e. soda), and wintry snacks provided by GroundWork. We'll open up the doors at 6:30 or so and start the formal part of the meeting promptly at 7PM. RSVP (not necessary, but helpful): Peter Mui, pmui at groundworkopensource.com, 415-992-4573 www.groundworkopensource.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/oakland/attachments/20080102/093baeca/attachment.html From george at metaart.org Fri Jan 4 12:14:05 2008 From: george at metaart.org (George Woolley) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 12:14:05 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Interesting Article: Scripting Message-ID: <200801041214.05493.george@metaart.org> == reference title: programming is hard, let's go scripting author: larry wall date: december 06, 2007 url: http://www.perl.com/lpt/a/997 From david at fetter.org Sat Jan 5 12:34:40 2008 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 12:34:40 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Using Your Favorite Language Inside Postgres Message-ID: <20080105203440.GG24102@fetter.org> David Fetter presents: Using Your Favorite Language Inside Postgres Carbon Five has kindly given us space for this meeting. Josh Berkus will make a brief but important announcement. RSVP at the address below to get fed! http://postgresql.meetup.com/1/calendar/6522343/ -- David Fetter http://fetter.org/ Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter at gmail.com Remember to vote! Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate From david at fetter.org Sat Jan 5 12:58:01 2008 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 12:58:01 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Oops: Re: Using Your Favorite Language Inside Postgres In-Reply-To: <20080105203440.GG24102@fetter.org> References: <20080105203440.GG24102@fetter.org> Message-ID: <20080105205801.GL24102@fetter.org> On Sat, Jan 05, 2008 at 12:34:40PM -0800, David Fetter wrote: > David Fetter presents: > Using Your Favorite Language Inside Postgres > > Carbon Five has kindly given us space for this meeting. > > Josh Berkus will make a brief but important announcement. > > RSVP at the address below to get fed! > > http://postgresql.meetup.com/1/calendar/6522343/ Sorry. This should read: http://postgresql.meetup.com/1/calendar/6904648/ Cheers, David. -- David Fetter http://fetter.org/ Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter at gmail.com Remember to vote! Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate From george at metaart.org Mon Jan 14 12:19:27 2008 From: george at metaart.org (George Woolley) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:19:27 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Interesting Blog Entry: Regex Legends Message-ID: <200801141219.27812.george@metaart.org> reference: Regex Legends: The People Behind the Magic http://blog.stevenlevithan.com/archives/regex-legends hi all, i found this blog entry (& the comments on it) quite interesting. you may too if you are big into regular expressions. - george From george at metaart.org Mon Jan 14 17:13:50 2008 From: george at metaart.org (George Woolley) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:13:50 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Fwd: Last Chance to Submit a Proposal Message-ID: <200801141713.50692.george@metaart.org> ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Last Chance to Submit a Proposal Date: Monday 14 January 2008 16:36 From: "O'Reilly Open Source Convention" ... O'Reilly Open Source Convention - OSCON July 21-25, 2008 Oregon Convention Center Portland, OR http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon Last Chance To Be Heard at OSCON 2008! Submit Your Proposal by February. If you have something to contribute to the tenth annual O'Reilly Open Source Convention, July 21-25 in Portland, here's your chance. As the crossroads of all things open source, the 2008 convention promises a vibrant meeting ground for the entire community to inspire, debate, motivate, make deals, and connect face to face. Whether you're a hacker, designer, trainer, system administrator, or entrepreneur, we want to hear from you if: -You've launched a project that will revolutionize the way we think, vote, sell, dream, or surf the Web -You grok the deep mysteries of crafting beautiful code -You've built a successful business that not only benefits from open source, but fully participates in the virtuous cycle of contribution and collaboration Fourteen Tracks, Lots of Ways To Participate If you're in tune with the heartbeat of open source, we invite you to share your experiences, expertise, analysis, and ideas. We are looking for proposals for: -45-minute sessions -3-hour tutorials -Panel discussions -Demonstrations The fourteen tracks include Linux, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, Databases, Desktop Applications, Web Applications, Mobile, Administration, Security, People, Business, and Emerging Topics. The deadline to submit your proposal is midnight PST, February 4, 2008. For guidelines and to send us your proposal, go to: http://en.oreilly.com/oscon2008/public/cfp/13. Topics We Want To Explore Though by no means an exhaustive list, here are some of the topics we'd like to include in the OSCON 2008 program: -Parallelization, grid, and multicore technologies -The strengths that will carry open source beyond the "gold rush" -Open source in smart phones and mobile networked devices -Open hardware and licensing -Tools for the administration and deployment of large server farms -Ajax, Javascript, standards-based design, and other client-side web issues -AI, machine learning, and other ways of making software smarter than the people using it -The spread of open source into law, culture, data, and services and the accompanying issues and lessons -Open source in democracy, politics, government, and education -Best practices for building a business model around open source -Virtualization, appliances, and their creation and deployment Feel free to propose other open source topics. Sessions and tutorials should be based on real-world scenarios and deliver useful information and practical tools. In addition to sessions, tutorials, informal events, lively hallway conversations, and gatherings around Portland throughout the week, one of the best reasons to attend OSCON is the vibrant Expo Hall, which features leading open source companies and projects. OSCON 2008 sponsors currently include: Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Atlassian, Disney.com, OpSource, and Silicon Mechanics. Save the Dates, July 21-25 Plan on meeting us in Portland, Oregon, for the tenth anniversary edition of OSCON, which is again conveniently co-located with Ubuntu Live at the Oregon Convention Center, so you can make the most of your trip. Co-hosted by Canonical, Ubuntu Live is the official event for the worldwide Ubuntu community. For more information on Ubuntu Live, visit: http://www.ubuntulive.com Early registration opens in March. Stay informed about the program as it develops and receive a registration reminder as soon as it opens by signing up for the conference newsletter at (login required): http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/nl/home#conferences If you have ideas for speakers and topics that will make the conference a must attend event, send them to: oscon-idea at oreilly.com For exhibition and sponsorship opportunities please email Sharon Cordesse at scordesse at oreilly.com For media partner and promotional opportunities please email Avila Reese at mediapartners at oreilly.com We hope to see you in Portland next summer. The OSCON 2008 Conference Team P.S. Be sure to submit your proposal by midnight PST, February 4, 2008 to http://en.oreilly.com/oscon2008/public/cfp/13 ******************************************************* To change your newsletter subscription options, please visit http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/nl/home. For assistance, email help at oreillynet.com. O'Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472 ******************************************************* ------------------------------------------------------- From george at metaart.org Sat Jan 19 18:13:59 2008 From: george at metaart.org (George Woolley) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:13:59 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Review of "Fonts & Encodings" Message-ID: <200801191813.59216.george@metaart.org> reference: my review http://www.metaart.org/opug/reviews/fonts.html hi all, there is a review of "Fonts & Encodings" on our site should you wish to read it. corrections and comments would be appreciated. skoal, george From oaklandpm at eli.users.panix.com Sun Jan 20 20:41:56 2008 From: oaklandpm at eli.users.panix.com (Eli the Bearded) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 23:41:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: [oak perl] Review of "Fonts & Encodings" Message-ID: <200801210441.m0L4fu208772@panix2.panix.com> George wrote: > there is a review of "Fonts & Encodings" > on our site should you wish to read it. > > corrections and comments would be appreciated. Minor typo: Instead I focused on: * Chapter 8: Font Management under X Window s/Window/Windows/ Comments: in several places you mention chapters by number without giving titles or rough descriptions of the contents. Yet no where do you list the titles of each of the chapters for someone without the book to know what those are. I've made fonts before (mostly bitmap, but one TrueType), but I haven't done it in years. The last font I made was in 1993 or so, and I expect character encodings have changed things considerably. These days converting fonts from one format to another would be more likely to interest me. I have some questions about the content. Does it elucidate the difference between "character encoding" and "character set"? I don't need to know that, but I think more people do. (Within Unicode, a single character set, there are multiple encodings like UTF-7 and UTF-8, as an example.) Does it cover using fonts from, eg, Perl? I've recently had a need to create Flash (.swf) files from Perl with multi-lingual content. Since it is somewhat rare for any particular font to have all of Unicode covered it would be useful to know how to query a font to see if it has the needed characters. The Ming module offers the less-than-ideal "coredump upon using a missing character" test. Does it cover the differences between Unicode versions? I know Unicode 3 is the