Thanks for the link, Fred. <br><br>I'm writing because I'm a solo-practice lawyer in MIssoula, MT and not a coder. My practice focuses on poverty law issues and domestic violence. I keep three active contested pro bono cases for low-income clients and work often on issues impacting low-income communities with service providers that could be accurately described as chronically under-funded. <br>
<br>
>From 1999-2002, Imanaged a field office for the Domestic Violence Unit
of Montana Legal Services Association with no IT budget which is how I
acquired my interest in FOSS.<br><br>I also use FOSS exclusively in my law practice and have been. interested in bash and perl for a number of years. I've followed this list with moderate interest for what feels like a long time though I confess that I understand comparatively little of what I read. <br>
<br>Over the years, I've advocated the benefit to clients and practitioners in legal
services and public defender programs of adopting FOSS, divesting from
proprietary licenses, promoting "nuts & bolts" IT literacy and
building a FOSS client and professional community. There's been some
interest.<br><br>The writer of the article you linked urged coders to consider using demonstrating how perl may be used to solve the problems of "normal" persons. I hope more perl coders will consider working with lawyers and social workers who work with low-income communities and teach them how perl can improve their service delivery, grant auditing and --- indirectly ---- promote vocational training and a homegrown IT support community among the community members they serve. <br>
<br>One of the biggest problems I encounter in my efforts to apply what I learn about perl to professional problems is the orientation among other lawyers and among coders who help them toward vendor software solutions rather than literacy and skill-building. <br>
<br>I wish there was a perl intro that taught lawyers how to munge data
between formats. I work with a lot of heavily formatted documents
created by various applications and spend way too much time retyping
text, reformatting text and cutting and pasting. <br><br>It's humorous that
there's a tool as powerful as perl that could eliminate most if not all
of my daily problems if I only knew how to use it fluently. At my current learning rate, I
estimate that I'll reach the requisite level perl (& bash) literacy
in years rather than months. And it's already been years. That seems a little silly. <br><br>When, for example, I tell coders or lawyers that I want to use bash and perl to munge my bank's .txt files into .csv files, I can sometimes encounter some resistance. There is sometimes a gap in worldview that is challenging to bridge for practical problem-solving purposes. (And I've been told that I'm a reasonably patient small town lawyer when it comes to IT topics.)<br>
<br>I'm happy learning, and (like many non-coders) must go at my own pace. But it would be good to have help. <br><br>Anyway . . . I hope this perspective is interesting and helps to stimulate thought and/or discussion on the article which I greatly enjoyed.<br>
<br>Regards,<br><br>Monte<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Fred Moyer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fred@redhotpenguin.com">fred@redhotpenguin.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I found this an interested read -<br>
<a href="http://code.foo.no/2010/07/21/moving-perl-up-the-value-chain" target="_blank">http://code.foo.no/2010/07/21/moving-perl-up-the-value-chain</a><br>
<br>
<br>
Also, we will have a few copies of Perl Best Practices at the meeting<br>
next Tuesday to give away. Thanks to O'Reilly for donating those!<br>
RSVP at Meetup -<br>
<a href="http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-Perl-Mongers/calendar/14082571/" target="_blank">http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-Perl-Mongers/calendar/14082571/</a><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
SanFrancisco-pm mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:SanFrancisco-pm@pm.org">SanFrancisco-pm@pm.org</a><br>
<a href="http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm" target="_blank">http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/sanfrancisco-pm</a><br>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Monte Jewell, PC, Attorney at Law <br>P.O. Box 7083<br>Missoula, MT 59807-7083<br><a href="mailto:mjewell@openmissoula.org">mjewell@openmissoula.org</a><br>v. 406 546 1414<br>
________<br><br>