From doom at kzsu.stanford.edu Fri Sep 2 13:24:20 2005 From: doom at kzsu.stanford.edu (Joseph Brenner) Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 13:24:20 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] The truth (?) about Perl 6 Message-ID: <200509022024.j82KOLr96644@mail0.rawbw.com> I came across this at yak.net recently... it was captioned "The Truth About Perl 6": http://slack.yak.net/image/large/date/2005/08/19/22_27_04.jake.jpg From shift8 at digitrash.com Fri Sep 2 14:56:09 2005 From: shift8 at digitrash.com (shift8) Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 14:56:09 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] The truth (?) about Perl 6 In-Reply-To: <200509022024.j82KOLr96644@mail0.rawbw.com> References: <200509022024.j82KOLr96644@mail0.rawbw.com> Message-ID: <1125698169.5896.38.camel@localhost.localdomain> ha! too funny ;) but then again, s/Perl [0-9]/\.NET/g; On Fri, 2005-09-02 at 13:24 -0700, Joseph Brenner wrote: > I came across this at yak.net recently... it was captioned > "The Truth About Perl 6": > > http://slack.yak.net/image/large/date/2005/08/19/22_27_04.jake.jpg > > _______________________________________________ > SanFrancisco-pm mailing list > SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm > -- From rdm at cfcl.com Sat Sep 3 22:42:56 2005 From: rdm at cfcl.com (Rich Morin) Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2005 22:42:56 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] "Model-Based Documentation" series Message-ID: I've been working on a series of articles which I am hoping to get published (online). Hence, I don't want my draft versions to be slashdotted, etc. OTOH, I've been working in a bit of a vacuum, so some feedback would help. A lot. The topic, in any event, is "Model-Based Documentation" (my term :-). Here's the lead-in for the first article: Model-Based Documentation (MBD) is an integrated approach to the design and development of semi-automated document production systems. Specifically, MBD uses a consistent "system model" (at various levels of abstraction) to provide conceptual clarity, ease navigation, and guide the development process. MBD bridges the gap between traditional documentation and report generation techniques, leveraging the strengths of each. It works well for generating timely, integrated, and detailed documentation for large systems. At the same time, it facilitates the rapid prototyping of specialized documents and reports. Although I have only used MBD in a software development context, I believe it to be applicable to any substantial system that depends extensively on computers. If this sounds interesting, drop me a note and I'll give you the URL for the current drafts. -r -- email: rdm at cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com - Canta Forda Computer Laboratory http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc. From dick at cfcl.com Sun Sep 4 08:34:19 2005 From: dick at cfcl.com (Richard Karpinski) Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2005 08:34:19 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] "Model-Based Documentation" series In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Of course it sounds interesting. I was just talking to my nephew about Morinfo and I would request that you tell him as well: Roland McGrath, roland at frob.com Be sure to include the request about not slash/dotting it. Dick On Sep 3, 2005, at 10:42 PM, Rich Morin wrote: > If this sounds interesting, drop me a note and I'll give you the URL > for the current drafts. From david at fetter.org Mon Sep 5 09:47:45 2005 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 09:47:45 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] "Model-Based Documentation" series In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050905164745.GA17945@fetter.org> On Sat, Sep 03, 2005 at 10:42:56PM -0700, Rich Morin wrote: > If this sounds interesting, drop me a note and I'll give you the URL > for the current drafts. This sounds fascinating :) Cheers, D -- David Fetter david at fetter.org http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 510 893 6100 mobile: +1 415 235 3778 Remember to vote! From david at fetter.org Wed Sep 7 00:30:44 2005 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 00:30:44 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] PostgreSQL in Genomics Message-ID: <20050907073044.GA2090@fetter.org> Folks, If you'd like to find out how the World's Most Advanced Open Source Database is helping out in genomics, come to the next SF PostgreSQL Users' Group meeting on Wednesday, September 14, 2005. Details at http://pugs.postgresql.org/sfpug/ Cheers, D -- David Fetter david at fetter.org http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 510 893 6100 mobile: +1 415 235 3778 Remember to vote! From qw at sf.pm.org Wed Sep 7 11:54:38 2005 From: qw at sf.pm.org (Quinn Weaver) Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 11:54:38 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] "Perl Needs Better Tools" by Matisse Enzer In-Reply-To: <200508291712.j7THCRr72957@mail0.rawbw.com> References: <20050829043424.GC43180@cfcl.com> <200508291712.j7THCRr72957@mail0.rawbw.com> Message-ID: <20050907185438.GB47642@cfcl.com> On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 10:12:26AM -0700, Joseph Brenner wrote: > > Matisse Enzer, continues to propound and expand on the thesis he > was advocating over chinese food at a recent perl meeting: > "Perl Needs Better Tools": > [...] > (Note: he could probably be nudged into doing a presentation on > this subject... we were actually discussing doing a joint > presentation sometime, comparing Epic and Emacs, but I've been > lagging on doing the Emacs side...) Excellent! I will keep this in mind as I plan fall and winter stuff. Obviously it's a subject of some controversy, and we love controversy. ;) I have a few prospective speakers I'm still lining up, but, once I schedule them, I'll get back to you. -- qw (Quinn Weaver); #President, San Francisco Perl Mongers =for information, visit http://sf.pm.org/weblog =cut From david at fetter.org Mon Sep 12 20:13:11 2005 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:13:11 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Reminder: Wednesday is for PostgreSQL in Genomics, PITR and Pizza Message-ID: <20050913031311.GI32292@fetter.org> Folks, If you'd like to find out how the World's Most Advanced Open Source Database is helping out in genomics, come to the next SF PostgreSQL Users' Group meeting on Wednesday, September 14, 2005. Special guest Simon Riggs of PITR fame will be there, as will the Best Pizza in the Bay Area. Details at http://pugs.postgresql.org/sfpug/ RSVP to david at fetter.org Cheers, D -- David Fetter david at fetter.org http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 510 893 6100 mobile: +1 415 235 3778 Remember to vote! From keith29 at usa.net Wed Sep 14 08:45:05 2005 From: keith29 at usa.net (Keith Williams) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 08:45:05 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] (no subject) Message-ID: <502JiNPtF6576S07.1126712705@uwdvg007.cms.usa.net> Dear Rich, I am on the Perl mailing list, and got your email a couple of weeks ago. I would be very interested in seeing your drafts on MBD. I am on the board of an organization that advocates for the visually-impaired, and I am looking for ways to automatically re-structure and convert documentation to various media (e.g. visual text to audio, images to text descriptions). I see the creation of a good document model to be an important part of this process. Thank you very much for your time. Keith M. Williams keith29 at usa.net ------ Original Message ------ Received: Sat, 03 Sep 2005 10:43:22 PM PDT From: Rich Morin To: sanfrancisco-pm at pm.org Subject: [sf-perl] "Model-Based Documentation" series I've been working on a series of articles which I am hoping to get published (online). Hence, I don't want my draft versions to be slashdotted, etc. OTOH, I've been working in