From rise at frii.com Tue Jan 2 01:42:55 2001 From: rise at frii.com (Jonathan Conway) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Font width/length for CGI scripts using CSS In-Reply-To: <3A4E2D58.CB70446@fsl.noaa.gov> Message-ID: On Sat, 30 Dec 2000, Scott Longmore wrote: > Not really worried about lynx w3m or emacs...as our customers will > be accessing these documents via netscape or ie through T1 connections. If you can rely on Netscape there's an HTML solution using a proprietary tag. The extension is designed to allow you to flow text (and presumable other HTML elements) over multiple column layouts. Basically you define a multicol element with a specified number of columns (and gutter, width, style etc.) and Netscape automatically balances the text over that number of columns. Unfortunately this requires Netscape 4+ (I haven't tried it with Mozilla or Netscape 6), but if you can use this option there's reasonably detailed discussion starting on page 466 of "HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide" (Musciano & Kennedy, O'Reilly and Assoc., 0-596-00026-X). The one saving grace of going this way is that non-Netscape browsers will ignore the tag and fall back to single column so you won't render the material unreadable. > This is the way its currently being done now...were using framemaker > manually to generate pdf files and postscript files. the postscript > files are then converted to png files which are then put on the web > page...ugly huh...the pdf file is a linked into the html files so > customers can download and print it out. Given that the Acrobat reader plugin for most platforms can display in the browser frame I'm not sure what displaying in an image format gains you except the compression PNG offers. > Essentially...Im trying to automate the generation of a newsletter > that can go on the web in html and create a downloadable pdf file by > having the newsletter writer, scientist..not computer inclined , > write a text file...that I can slurp in and dump into a nicely > standardized and formated html file...need to be able to use > columns..as he is use to seeing journal format...also will need to be > able to embed images here and there. Were trying to get rid of > framemaker and all the different image/file conversions....esentilly > smooth out the process. Unfortunately this is one of the areas that HTML really falls down on in terms of control over rendering. If you're looking at it from a "Semantic Web" point of view it's not something you'd want to do. :) Outside of the solution you're going to keep running into the variable font size/face issue you originally inquired about. The only way I can think of to get reasonably consistent results is setting face & size to some fixed-width font with a style sheet and then doing your column division based on character count. As soon as somebody overrides your settings the design will get messed up, but that'll be true for any of the non-multicol solutions. This should be pretty easy to implement in Perl. > Maybe it would be better to dump the text and images to a semi large > image file im thinking 800 h x 600 w ....problem with this is then > generating the pdf file..... If you're using PDF's compression capabilities and you absolutely have to have DTP style control of layout you're probably better sticking with PDF. Jonathan Conway From walter at frii.com Tue Jan 2 09:20:40 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] another outing of some kind? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi, After work or weekend works for me, because I'm going to be trying to get out more this year. I'm free after 3:30 weekdays. How 'bout . . . ummm . . . 4 pm Wednesday? We'll catch some daylight. And for any weekend-only types, yell, and that'll be my excuse to make sure I get out on Saturday too. (Doctor says cholesterol bad; exercise good.) Walter From rise at frii.com Tue Jan 2 22:47:59 2001 From: rise at frii.com (Jonathan Conway) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] another outing of some kind? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > How 'bout . . . ummm . . . 4 pm Wednesday? We'll catch some daylight. > And for any weekend-only types, yell, and that'll be my excuse to make > sure I get out on Saturday too. (Doctor says cholesterol bad; exercise > good.) Works for me. Which trailhead do you want to meet at (assuming Mesa and Weds@4 is ok for everybody interested)? Jim? Jonathan Conway From boulder-pm at jim-baker.com Tue Jan 2 23:13:51 2001 From: boulder-pm at jim-baker.com (Jim Baker) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] another outing of some kind? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Can't make this Wednesday (or other Wednesdays at 4 PM), for some reason I've decided to sit in on a class this semester on data mining at CSM :) It should be good, but I'll miss the Perl banter. With guests coming in the end of the week, that pretty much spoils it for the rest of the week/weekend. Go enjoy yourselves! - Jim -----Original Message----- From: owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org [mailto:owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org]On Behalf Of Jonathan Conway Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 9:48 PM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: Re: [boulder.pm] another outing of some kind? On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > How 'bout . . . ummm . . . 4 pm Wednesday? We'll catch some daylight. > And for any weekend-only types, yell, and that'll be my excuse to make > sure I get out on Saturday too. (Doctor says cholesterol bad; exercise > good.) Works for me. Which trailhead do you want to meet at (assuming Mesa and Weds@4 is ok for everybody interested)? Jim? Jonathan Conway From walter at frii.com Wed Jan 3 08:55:20 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] another outing of some kind? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Jim Baker wrote: > Can't make this Wednesday (or other Wednesdays at 4 PM), for some reason > I've decided to sit in on a class this semester on data mining at CSM :) It > should be good, but I'll miss the Perl banter. > > With guests coming in the end of the week, that pretty much spoils it for > the rest of the week/weekend. Go enjoy yourselves! > > - Jim > > On Tue, 2 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > > > How 'bout . . . ummm . . . 4 pm Wednesday? We'll catch some daylight. > > And for any weekend-only types, yell, and that'll be my excuse to make > > sure I get out on Saturday too. (Doctor says cholesterol bad; exercise > > good.) > > Works for me. Which trailhead do you want to meet at (assuming Mesa > and Weds@4 is ok for everybody interested)? Jim? > > Jonathan Conway I'll be at the south end of the Mesa Trail at 4 PM today. See you then. Walter From rise at frii.com Wed Jan 3 10:43:26 2001 From: rise at frii.com (Jonathan Conway) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] another outing of some kind? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 3 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > I'll be at the south end of the Mesa Trail at 4 PM today. See you > then. For anyone who wants to randomly show up, lurkers especially, the South Mesa Trail head is on the north side of Eldorado Springs Drive. Jonathan From walter at frii.com Thu Jan 4 12:05:48 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] advisory locking Message-ID: Quiet group. Anyway, I thought I'd try to stir the pot here by posting some code, which you may or may not find useful. Here's a small script I wrote that's basically a wrapper around vi (or $EDITOR), which uses advisory locking to make sure different people don't overwrite each others work by editing the same file at the same time. Walter #!/opt/bin/perl -w # nicevi -- to keep multiple people from editing the same file at # the same time. # Walter Pienciak use Fcntl qw(:DEFAULT :flock); if (scalar @ARGV == 0) { print "Usage: $0 file1 [file2 file3 ...]\n"; exit 0; } my $LOCKDIR = '/var/tmp'; my $EDITOR = '/bin/vi'; # Default editor. $EDITOR = $ENV{EDITOR} if ($ENV{EDITOR} ne ''); # But not everyone likes it. my $file; while (scalar @ARGV > 0) { $file = shift; &file_lock($file); system("$EDITOR $file"); &file_unlock($file); } sub file_lock { my $f = shift; sysopen(LOCKFILE, "$LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f", O_WRONLY | O_CREAT) or die "Can't open $LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f: $!"; flock(LOCKFILE, LOCK_EX|LOCK_NB) # Nonblocking lock. or die "Can't obtain lock for $LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f: $!"; } sub file_unlock { my $f = shift; unlink "$LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f" or die "Can't delete $LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f: $!"; flock(LOCKFILE, LOCK_UN) or die "Can't release lock for $LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f: $!"; } ## Th-th-that's all, folks! From nagler at bivio.com Thu Jan 4 22:27:58 2001 From: nagler at bivio.com (Rob Nagler) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] advisory locking References: Message-ID: <3A554D4E.3FF87C28@bivio.com> > basically a wrapper around vi (or $EDITOR), which uses advisory locking One of things you might consider is making the file read-only during/after edits. This way novice users will have to use nicevi to edit and "can't" accidentally use vi. Rob From walter at frii.com Fri Jan 5 10:52:16 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] advisory locking In-Reply-To: <3A554D4E.3FF87C28@bivio.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Rob Nagler wrote: > > basically a wrapper around vi (or $EDITOR), which uses advisory locking > > One of things you might consider is making the file read-only during/after > edits. This way novice users will have to use nicevi to edit and "can't" > accidentally use vi. > > Rob Hi, Rob, Thanks for the suggestion. I'd been considering the minimal solution of just using a shell alias alias vi /opt/bin/nicevi but building another safeguard into the script is a good idea. Any other suggestions, comments, criticisms, out there? We do run CVS, but that's a pretty heavy solution for some things, and I whacked this together to give the admins an example of locking code. Walter From walter at frii.com Fri Jan 5 11:21:18 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] advisory locking In-Reply-To: <3A55FE5C.CD4A461@bivio.