latest, but how does it differ from Unicode 2? Elijah From david at fetter.org Sun Jan 20 22:55:56 2008 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:55:56 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Review of "Fonts & Encodings" In-Reply-To: <200801210441.m0L4fu208772@panix2.panix.com> References: <200801210441.m0L4fu208772@panix2.panix.com> Message-ID: <20080121065556.GI20552@fetter.org> On Sun, Jan 20, 2008 at 11:41:56PM -0500, Eli the Bearded wrote: > George wrote: > > there is a review of "Fonts & Encodings" on our site should you > > wish to read it. > > > > corrections and comments would be appreciated. > > Minor typo: > Instead I focused on: > > * Chapter 8: Font Management under X Window > > s/Window/Windows/ If you're going to post a correction, at least get it right ;) It's the X Windowing System or X for short. Cheers, David. -- David Fetter http://fetter.org/ Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter at gmail.com Remember to vote! Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate From merlyn at stonehenge.com Mon Jan 21 06:10:08 2008 From: merlyn at stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:10:08 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Review of "Fonts & Encodings" In-Reply-To: <20080121065556.GI20552@fetter.org> (David Fetter's message of "Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:55:56 -0800") References: <200801210441.m0L4fu208772@panix2.panix.com> <20080121065556.GI20552@fetter.org> Message-ID: <867ii39sn3.fsf@blue.stonehenge.com> >>>>> "David" == David Fetter writes: David> On Sun, Jan 20, 2008 at 11:41:56PM -0500, Eli the Bearded wrote: >> George wrote: >> > there is a review of "Fonts & Encodings" on our site should you >> > wish to read it. >> > >> > corrections and comments would be appreciated. >> >> Minor typo: >> Instead I focused on: >> >> * Chapter 8: Font Management under X Window >> >> s/Window/Windows/ David> If you're going to post a correction, at least get it right ;) David> It's the X Windowing System or X for short. If you're gonna post a correction to a correction, at least get it right. :) "man X" => The X.Org Foundation requests that the following names be used when referring to this software: X X Window System X Version 11 X Window System, Version 11 X11 -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training! From george at metaart.org Mon Jan 21 19:39:23 2008 From: george at metaart.org (George Woolley) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:39:23 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Review of "Fonts & Encodings" In-Reply-To: <200801210441.m0L4fu208772@panix2.panix.com> References: <200801210441.m0L4fu208772@panix2.panix.com> Message-ID: <200801211939.23108.george@metaart.org> hi elijah, thanks very much for the comments on my review. == typo that's the title the author gives the chapter. also see randal schwartz's post. == chapter numbers i see your point. i've changed the list of chapter titles from unordered to ordered, etc. == fonts experience it's cool that you've actually created fonts. == questions i believe the answers to your questions are: no, no, no. == request if convenient, i request you explain the difference between character set and character encoding [or alternatively provide a url of an explanation you endorse]? == skoal, george p.s. i acknowledged you in the acknowledgments section [well down in the left column]. let me know if you don't like what i included or if i transmogrified any part of it. --------------------------------------- On Sunday 20 January 2008 20:41, Eli the Bearded wrote: > George wrote: > > there is a review of "Fonts & Encodings" > > on our site should you wish to read it. > > > > corrections and comments would be appreciated. > > Minor typo: > Instead I focused on: > > * Chapter 8: Font Management under X Window > > s/Window/Windows/ > > Comments: in several places you mention chapters by number without > giving titles or rough descriptions of the contents. Yet no where > do you list the titles of each of the chapters for someone without > the book to know what those are. > > I've made fonts before (mostly bitmap, but one TrueType), but I > haven't done it in years. The last font I made was in 1993 or so, > and I expect character encodings have changed things considerably. > These days converting fonts from one format to another would be > more likely to interest me. > > I have some questions about the content. > > Does it elucidate the difference between "character encoding" and > "character set"? I don't need to know that, but I think more people > do. (Within Unicode, a single character set, there are multiple > encodings like UTF-7 and UTF-8, as an example.) > > Does it cover using fonts from, eg, Perl? I've recently had a need > to create Flash (.swf) files from Perl with multi-lingual content. > Since it is somewhat rare for any particular font to have all of > Unicode covered it would be useful to know how to query a font to > see if it has the needed characters. The Ming module offers the > less-than-ideal "coredump upon using a missing character" test. > > Does it cover the differences between Unicode versions? I know > Unicode 3 is the latest, but how does it differ from Unicode 2? > > Elijah > _______________________________________________ > Oakland mailing list > Oakland at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/oakland From george at metaart.org Tue Jan 22 12:32:54 2008 From: george at metaart.org (George Woolley) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:32:54 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Review of "Fonts & Encodings" In-Reply-To: <20080121065556.GI20552@fetter.org> References: <200801210441.m0L4fu208772@panix2.panix.com> <20080121065556.GI20552@fetter.org> Message-ID: <200801221232.54620.george@metaart.org> hi david, thanks for your provocative post. skoal, george ------------------------------------------------------- On Sunday 20 January 2008 22:55, David Fetter wrote: > On Sun, Jan 20, 2008 at 11:41:56PM -0500, Eli the Bearded wrote: > > George wrote: > > > there is a review of "Fonts & Encodings" on our site should you > > > wish to read it. > > > > > > corrections and comments would be appreciated. > > > > Minor typo: > > Instead I focused on: > > > > * Chapter 8: Font Management under X Window > > > > s/Window/Windows/ > > If you're going to post a correction, at least get it right ;) > > It's the X Windowing System or X for short. > > Cheers, > David. From george at metaart.org Tue Jan 22 14:09:31 2008 From: george at metaart.org (George Woolley) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:09:31 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Review of "Fonts & Encodings" In-Reply-To: <867ii39sn3.fsf@blue.stonehenge.com> References: <200801210441.m0L4fu208772@panix2.panix.com> <20080121065556.GI20552@fetter.org> <867ii39sn3.fsf@blue.stonehenge.com> Message-ID: <200801221409.31560.george@metaart.org> hi randal, thanks for the humor and the correction with clear support skoal, george p.s. i've included you in the Acknowledgements section [which is far down in the left column of the review]. let me know if you prefer not to be included or prefer some change. hi all, (1) i decline to change the author's chapter title [or references to it] even in the face of the X.Org Foundation's request. (2) i don't feel bound by the X.Org Foundation's request, however it seems a reasonable one and i'll try to comply with it unless i have a good reason not to. (3) i changed X Window to X in 3 places (in the review). skoal, george -------------------------------------------------- On Monday 21 January 2008 06:10, Randal L. Schwartz wrote: > >>>>> "David" == David Fetter writes: > > David> On Sun, Jan 20, 2008 at 11:41:56PM -0500, Eli the Bearded wrote: > >> George wrote: > >> > there is a review of "Fonts & Encodings" on our site should you > >> > wish to read it. > >> > > >> > corrections and comments would be appreciated. > >> > >> Minor typo: > >> Instead I focused on: > >> > >> * Chapter 8: Font Management under X Window > >> > >> s/Window/Windows/ > > David> If you're going to post a correction, at least get it right ;) > > David> It's the X Windowing System or X for short. > > If you're gonna post a correction to a correction, at least get it right. > :) > > "man X" => > > The X.Org Foundation requests that the following names be > used when referring to this software: > > X > X Window System > X Version 11 > X Window System, Version 11 > X11 From oaklandpm at eli.users.panix.com Tue Jan 22 17:17:36 2008 From: oaklandpm at eli.users.panix.com (Eli the Bearded) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:17:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: [oak perl] Review of "Fonts & Encodings" Message-ID: <200801230117.m0N1Haq11978@panix2.panix.com> George writes: > if convenient, > i request you explain the difference > between character set and character encoding > [or alternatively provide a url > of an explanation you endorse]? I provided a very brief example in my post. A "character set" as the term is typically used, is an ordered set of characters. A "character encoding" is bit-wise representation of those characters. The Unicode character set is pretty good about having all characters, but there are many ways a document using it can be encoded. Often the term "charset" is used to mean "character set and encoding", due to early standards documents where the authors didn't appreciate the difference. UTF-8 is a very popular method of encoding Unicode. In UTF-8, all of US-ASCII is represented in eight-bit wide characters, and other characters are multiples of eight-bit units. All characters not in US-ASCII will have the high bit set in every octent in UTF-8. UTF-7 is a rare method of encoding Unicode. All octets have the high bit unset in UTF-7. US-ASCII has characters which need to be escaped as multi-octet sequences in UTF-7. UTF-16 is a common method of encoding Unicode, but due to byte order differences between computers, it comes in two different varieties: big-endian and little endian. All characters in UTF-16 are multiples of sixteen bits wide. I've run into issues where properly formated UTF-16 has not been recognized due to the lack of a byte-order-mark (BOM, a control character useful to distinguish the two flavors of UTF-16). iconv does not include a BOM when converting to UTF-16. UTF-32 is another method of encoding Unicode. It also comes in big-endian and little endian varieties, and