a bit of a vacuum, so some feedback would help. A lot. The topic, in any event, is "Model-Based Documentation" (my term :-). Here's the lead-in for the first article: Model-Based Documentation (MBD) is an integrated approach to the design and development of semi-automated document production systems. Specifically, MBD uses a consistent "system model" (at various levels of abstraction) to provide conceptual clarity, ease navigation, and guide the development process. MBD bridges the gap between traditional documentation and report generation techniques, leveraging the strengths of each. It works well for generating timely, integrated, and detailed documentation for large systems. At the same time, it facilitates the rapid prototyping of specialized documents and reports. Although I have only used MBD in a software development context, I believe it to be applicable to any substantial system that depends extensively on computers. If this sounds interesting, drop me a note and I'll give you the URL for the current drafts. -r -- email: rdm at cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com - Canta Forda Computer Laboratory http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc. _______________________________________________ SanFrancisco-pm mailing list SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm From sigje at sigje.org Wed Sep 14 11:06:57 2005 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 11:06:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [sf-perl] BayLISA meeting tomorrow Message-ID: Hi guys, The BayLISA meeting tomorrow isn't about Perl (it's Anne Henmi talking about Security in the Trenches), BUT I have recent Apress titles Pro Perl Parsing and Pro Perl Debugging as giveaways (in exchange for a review). I also have the O'Reilly recent release about Perl (can't remember the name of it right now.. Best Practices sounds about right). The Apress books are actually really nice.. hard cover, pages are solid for easy turning, and durability for long term usage. I've taken a look at them, and they look really good. We meet out in Cupertino, Apple Campus Singapore room in Building 1. 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino CA 95014 Jennifer From qw at sf.pm.org Wed Sep 14 20:37:48 2005 From: qw at sf.pm.org (Quinn Weaver) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 20:37:48 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] BayLISA meeting tomorrow In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050915033748.GB35996@cfcl.com> On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 11:06:57AM -0700, Jennifer Davis wrote: > Hi guys, > > The BayLISA meeting tomorrow isn't about Perl (it's Anne Henmi talking > about Security in the Trenches), BUT I have recent Apress titles Pro Perl > Parsing and Pro Perl Debugging as giveaways (in exchange for a review). I > also have the O'Reilly recent release about Perl (can't remember the name > of it right now.. Best Practices sounds about right). Hi again, Jennifer, Thanks for the announcement. It's good to have some cross-pollination between groups. Pro Perl Debugging was coauthored by Andy Lester, who made a special appearance at Perl Mongers in April. Very sharp guy. Perl Mongers, if you're going to take the offer (a book in exchange for a review), please consider rolling your review into a talk. A short presentation by you, followed by a discussion period, could be quite congenial. :) We can use a restaurant setting if you prefer it. -- qw (Quinn Weaver); #President, San Francisco Perl Mongers =for information, visit http://sf.pm.org/weblog =cut From andy at petdance.com Wed Sep 14 21:09:13 2005 From: andy at petdance.com (Andy Lester) Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 23:09:13 -0500 Subject: [sf-perl] BayLISA meeting tomorrow In-Reply-To: <20050915033748.GB35996@cfcl.com> References: <20050915033748.GB35996@cfcl.com> Message-ID: <04690119-612F-42EF-ABBA-E2E60D586769@petdance.com> On Sep 14, 2005, at 10:37 PM, Quinn Weaver wrote: > > Pro Perl Debugging was coauthored by Andy Lester, who made a special > appearance at Perl Mongers in April. Very sharp guy. Very nice of you to say. Thanks. To be fair, all the tech stuff is Richard. I just helped with the writing of it. The frighteningly in-depth knowledge of the debugger is all Richard's. xoxo, Andy -- Andy Lester => andy at petdance.com => www.petdance.com => AIM:petdance From rdm at cfcl.com Fri Sep 16 20:53:49 2005 From: rdm at cfcl.com (Rich Morin) Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 20:53:49 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] 'A Taste of Greece' Greek food festival Message-ID: Josh Berkus waxes rhapsodic about this: 'A Taste of Greece' Greek food festival Annunciation Cathedral, 245 Valencia, SF; (415) 864-8000, www.annunciation.org. Fri-Sat, 11am-10pm; Sun, noon-9pm. $5. Traditional Greek delicacies, wines, and music highlight this cultural festival. Vicki and I are planning to attend at about 7 pm Saturday evening. Feel free to join us (I'll be wearing a Perlish T-shirt). -r -- email: rdm at cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com - Canta Forda Computer Laboratory http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc. From josh at agliodbs.com Mon Sep 19 09:58:21 2005 From: josh at agliodbs.com (Josh Berkus) Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 09:58:21 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Message-ID: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> Folks, I'm doing some articles on XML documents and databases. I'd like to provide some examples of conversions, but I've realized that all of the real-world XML docs I have access to are poorly spec'd with inadequate (or missing) DTDs. Does someone have some textbook-perfect XML docs of low to moderate complexity, with correct DTDs, that I could use? Thanks. -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco From sfpug at keller.com Tue Sep 20 00:27:44 2005 From: sfpug at keller.com (Dan Keller) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 00:27:44 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20050920002658.025f97a8@mail.keller.com> >From: Josh Berkus >To: "San Francisco Perl Users' Group" > >Does someone have some textbook-perfect XML docs of low to moderate >complexity, with correct DTDs, that I could use? Thanks. Hi Josh -- How about the world's first XML-based training catalog? (I wrote it in 2001.) http://www.keller.com/curric/xml-versions/ Dan Keller dan at keller.com http://www.keller.com/dan +1 415 861-4500 (voice) +1 415 861-4593 (fax) From rdm at cfcl.com Tue Sep 20 10:35:07 2005 From: rdm at cfcl.com (Rich Morin) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 10:35:07 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> References: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> Message-ID: There are several ways to describe XML documents, including schemas, DTDs, Relax NG, etc. Unfortunately (AFAIK), none of these get past the "syntax" layer, to any degree. For example, if I have an XML document that is going to be used to load an RDBMS, how would I say which lists go into which tables, which "columns" are keys, etc? Nonetheless, it might be worthwhile to look for a set of XML that is documented in multiple ways, in order to compare and contrast the information provided. Here's a start... http://www.google.com/search?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&q=schema+DTD+%22Relax+NG%22 -r -- email: rdm at cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com - Canta Forda Computer Laboratory http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc. From david at fetter.org Tue Sep 20 10:42:34 2005 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 10:42:34 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: References: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> Message-ID: <20050920174234.GC25718@fetter.