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Jan 2001, Martin Lichtin wrote: > > Any other suggestions, comments, criticisms, out there? We do run CVS, > > but that's a pretty heavy solution for some things, and I whacked this > > together to give the admins an example of locking code. > > Is the locking working over NFS or similar network file systems? > Not sure if that's an issue in your case. Hi, Martin, Not an issue for us. Local system users only. The only brand of NFS we'd use would be CFS (cryptographic file system), but since that would be for a single user only, I wouldn't guess that locking would be an issue. (Of course, we all have really bad days . . . ;^) This code is actually a really fine example of "things that can go wrong when your fingers are faster than your brain", now that I look at it. As example locking code, it's okay; as a production locking mechanism, it's wholly inadequate. Walter From walter at frii.com Mon Jan 8 16:20:49 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] advisory locking In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > This code is actually a really fine example of "things that can go wrong > when your fingers are faster than your brain", now that I look at it. > As example locking code, it's okay; as a production locking mechanism, > it's wholly inadequate. Is anyone interested in picking this code apart on the list? I can see 2 things wrong with it. Or is this a stoopid boring game? Walter From jmaslak at mindspring.com Mon Jan 8 17:23:15 2001 From: jmaslak at mindspring.com (Joel Maslak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] advisory locking Message-ID: Appologizes if this is a dupe. I sent it from the wrong account and the anti-spam stuff will probably kill the other one. Walter asked for volunteers to pick through the code, so I volunteered... I'd love to know what I missed! Thanks for giving us the opportunity, Walter, to pick on your code so that we might all learn a little bit. I'll give my thoughts on the code. I'm not going to cut any of it except the preamble stuff so that there is sufficiant context. On Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > my $LOCKDIR = '/var/tmp'; > my $EDITOR = '/bin/vi'; # Default editor. > $EDITOR = $ENV{EDITOR} if ($ENV{EDITOR} ne ''); # But not everyone likes it. Should also check $ENV{VISUAL}... > my $file; > while (scalar @ARGV > 0) { > $file = shift; The more "perlish" way (if there is one with TMTOWTDI): foreach $file (@ARGV) { file_lock($file); ... > &file_lock($file); Note that the "&" is unnecessary on function calls when you enclose the parameters in parentheses. This is a style issue, though, and not a bug or problem in the code. > system("$EDITOR $file"); What if the filename of the editor or the file being edited has a space in it? This will fail if it does. I would replace this with: system($EDITOR, $file); I would also check the return value of the editor and use it to deterime the return value of your program (if all edits returned 0, return 0; otherwise, return some error value). That way, if it is called by yet another program, and the editor dies for some reason, then the calling program will know that the edit might need to be handled specially. > &file_unlock($file); > } > > sub file_lock { > my $f = shift; > sysopen(LOCKFILE, "$LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f", O_WRONLY | O_CREAT) > or die "Can't open $LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f: $!"; This is a problem. Let's say that I try to "newvi /etc/hosts". Unless LOCK_ is a directory and LOCK_/etc is also one, this will fail. > flock(LOCKFILE, LOCK_EX|LOCK_NB) # Nonblocking lock. > or die "Can't obtain lock for $LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f: $!"; > } This lets someone "lock" a file that they can't even really edit. That might not be what you want. Of course I must ask, why not just lock the file you are editing directly? I'm assuming that there is a reason for creating the lock file -- I just don't see it. > sub file_unlock { > my $f = shift; > unlink "$LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f" > or die "Can't delete $LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f: $!"; > flock(LOCKFILE, LOCK_UN) > or die "Can't release lock for $LOCKDIR/LOCK_$f: $!"; > } You should probably close LOCKFILE, too. > ## Th-th-that's all, folks! -- Joel From walter at frii.com Tue Jan 9 20:17:02 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Stein, "Network Programming With Perl" Message-ID: Hi, I got a UPS package tonight from a nice editor at Addison Wesley. Would anyone like to review "Network Programming with Perl" by Lincoln Stein? Here are the chapters: 1 Input/Output Basics 2 Processes, Pipes, and Signals 3 Introduction to Berkeley Sockets 4 The TCP Protocol 5 The IO::Socket API 6 FTP and Telnet 7 SMTP: Sending Mail 8 POP, IMAP, and NNTP: Processing Mail and Netnews 9 Web Clients 10 Forking Servers and the inetd Daemon 11 Multithreaded Applications 12 Multiplexed Applications 13 Nonblocking I/O 14 Bulletproofing Servers 15 Preforking and Prethreading 16 IO::Poll 17 TCP Urgent Data 18 The UDP Protocol 19 UDP Servers 20 Broadcasting 21 Multicasting 22 UNIX-Domain Sockets The book looks pretty nice. Lincoln has a reputation for writing clear examples, and even aside from all that, it's typeset well. But enough of that. Anyone with a decent background in the above stuff want to give this thing a gander and report back to the group? Walter From jsimoni at totalsite.com Tue Jan 9 22:16:06 2001 From: jsimoni at totalsite.com (Justin Simoni) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Stein, "Network Programming With Perl" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'll give it a whack, if you'd like - Since this is my first post - Hi I'm justin, I'm 19 and I have green hair. I also write Perl for a living. I'm the major (ok, ok, only) force behind an open souce, mailing list manager, Mojo Mail: http://mojo.skazat.com written (of course) entirely in Perl. i actualy just got through reading 'effective Perl Programming', also from Addison Wesley and I'm presently tearing apart and puttng back together lincoln's user_manager, its a Apacher group/password/realm manager, I've worked much with Web apps, Forking, yadda yadda aka I'm a big old nerd. if not, i wouldn't mind borrowing it :) if anyone is interested, I am releasing a new beta of Mojo Mail tonight, there is a developers list: http://mojo.skazat.com/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi?list=mojo_mailers&flavor=subscr ibe (pardon the wack wrap) On 1/9/01 7:17 PM, "Walter Pienciak" wrote: > Hi, > > I got a UPS package tonight from a nice editor at Addison Wesley. > > Would anyone like to review "Network Programming with Perl" by > Lincoln Stein? Here are the chapters: > > 1 Input/Output Basics > 2 Processes, Pipes, and Signals > 3 Introduction to Berkeley Sockets > 4 The TCP Protocol > 5 The IO::Socket API > 6 FTP and Telnet > 7 SMTP: Sending Mail > 8 POP, IMAP, and NNTP: Processing Mail and Netnews > 9 Web Clients > 10 Forking Servers and the inetd Daemon > 11 Multithreaded Applications > 12 Multiplexed Applications > 13 Nonblocking I/O > 14 Bulletproofing Servers > 15 Preforking and Prethreading > 16 IO::Poll > 17 TCP Urgent Data > 18 The UDP Protocol > 19 UDP Servers > 20 Broadcasting > 21 Multicasting > 22 UNIX-Domain Sockets > > The book looks pretty nice. Lincoln has a reputation for writing > clear examples, and even aside from all that, it's typeset well. > But enough of that. Anyone with a decent background in the above > stuff want to give this thing a gander and report back to the group? > > Walter > > From walter at frii.com Wed Jan 10 10:57:52 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Stein, "Network Programming With Perl" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, Justin Simoni wrote: > I'll give it a whack, if you'd like - > Since this is my first post - > > Hi I'm justin, I'm 19 and I have green hair. > I also write Perl for a living. I'm the major (ok, ok, only) force behind an > open souce, mailing list manager, Mojo Mail: > > http://mojo.skazat.com > > written (of course) entirely in Perl. > i actualy just got through reading 'effective Perl Programming', also from > Addison Wesley and I'm presently tearing apart and puttng back together > lincoln's user_manager, its a Apacher group/password/realm manager, I've > worked much with Web apps, Forking, yadda yadda aka I'm a big old nerd. > > if not, i wouldn't mind borrowing it :) > > > if anyone is interested, I am releasing a new beta of Mojo Mail tonight, > there is a developers list: > > http://mojo.skazat.com/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi?list=mojo_mailers&flavor=subscr > ibe > > (pardon the wack wrap) Hi, Justin, I'm Walter, I'm 42, and I have less hair every day. ;^) I'm looking at your page on features, and it looks pretty nice, but tell me: you undertook this project for a reason, and knowing that might help folks understand the differences between Mojo Mail and major(domo|cool) or Mailman. Do you have a FAQ list or something (I didn't see one). And a general announcement regarding the Stein book: since I posted about it last night, I'm waiting 24 hours to give everyone, no matter what their weird hours may be, a chance for Fame and Fortune (well, a free book at least). Walter From walter at frii.com Wed Jan 10 10:58:41 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Ruby programmers? Message-ID: Is anyone doing any programming in Ruby? Walter From walter at frii.com Wed Jan 10 11:48:07 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] "nonmember bounces" Message-ID: I've tried to set the config so that majordomo will NOT bounce submissions from nonmember addresses, since so many of us have several. But the admins at pm.org have this set so that the systemic setting for this -- BOUNCE! -- can't be overridden. My apologies: I see (from bounces) that this is inconvenient for several posters. Walter From boulder-pm at jim-baker.com Wed Jan 10 12:26:59 2001 From: boulder-pm at jim-baker.com (Jim Baker) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] "nonmember bounces" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It appears that we have a feature request for Justin :) I don't know about the breadth of competitors in the majordomo market, but the last time I looked, majordomo is written to Perl 4. So it's a bit on the ungainly, monolithic side, as anything full featured would have to be. It would be nice if policy settings could be delegated from pm.org to specific groups like boulder.pm.org, so we can enjoy local autonomy both in the real world (preferences like hiking vs. scotch sipping) and in the virtual one. Maybe this can be done in majordomo, but I suspect that it's not easy, or is not too robust/secure, or this would be currently done. Now I will send this email from the account registered with majordomo :) - Jim -----Original Message----- From: owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org [mailto:owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org]On Behalf Of Walter Pienciak Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 10:48 AM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: [boulder.pm] "nonmember bounces" I've tried to set the config so that majordomo will NOT bounce submissions from nonmember addresses, since so many of us have several. But the admins at pm.org have this set so that the systemic setting for this -- BOUNCE! -- can't be overridden. My apologies: I see (from bounces) that this is inconvenient for several posters. Walter From rise at frii.com Wed Jan 10 12:25:34 2001 From: rise at frii.com (Jonathan Conway) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Ruby programmers? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > Is anyone doing any programming in Ruby? You should have mentioned something on the hike... I picked up "Programming Ruby" a few weeks back and I've been playing around with it when I want to take a break . I like the clean syntax, coroutines, iterators, the more OO nature of the language (by comparison with Perl), decent multithreading, neat little tricks like if and unless expressions returning their result, a simple but useful exception mechanism, Safe levels, and that it looks and feels a lot like Perl. There are a few things that really get on my nerves: 0 and the empty string are true, the scoping rules are counterintuitive in some places, and the advantages you get from choosing an OO model for the language come at the expense of making it harder to implement a different model in it. Jonathan From jsimoni at totalsite.com Wed Jan 10 12:55:49 2001 From: jsimoni at totalsite.com (Justin Simoni) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Stein, "Network Programming With Perl" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > I'm Walter, I'm 42, and I have less hair every day. ;^) hello Walter, actualy, now my hair is green, and kinda dirty blind, I have to redie it, or people will start to think I'm a perl street bum and give me change.Which I'll take anyways, > you undertook this project for a reason, and knowing that might help > folks understand the differences between Mojo Mail and major(domo|cool) > or Mailman. Do you have a FAQ list or something (I didn't see one). i was an owner of a few majordomo lists, and not a happy person about it. Every time a mailing would get out, I (as the owner) would be deluged with bounced, arrgh. Also, the site was a youth-oriented skateboard site, so the visitors would have trouble with the directions. I'm a very visual person, and majordomos email interface was somewhat clunky, subscribe [password] "email address" i never got the hang of it, and being the lazy person I am, wrote my own little MLM :) Mojo is more oriented to regular people, its all web-based, all visual, 'Mac-Like' in its simplicity, but roaring with features (now anyways). The 2.4 release is a major overhaul of its archiving system, (which, is still very simple) and includes full smtp support. Lists take a minute to make, you give the password, enter a List Name, a list owner e-mail address, and the list is made! plunk in all your favorite friends and *click* you have a list. Mojo takes care of automatically message archiving, keeping the list clean, what have you. But mostly, mojo was a change for me to experiment with Perl and learn it. If you go through the source code of each release, you'll see what I probably learned in that time period, (the flavor of the week) early versions showed that I could create a somewhat large script without strict :) the next version showed I could rewrite a totally fumbled script using strict() , another version might show how I learned how to create modules, link them up, use them with 'use' 'require'., make OO modules, Use CGI html shortcuts, yadda yadda yadda. The design of the program, the html you'll actually see, is just as important as the junk that somehow makes it work, How do I make an incredibly difficult task easy for the user? example? How do I send my message to 50,000 people using the Bulkmail module as the sender. Well, in your contro panel, go to sending options and click 'Use SMTP' all the functions are like that. What's the point of a program if you can't use it? I released it as open source, just to share, and after a while, I got a following, One time I was testing a beta and screwed up a /few/ test sendings, what happened? My entire announce list of about 350 got about 10 weird test messages that didn't amke any sense. Did everyone unsubscribe from the list? NO! I worte an apology and about a quarter of the list wrote back saying 'no problem happens all the time with me' Also, I didn't know about Majordomo2, but it still looks like a pain to install, and way to complex for me. Mailman looks very elegant, really like the user page for every susbscriber. and finally, I heard it got the chicks, anyone have luck with that? I still see myself as not a beginning Perl hacker, but one rung up, there's probably code in there that anyone else on this list will wince at. its all a learning experiance. justin > > I'm looking at your page on features, and it looks pretty nice, but tell > me: you undertook this project for a reason, and knowing that might help > folks understand the differences between Mojo Mail and major(domo|cool) > or Mailman. Do you have a FAQ list or something (I didn't see one). > > And a general announcement regarding the Stein book: since I posted > about it last night, I'm waiting 24 hours to give everyone, no matter > what their weird hours may be, a chance for Fame and Fortune (well, a > free book at least). > > Walter > > From walter at frii.com Wed Jan 10 12:57:13 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] BOUNCE boulder-pm-list@pm.org: Non-member submission from [Evelyn Mitchell ] (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:42:10 -0500 (EST) From: owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org To: owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org Subject: BOUNCE boulder-pm-list@pm.org: Non-member submission from [Evelyn Mitchell ] >From walter@frii.com Wed Jan 10 12:42:08 2001 Received: from tummy.com (IDENT:qmailr@backup.tummy.com [216.17.150.2]) by happyfunball.pm.org (8.9.3/8.9.1) with SMTP id MAA28207 for ; Wed, 10 Jan 2001 12:42:08 -0500 (EST) Received: (qmail 29349 invoked by uid 10); 10 Jan 2001 17:42:02 -0000 Received: (qmail 8527 invoked by uid 500); 10 Jan 2001 17:43:30 -0000 Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 10:43:30 -0700 From: Evelyn Mitchell To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: Re: [boulder.pm] Ruby programmers? Message-ID: <20010110104330.A8522@tummy.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: ; from walter@frii.com on Wed, Jan 10, 2001 at 09:58:41AM -0700 A friend from NCLUG was raving/ranting about Ruby last night. The only thing he could come up with which was neat was the way it handles iterators. After much back-and-forth from the local Python guru (jafo) and the local Perl guru (tkil) it was decided that Ruby implemented 'map'. I've briefly looked at it, but couldn't see much improvement over Python. Evelyn Mitchell efm@tummy.com On Wed, Jan 10, 2001 at 09:58:41AM -0700, Walter Pienciak wrote: > Is anyone doing any programming in Ruby? > > Walter > From walter at frii.com Wed Jan 10 12:59:11 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] BOUNCE boulder-pm-list@pm.org: Non-member submission from ["J. Wayde Allen" ] (fwd) Message-ID: Hi, Wayde, I'm sorry; I wasn't being clear. The admins at pm.org have configured their majordomo so that this is NOT a configurable option for any of the lists run off their server. Walter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:54:09 -0500 (EST) From: owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org To: owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org Subject: BOUNCE boulder-pm-list@pm.org: Non-member submission from ["J. Wayde Allen" ] >From walter@frii.com Wed Jan 10 13:54:08 2001 Received: from green.its.bldrdoc.gov (green.its.bldrdoc.gov [132.163.64.205]) by happyfunball.pm.org (8.9.3/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA28518 for ; Wed, 10 Jan 2001 13:54:07 -0500 (EST) Received: from wood.its.bldrdoc.gov (wallen@wood.its.bldrdoc.gov [132.163.64.142]) by green.its.bldrdoc.gov (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id LAA16324 for ; Wed, 10 Jan 2001 11:53:32 -0700 (MST) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 11:53:29 -0700 (MST) From: "J. Wayde Allen" To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: RE: [boulder.pm] "nonmember bounces" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Jim Baker wrote: > It appears that we have a feature request for Justin :) > > I don't know about the breadth of competitors in the majordomo market, but > the last time I looked, majordomo is written to Perl 4. So it's a bit on > the ungainly, monolithic side, as anything full featured would have to be. > It would be nice if policy settings could be delegated from pm.org to > specific groups like boulder.pm.org, so we can enjoy local autonomy both in > the real world (preferences like hiking vs. scotch sipping) and in the > virtual one. Maybe this can be done in majordomo, but I suspect that it's > not easy, or is not too robust/secure, or this would be currently done. I ran the BLUG lists as well as several others using majordomo for many years. What you are talking about doing is actually possible and relatively easy and straight forward. The list administrator simply e-mails the server command address (same address you subscribe at) with the message: config list_name list_password He is then sent back a text config file that describes his current list settings. These can be modified and then sent back to the list server as: newconfig list_name list_password The new config file text here ... That's all there is to it! The shortcomings of majordomo lie in its lack of built-in support for digests (Digests ARE possible, you just have to create a separate digest list), difficulty in approving bounces without ending up with the administrators address attached, a nice web front-end, and archiving. Mailman does the digests, has a nice web front-end, has a decent mechanism for approving bounced posts, and does archives. However, it would be nice if there was a way to do regular expression searches on the subscriber database to locate bad addresses. Of course, since Mailman is written using Python that could be an issue on this list . - Wayde (wallen@its.bldrdoc.gov) From jeff at planetoid.net Wed Jan 10 13:23:48 2001 From: jeff at planetoid.net (jeff saenz) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Stein, "Network Programming With Perl" References: Message-ID: <3A5CB6C4.B1ABC741@planetoid.net> Justin Does the system include any kind of bounce handling/mgmt? I saw a module in majordomo2 that can be plugged in to provide automatic bouncing. jeff Justin Simoni wrote: > > I'm Walter, I'm 42, and I have less hair every day. ;^) > > hello Walter, actualy, now my hair is green, and kinda dirty blind, I have > to redie it, or people will start to think I'm a perl street bum and give me > change.Which I'll take anyways, > > > you undertook this project for a reason, and knowing that might help > > folks understand the differences between Mojo Mail and major(domo|cool) > > or Mailman. Do you have a FAQ list or something (I didn't see one). > > i was an owner of a few majordomo lists, and not a happy person about it. > Every time a mailing would get out, I (as the owner) would be deluged with > bounced, arrgh. Also, the