as you might have guessed, uses characters that er multiples of thirty-two bits wide. Almost all authors talking about character encoding write in terms of octets. Apparently they don't remember PDP-10 systems and the like which offered non-octet based encodings. Alan Flavell (RIP) wrote eloquently about the issue, at least in the context of the WWW, but he (obviously) isn't updating it anymore, and the only pace to find his pages are on archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20051214075302/ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/charset/internat.html This page covers the concept quite well, and is not focused on implications for the web: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/chars.html Once you throw fonts in, which change the look of the glyphs, the whole thing starts to reek of semiotics. If you have read your Saussure (_Course in General Linguistics_), you'll have no problems following along. Lingusitics as it intersects with computers is fun stuff. Elijah ------ don't forget what Larry Wall studied in college From george at metaart.org Tue Jan 22 18:32:24 2008 From: george at metaart.org (George Woolley) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:32:24 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Review of "Fonts & Encodings" In-Reply-To: <200801230117.m0N1Haq11978@panix2.panix.com> References: <200801230117.m0N1Haq11978@panix2.panix.com> Message-ID: <200801221832.24065.george@metaart.org> hi eli, thanks for doing as i requested [and more]. skoal, george -------------------------------------------------- On Tuesday 22 January 2008 17:17, Eli the Bearded wrote: > George writes: > > if convenient, > > i request you explain the difference > > between character set and character encoding > > [or alternatively provide a url > > of an explanation you endorse]? > > I provided a very brief example in my post. A "character set" as > the term is typically used, is an ordered set of characters. A > "character encoding" is bit-wise representation of those characters. > The Unicode character set is pretty good about having all characters, > but there are many ways a document using it can be encoded. Often > the term "charset" is used to mean "character set and encoding", due > to early standards documents where the authors didn't appreciate the > difference. > > UTF-8 is a very popular method of encoding Unicode. In UTF-8, all of > US-ASCII is represented in eight-bit wide characters, and other > characters are multiples of eight-bit units. All characters not in > US-ASCII will have the high bit set in every octent in UTF-8. > > UTF-7 is a rare method of encoding Unicode. All octets have the > high bit unset in UTF-7. US-ASCII has characters which need to be > escaped as multi-octet sequences in UTF-7. > > UTF-16 is a common method of encoding Unicode, but due to byte order > differences between computers, it comes in two different varieties: > big-endian and little endian. All characters in UTF-16 are multiples > of sixteen bits wide. I've run into issues where properly formated > UTF-16 has not been recognized due to the lack of a byte-order-mark > (BOM, a control character useful to distinguish the two flavors of > UTF-16). iconv does not include a BOM when converting to UTF-16. > > UTF-32 is another method of encoding Unicode. It also comes in > big-endian and little endian varieties, and as you might have guessed, > uses characters that er multiples of thirty-two bits wide. > > Almost all authors talking about character encoding write in terms > of octets. Apparently they don't remember PDP-10 systems and the > like which offered non-octet based encodings. > > Alan Flavell (RIP) wrote eloquently about the issue, at least > in the context of the WWW, but he (obviously) isn't updating it > anymore, and the only pace to find his pages are on archive.org: > > http://web.archive.org/web/20051214075302/ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/char >set/internat.html > > This page covers the concept quite well, and is not focused on > implications for the web: > > http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/chars.html > > Once you throw fonts in, which change the look of the glyphs, the > whole thing starts to reek of semiotics. If you have read your > Saussure (_Course in General Linguistics_), you'll have no problems > following along. Lingusitics as it intersects with computers is > fun stuff. > > Elijah > ------ > don't forget what Larry Wall studied in college > _______________________________________________ > Oakland mailing list > Oakland at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/oakland From skolupae at sonic.net Wed Jan 23 12:11:14 2008 From: skolupae at sonic.net (Steve Kolupaev) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:11:14 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] A good read when loading tricky CPAN modules Message-ID: <47979F62.6030101@sonic.net> "Problematic perl prerequisites - O'Reilly Sysadmin" - Chris Josephes http://www.oreillynet.com/sysadmin/blog/2008/01/problematic_perl_prerequisites.html This is a good discussion of the difficulties we sometimes have when loading a new CPAN module. It is well written with numerous well-written replies. I would