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 10:35:07AM -0700, Rich Morin wrote: > There are several ways to describe XML documents, including schemas, > DTDs, Relax NG, etc. Unfortunately (AFAIK), none of these get past > the "syntax" layer, to any degree. For example, if I have an XML > document that is going to be used to load an RDBMS, how would I say > which lists go into which tables, which "columns" are keys, etc? You can get a pretty good start with pgxml. :) http://developer.postgresql.org/cvsweb.cgi/pgsql/contrib/xml2/ Although it's not obvious to me how you'd automatically turn a tree into a database schema, you do have options for manipulating whole XML documents or sets of same. Cheers, D -- David Fetter david at fetter.org http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 510 893 6100 mobile: +1 415 235 3778 Remember to vote! From rdm at cfcl.com Tue Sep 20 10:53:26 2005 From: rdm at cfcl.com (Rich Morin) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 10:53:26 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: <20050920174234.GC25718@fetter.org> References: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> <20050920174234.GC25718@fetter.org> Message-ID: DF> You can get a pretty good start with pgxml. :) The link you provided is a wonderful example of one of the biggest problems in Open Source. It leads to a set of code files, but contains no information at all on why I might want to download them. The README file seemed promising, but contains nothing but release data. Sigh... DF> Although it's not obvious to me how you'd automatically turn a tree DF> into a database schema, you do have options for manipulating whole XML DF> documents or sets of same. The general problem of turning a tree into a database structure is non- trivial (at least if you want a useful result [1]). OTOH, I understand that it's possible to dump and reload a database, using XML as the transfer format. Is there a standardized way to express how this should be done? -r -- email: rdm at cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com - Canta Forda Computer Laboratory http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc. From david at fetter.org Tue Sep 20 11:11:03 2005 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 11:11:03 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: References: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> <20050920174234.GC25718@fetter.org> Message-ID: <20050920181103.GD25718@fetter.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 10:53:26AM -0700, Rich Morin wrote: > > You can get a pretty good start with pgxml. :) > > The link you provided is a wonderful example of one of the biggest > problems in Open Source. It leads to a set of code files, but > contains no information at all on why I might want to download them. > The README file seemed promising, but contains nothing but release > data. Sigh... I found this one pretty helpful. It lists dependencies, describes the functions provided and gives some examples. Patches are, of course, always welcome on the pgsql-patches mailing list. http://developer.postgresql.org/cvsweb.cgi/pgsql/contrib/xml2/README.xml2?rev=1.1.4.2;content-type=text%2Fplain > > Although it's not obvious to me how you'd automatically turn a > > tree into a database schema, you do have options for manipulating > > whole XML documents or sets of same. > > The general problem of turning a tree into a database structure is > non-trivial (at least if you want a useful result [1]). Was this [1] supposed to refer to something that I missed? > OTOH, I understand that it's possible to dump and reload a database, > using XML as the transfer format. Is there a standardized way to > express how this should be done? "The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." ;) Cheers, D -- David Fetter david at fetter.org http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 510 893 6100 mobile: +1 415 235 3778 Remember to vote! From josh at agliodbs.com Tue Sep 20 11:25:59 2005 From: josh at agliodbs.com (Josh Berkus) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 11:25:59 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: References: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> <20050920174234.GC25718@fetter.org> Message-ID: <200509201125.59665.josh@agliodbs.com> Rich, > The general problem of turning a tree into a database structure is non- > trivial (at least if you want a useful result [1]). ?OTOH, I understand > that it's possible to dump and reload a database, using XML as the > transfer format. ?Is there a standardized way to express how this should > be done? PostgreSQL? Not currently. It's been proposed but was held up by a lack of a standard XML format for table dumps. I think someone found one, but if so they've just started work. Besides, most of the discussion was about XML query output rather than dumps. Of course, "held up due to a lack of standards" could describe a lot of XML-based tech ;-) -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco From rdm at cfcl.com Tue Sep 20 11:48:51 2005 From: rdm at cfcl.com (Rich Morin) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 11:48:51 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: <20050920181103.GD25718@fetter.org> References: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> <20050920174234.GC25718@fetter.org> <20050920181103.GD25718@fetter.org> Message-ID: DF> Was this [1] supposed to refer to something that I missed? I had planned to write a footnote, but forgot to do so. So: [1] XML is a very flexible serialization format, structured as a "list of lists", where each node can have an attribute hash. URIs can be used to encode "edges", allowing arbitrary graph structures to be represented. So, it's fairly straightforward to serialize a set of RDBMS tables as XML and load them back into another database. The rules for the (de-)serialization, however, will probably be hard-coded into your dumping and loading code. Taking an arbitrary set of XML and loading it into an RDBMS, however, is a totally different proposition. Consider that any web page can be transformed (e.g., via HTML Tidy) into XHTML, which is syntactically correct XML. Care to load the result into a database? Will the results be accessible (in a reasonable manner) by SQL? Can you be sure that you picked up all of the "interesting" structural relationships? -r -- email: rdm at cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com - Canta Forda Computer Laboratory http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc. From doom at kzsu.stanford.edu Tue Sep 20 13:22:33 2005 From: doom at kzsu.stanford.edu (Joseph Brenner) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:22:33 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: References: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> <20050920174234.GC25718@fetter.org> <20050920181103.GD25718@fetter.org> Message-ID: <200509202022.j8KKMYc03906@mail0.rawbw.com> Rich Morin wrote: > So, it's fairly straightforward to serialize a set of RDBMS > tables as XML and load them back into another database. The > rules for the (de-)serialization, however, will probably be > hard-coded into your dumping and loading code. Funny, I was just in the process of doing just this sort of thing. In particular I'm noodling around how to preserve NULLs. NULLs can be mapped to undefs in perl, which usually get mapped to empty strings when written to some text format, but then that leaves you with no way to distinguish between those and fields that started out as empty (but non-NULL) VARCHARs. So, you hack in code to translate the NULL/undefs to a string "NULL"? Perhaps with additional hackery to preserve any odd ball strings containing "NULL" to start with? This is one of those things that I know has been solved a million times, but I doubt I'm going to want to bug Ops to install some CPAN modules to do it. (By the way, has anyone noticed that XML::Simple can't always read in the files that it writes? Fun.) From david at fetter.org Tue Sep 20 13:32:47 2005 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:32:47 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: <200509202022.j8KKMYc03906@mail0.rawbw.com> References: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> <20050920174234.GC25718@fetter.org> <20050920181103.GD25718@fetter.org> <200509202022.j8KKMYc03906@mail0.rawbw.com> Message-ID: <20050920203247.GB27518@fetter.