site was a youth-oriented skateboard site, so the > visitors would have trouble with the directions. I'm a very visual person, > and majordomos email interface was somewhat clunky, > > subscribe [password] "email address" > > i never got the hang of it, and being the lazy person I am, wrote my own > little MLM :) Mojo is more oriented to regular people, its all web-based, > all visual, 'Mac-Like' in its simplicity, but roaring with features (now > anyways). The 2.4 release is a major overhaul of its archiving system, > (which, is still very simple) and includes full smtp support. > > Lists take a minute to make, you give the password, enter a List Name, a > list owner e-mail address, and the list is made! plunk in all your favorite > friends and *click* you have a list. Mojo takes care of automatically > message archiving, keeping the list clean, what have you. > > But mostly, mojo was a change for me to experiment with Perl and learn it. > If you go through the source code of each release, you'll see what I > probably learned in that time period, (the flavor of the week) early > versions showed that I could create a somewhat large script without strict > :) the next version showed I could rewrite a totally fumbled script using > strict() , another version might show how I learned how to create modules, > link them up, use them with 'use' 'require'., make OO modules, Use CGI html > shortcuts, yadda yadda yadda. > > The design of the program, the html you'll actually see, is just as > important as the junk that somehow makes it work, How do I make an > incredibly difficult task easy for the user? example? How do I send my > message to 50,000 people using the Bulkmail module as the sender. Well, in > your contro panel, go to sending options and click 'Use SMTP' all the > functions are like that. What's the point of a program if you can't use it? > > I released it as open source, just to share, and after a while, I got a > following, One time I was testing a beta and screwed up a /few/ test > sendings, what happened? My entire announce list of about 350 got about 10 > weird test messages that didn't amke any sense. Did everyone unsubscribe > from the list? NO! I worte an apology and about a quarter of the list wrote > back saying 'no problem happens all the time with me' > > Also, I didn't know about Majordomo2, but it still looks like a pain to > install, and way to complex for me. Mailman looks very elegant, really like > the user page for every susbscriber. > > and finally, I heard it got the chicks, anyone have luck with that? > > I still see myself as not a beginning Perl hacker, but one rung up, there's > probably code in there that anyone else on this list will wince at. its all > a learning experiance. > > justin > > > > > > > I'm looking at your page on features, and it looks pretty nice, but tell > > me: you undertook this project for a reason, and knowing that might help > > folks understand the differences between Mojo Mail and major(domo|cool) > > or Mailman. Do you have a FAQ list or something (I didn't see one). > > > > And a general announcement regarding the Stein book: since I posted > > about it last night, I'm waiting 24 hours to give everyone, no matter > > what their weird hours may be, a chance for Fame and Fortune (well, a > > free book at least). > > > > Walter > > > > From jsimoni at totalsite.com Wed Jan 10 15:11:09 2001 From: jsimoni at totalsite.com (Total Site) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Stein, "Network Programming With Perl" In-Reply-To: <3A5CB6C4.B1ABC741@planetoid.net> Message-ID: > Does the system include any kind of bounce handling/mgmt? I saw a module in > majordomo2 that can be plugged in to provide automatic bouncing. something like that can certainly be made for Mojo, but I've been focusing development on things that everyone can use, and not everyone knows even how to make a mail alias (or is allowed to) 'you don''t need any special privileges for mojo. Everything in the program is quite seperated, theres mailing, archiving, html generating, configuration, password modules for all of mojo. one of these days I'll get bounce handling working, although not any time soon :) on 1/10/01 12:23 PM, jeff saenz at jeff@planetoid.net wrote: > Justin > > Does the system include any kind of bounce handling/mgmt? I saw a module in > majordomo2 that can be plugged in to provide automatic bouncing. > > jeff > > Justin Simoni wrote: > >>> I'm Walter, I'm 42, and I have less hair every day. ;^) >> >> hello Walter, actualy, now my hair is green, and kinda dirty blind, I have >> to redie it, or people will start to think I'm a perl street bum and give me >> change.Which I'll take anyways, >> >>> you undertook this project for a reason, and knowing that might help >>> folks understand the differences between Mojo Mail and major(domo|cool) >>> or Mailman. Do you have a FAQ list or something (I didn't see one). >> >> i was an owner of a few majordomo lists, and not a happy person about it. >> Every time a mailing would get out, I (as the owner) would be deluged with >> bounced, arrgh. Also, the site was a youth-oriented skateboard site, so the >> visitors would have trouble with the directions. I'm a very visual person, >> and majordomos email interface was somewhat clunky, >> >> subscribe [password] "email address" >> >> i never got the hang of it, and being the lazy person I am, wrote my own >> little MLM :) Mojo is more oriented to regular people, its all web-based, >> all visual, 'Mac-Like' in its simplicity, but roaring with features (now >> anyways). The 2.4 release is a major overhaul of its archiving system, >> (which, is still very simple) and includes full smtp support. >> >> Lists take a minute to make, you give the password, enter a List Name, a >> list owner e-mail address, and the list is made! plunk in all your favorite >> friends and *click* you have a list. Mojo takes care of automatically >> message archiving, keeping the list clean, what have you. >> >> But mostly, mojo was a change for me to experiment with Perl and learn it. >> If you go through the source code of each release, you'll see what I >> probably learned in that time period, (the flavor of the week) early >> versions showed that I could create a somewhat large script without strict >> :) the next version showed I could rewrite a totally fumbled script using >> strict() , another version might show how I learned how to create modules, >> link them up, use them with 'use' 'require'., make OO modules, Use CGI html >> shortcuts, yadda yadda yadda. >> >> The design of the program, the html you'll actually see, is just as >> important as the junk that somehow makes it work, How do I make an >> incredibly difficult task easy for the user? example? How do I send my >> message to 50,000 people using the Bulkmail module as the sender. Well, in >> your contro panel, go to sending options and click 'Use SMTP' all the >> functions are like that. What's the point of a program if you can't use it? >> >> I released it as open source, just to share, and after a while, I got a >> following, One time I was testing a beta and screwed up a /few/ test >> sendings, what happened? My entire announce list of about 350 got about 10 >> weird test messages that didn't amke any sense. Did everyone unsubscribe >> from the list? NO! I worte an apology and about a quarter of the list wrote >> back saying 'no problem happens all the time with me' >> >> Also, I didn't know about Majordomo2, but it still looks like a pain to >> install, and way to complex for me. Mailman looks very elegant, really like >> the user page for every susbscriber. >> >> and finally, I heard it got the chicks, anyone have luck with that? >> >> I still see myself as not a beginning Perl hacker, but one rung up, there's >> probably code in there that anyone else on this list will wince at. its all >> a learning experiance. >> >> justin >> >> >> >>> >>> I'm looking at your page on features, and it looks pretty nice, but tell >>> me: you undertook this project for a reason, and knowing that might help >>> folks understand the differences between Mojo Mail and major(domo|cool) >>> or Mailman. Do you have a FAQ list or something (I didn't see one). >>> >>> And a general announcement regarding the Stein book: since I posted >>> about it last night, I'm waiting 24 hours to give everyone, no matter >>> what their weird hours may be, a chance for Fame and Fortune (well, a >>> free book at least). >>> >>> Walter >>> >>> > > From wallen at lug.boulder.co.us Thu Jan 11 12:28:59 2001 From: wallen at lug.boulder.co.us (J. Wayde Allen) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Mailing Lists (majordomo) was "nonmember bounces" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > I'm sorry; I wasn't being clear. The admins at pm.org have > configured their majordomo so that this is NOT a configurable > option for any of the lists run off their server. Based on what you were saying I had kind of inferred that. This isn't specifically a majordomo issue then. It has more to do with the system administration on your list server. The sysadmin trumps any features of any list server. As for the guys trying to create a "user friendly" interface for a mailing list, I wish them the very best of luck! While I think this is a very laudable project, I've never seen an interface that people for some reason or other either can't or won't use. For example, to subscribe or unsubscribe to my Mailman lists a person just needs to go to the web interface (URL at the bottom of each post), type in their list password, and click on a button. It is amazing how many people don't seem to be able to do that. - Wayde (wallen@lug.boulder.co.us) From walter at frii.com Fri Jan 12 07:57:24 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] Stein, "Network Programming With Perl" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi, Several folks volunteered to review the book, and I gave it to Pete Krawczyk. Thanks for the responses. I wish I had more to give out. Walter From walter at frii.com Tue Jan 16 14:29:44 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] RFC on encryption approachwq Message-ID: I'm looking for feedback/ideas on the following problem: I'm building an external web app that 1) takes in some sensitive data (e.g., credit card number) 2) may NOT use any realtime processing of that data 3) talks to a machine, inside a firewall, requiring that data. Some of the time, I have to assume, that network connection will be down. So the data needs to be stored on the outside machine until the connection can be made and the data pulled in. Obviously, this means encryption. I'd prefer to use something simple but strong like Crypt::Blowfish, but it is based on a shared secret: process A on the outside server uses $key to encrypt the data and process B on the inside machine uses $key to decrypt it. The "issue" is that if the outside server was hacked, $key could be used to decrypt the data (if it was still on the machine). Am I being totally paranoid, pedantic, and this worry is