recommend reading it when perl -MCPAN -e'shell', or perl Makefile.PL make make test make install sends you out into the jungle with multiple levels of prerequisites. If the writer and the responders have this much to discuss, then we ordinary folks aren't idiots. Steve K ---------- From david at fetter.org Wed Jan 23 12:38:26 2008 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:38:26 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] A good read when loading tricky CPAN modules In-Reply-To: <47979F62.6030101@sonic.net> References: <47979F62.6030101@sonic.net> Message-ID: <20080123203825.GW5770@fetter.org> On Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 12:11:14PM -0800, Steve Kolupaev wrote: > "Problematic perl prerequisites - O'Reilly Sysadmin" - Chris Josephes > > http://www.oreillynet.com/sysadmin/blog/2008/01/problematic_perl_prerequisites.html > > This is a good discussion of the difficulties we sometimes have > when loading a new CPAN module. It is well written with > numerous well-written replies. > > I would recommend reading it when perl -MCPAN -e'shell', or > > perl Makefile.PL > make > make test > make install > > sends you out into the jungle with multiple levels of prerequisites. As the replies state, in a system with packages, i.e. all the modern ones, this is precisely the approach you *don't* want to take. Systems like yum and apt are designed to handle dependency issues, and if you decide to pry up this cover plate by ignoring the packaging system, you risk ruining the entire machine. For those times when you find a Perl module *not* listed in your favorite package repository, you'll be doing a great service to your community by packaging them and submitting them to that repository. Yes, I know it's more work to create a good package, but it's instantly useful to your whole community, not just to you. :) Cheers, David. -- David Fetter http://fetter.org/ Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter at gmail.com Remember to vote! Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate From doom at kzsu.stanford.edu Wed Jan 23 20:34:22 2008 From: doom at kzsu.stanford.edu (Joe Brenner) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:34:22 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] A good read when loading tricky CPAN modules In-Reply-To: <20080123203825.GW5770@fetter.org> References: <47979F62.6030101@sonic.net> <20080123203825.GW5770@fetter.org> Message-ID: <200801240434.m0O4YM2d073316@kzsu.stanford.edu> David Fetter wrote: > Steve Kolupaev wrote: > > "Problematic perl prerequisites - O'Reilly Sysadmin" - Chris Josephes > > > > http://www.oreillynet.com/sysadmin/blog/2008/01/problematic_perl_prerequisites.html > > > > This is a good discussion of the difficulties we sometimes have > > when loading a new CPAN module. It is well written with > > numerous well-written replies. > > > > I would recommend reading it when perl -MCPAN -e'shell', or > > > > perl Makefile.PL > > make > > make test > > make install > > > > sends you out into the jungle with multiple levels of prerequisites. > As the replies state, in a system with packages, i.e. all the modern > ones, this is precisely the approach you *don't* want to take. Actually, that's not exactly true. Cromatic's remarks are a little more neutral on the subject, for example: "If you don't use CPAN.pm to install these modules, you're at the mercy of your packaging system." > Systems like yum and apt are designed to handle dependency issues, and > if you decide to pry up this cover plate by ignoring the packaging > system, you risk ruining the entire machine. For various reasons, that seems like an rather small risk where upgrading a perl module is concerned. Now, certainly, upgrading the perl binary that your system depends on would be rather foolhardy. But because of that, I would guess that all serious perl users end up with at least two versions of perl running in tandem... and when you upgrade a perl module, you're most likely upgrading the one that your /usr/local/bin/perl (or whatever) sees, not the /usr/bin/perl. > For those times when you find a Perl module *not* listed in your > favorite package repository, you'll be doing a great service to your > community by packaging them and submitting them to that repository. > Yes, I know it's more work to create a good package, but it's > instantly useful to your whole community, not just to you. :) That's certainly a point, but the reason I'm inclined to use CPANPLUS.pm (now a core module with perl 5.10) has more to do with prefering the latest versions that exist out on CPAN, rather than the versions that were fixed in place with my disto's release. In any case, either way you choose to adopt as policy, there are existing methods of automatically satisfying dependencies. If you're still manually chasing down prereqs then either you're doing something wrong, or you've turned up some bugs in package dependencies that you need to report. From david at fetter.org Thu Jan 24 00:16:49 2008 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:16:49 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] A good read when loading tricky CPAN modules In-Reply-To: <200801240434.m0O4YM2d073316@kzsu.stanford.edu> References: <47979F62.6030101@sonic.net> <20080123203825.GW5770@fetter.org> <200801240434.m0O4YM2d073316@kzsu.stanford.edu> Message-ID: <20080124081649.GC30279@fetter.org> On Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 08:34:22PM -0800, Joe Brenner wrote: > David Fetter wrote: > > > Steve Kolupaev wrote: > > > > "Problematic perl prerequisites - O'Reilly Sysadmin" - Chris Josephes > > > > > > http://www.oreillynet.com/sysadmin/blog/2008/01/problematic_perl_prerequisites.html > > > > > > This is a good discussion of the difficulties we sometimes have > > > when loading a new CPAN module. It is well written with > > > numerous well-written replies. > > > > > > I would recommend reading it when perl -MCPAN -e'shell', or > > > > > > perl Makefile.PL > > > make > > > make test > > > make install > > > > > > sends you out into the jungle with multiple levels of prerequisites. > > > As the replies state, in a system with packages, i.e. all the modern > > ones, this is precisely the approach you *don't* want to take. > > Actually, that's not exactly true. Cromatic's remarks are a > little more neutral on the subject, for example: > > "If you don't use CPAN.pm to install these modules, > you're at the mercy of your packaging system." That's not exactly a "neutral" tone. It's the tone of a guy who doesn't trust his packaging system, or really enjoys fiddling with dependencies. ;) > > Systems like yum and apt are designed to handle dependency issues, > > and if you decide to pry up this cover plate by ignoring the > > packaging system, you risk ruining the entire machine. > > For various reasons, that seems like an rather small risk where > upgrading a perl module is concerned. It may be, or it may not--depends on what other things in your system depend on Perl modules. However, just generally, it's easier just never to end-around your packaging system than to have some byzantine decision-making process about the circumstances under which you're going to. Then there's documenting what you've done so others will be able to follow it... > Now, certainly, upgrading the perl binary that your system depends > on would be rather foolhardy. But because of that, I would guess > that all serious perl users end up with at least two versions of > perl running in tandem... and when you upgrade a perl module, you're > most likely upgrading the one that your /usr/local/bin/perl (or > whatever) sees, not the /usr/bin/perl. I guess I'm not macho enough to run multiple versions of perl on my system. Haven't needed to be yet. > > For those times when you find a Perl module *not* listed in your > > favorite package repository, you'll be doing a great service to > > your community by packaging them and submitting them to that > > repository. Yes, I know it's more work to create a good package, > > but it's instantly useful to your whole community, not just to > > you. :) > > That's certainly a point, but the reason I'm inclined to use > CPANPLUS.pm (now a core module with perl 5.10) has more to do with > prefering the latest versions that exist out on CPAN, rather than > the versions that were fixed in place with my disto's release. You seem to be assuming a fixedness to these versions that is counter to my experience. When you issue a "yum update" or equivalent in other packaging systems--a very good idea to do regularly, given that many upgrades fix known remote vulnerabilities--you get the latest. And again, if it isn't the latest, tools like cpanspec can get you a long way in the right direction to making the latest available to everybody :) > In any case, either way you choose to adopt as policy, there > are existing methods of automatically satisfying dependencies. Yes, and the best ones play nice your packaging system :) > If you're still manually chasing down prereqs then either you're > doing something wrong, or you've turned up some bugs in package > dependencies that you need to report. Yep. Cheers, David. -- David Fetter http://fetter.org/ Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter at gmail.com Remember to vote! Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate From doom at kzsu.stanford.edu Fri Jan 25 09:21:22 2008 From: doom at kzsu.stanford.edu (Joe Brenner) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:21:22 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] A good read when loading tricky CPAN modules In-Reply-To: <20080124081649.GC30279@fetter.org> References: <47979F62.6030101@sonic.net> <20080123203825.GW5770@fetter.org> <200801240434.m0O4YM2d073316@kzsu.stanford.edu> <20080124081649.GC30279@fetter.org> Message-ID: <200801251721.m0PHLMdG002858@kzsu.stanford.edu> David Fetter wrote: > Joe Brenner wrote: > > That's certainly a point, but the reason I'm inclined to use > > CPANPLUS.pm (now a core module with perl 5.10) has more to do with > > prefering the latest versions that exist out on CPAN, rather than > > the versions that were fixed in place with my disto's release. > > You seem to be assuming a fixedness to these versions that is counter > to my experience. When you issue a "yum update" or equivalent in > other packaging systems--a very good idea to do regularly, given that > many upgrades fix known remote vulnerabilities--you get the latest. > > And again, if it isn't the latest, tools like