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 01:22:33PM -0700, Joseph Brenner wrote: > > Rich Morin wrote: > > > So, it's fairly straightforward to serialize a set of RDBMS > > tables as XML and load them back into another database. The > > rules for the (de-)serialization, however, will probably be > > hard-coded into your dumping and loading code. > > Funny, I was just in the process of doing just this sort of thing. > > In particular I'm noodling around how to preserve NULLs. One thing I've done is an is_null boolean attribute that can only be true for things that contain an empty string. > This is one of those things that I know has been solved a million > times, but I doubt I'm going to want to bug Ops to install some CPAN > modules to do it. > > (By the way, has anyone noticed that XML::Simple can't always read > in the files that it writes? Fun.) I've noticed that as a rule, Java, C and C++ libraries appear to handle XML a lot better than Perl does. Maybe I've just been using the wrong libraries... Cheers, D -- David Fetter david at fetter.org http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 510 893 6100 mobile: +1 415 235 3778 Remember to vote! From david at fetter.org Tue Sep 20 13:37:58 2005 From: david at fetter.org (David Fetter) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:37:58 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: References: <200509190958.21733.josh@agliodbs.com> <20050920174234.GC25718@fetter.org> <20050920181103.GD25718@fetter.org> Message-ID: <20050920203758.GC27518@fetter.org> On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 11:48:51AM -0700, Rich Morin wrote: > DF> Was this [1] supposed to refer to something that I missed? > > I had planned to write a footnote, but forgot to do so. So: > > [1] XML is a very flexible serialization format, structured as a > "list of lists", where each node can have an attribute hash. URIs > can be used to encode "edges", allowing arbitrary graph structures > to be represented. > > So, it's fairly straightforward to serialize a set of RDBMS tables > as XML and load them back into another database. The rules for the > (de-)serialization, however, will probably be hard-coded into your > dumping and loading code. Might be, but why would you want to jam stuff into a tree structure and wrench it back out again? XML is indeed an excellent serialization format *for tree structures.* It's lousy for anything else. > Taking an arbitrary set of XML and loading it into an RDBMS, > however, is a totally different proposition. Consider that any web > page can be transformed (e.g., via HTML Tidy) into XHTML, which is > syntactically correct XML. Care to load the result into a database? See pgxml. What is the problem? > Will the results be accessible (in a reasonable manner) by SQL? Can > you be sure that you picked up all of the "interesting" structural > relationships? With an ORDBMS like PostgreSQL, you don't need to make that decision ahead of time. You just load the XML in its native form and use xpath tools (or whatever ones you like) combined with SQL. Cheers, D -- David Fetter david at fetter.org http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 510 893 6100 mobile: +1 415 235 3778 Remember to vote! From ASIGMUND at altera.com Tue Sep 20 13:39:09 2005 From: ASIGMUND at altera.com (Andrew Sigmund) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:39:09 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Message-ID: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C0@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> It might help to think of NULLs as the DBMS thinks of them, that is, not as values themselves, but as the absence of a value in a column that doesn't require a value. NULLability is an attribute of the column, and a column of any data-type (VARCHAR, INT, DATETIME, etc.) may have this attribute, and therefore not have a value, that is, "have a NULL value". Andrew Sigmund -----Original Message----- From: sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org [mailto:sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org] On Behalf Of Joseph Brenner Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 13:23 To: San Francisco Perl Mongers User Group Subject: Re: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Rich Morin wrote: > So, it's fairly straightforward to serialize a set of RDBMS > tables as XML and load them back into another database. The > rules for the (de-)serialization, however, will probably be > hard-coded into your dumping and loading code. Funny, I was just in the process of doing just this sort of thing. In particular I'm noodling around how to preserve NULLs. NULLs can be mapped to undefs in perl, which usually get mapped to empty strings when written to some text format, but then that leaves you with no way to distinguish between those and fields that started out as empty (but non-NULL) VARCHARs. So, you hack in code to translate the NULL/undefs to a string "NULL"? Perhaps with additional hackery to preserve any odd ball strings containing "NULL" to start with? This is one of those things that I know has been solved a million times, but I doubt I'm going to want to bug Ops to install some CPAN modules to do it. (By the way, has anyone noticed that XML::Simple can't always read in the files that it writes? Fun.) _______________________________________________ SanFrancisco-pm mailing list SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm From doom at kzsu.stanford.edu Tue Sep 20 15:56:55 2005 From: doom at kzsu.stanford.edu (Joseph Brenner) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 15:56:55 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C0@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> References: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C0@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> Message-ID: <200509202256.j8KMutc30082@mail0.rawbw.com> Andrew Sigmund wrote: > Joseph Brenner wrote: > > > > Rich Morin wrote: > > > > > So, it's fairly straightforward to serialize a set of RDBMS > > > tables as XML and load them back into another database. The > > > rules for the (de-)serialization, however, will probably be > > > hard-coded into your dumping and loading code. > > > > Funny, I was just in the process of doing just this sort of thing. > > > > In particular I'm noodling around how to preserve NULLs. > > > > NULLs can be mapped to undefs in perl, which usually get mapped to > > empty strings when written to some text format, but then that leaves > > you with no way to distinguish between those and fields that started > > out as empty (but non-NULL) VARCHARs. > > > > So, you hack in code to translate the NULL/undefs to a string "NULL"? > > Perhaps with additional hackery to preserve any odd ball strings > > containing "NULL" to start with? > It might help to think of NULLs as the DBMS thinks of them, that is, not > as values themselves, but as the absence of a value in a column that > doesn't require a value. NULLability is an attribute of the column, and > a column of any data-type (VARCHAR, INT, DATETIME, etc.) may have this > attribute, and therefore not have a value, that is, "have a NULL value". But how exactly does that help? My problem is convincing the filesystem to think of them the same way the DB does. What I want to do is to perfectly preserve some table state by dumping the contents to files. I want to be able to run tests on some existing code, then reset the tables the code uses to a known state, and then re-run the tests. My presumption is that somewhere in the code something may care that a field is NULL rather than empty: that's why I'm worrying about preserving NULLs. From josh at agliodbs.com Tue Sep 20 17:49:45 2005 From: josh at agliodbs.com (Josh Berkus) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 17:49:45 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] [jobs] Anyone want to move to Seattle? Message-ID: <200509201749.45575.josh@agliodbs.com> Folks, Whitepages.com (a big PGSQL user) just sent me this, they're looking for perl hackers: -------------------- W H I T E P A G E S.C O M ?