complete overkill? Or should I ought to look at the PGP/GPG approach, and the outside server has the "public key", while only the inside machine, which would pull the data, would have the "private key"? Walter From kmoore at trustamerica.com Tue Jan 16 14:55:06 2001 From: kmoore at trustamerica.com (Kyle Moore) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] RFC on encryption approachwq References: Message-ID: <3A64B52A.AC7A73C4@trustamerica.com> I don't think you can be too paranoid very often. PGP/GPG or something like that sounds like a good approach. Let us know what you end up with...I'm interested in this one. -kyle Walter Pienciak wrote: > > Am I being totally paranoid, pedantic, and this worry is complete > overkill? Or should I ought to look at the PGP/GPG approach, and > the outside server has the "public key", while only the inside machine, > which would pull the data, would have the "private key"? > > Walter From walter at frii.com Tue Jan 16 17:44:40 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:27 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] forwarding a "nonmember" bounce from Joel Message-ID: From: Joel Maslak To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: Re: [boulder.pm] RFC on encryption approachwq In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > Obviously, this means encryption. Only if you use public/private key encryption. If the encryption key can decrypt the data, then it is NOT secure - period. The reason is that if the encryption key can decrypt the data, an attacker can grab BOTH the key and the data. Here's what I'd do: On the public system: PUBLIC Key Encrypted Data File (watch out for swap space and temporary files!) It sends the file through some trusted means to the private system. On the private system: PRIVATE Key Decrypted data I hope this helps. As for which encryption routine, any asymetrical algorithm should work. PGP would certainly work. I would also sign the data with a private key stored on the public system (different from the internal system's private key) so that the internal system can verify that the right machine sent the data. -- Joel Maslak From walter at frii.com Tue Jan 16 17:45:13 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] forwarding a "nonmember" bounce from Jake Message-ID: Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:56:38 -0700 From: Jake Edge To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: Re: [boulder.pm] RFC on encryption approachwq Message-ID: <20010116145638.A18212@magpie.indstorage.com> Reply-To: jake@edge2.net References: <3A64B52A.AC7A73C4@trustamerica.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <3A64B52A.AC7A73C4@trustamerica.com>; from kmoore@trustamerica.com on Tue, Jan 16, 2001 at 01:55:06PM -0700 X-Operating-System: Linux 2.2.17 > > Am I being totally paranoid, pedantic, and this worry is complete > > overkill? Or should I ought to look at the PGP/GPG approach, and > > the outside server has the "public key", while only the inside machine, > > which would pull the data, would have the "private key"? I think public key encryption might be best (which is what PGP/GPG use). If the inside machine has a public key, anyone can know it (including the black hats), but only the inside machine that has the corresponding private key can decrypt messages that have been encrypted using the public key (assuming that very large numbers are very hard to factor). With PGP/GPG, only the session key gets encrypted using the public key mechanism and that session key is used for a faster (like Blowfish or 3DES or Rijndael) shared secret encryption. I haven't looked, but I would be surprised if there aren't some CPAN modules to handle public key encryption stuff ... I certainly don't think you are worrying too much ... jake From walter at frii.com Wed Jan 17 13:19:51 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] RFC on encryption approach In-Reply-To: <3A64B52A.AC7A73C4@trustamerica.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Kyle Moore wrote: > I don't think you can be too paranoid very often. PGP/GPG or something > like that sounds like a good approach. Let us know what you end up > with...I'm interested in this one. > > -kyle > > Walter Pienciak wrote: > > > > Am I being totally paranoid, pedantic, and this worry is complete > > overkill? Or should I ought to look at the PGP/GPG approach, and > > the outside server has the "public key", while only the inside machine, > > which would pull the data, would have the "private key"? > > > > Walter Yeah, I guess there's the "right" way to do it and the "expedient" way to do it. Going with a shared-secret cryptosystem, it's not much more complicated than use Crypt::Blowfish; my $cipher = new Crypt::Blowfish $key; my $ciphertext = $cipher->encrypt($plaintext); to encrypt and use Crypt::Blowfish; my $cipher = new Crypt::Blowfish $key; my $plaintext = $cipher->decrypt($ciphertext); to decrypt. But a public-key model requires, for example, gnupg, which requires a good source of entropy (i.e., /dev/random, which Solaris does not have), so I install that . . . , user symlinks to /somewhere/entropy, key setup, yada yada yada, etc. More work. Well, I guess I shouldn't bitch. It's interesting and better architected. So gnupg and egd (Entropy Gathering Daemon) are now on my development machine. Stay tuned . . . By the way, I haven't forgotten about the lock/nicevi thing; people made great comments, and sooner or later I'll get back to that -- but that's "fun" stuff without a looming deadline . . . Walter "crypto boy" From jsimoni at totalsite.com Wed Jan 17 18:43:31 2001 From: jsimoni at totalsite.com (Justin Simoni) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] open vs. sysopen Message-ID: I'm going to ask a stupid question, but its been said that there aren't any stupid questions, just stupid people, Then again, there's something that says philosophers create proverbs, fools repeat them, saying that, what is the difference between the two built in Perl functions, open() and sysopen() in terms of performance, cross platform usage, etc? To my knowledge, open() is Perl's own way of opening thingies, and sysopen() is straight from a C library. I know (think) also that sysopen() allows me to use default permissions to a file, like this: sysopen(LIST, "$path/$file_name", O_RDWR|O_CREAT, $file_chmod)or die "couldn't open $path/$file_name for reading: $!\n"; I think I started sysopen on a project when I thought open() wouldn't work. I think that the problem lay elsewhere, but I still have sysopen() peppered in the program. any thoughts on these two functions? My program only runs on *nix, although I would like to see NT supported with as little effort as possible from me. Any help would be super appreciated, thanks, Justin From jeff at planetoid.net Wed Jan 17 19:22:07 2001 From: jeff at planetoid.net (jeff saenz) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] open vs. sysopen References: Message-ID: <3A66453E.AD10A51C@planetoid.net> i saw an example in the perl tutorial on flocking that implied you should use sysopen in combo with flock to write to a locked file. but I saw another example in the flock reference that used open... Justin Simoni wrote: > I'm going to ask a stupid question, but its been said that there aren't any > stupid questions, just stupid people, > > Then again, there's something that says philosophers create proverbs, fools > repeat them, > > saying that, > > what is the difference between the two built in Perl functions, open() and > sysopen() in terms of performance, cross platform usage, etc? To my > knowledge, open() is Perl's own way of opening thingies, and sysopen() is > straight from a C library. I know (think) also that sysopen() allows me to > use default permissions to a file, like this: > > sysopen(LIST, "$path/$file_name", O_RDWR|O_CREAT, $file_chmod)or die > "couldn't open $path/$file_name for reading: $!\n"; > > I think I started sysopen on a project when I thought open() wouldn't work. > I think that the problem lay elsewhere, but I still have sysopen() peppered > in the program. any thoughts on these two functions? My program only runs on > *nix, although I would like to see NT supported with as little effort as > possible from me. > > Any help would be super appreciated, > > thanks, > > Justin From walter at frii.com Wed Jan 17 20:39:50 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] open vs. sysopen In-Reply-To: <3A66453E.AD10A51C@planetoid.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 17 Jan 2001, jeff saenz wrote: > i saw an example in the perl tutorial on flocking that implied you should use > sysopen in combo with flock to write to a locked file. > > but I saw another example in the flock reference that used open... > Justin Simoni wrote: > > > I'm going to ask a stupid question, but its been said that there aren't any > > stupid questions, just stupid people, > > > > Then again, there's something that says philosophers create proverbs, fools > > repeat them, > > > > saying that, > > > > what is the difference between the two built in Perl functions, open() and > > sysopen() in terms of performance, cross platform usage, etc? To my > > knowledge, open() is Perl's own way of opening thingies, and sysopen() is > > straight from a C library. I know (think) also that sysopen() allows me to > > use default permissions to a file, like this: > > > > sysopen(LIST, "$path/$file_name", O_RDWR|O_CREAT, $file_chmod)or die > > "couldn't open $path/$file_name for reading: $!