cpanspec can get you a > long way in the right direction to making the latest available to > everybody :) The package maintainers had better not just drop the latest version of the code on you the moment it hits the streets, or else there isn't any point in "playing it safe" and sticking with apt-get over CPAN.pm or CPANPLUS.pm. Admittedly, though, it's an exaggeration to say you're necessarily going to be stuck with the version the distro was released with. At random, I picked a perl/xml package to see how bad the version lag is with ubuntu: libxml-sax-perl. The version in the apt repositories is 0.12, and the version on CPAN at the moment is 0.16. This is true for the dapper, edgy and feisty releases of ubuntu... version 0.16 was added to the Debian unstable branch in 2007 (with urgency "low"). So, this is the Debian/Ubuntu lash-up performing as it's supposed to, putting the code through a check-out period before unleashing it on the world -- but if I were going to start playing with XML::SAX tommorrow, I would definitely want to start with 0.16 rather than step back in time a few versions, and if I were running XML::SAX in production, I might be worried about bug fixes in 0.16 that I'm missing (presumably there are no known *security* bug fixes in there, though, else the urgency wouldn't be marked "low"). Myself, I would argue that the risk of breakage from upgrading a perl module is rather low: backward-incompatibilities in interface changes are rare (though unfortunately not unheard of) and the perl culture places a lot of emphasis on automated testing (unlike, say, the linux kernel) to reign in stupid mistakes. But, ironically enough, I happened to turn up this comment from someone complaining about Ubuntu breaking his system by upgrading his XML::SAX to 0.12 when he didn't want it to: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205236 (My take: this fellow is a whiner who needs to understand the way his system works better... you can't expect apt and CPAN to work on top of each other terribly well, the best you can do is to get them to work in parallel, as two independant worlds.) From george at metaart.org Fri Jan 25 13:34:36 2008 From: george at metaart.org (George Woolley) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:34:36 -0800 Subject: [oak perl] Fwd: Newsletter from O'Reilly UG Program, January 25 Message-ID: <200801251334.36461.george@metaart.org> ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Newsletter from O'Reilly UG Program, January 25 Date: Friday 25 January 2008 10:41 From: "Marsee Henon" To: george at metaart.org Hi there, Just out this week is our new web site InsideRIA.com , an online community developed by O'Reilly and sponsored by Adobe Systems Incorporated. Our goal is to create an invaluable resource for information on the ever-changing state of design and development of rich Internet applications (RIAs). Live from Macworld, Lorene Romero of the North Coast Mac Users Group wants cutting and pasting on an iPhone in this "Missing Features" video post: Here are more "Missing Features" videos including David Pogue and Derrick Story: Headed to SDWest? 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In this article, you'll see how to hook Flex up to a PHP backend to do some simple MySQL administration. ***Joe Schorr on Leopard & Apeture Derrick Story interviews Senior Product Manager Joe Schorr, on some of the most enticing and useful features for Aperture photographers. ***Less is More: Steve Jobs' Macworld 2008 Keynote Address Steve Jobs opened the Macworld surprise envelope at the 2008 keynote address and out slid a sleek notebook computer: the Macbook Air. Daniel Steinberg was on hand for the unveiling and files this report about all the new hardware, iPhone updates, and more. ***LILO and GRUB: Boot Loaders Made Simple LILO and Grub are the most popular Linux bootloaders. Usually, your Linux distribution chooses and configures one or the other for you, but this article provides a handy comparison of the two, and offers some troubleshooting and configuration tips if you ever want to do it by hand. ***The Art & Science of JavaScript In this tutorial, we'll look at a technique for using CSS and JavaScript to build a first-person-perspective maze, in homage to old-school adventure games like Dungeon Master and Doom. For more articles, go to: --------------------- Blogs ------------------- ***A Year in O'Reilly Books (2007) from Tim O'Reilly ***HF JavaScript: Learn Outside the Book ***Scott Kelby--Katrin's New Book is a Winner, and I Know Eight People I'm Sending a Copy to This Week. ***Freaking Multitudes of .htaccess great balls of fire ***Windows Mobile Weekly Roundup ***TMTOWTDI -> The Right Way to Do It ***PhoneValet & iPhone: Instant Landline Voice Mail ***Thoughts on Firefox 3.0 ***What Do You Want to Read from Head First Authors? ***Presents for Under Your Tree (for next year) For more blogs, go to: Until next time-- Marsee Henon ================================================================ O'Reilly? 1005 Gravenstein Highway North ? Sebastopol, CA ? 95472 http://ug.oreilly.com/ ?http://ug.oreilly.com/creativemedia/ ================================================================ -------------------------------------------------------