| ?I N C 206.812.9216 (Direct) ? | ? 206.271.9267 (Cell) dwilburn at whitepages.com www.whitepagesinc.com ? Software Engineer: ? What We Do: We develop Perl-based technologies for leading Open Source, high-volume websites and applications in the directory services space. Our developers aid in the architecture, design, and implementation of our core technologies. ?We don't write Perl scripts; we develop cutting edge OOP applications. ? What We're Looking for: We're looking for smart, capable, passionate Perl developers who take ownership and pride in their work. We are geeks with a mission, working for a company with strong business focus. If you love Perl, you will want to work with us. ?Preferred experience includes: * ? ? ? ? Experience developing object-oriented Perl applications. * ? ? ? ? Solid MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Oracle skills. * ? ? ? ? History working with Linux, CVS, and other Open Source development tools. * ? ? ? ? Ability to troubleshoot both your own and other's code. * ? ? ? ? Ability to write clear and understandable technical documentation. * ? ? ? ? Strong knowledge of Apache and mod_perl and/or OO Perl. * ? ? ? ? Working knowledge of XML, XSLT, XHTML, and JavaScript. * ? ? ? ? Desire to mentor others. * ? ? ? ? Ability to work both individually and in a group. * ? ? ? ? Dedication to learning and advancing your skills. * ? ? ? ? 4-year Computer Science degree or equivalent experience. Why You Want To Work Here: You will be surrounded by some of the best Perl developers in the industry. You will have opportunities to hone your technical skill set through our mentoring program and external training benefits. We encourage our developers to be active in the Perl and Open Source communities. We provide an excellent work environment with flexible workstation configuration (OS, editor, VMWare, dual headed workstation, etc). Our internal promotion ladder provides opportunity for career advancement. In addition to our competitive compensation package, we provide training and book allowances, free lunch Fridays, free snacks and soda, and quarterly company-sponsored events. We are in the heart of downtown Seattle surrounded by great restaurants and interesting places. ? Recent Company Awards: * ? ? ? ? ? Named 2005 Consumer Product of the Year by the WSA. * ? ? ? ? ? Top 10 fastest-growing companies in the Puget Sound by the Puget Sound Business Journal. * ? ? ? ? ? Rated one of the top companies to work for by Washington CEO Magazine. -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco From rdm at cfcl.com Tue Sep 20 23:28:41 2005 From: rdm at cfcl.com (Rich Morin) Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 23:28:41 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] list of tools for mechanized document production, etc. Message-ID: I've assembled a list of Open Source tools for mechanized document production, etc. Comments welcome: http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/mbd_series_drafts/MBD_Tool_Table.html -r -- email: rdm at cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com - Canta Forda Computer Laboratory http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc. From smurph at kzsu.stanford.edu Wed Sep 21 10:08:24 2005 From: smurph at kzsu.stanford.edu (Robert Wise) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 10:08:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [sf-perl] [job] Software Engineer position at Six Apart (fwd) Message-ID: <20050921100401.U22658@kzsu.stanford.edu> This came through the Six Apart developers mailing list today. They are the folks that make Movable Type bloging software and are mostly a perl shop. -smurph ------ Forwarded Message From: Jay Allen Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 17:52:35 -0700 To: Six Apart Professional Network Subject: [ProNet] [GIG] Work for Six Apart! Many of you on this list have probably seen our jobs listing page[1] but what you may not know is that we are aggressively hiring for a number of positions **including** an engineering position on the Movable Type team[2]. The people subscribed to this list make up the best and brightest Movable Type developers in the world NOT working for Six Apart and that's precisely who we're looking for. If you've got mad Perl skills and have ever wished that you could just fix [insert pet peeve or missing feature here] in the core application code or really understand the breadth and depth of everything we're doing on the Movable Type team or at Six Apart, this is the job you've been waiting for. If you're interested, simply drop me a line with your resume (preferably PDF or text). If you know someone else who would be perfect for the job, feel free to forward them this email. Or if Perl programming isn't your style, we've got a whole slew of other jobs we're hiring for[1], so make sure to check them out. As many of you all probably know, I too was a third-party Movable Type developer for a number of years and I can say that working for Six Apart has thus far been one of the best decisions I've ever made for my career. The people here are fantastic, insanely intelligent and FUN. The company's atmosphere is both casual and aggressive and we're going to do some really great things. All things considered, this is a really good time to join us. Of course, for those of you who cannot for one reason or another, as always, we appreciate your efforts in making the Movable Type development community such a vibrant and dynamic one. I hope to hear from you soon, Jay Allen Product Manager - Movable Type Six Apart http://www.sixapart.com/ ------ End of Forwarded Message From qw at sf.pm.org Wed Sep 21 12:51:40 2005 From: qw at sf.pm.org (Quinn Weaver) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 12:51:40 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] RReminder::Meeting Tuesday::Single sign-on with Tony Stubblebine Message-ID: <20050921195140.GB50909@cfcl.com> This is a reminder that we're meeting Tuesday for a talk on single sign-on by O'Reilly luminary Tony Stubblebine. Note the need to RSVP, to dfetter at perpetual.com . If you want pizza, please bring some cash. Here is the complete announcement, brought to you by the magic of cut and paste. (As always, these details are also available at http://sf.pm.org/weblog . ) * * * Tony Stubblebine of O'Reilly will speak about doing web single-sign on in Perl. Tony's spoken here before, and he's always articulate, personable, and fun to talk with. We will have pizza for this event. Please bring $10 to $15 (depending on your appetite) to cover your share. If you plan to attend, RSVP ASAP to dfetter at perpetual.com because 1. Security will need your name in order to let you in. 2. I need to know how much pizza to order. 