\n"; > > > > I think I started sysopen on a project when I thought open() wouldn't work. > > I think that the problem lay elsewhere, but I still have sysopen() peppered > > in the program. any thoughts on these two functions? My program only runs on > > *nix, although I would like to see NT supported with as little effort as > > possible from me. > > > > Any help would be super appreciated, > > > > thanks, > > > > Justin It turns out that locking a file for writing without leaving a race-condition problem is more difficult than expected, and from year to year I've noticed the "right" advice changing. The latest I've seen is what I had in the nicevi code: sysopen(LAUNCH_CODES, "$f", O_WRONLY | O_CREAT) or die "Urk! $!"; flock(LAUNCH_CODES, LOCK_EX|LOCK_NB) or die "Aah! $!"; # doodle doodle doodle flock(LAUNCH_CODES, LOCK_UN) or die "Yarrgh! $!"; close(LAUNCH_CODES); In the above code, you don't need the |LOCK_NB but the flock call will block (the program will hang) until the exclusive lock is obtained if you do that. Personally, I don't. I don't pretend to understand the minutiae of why exactly that sequence of function calls and flags does the job, but I do trust that Tom Christiansen (I got the above code in a LISA tutorial) has a better understanding of it than I do. So, yes, it's a bit of cargo-cult programming. The (new? I never noticed it before 5.6.0) perlopentut manpage covers the open/sysopen thing in more detail than most people want. Basically, sysopen gives you more granularity, but once the file is open, it's open -- you don't need to use sysread just because you used sysopen, for example. If cross-platform compatibility is an issue, be aware that nonstandard flags can be passed to sysopen, and they'll work on your development machine but bomb on platform X. Check out your fcntl manpages for details on your flag options. (In my manpages, fnctl(2) isn't it, but fnctl(5) is.) Walter From walter at frii.com Thu Jan 18 11:43:22 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] open vs. sysopen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > (In my manpages, fnctl(2) isn't it, but fnctl(5) is.) Uh, make that fcntl. (file control) Walter From jeff at planetoid.net Thu Jan 18 14:50:12 2001 From: jeff at planetoid.net (jeff) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] open vs. sysopen References: Message-ID: <3A675703.8624893D@planetoid.net> is the lisa tutorial available to the public. > It turns out that locking a file for writing without leaving a > race-condition problem is more difficult than expected, and from year > to year I've noticed the "right" advice changing. The latest I've seen > is what I had in the nicevi code: > > sysopen(LAUNCH_CODES, "$f", O_WRONLY | O_CREAT) or die "Urk! $!"; > flock(LAUNCH_CODES, LOCK_EX|LOCK_NB) or die "Aah! $!"; > > # doodle doodle doodle > > flock(LAUNCH_CODES, LOCK_UN) or die "Yarrgh! $!"; > close(LAUNCH_CODES); > > In the above code, you don't need the |LOCK_NB > but the flock call will block (the program will hang) until > the exclusive lock is obtained if you do that. Personally, > I don't. > > I don't pretend to understand the minutiae of why exactly that > sequence of function calls and flags does the job, but I do trust > that Tom Christiansen (I got the above code in a LISA tutorial) has > a better understanding of it than I do. So, yes, it's a bit of > cargo-cult programming. > -- T_r_i_k_M_e_d_i_a http://www.trikmedia.com From walter at frii.com Thu Jan 18 15:17:46 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] open vs. sysopen In-Reply-To: <3A675703.8624893D@planetoid.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, jeff wrote: > is the lisa tutorial available to the public. > > > It turns out that locking a file for writing without leaving a > > race-condition problem is more difficult than expected, and from year > > to year I've noticed the "right" advice changing. The latest I've seen > > is what I had in the nicevi code: > > > > sysopen(LAUNCH_CODES, "$f", O_WRONLY | O_CREAT) or die "Urk! $!"; > > flock(LAUNCH_CODES, LOCK_EX|LOCK_NB) or die "Aah! $!"; > > > > # doodle doodle doodle > > > > flock(LAUNCH_CODES, LOCK_UN) or die "Yarrgh! $!"; > > close(LAUNCH_CODES); > > > > In the above code, you don't need the |LOCK_NB > > but the flock call will block (the program will hang) until > > the exclusive lock is obtained if you do that. Personally, > > I don't. > > > > I don't pretend to understand the minutiae of why exactly that > > sequence of function calls and flags does the job, but I do trust > > that Tom Christiansen (I got the above code in a LISA tutorial) has > > a better understanding of it than I do. So, yes, it's a bit of > > cargo-cult programming. > > > > -- > T_r_i_k_M_e_d_i_a > http://www.trikmedia.com Sorry, it's copyrighted stuff. And worthwhile, too, I should add, if anyone gets the chance to sit in a class someday. There's a variant of this code discussed at http://www.perl.com/pub/doc/manual/html/pod/perlfaq5.html#How_can_I_lock_a_file_ Walter From walter at frii.com Thu Jan 25 15:30:48 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] desperately need help (fwd) Message-ID: Totally clueless. She's either quite on the level (and obviously ill equipped for her job), or she's "sly enough" to try this appeal -- via SPAM, no less! I've reformatted the message, to the extent of inserting line breaks (it was all one line). "Hi, I suck as a recruiter -- can I be your recruiter? I don't know anything about this business, but I won't waste your time or the company's time." Walter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:44:52 -0500 From: [name deleted] To: Walter@frii.com Subject: desperately need help Walter, Hi, My name is [deleted] and I am hoping that you or your group may be able to help me. I am a recent college graduate and have started a new career as a technical recruiter. I have had the job one month as of today and to be honest I suck at it. I need to hire 6 people this quarter for my consulting company. These are full-time positions and the company and compensation here are great but, the problem is I have been unable to find anyone with the background that I need. I don't want to lose my job, and I don't have much information to work with as far as leads go. I need technical people that have exposure to i2's product suite. I need programmers and data modelers. Some of the technical consultnats we already have know Perl, oil, shell script, ect. so, I figured maybe the Perl Mongers could help me. I am not sure if you get a lot of requests from recruiters or not but, I really could use some help. Any advice you could give, or maybe if you know anyone like that would be great. Thanks! Sincerely, [name deleted] National Resource Manager [company deleted] [phone deleted] From bmozart at frii.com Thu Jan 25 22:40:37 2001 From: bmozart at frii.com (Randall Fowle) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] desperately need help (fwd) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > i2's product suite. I need programmers and data modelers. Some of the > technical consultnats we already have know Perl, oil, shell script, ect. Pardon me for asking something non-Perl-related--or for that matter, not even related to this e-mail--but this sparked my curiosity. Who or what is "oil"? -- Randy Fowle (bmozart@frii.com) 10 Chuwen 14 Muwan 12.19.7.16.11 12 Tun, 1 Winal, 9 K'in until the end of time and counting From jvanslyk at matchlogic.com Fri Jan 26 09:03:42 2001 From: jvanslyk at matchlogic.com (Jason Van Slyke) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] desperately need help (fwd) Message-ID: <5FE9B713CCCDD311A03400508B8B301303D539B1@bdr-xcln.is.matchlogic.com> new one on me too so I stuck it into the search engine on webopedia, no results. maybe a typo? jvs -----Original Message----- From: Randall Fowle [mailto:bmozart@frii.com] Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 9:41 PM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: Re: [boulder.pm] desperately need help (fwd) On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > i2's product suite. I need programmers and data modelers. Some of the > technical consultnats we already have know Perl, oil, shell script, ect. Pardon me for asking something non-Perl-related--or for that matter, not even related to this e-mail--but this sparked my curiosity. Who or what is "oil"? -- Randy Fowle (bmozart@frii.com) 10 Chuwen 14 Muwan 12.19.7.16.11 12 Tun, 1 Winal, 9 K'in until the end of time and counting From walter at frii.com Fri Jan 26 09:58:25 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] desperately need help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, Randall Fowle wrote: > On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > > > i2's product suite. I need programmers and data modelers. Some of the > > technical consultnats we already have know Perl, oil, shell script, ect. > > Pardon me for asking something non-Perl-related--or for that matter, not > even related to this e-mail--but this sparked my curiosity. Who or what > is "oil"? > > -- > Randy Fowle (bmozart@frii.com) > 10 Chuwen 14 Muwan 12.19.7.16.11 > 12 Tun, 1 Winal, 9 K'in until the end of time and counting Har. Sure it's Perl-related. Anything is Perl-related. It's all a matter of syntax. my $question = qx/apropos oil/; I have no idea what oil is. I can't even think of a vaguely close sounding acronym. Maybe I need more coffee still, but . . . that's a cryptic .sig ya got there . . . Walter From akaba at lorax.org Fri Jan 26 12:09:00 2001 From: akaba at lorax.org (Annaliese Beery) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] desperately need help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > Randy Fowle (bmozart@frii.com) > > 10 Chuwen 14 Muwan 12.19.7.16.11 > > 12 Tun, 1 Winal, 9 K'in until the end of time and counting > > Maybe I need more coffee still, but . . . that's a cryptic .sig ya > got there . . . That's mayan calendar stuff...very cryptic until they decoded mayan glyphs. If I remember right, the second line is in what they call 'long count' (the other calendar system being 'calendar round' and repeating itself). Long count is used for things like 'since the beginning' and 'until the end' because they knew when those two dates were. Pretty knowledgable, eh? annaliese From jvanslyk at matchlogic.com Fri Jan 26 12:23:58 2001 From: jvanslyk at matchlogic.com (Jason Van Slyke) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] desperately need help Message-ID: <5FE9B713CCCDD311A03400508B8B301303D539C0@bdr-xcln.is.matchlogic.com> yikes! -----Original Message----- From: Annaliese Beery [mailto:akaba@lorax.org] Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 11:09 AM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: Re: [boulder.pm] desperately need help > > Randy Fowle (bmozart@frii.com) > > 10 Chuwen 14 Muwan 12.19.7.16.11 > > 12 Tun, 1 Winal, 9 K'in until the end of time and counting > > Maybe I need more coffee still, but . . . that's a cryptic .sig ya > got there . . . That's mayan calendar stuff...very cryptic until they decoded mayan glyphs. If I remember right, the second line is in what they call 'long count' (the other calendar system being 'calendar round' and repeating itself). Long count is used for things like 'since the beginning' and 'until the end' because they knew when those two dates were. Pretty knowledgable, eh? annaliese From jsimoni at totalsite.com Fri Jan 26 13:07:06 2001 From: jsimoni at totalsite.com (Justin Simoni) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] desperately need help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: oil, its what you put in your car to make the engine run smoothly and its what you use to fix squeaking hinges. Apparently, there are experts on it. I go to Jiffy Lube myself. These new fangle cars have all these computers and such :) js From walter at frii.com Mon Jan 29 08:53:58 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] (fwd) [rmiug-discuss] any perl/ cgi progammers available? Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 20:57:32 -0700 From: David Gannon To: RMIUG Subject: [rmiug-discuss] any perl/ cgi progammers available? hi, i am a web graphic designer. do you , or someone you know, do any PERL/CGI programming on a freelance/moonlighting, as-needed basis? i am looking for a few people with those skills to do some sub-contracting? i frequently find projects that require some perl, or cgi scripting, maybe even a small program to be written and need some people that i can hire to do this. please let me know if you are available, as well as, what your rates are. thanks dave gannon 303-861-8446 dgannon3@qwest.net -- +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ David Gannon gannon@chickenscratch.net ChickenScratch Design Coop http://www.chickenscratch.net Denver, Colorado (p)303.861.8446 (f) 303.861.8446 *51 +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ *** You received this message because you are on an RMIUG mailing list *** *** To subscribe or unsubscribe, please see the following web page: *** *** http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html *** From walter at frii.com Mon Jan 29 09:50:01 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? Message-ID: Hey, It's snowing outside, and I've caught my breath from the holidays madness. Life sucked for a while there, but it's better now. I hope it's the same for @you. Anyway, I want to go snowshoeing. It was just too much fun last time. But I also don't want to be derelict in what duties I might be considered to have as Nominal Leader of this motley crew of ne'er-do-wells, geeks, gurus, and diligent students of Perl. Would anyone be interested in an actual meeting rather than a hike? I have no idea what we'd do. Informal hanging out and chatter? A formal presentation under dimmed lights in a lecture hall? Does anyone have something they'd like to hear about? Only a few people talk much on the mailing list, and I don't feel like I have a good sense of what most members want/need. Walter As a postscript, maybe I should add something that those of you who've attended meetings in the past have heard: This group drifts along. I don't have the need or desire to try to lead it along by the nose, and schedule things, and make presentations, or perform CPR. Maybe it's wrong thinking, but I'm comfortable with Boulder.pm being as active or inactive as its members want. There are a LOT of good technical groups around here, some that have meetings and some that exist only on mailing lists. I figure Boulder.pm has a lot of overlap with those groups, and that as a result, even though we're low-profile, no one here is "technology-deprived". So I'm not worried too much. On the other hand, if someone has questions they're not asking, here's a sincere plea that you ask. Odds are that someone else either has the same question or will be dealing with it in the future. Or if you have some coherent thoughts on dealing with an issue, don't wait for a question: push the information out. Every once in a while, we have a meeting, or an e-mail like this goes out, and the responses to the question "What would you like to do?" are generally low-key both in tone and number. Which I take to mean that the status quo is just fine. __END__ From jvanslyk at matchlogic.com Mon Jan 29 10:40:19 2001 From: jvanslyk at matchlogic.com (Jason Van Slyke) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? Message-ID: <5FE9B713CCCDD311A03400508B8B301303D539E3@bdr-xcln.is.matchlogic.com> Walter, et al; the water is up to my neck and the gator's are circling. I've got 2 big projects running, one due this Thursday and the other one Feb 15 plus I'm taking a college class in my "spare" time. I'd kind of like the Informal hanging out and chatter thing at some point but not in the next couple months. (Well, I'd like to go snow shoeing and/or hiking too, but, as Walter knows, I'm not as physically fit as the average person, so the chat thing is a better opportunity to actually chat.) jvs -----Original Message----- From: Walter Pienciak [mailto:walter@frii.com] Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:50 AM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? Hey, It's snowing outside, and I've caught my breath from the holidays madness. Life sucked for a while there, but it's better now. I hope it's the same for @you. Anyway, I want to go snowshoeing. It was just too much fun last time. But I also don't want to be derelict in what duties I might be considered to have as Nominal Leader of this motley crew of ne'er-do-wells, geeks, gurus, and diligent students of Perl. Would anyone be interested in an actual meeting rather than a hike? I have no idea what we'd do. Informal hanging out and chatter? A formal presentation under dimmed lights in a lecture hall? Does anyone have something they'd like to hear about? Only a few people talk much on the mailing list, and I don't feel like I have a good sense of what most members want/need. Walter As a postscript, maybe I should add something that those of you who've attended meetings in the past have heard: This group drifts along. I don't have the need or desire to try to lead it along by the nose, and schedule things, and make presentations, or perform CPR. Maybe it's wrong thinking, but I'm comfortable with Boulder.pm being as active or inactive as its members want. There are a LOT of good technical groups around here, some that have meetings and some that exist only on mailing lists. I figure Boulder.pm has a lot of overlap with those groups, and that as a result, even though we're low-profile, no one here is "technology-deprived". So I'm not worried too much. On the other hand, if someone has questions they're not asking, here's a sincere plea that you ask. Odds are that someone else either has the same question or will be dealing with it in the future. Or if you have some coherent thoughts on dealing with an issue, don't wait for a question: push the information out. Every once in a while, we have a meeting, or an e-mail like this goes out, and the responses to the question "What would you like to do?" are generally low-key both in tone and number. Which I take to mean that the status quo is just fine. __END__ From boulder-pm at jim-baker.com Mon Jan 29 13:18:23 2001 From: boulder-pm at jim-baker.com (Jim Baker) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Snowshoeing sounds wonderful. Perhaps we can do this along the Mesa trail this Tuesday afternoon, at around 3 PM, starting from Chautauqua. I know the snow cover doesn't last too long here, but it should last probably that long, right? I could go for a meeting too. Perhaps we still have time to invite Damian on his world speaking tour: http://www.yetanother.org/damian/events.html. I'd love to hear him speak on Parse::FastDescent since I do use its (slowish) predecessor, Parse::RecDescent. Or more generally about his views on the evolution of Perl into a metalanguage, without hopefully becoming a monstrosity like Lisp. Just its own monstrosity, of course. In a proper frame of mind, topics like these are a lot of fun to discuss informally too IMHO because they represent the convergence of computers and philosophy, and as is well known, that is where it also converges with brew pubs. - Jim -----Original Message----- From: owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org [mailto:owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org]On Behalf Of Walter Pienciak Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:50 AM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? Hey, It's snowing outside, and I've caught my breath from the holidays madness. Life sucked for a while there, but it's better now. I hope it's the same for @you. Anyway, I want to go snowshoeing. It was just too much fun last time. But I also don't want to be derelict in what duties I might be considered to have as Nominal Leader of this motley crew of ne'er-do-wells, geeks, gurus, and diligent students of Perl. Would anyone be interested in an actual meeting rather than a hike? I have no idea what we'd do. Informal hanging out and chatter? A formal presentation under dimmed lights in a lecture hall? Does anyone have something they'd like to hear about? Only a few people talk much on the mailing list, and I don't feel like I have a good sense of what most members want/need. Walter As a postscript, maybe I should add something that those of you who've attended meetings in the past have heard: This group drifts along. I don't have the need or desire to try to lead it along by the nose, and schedule things, and make presentations, or perform CPR. Maybe it's wrong thinking, but I'm comfortable with Boulder.pm being as active or inactive as its members want. There are a LOT of good technical groups around here, some that have meetings and some that exist only on mailing lists. I figure Boulder.pm has a lot of overlap with those groups, and that as a result, even though we're low-profile, no one here is "technology-deprived". So I'm not worried too much. On the other hand, if someone has questions they're not asking, here's a sincere plea that you ask. Odds are that someone else either has the same question or will be dealing with it in the future. Or if you have some coherent thoughts on dealing with an issue, don't wait for a question: push the information out. Every once in a while, we have a meeting, or an e-mail like this goes out, and the responses to the question "What would you like to do?" are generally low-key both in tone and number. Which I take to mean that the status quo is just fine. __END__ From walter at frii.com Mon Jan 29 14:35:11 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Jim Baker wrote: > Snowshoeing sounds wonderful. Perhaps we can do this along the Mesa trail > this Tuesday afternoon, at around 3 PM, starting from Chautauqua. I know > the snow cover doesn't last too long here, but it should last probably that > long, right? > > I could go for a meeting too. Perhaps we still have time to invite Damian > on his world speaking tour: http://www.yetanother.org/damian/events.html. > I'd love to hear him speak on Parse::FastDescent since I do use its > (slowish) predecessor, Parse::RecDescent. Or more generally about his views > on the evolution of Perl into a metalanguage, without hopefully becoming a > monstrosity like Lisp. Just its own monstrosity, of course. In a proper > frame of mind, topics like these are a lot of fun to discuss informally too > IMHO because they represent the convergence of computers and philosophy, and > as is well known, that is where it also converges with brew pubs. > > - Jim I'm up in Gunbarrel, and we barely have anything on the ground. (These storms since I moved here have been a lot of sound and fury signifying . . . nothing.) That said, I'd be happy to tromp around tomorrow afternoon in my boots. Walter From boulder-pm at jim-baker.com Mon Jan 29 15:16:49 2001 From: boulder-pm at jim-baker.com (Jim Baker) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here in East Chautauqua, the snow looks pretty decent. I haven't had a chance to go up into the mesas/Flatirons today, but it should be even better. Not certain if it will be still deep enough tomorrow so snowshoeing will be fun - this is not Rocky Mountain NP - but it's worth a try. - Jim -----Original Message----- From: owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org [mailto:owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org]On Behalf Of Walter Pienciak Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 1:35 PM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: RE: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Jim Baker wrote: > Snowshoeing sounds wonderful. Perhaps we can do this along the Mesa trail > this Tuesday afternoon, at around 3 PM, starting from Chautauqua. I know > the snow cover doesn't last too long here, but it should last probably that > long, right? > > I could go for a meeting too. Perhaps we still have time to invite Damian > on his world speaking tour: http://www.yetanother.org/damian/events.html. > I'd love to hear him speak on Parse::FastDescent since I do use its > (slowish) predecessor, Parse::RecDescent. Or more generally about his views > on the evolution of Perl into a metalanguage, without hopefully becoming a > monstrosity like Lisp. Just its own monstrosity, of course. In a proper > frame of mind, topics like these are a lot of fun to discuss informally too > IMHO because they represent the convergence of computers and philosophy, and > as is well known, that is where it also converges with brew pubs. > > - Jim I'm up in Gunbarrel, and we barely have anything on the ground. (These storms since I moved here have been a lot of sound and fury signifying . . . nothing.) That said, I'd be happy to tromp around tomorrow afternoon in my boots. Walter From walter at frii.com Tue Jan 30 08:26:28 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Jim Baker wrote: > Here in East Chautauqua, the snow looks pretty decent. I haven't had a > chance to go up into the mesas/Flatirons today, but it should be even > better. Not certain if it will be still deep enough tomorrow so snowshoeing > will be fun - this is not Rocky Mountain NP - but it's worth a try. > > - Jim I was up by the Flatirons yesterday -- there's definitely not enough snow to snowshoe. I think to snowshoe we'll have to plan on going west and up a bit, and there's not enough time after 3 to make that worthwhile. I think we'll need to plan and come up with a common weekday or Saturday. Want to get together at 3 in the Chautauqua parking lot anyway? Walter From boulder-pm at jim-baker.com Tue Jan 30 12:05:36 2001 From: boulder-pm at jim-baker.com (Jim Baker) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Sounds like a plan! I'll see you there, along with the uncountable other Perl hikers joining in for the fun :) - Jim -----Original Message----- From: owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org [mailto:owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org]On Behalf Of Walter Pienciak Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 7:26 AM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: RE: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Jim Baker wrote: > Here in East Chautauqua, the snow looks pretty decent. I haven't had a > chance to go up into the mesas/Flatirons today, but it should be even > better. Not certain if it will be still deep enough tomorrow so snowshoeing > will be fun - this is not Rocky Mountain NP - but it's worth a try. > > - Jim I was up by the Flatirons yesterday -- there's definitely not enough snow to snowshoe. I think to snowshoe we'll have to plan on going west and up a bit, and there's not enough time after 3 to make that worthwhile. I think we'll need to plan and come up with a common weekday or Saturday. Want to get together at 3 in the Chautauqua parking lot anyway? Walter From rise at frii.com Tue Jan 30 14:20:38 2001 From: rise at frii.com (Jonathan Conway) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Jim Baker wrote: > Sounds like a plan! I'll see you there, along with the uncountable other > Perl hikers joining in for the fun :) Well, you can count me among the UOPH. Jonathan Conway From walter at frii.com Tue Jan 30 15:11:49 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: For anyone coming who doesn't know what any of us look like, I'll be sporting a green/black fleece, a beard, and a blue baseball hat. Walter From boulder-pm at jim-baker.com Tue Jan 30 18:23:31 2001 From: boulder-pm at jim-baker.com (Jim Baker) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I just got back from the hiking, and I must say this is a very enjoyable way to spend some time and do even a little professional sharing and brainstorming. I got some useful feedback from Jonathan on a problem I'm working on (solution: use feedback!); and Walter introduced me to the 3rd Flatiron trail, which is a very nice hike. Thanks! - Jim -----Original Message----- From: owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org [mailto:owner-boulder-pm-list@pm.org]On Behalf Of Walter Pienciak Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 2:12 PM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: RE: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? For anyone coming who doesn't know what any of us look like, I'll be sporting a green/black fleece, a beard, and a blue baseball hat. Walter From walter at frii.com Wed Jan 31 10:58:26 2001 From: walter at frii.com (Walter Pienciak) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Jim Baker wrote: > I just got back from the hiking, and I must say this is a very enjoyable way > to spend some time and do even a little professional sharing and > brainstorming. I got some useful feedback from Jonathan on a problem I'm > working on (solution: use feedback!); and Walter introduced me to the 3rd > Flatiron trail, which is a very nice hike. > > Thanks! > > - Jim I had an excellent time. I'm pretty quiet sometimes, and in this case had fun listening to stuff I know nothing about. (Gosh, that's just about anything, really.) Plus, I was out of the virtual reality that my head is stuck in 40-60 hours/week. When I get out into the real world, away from constructs and abstractions, I find that my stress levels go down a LOT. Thanks for the conversation. A note of warning to anyone thinking about coming next time: Jon quite evilly tried to tempt me into the Softpro bookstore afterward "just to look around." Sure. Like I could resist buying something. Walter From rise at frii.com Wed Jan 31 15:28:11 2001 From: rise at frii.com (Jonathan Conway) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > Plus, I was out of the virtual reality that my head is stuck in 40-60 > hours/week. When I get out into the real world, away from constructs and > abstractions, I find that my stress levels go down a LOT. That seems true for everyone who shows up, though as we discovered it may not be possible to do a one-to-one map of the reasons. :) > A note of warning to anyone thinking about coming next time: Jon > quite evilly tried to tempt me into the Softpro bookstore afterward > "just to look around." Sure. Like I could resist buying something. Hey I don't sell you the books. At worst I'm the Joe Camel of this little morality play. Jonathan From jvanslyk at matchlogic.com Wed Jan 31 16:31:10 2001 From: jvanslyk at matchlogic.com (Jason Van Slyke) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:28 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? Message-ID: <5FE9B713CCCDD311A03400508B8B301303D53A37@bdr-xcln.is.matchlogic.com> a dangerous thought would be to have a users group get-together at SoftPro =8-) jvs -----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Conway [mailto:rise@frii.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 2:28 PM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: RE: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, Walter Pienciak wrote: > Plus, I was out of the virtual reality that my head is stuck in 40-60 > hours/week. When I get out into the real world, away from constructs and > abstractions, I find that my stress levels go down a LOT. That seems true for everyone who shows up, though as we discovered it may not be possible to do a one-to-one map of the reasons. :) > A note of warning to anyone thinking about coming next time: Jon > quite evilly tried to tempt me into the Softpro bookstore afterward > "just to look around." Sure. Like I could resist buying something. Hey I don't sell you the books. At worst I'm the Joe Camel of this little morality play. Jonathan From Chris.Kunz at Level3.com Mon Jan 29 10:16:23 2001 From: Chris.Kunz at Level3.com (Chris.Kunz@Level3.com) Date: Wed Aug 4 23:58:29 2004 Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? Message-ID: <5A460FCC4F90D411AA110008C716B0A7307504@c0004v1idc1.oss.level3.com> I have not been able to attend any of the events (although they sounded like fun). I would appreciate a meeting so that I could put some faces with the names. I like the informality of the boulder.pm group and read all the mail that comes along. I also like the fact that the mail volume is relatively sparse. Some of the tech lists I am on are so active that I end up deleting at least half the messages without reading. I also appreciate the fact that Mr. Pienciak takes the time to 'manage' the group. Thanks -----Original Message----- From: Walter Pienciak [mailto:walter@frii.com] Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:50 AM To: boulder-pm-list@happyfunball.pm.org Subject: [boulder.pm] incoming message from the big giant head? Hey, It's snowing outside, and I've caught my breath from the holidays madness. Life sucked for a while there, but it's better now. I hope it's the same for @you. Anyway, I want to go snowshoeing. It was just too much fun last time. But I also don't want to be derelict in what duties I might be considered to have as Nominal Leader of this motley crew of ne'er-do-wells, geeks, gurus, and diligent students of Perl. Would anyone be interested in an actual meeting rather than a hike? I have no idea what we'd do. Informal hanging out and chatter? A formal presentation under dimmed lights in a lecture hall? Does anyone have something they'd like to hear about? Only a few people talk much on the mailing list, and I don't feel like I have a good sense of what most members want/need. Walter As a postscript, maybe I should add something that those of you who've attended meetings in the past have heard: This group drifts along. I don't have the need or desire to try to lead it along by the nose, and schedule things, and make presentations, or perform CPR. Maybe it's wrong thinking, but I'm comfortable with Boulder.pm being as active or inactive as its members want. There are a LOT of good technical groups around here, some that have meetings and some that exist only on mailing lists. I figure Boulder.pm has a lot of overlap with those groups, and that as a result, even though we're low-profile, no one here is "technology-deprived". So I'm not worried too much. On the other hand, if someone has questions they're not asking, here's a sincere plea that you ask. Odds are that someone else either has the same question or will be dealing with it in the future. Or if you have some coherent thoughts on dealing with an issue, don't wait for a question: push the information out. Every once in a while, we have a meeting, or an e-mail like this goes out, and the responses to the question "What would you like to do?" are generally low-key both in tone and number. Which I take to mean that the status quo is just fine. __END__