3. It's nice to be considerate and help with capacity planning. Date: Tuesday, September 27 Time: 8:00pm Place: Perpetual Entertainment 149 New Montgomery Street 5th Floor San Francisco Parking in downtown San Francisco around 8:00pm is doable, but leave yourself some time. You're probably best off arriving via BART to Montgomery station. Caltrain is not recommended, as they have two trains running south between 10:00 and midnight. -- qw (Quinn Weaver); #President, San Francisco Perl Mongers =for information, visit http://sf.pm.org/weblog =cut From ASIGMUND at altera.com Thu Sep 22 08:38:10 2005 From: ASIGMUND at altera.com (Andrew Sigmund) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:38:10 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Message-ID: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C4@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> Every value for every NULLable column consists of two parts: A flag indicating whether or not a value is present, and the value itself. Although this seems like overkill when you actually have values (if you have a value, then it's obviously there (not NULL)), it is just the thing for distinguishing between absent values (NULLs) and "empty" strings. Alternatively, I suppose you could simply not include anything about the column in rows in which the value is null. Example: ColumnB is not null and not empty: 123MyString456 ColumnB is not null, but is an empty string: 123456 ColumnB is null: 123456 -----Original Message----- From: sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org [mailto:sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org] On Behalf Of Joseph Brenner Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 15:57 To: San Francisco Perl Mongers User Group Subject: Re: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Andrew Sigmund wrote: > Joseph Brenner wrote: > > > > Rich Morin wrote: > > > > > So, it's fairly straightforward to serialize a set of RDBMS > > > tables as XML and load them back into another database. The > > > rules for the (de-)serialization, however, will probably be > > > hard-coded into your dumping and loading code. > > > > Funny, I was just in the process of doing just this sort of thing. > > > > In particular I'm noodling around how to preserve NULLs. > > > > NULLs can be mapped to undefs in perl, which usually get mapped to > > empty strings when written to some text format, but then that leaves > > you with no way to distinguish between those and fields that started > > out as empty (but non-NULL) VARCHARs. > > > > So, you hack in code to translate the NULL/undefs to a string "NULL"? > > Perhaps with additional hackery to preserve any odd ball strings > > containing "NULL" to start with? > It might help to think of NULLs as the DBMS thinks of them, that is, not > as values themselves, but as the absence of a value in a column that > doesn't require a value. NULLability is an attribute of the column, and > a column of any data-type (VARCHAR, INT, DATETIME, etc.) may have this > attribute, and therefore not have a value, that is, "have a NULL value". But how exactly does that help? My problem is convincing the filesystem to think of them the same way the DB does. What I want to do is to perfectly preserve some table state by dumping the contents to files. I want to be able to run tests on some existing code, then reset the tables the code uses to a known state, and then re-run the tests. My presumption is that somewhere in the code something may care that a field is NULL rather than empty: that's why I'm worrying about preserving NULLs. _______________________________________________ SanFrancisco-pm mailing list SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm From josh at agliodbs.com Thu Sep 22 09:11:27 2005 From: josh at agliodbs.com (Josh Berkus) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 09:11:27 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C4@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> References: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C4@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> Message-ID: <4332D7AF.6070409@agliodbs.com> Andrew, > Example: > ColumnB is not null and not empty: > 123MyString456 > > ColumnB is not null, but is an empty string: > 123456 > > ColumnB is null: > 123456 Are XML parsers going to treat (2) any differently from (3), though? That is, if I hand an XML application (2), might it return (3) instead or vice-versa? Also, what about data types which don't support zero-length-strings (ZLS), like dates? My general inclination would be to treat all ZLS as NULLs in the database, unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise or unless the value is defined as "required" in the DTD. Anyway, this is *terrific* food for thought. BTW, what was the name of the CPAN module for SQL-->XML conversion which was demoed at SFPerl abotu 6months ago? --Josh From garth at perijove.com Thu Sep 22 09:13:59 2005 From: garth at perijove.com (Garth Webb) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 09:13:59 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C4@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> References: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C4@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> Message-ID: <1127405640.4287.73.camel@localhost.localdomain> Why not use an empty element for NULL values? stuffstuff Garth On Thu, 2005-09-22 at 08:38 -0700, Andrew Sigmund wrote: > Every value for every NULLable column consists of two parts: A flag > indicating whether or not a value is present, and the value itself. > Although this seems like overkill when you actually have values (if you > have a value, then it's obviously there (not NULL)), it is just the > thing for distinguishing between absent values (NULLs) and "empty" > strings. > > > Alternatively, I suppose you could simply not include anything about the > column in rows in which the value is null. > > Example: > ColumnB is not null and not empty: > 123MyString456 > > ColumnB is not null, but is an empty string: > 123456 > > ColumnB is null: > 123456 > > -----Original Message----- > From: sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org > [mailto:sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org] On Behalf Of Joseph Brenner > Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 15:57 > To: San Francisco Perl Mongers User Group > Subject: Re: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? > > > Andrew Sigmund wrote: > > > Joseph Brenner wrote: > > > > > > Rich Morin wrote: > > > > > > > So, it's fairly straightforward to serialize a set of RDBMS > > > > tables as XML and load them back into another database. The > > > > rules for the (de-)serialization, however, will probably be > > > > hard-coded into your dumping and loading code. > > > > > > Funny, I was just in the process of doing just this sort of thing. > > > > > > In particular I'm noodling around how to preserve NULLs. > > > > > > NULLs can be mapped to undefs in perl, which usually get mapped to > > > empty strings when written to some text format, but then that leaves > > > you with no way to distinguish between those and fields that started > > > out as empty (but non-NULL) VARCHARs. > > > > > > So, you hack in code to translate the NULL/undefs to a string > "NULL"? > > > Perhaps with additional hackery to preserve any odd ball strings > > > containing "NULL" to start with? > > > It might help to think of NULLs as the DBMS thinks of them, that is, > not > > as values themselves, but as the absence of a value in a column that > > doesn't require a value. NULLability is an attribute of the column, > and > > a column of any data-type (VARCHAR, INT, DATETIME, etc.) may have this > > attribute, and therefore not have a value, that is, "have a NULL > value". > > But how exactly does that help? My problem is convincing the filesystem > > to think of them the same way the DB does. > > What I want to do is to perfectly preserve some table state by dumping > the contents to files. I want to be able to run tests on some existing > code, then reset the tables the code uses to a known state, and then > re-run the tests. > > My presumption is that somewhere in the code something may care that > a field is NULL rather than empty: that's why I'm worrying about > preserving NULLs. > > _______________________________________________ > SanFrancisco-pm mailing list > SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm > > > _______________________________________________ > SanFrancisco-pm mailing list > SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm From ASIGMUND at altera.com Thu Sep 22 09:42:49 2005 From: ASIGMUND at altera.com (Andrew Sigmund) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 09:42:49 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Message-ID: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C6@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> Josh, >> Are XML parsers going to treat (2) any differently from (3), though? Good question. I'm more a database guy than an XML guy. Those examples were from my "alternate" solution. I still believe that the best (only?) solution involves something external to the value itself to tell you that no value exists (that is, is NULL), and that attempts to kludge some sort of flag value to tell you whether or not the value actually exists (is NULL or not) is akin to inserting a Hydra's head into the design. Examples (for the original proposal): ColumnB is not NULL and not an empty string: FALSEMyString ColumnB is not NULL, but an empty string: FALSE ColumnB is NULL: TRUE >> Also, what about data types which don't support zero-length-strings >> (ZLS), like dates? I'm not sure I understand the question. (Perhaps due to my na?ve understanding of XML.) In (modern) databases, a column of any data-type should be NULLable. The parser should attempt to decode (or encode) the value string enclosed by only when IsNULL is FALSE. Andy -----Original Message----- From: sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org [mailto:sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 09:11 To: San Francisco Perl Mongers User Group Subject: Re: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Andrew, > Example: > ColumnB is not null and not empty: > 123MyString456 > > ColumnB is not null, but is an empty string: > 123456 > > ColumnB is null: > 123456 Are XML parsers going to treat (2) any differently from (3), though? That is, if I hand an XML application (2), might it return (3) instead or vice-versa? Also, what about data types which don't support zero-length-strings (ZLS), like dates? My general inclination would be to treat all ZLS as NULLs in the database, unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise or unless the value is defined as "required" in the DTD. Anyway, this is *terrific* food for thought. BTW, what was the name of the CPAN module for SQL-->XML conversion which was demoed at SFPerl abotu 6months ago? --Josh _______________________________________________ SanFrancisco-pm mailing list SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm From ASIGMUND at altera.com Thu Sep 22 10:06:45 2005 From: ASIGMUND at altera.com (Andrew Sigmund) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 10:06:45 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Message-ID: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C7@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> Josh, Oops: I neglected to respond to your other points. >> My general inclination would be to treat all ZLS as NULLs in the >> database, unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise or unless the >> value is defined as "required" in the DTD. For "required" columns, every row must have a value, so NULLs don't exist by definition, and a ZLS is always just that, a ZLS. For non-"required" columns, we must be able to distinguish between an empty string (ZLS) and a NULL. This may be your "specific reason to do otherwise". For some applications, treating the absence of a value (a NULL) as a ZLS is OK, but for other applications, the difference can be significant. A NULL does not indicate "nothing" (as an empty string does for a string or 0 does for a number; it indicates that the value is unknown (or not applicable). I am not familiar with the CPAN module for SQL-->XML conversion. Andy -----Original Message----- From: sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org [mailto:sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Sigmund Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 09:43 To: San Francisco Perl Mongers User Group Subject: Re: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Josh, >> Are XML parsers going to treat (2) any differently from (3), though? Good question. I'm more a database guy than an XML guy. Those examples were from my "alternate" solution. I still believe that the best (only?) solution involves something external to the value itself to tell you that no value exists (that is, is NULL), and that attempts to kludge some sort of flag value to tell you whether or not the value actually exists (is NULL or not) is akin to inserting a Hydra's head into the design. Examples (for the original proposal): ColumnB is not NULL and not an empty string: FALSEMyString ColumnB is not NULL, but an empty string: FALSE ColumnB is NULL: TRUE >> Also, what about data types which don't support zero-length-strings >> (ZLS), like dates? I'm not sure I understand the question. (Perhaps due to my na?ve understanding of XML.) In (modern) databases, a column of any data-type should be NULLable. The parser should attempt to decode (or encode) the value string enclosed by only when IsNULL is FALSE. Andy -----Original Message----- From: sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org [mailto:sanfrancisco-pm-bounces at pm.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 09:11 To: San Francisco Perl Mongers User Group Subject: Re: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? Andrew, > Example: > ColumnB is not null and not empty: > 123MyString456 > > ColumnB is not null, but is an empty string: > 123456 > > ColumnB is null: > 123456 Are XML parsers going to treat (2) any differently from (3), though? That is, if I hand an XML application (2), might it return (3) instead or vice-versa? Also, what about data types which don't support zero-length-strings (ZLS), like dates? My general inclination would be to treat all ZLS as NULLs in the database, unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise or unless the value is defined as "required" in the DTD. Anyway, this is *terrific* food for thought. BTW, what was the name of the CPAN module for SQL-->XML conversion which was demoed at SFPerl abotu 6months ago? --Josh _______________________________________________ SanFrancisco-pm mailing list SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm _______________________________________________ SanFrancisco-pm mailing list SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm From cjm at fruitfly.org Thu Sep 22 11:56:55 2005 From: cjm at fruitfly.org (chris mungall) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 11:56:55 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Some well-formed XML? In-Reply-To: <4332D7AF.6070409@agliodbs.com> References: <75B36BC5E7F1EC499A046ACFFD5F1D330784C4@SJ-ISMSG01.altera.priv.altera.com> <4332D7AF.6070409@agliodbs.com> Message-ID: <31b5d713e8180e4fbc3fe8651d903d87@fruitfly.org> On Sep 22, 2005, at 9:11 AM, Josh Berkus wrote: > Andrew, > >> Example: >> ColumnB is not null and not empty: >> 123MyString456> ColumnC> >> >> ColumnB is not null, but is an empty string: >> 123456 >> >> ColumnB is null: >> 123456 > > Are XML parsers going to treat (2) any differently from (3), though? > That is, if I hand an XML application (2), might it return (3) instead > or vice-versa? I believe all XML parsers should treat #2 differently from #3 However, the problem with this solution is that it precludes the possibility of using XML to specify subsets of the list of columns, for example with update operations > Also, what about data types which don't support zero-length-strings > (ZLS), like dates? > > My general inclination would be to treat all ZLS as NULLs in the > database, unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise or unless the > value is defined as "required" in the DTD. > > Anyway, this is *terrific* food for thought. BTW, what was the name of > the CPAN module for SQL-->XML conversion which was demoed at SFPerl > abotu 6months ago? I don't think it was as long as 6 months ago.. DBIx::DBStag http://stag.sourceforge.net > --Josh > _______________________________________________ > SanFrancisco-pm mailing list > SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm From qw at sf.pm.org Fri Sep 23 18:15:47 2005 From: qw at sf.pm.org (Quinn Weaver) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:15:47 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Superuser meeting November 12, 2005 Message-ID: <20050924011547.GC75056@cfcl.com> Jennifer Davis of BayLISA just wrote with some interesting news. They're organizing a summit of local users' groups, in association with USENIX. The idea is to give us a chance to meet and greet and cross-pollinate ideas (and maybe speakers?) It's scheduled for November 12. As a plus, the event is at the Computer History Museum, and it will include a private tour. ;) (Note, that's in Mountain View.) The catch is, space is limited. If any of you are interested, please email me, and I'll pass your names along. (I will definitely be going myself.) The sooner you respond, the better the chance that spaces are open, and not snarfed up by some rival like the hated PostgreSQL Users' Group*. Details are hot off the presses at http://www.usenix.org/events/baysug05/ * For the humor-impaired, that was a joke. We love SFPostgreSQLUG. -- qw (Quinn Weaver); #President, San Francisco Perl Mongers =for information, visit http://sf.pm.org/weblog =cut From bob.goolsby at gmail.com Fri Sep 23 20:05:32 2005 From: bob.goolsby at gmail.com (Bob goolsby) Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 20:05:32 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Superuser meeting November 12, 2005 In-Reply-To: <20050924011547.GC75056@cfcl.com> References: <20050924011547.GC75056@cfcl.com> Message-ID: <1a208dd05092320055b418d86@mail.gmail.com> Yes I am interested. I am working in Sunnyvale, so MtV is actually on the way home, sorta. Bob G On 9/23/05, Quinn Weaver wrote: > Jennifer Davis of BayLISA just wrote with some interesting news. > They're organizing a summit of local users' groups, in association > with USENIX. The idea is to give us a chance to meet and > greet and cross-pollinate ideas (and maybe speakers?) > It's scheduled for November 12. > > As a plus, the event is at the Computer History Museum, and it will > include a private tour. ;) (Note, that's in Mountain View.) > > The catch is, space is limited. If any of you are interested, please > email me, and I'll pass your names along. (I will definitely be going > myself.) The sooner you respond, the better the chance that spaces > are open, and not snarfed up by some rival like the hated PostgreSQL > Users' Group*. > > Details are hot off the presses at http://www.usenix.org/events/baysug05/ > > > > > > > * For the humor-impaired, that was a joke. We love SFPostgreSQLUG. > > -- > qw (Quinn Weaver); #President, San Francisco Perl Mongers > =for information, visit http://sf.pm.org/weblog =cut > > _______________________________________________ > SanFrancisco-pm mailing list > SanFrancisco-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm > From oserj at OserConsulting.com Mon Sep 26 09:05:06 2005 From: oserj at OserConsulting.com (Jim Oser) Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 09:05:06 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] North Coast Mac Users Group and Santa Rosa Junior College Sponsors Free Mac Expo Message-ID: <089649612d763d1b36901da0ccb4c888@OserConsulting.com> Hi, Quinn thanks for the heads up about the Usenix meeting on Novemeber 12, I would like to go. Also if anyone is going from Marin or further up 101, I would like to carpool. Here's another meeting that may be of interest to someone in this group. This expo won't be technical but it is still fun to go to. > North Coast Mac Users Group http://www.ncmug.org > Contact: president at ncmug.org 707 481-7692 > > Santa Rosa Junior College Co-Sponsors Free Computer Expo > > Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) has teamed up with the North Coast > Mac > Users Group (NCMUG) to co-sponsor the 13th annual Mac Computer Expo. > The > event will be held on Saturday October 1st in the SRJC cafeteria from > 9:30 > am to 3:30 pm. > > Nationally known computer experts will give free seminars on the latest > tech topics such as Podcasting and Tiger OS tips and tricks. Several > dozen vendors will > display the latest Macintosh computer toys and tools, along with > plenty of software > and accessories that are compatible with Windows. > > An iPod Shuffle will be raffled off every hour of the event. Raffle > participants need not be present to win. Raffle proceeds will go > toward the North Coast Mac > Users Group Community Outreach Program. > > The event is free to the public, although there is a $3.00 fee for > on-campus parking. Details about the event are at http://www.ncmug.org. > > The seminar speakers include the following- > > Bert Monroy, Photoshop expert, digital art pioneer > Jim Heid, iLife guru, author > Rik Myslewski, editor MacAddict magazine, Keynote speaker > Dean Velez, Emmy-winning animator, Adobe After Effects expert > Tom Negrino, author, MacWorld magazine contributor > Dori Smith, author, Java and widgets expert > Ronnie Roche, Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist, consultant, Design > Solutions > Jack Harrington, Pod casting Jim Oser Oser Computer Solutions 113 Santa Maria Drive Novato, CA. 94947 www.OserConsulting.com Office: 415-892-0860 Cell: 415-710-1329 From qw at sf.pm.org Tue Sep 27 12:06:21 2005 From: qw at sf.pm.org (Quinn Weaver) Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 12:06:21 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Last-minute reminder: Tony Stubblebine talk tonight Message-ID: <20050927190621.GA81131@cfcl.com> This is a last-minute reminder: we're meeting tonight at 8:00 for a talk on single sign-on by O'Reilly luminary Tony Stubblebine. Note the need to RSVP, to dfetter at perpetual.com . If you want pizza, please bring some cash (preferrably not twenties ;) ). Here is the complete announcement, brought to you by the magic of cut and paste. (As always, these details are also available at http://sf.pm.org/weblog . ) * * * Tony Stubblebine of O'Reilly will speak about doing web single-sign on in Perl. Tony's spoken here before, and he's always articulate, personable, and fun to talk with. We will have pizza for this event. Please bring $10 to $15 (depending on your appetite) to cover your share. If you plan to attend, RSVP ASAP to dfetter at perpetual.com because 1. Security will need your name in order to let you in. 2. I need to know how much pizza to order. 3. It's nice to be considerate and help with capacity planning. Date: Tuesday, September 27 Time: 8:00pm Place: Perpetual Entertainment 149 New Montgomery Street 5th Floor San Francisco Parking in downtown San Francisco around 8:00pm is doable, but leave yourself some time. You're probably best off arriving via BART to Montgomery station. Caltrain is not recommended, as they have two trains running south between 10:00 and midnight. -- qw (Quinn Weaver); #President, San Francisco Perl Mongers =for information, visit http://sf.pm.org/weblog =cut From rdm at cfcl.com Wed Sep 28 09:35:16 2005 From: rdm at cfcl.com (Rich Morin) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 09:35:16 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] Ruby on Rails slides Message-ID: Most of the Ruby on Rails summaries I've found are a bit long-winded, but this set of slides covers the main points quite admirably: http://rubyforge.org/docman/view.php/251/199/WorkinOnTheRailsRoad.pdf -r -- email: rdm at cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com - Canta Forda Computer Laboratory http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc. From rdm at cfcl.com Wed Sep 28 10:36:37 2005 From: rdm at cfcl.com (Rich Morin) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 10:36:37 -0700 Subject: [sf-perl] And now for something completely different... Message-ID: Craig Latta's Quoth is a "dynamic interactive fiction system": Quoth is a dynamic interactive fiction system, in which authoring is done from a player's perspective, from within the running work. Quoth draws upon the concepts of pervasive anthropomorphisation, executable natural language, and revisionist narrative. -- http://www.netjam.org/projects/quoth Before trying to understand all that, however, see the demo: http://netjam.org/quoth/demo -r -- email: rdm at cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com - Canta Forda Computer Laboratory http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc.