From rkleeman at energoncube.net Mon Aug 1 14:17:02 2005 From: rkleeman at energoncube.net (Bob Kleemann) Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2005 14:17:02 -0700 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] Meetings this month! Message-ID: <20050801211702.GA26206@energoncube.net> Yes that's right folks, the month of August is upon us, so let me announce the meetings that are happening. There is the traditional monthly meeting, taking place next Monday, August 8th at 7PM at Panera Bread on Mira Mesa Blvd. There is also a meeting on Tuesday, August 16, where Damian Conway will come and talk to us about Life, the Universe, and Everything at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. You do not need to RSVP for either, but if you could that would be appreciated. From joel at fentin.com Fri Aug 5 10:23:52 2005 From: joel at fentin.com (Joel Fentin) Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 10:23:52 -0700 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] ajax Message-ID: <42F3A0A8.8020108@fentin.com> http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68403,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5 [May not go out to the perl people if I don't use the word perl in my message somewhere.] -- Joel Fentin tel: 760-749-8863 FAX: 760-749-8864 Email me: http://fentin.com/me/ContactMe.html Biz Website: http://fentin.com Personal Website: http://fentin.com/me From tkil at scrye.com Mon Aug 8 23:25:28 2005 From: tkil at scrye.com (Tkil) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 00:25:28 -0600 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] Meeting Notes: Monday 2005-08-08 Message-ID: <17144.19544.981384.479962@brand.scrye.com> [Apologies to the list; I tried to send out a reminder for tonight's meeting, but I sent it to the wrong address. Sigh.] A rundown on the topics of conversation: * CPAN Namespaces Emile brought up the fact that CPAN namespaces are essentially given for a long time, and for exclusive use of one developer. Slight tangents about the best way to handle this (mob rule? the old alt.* newsgroup creation rules?). A few further tangents about how big software projects rarely seem to survive without a benign dictator who is both thoroughly technically competent yet also able to deal with people. Larry Wall and Linus Torvalds were mentioned. [Personal comment: I think that Apache might qualify as a project that has survived and thrived without a single benign dictator. Also, this line of thinking brings up a lot of my issues of "meritocracy" vs "politics" in my head.] We later talked about Java namespaces, and how they tried to remove the conflict by tying into the DNS namespace. [Personal note: what I'd really like to see in Java is the ability to import a long namespace / package name as a short one: import com.foo.bar.baz.something.whatever.big.long.deep.thing; // ... thing.Widget w = new thing.WidgetImpl(...); Unfortuantely, that's just not there.] * Versioning of interfaces: A segue from CPAN Namespaces to interfaces. If you want to refactor the interface provided by a class, what's the best way to do that? You have to rename it unles it provides exact same methods and models as before. Best way seems to be create new name, and either let the old version stay alive for a while, or reimplement the old interface in terms of the new one. [Personal comment: I remember the linux firewalling people doing this when they would introduce a new and incompatible networking framework into the kernel: they provided a command that would take arguments like the old framework and translate them into the new.] Issues / solutions from other languages were brought up: + Win32 used Foo, then FooEx, then eventually Foo2 and Foo3 + _Effective Java_ implies that one cannot ever add anything to a published interface; I infer that this is because the vtable uses a precise copy of the interface, and if that interface is changed, you lose binary compatibility. * Importing Namespaces. What's your preference? Do you import individual functions explicitly, or do you grab them all (or at least all the default exports)? Or do you import none, and use fully-qualified names on everything? That is, do you prefer (in Perl): use Config qw( %Config ); # ... print $Config{sig_name}; Or would you just use Config; # ... print $Config{sig_name}; Or you can even use Config qw(); # ... print $Config::Config{sig_name}; In Java, you have similar options: import java.util.List; import java.util.ArrayList; // ... List myList = new ArrayList( initCapacity ); Versus import java.util.*; // List myList = new ArrayList( initCapacity ); Versus // no import statements at all java.util.List myList = new java.util.ArrayList( initCapacity ); * Markup Languages Emile discussed the benefits of "YAML" and how it's more readable than XML while [apparently] being both simpler and still complete. http://yaml.org/ I played devil's advocate for a while, but it seems that YAML really is pretty well-thought-out; I wonder how much of XML was just hangover from SGML... * Collating Sequences; Evolution of [Human] Languages; Grammar We were talking about Damian Conway's upcoming visit, and how he wrote a module to let you program Perl in Latin: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/Perligata.html Which got into a side discussion of what the phrases "case", "declination", and "conjugation" meant in a technical sense when talking about grammars. I provided a few German and English examples, while Nolly threw in a few Russian samples. Joel tried to map this to his understanding of Spanish and how it's changed even in his lifetime (but that's just because he's OLD OLD OLD.) Emile also compared the various languages he'd found himself involved with. Nolly mentioned Suzette Elgin, a sci-fi author and linguist who has an interesting LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/ozarque/ Anything else mentioned? Comment away. t. From emileaben at gmail.com Tue Aug 9 09:04:51 2005 From: emileaben at gmail.com (Emile Aben) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 09:04:51 -0700 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] Meeting Notes: Monday 2005-08-08 In-Reply-To: <17144.19544.981384.479962@brand.scrye.com> References: <17144.19544.981384.479962@brand.scrye.com> Message-ID: <28e00a750508090904592097d1@mail.gmail.com> One think I promised to do was to provide some info on how to get to the SDSC building for Damian's talk. General info can be found here: http://www.sdsc.edu/Visitors/directions.html And google maps also has the area of course: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.886038,-117.239442&spn=0.006291,0.011823&t=h&hl=en If you want to save a couple of bucks, the nearest free parking I know of is on Torrey Pines Scenic Dr. (connects N Torrey Pines Rd to the Gliderpoint). People who know UCSD campus will know what shortcuts to take to get from Torrey Pines to campus, I'm not going to try to explain these. The longer, but safer way to walk (5 mins) from Torrey Pines Scenic Dr. to the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) : - Go to Torrey Pines Rd - Turn left (North) - Take the first right into North Point Dr. - After a little uphill you'll see a UCSD info booth (North Point Dr @ North Point Ln), take a right here onto Ridgeway walk - You'll pass the Rimac sports fields on your left and the Rimac complex (first structure on the left) - Next building on the left is SDSC, don't take the steep road down between Rimac and SDSC, but walk past the SDSC west wing and you'll see a little walkway to the main entrance (that's the only one that will be open, so don't try other entrances). - congrats you're there. hope this helps Emile On 8/8/05, Tkil wrote: > > [Apologies to the list; I tried to send out a reminder for tonight's > meeting, but I sent it to the wrong address. Sigh.] > > A rundown on the topics of conversation: > > * CPAN Namespaces > > Emile brought up the fact that CPAN namespaces are essentially given > for a long time, and for exclusive use of one developer. Slight > tangents about the best way to handle this (mob rule? the old alt.* > newsgroup creation rules?). > > A few further tangents about how big software projects rarely seem > to survive without a benign dictator who is both thoroughly > technically competent yet also able to deal with people. Larry Wall > and Linus Torvalds were mentioned. > > [Personal comment: I think that Apache might qualify as a project > that has survived and thrived without a single benign dictator. > Also, this line of thinking brings up a lot of my issues of > "meritocracy" vs "politics" in my head.] > > We later talked about Java namespaces, and how they tried to remove > the conflict by tying into the DNS namespace. > > [Personal note: what I'd really like to see in Java is the ability > to import a long namespace / package name as a short one: > > import com.foo.bar.baz.something.whatever.big.long.deep.thing; > // ... > thing.Widget w = new thing.WidgetImpl(...); > > Unfortuantely, that's just not there.] > > * Versioning of interfaces: > > A segue from CPAN Namespaces to interfaces. If you want to refactor > the interface provided by a class, what's the best way to do that? > You have to rename it unles it provides exact same methods and > models as before. > > Best way seems to be create new name, and either let the old version > stay alive for a while, or reimplement the old interface in terms of > the new one. > > [Personal comment: I remember the linux firewalling people doing > this when they would introduce a new and incompatible networking > framework into the kernel: they provided a command that would take > arguments like the old framework and translate them into the new.] > > Issues / solutions from other languages were brought up: > > + Win32 used Foo, then FooEx, then eventually Foo2 and Foo3 > > + _Effective Java_ implies that one cannot ever add anything to a > published interface; I infer that this is because the vtable uses > a precise copy of the interface, and if that interface is changed, > you lose binary compatibility. > > * Importing Namespaces. > > What's your preference? Do you import individual functions > explicitly, or do you grab them all (or at least all the default > exports)? Or do you import none, and use fully-qualified names on > everything? > > That is, do you prefer (in Perl): > > use Config qw( %Config ); > # ... > print $Config{sig_name}; > > Or would you just > > use Config; > # ... > print $Config{sig_name}; > > Or you can even > > use Config qw(); > # ... > print $Config::Config{sig_name}; > > In Java, you have similar options: > > import java.util.List; > import java.util.ArrayList; > // ... > List myList = new ArrayList( initCapacity ); > > Versus > > import java.util.*; > // > List myList = new ArrayList( initCapacity ); > > Versus > > // no import statements at all > java.util.List myList = > new java.util.ArrayList( initCapacity ); > > * Markup Languages > > Emile discussed the benefits of "YAML" and how it's more readable > than XML while [apparently] being both simpler and still complete. > > http://yaml.org/ > > I played devil's advocate for a while, but it seems that YAML really > is pretty well-thought-out; I wonder how much of XML was just > hangover from SGML... > > * Collating Sequences; Evolution of [Human] Languages; Grammar > > We were talking about Damian Conway's upcoming visit, and how he > wrote a module to let you program Perl in Latin: > > http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/Perligata.html > > Which got into a side discussion of what the phrases "case", > "declination", and "conjugation" meant in a technical sense when > talking about grammars. > > I provided a few German and English examples, while Nolly threw in a > few Russian samples. Joel tried to map this to his understanding of > Spanish and how it's changed even in his lifetime (but that's just > because he's OLD OLD OLD.) Emile also compared the various > languages he'd found himself involved with. > > Nolly mentioned Suzette Elgin, a sci-fi author and linguist who has > an interesting LiveJournal: > > http://www.livejournal.com/users/ozarque/ > > Anything else mentioned? Comment away. > > t. > _______________________________________________ > San-Diego-pm mailing list > San-Diego-pm at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/san-diego-pm > From tkil at scrye.com Tue Aug 9 12:15:50 2005 From: tkil at scrye.com (Tkil) Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 13:15:50 -0600 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] Meeting Notes: Monday 2005-08-08 In-Reply-To: <28e00a750508090904592097d1@mail.gmail.com> (Emile Aben's message of "Tue, 9 Aug 2005 09:04:51 -0700") References: <17144.19544.981384.479962@brand.scrye.com> <28e00a750508090904592097d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >>>>> "Emile" == Emile Aben writes: Emile> One think I promised to do was to provide some info on how to Emile> get to the SDSC building for Damian's talk. Thanks for the info! Is there any interest (or point) in carpooling? Bob and I will be coming down from north county inland, but we'll probably be in two cars anyway. I'll be going home to O.B., and Bob over to the SDSU area, so it might make more sense to offer people rides back, if they want to take transit to get there, or get dropped off. One topic that I missed in my writeup was AJAX, following-on from Joel's post to the list a week or two back. Emile, you mentioned two different projects that were working to provide a cross-browser API for DHTML / AJAX. Could you post a bit about those? Name and URL would be fine, but if you know more, a paragraph or two would be great. AJAX led us to talk about Google Maps, which got me off on a tangent about their unfortunate choice of map projection -- which seems necessary for their tiling system to work, but distorts pretty badly even within the contiguous USA, let alone further north. Huh. Now that I'm investigating it, I don't see the distortion at all. I wonder if I'm misremembering, or whether they got a lot more smarts imported with the satellite imagery and the "hybrid" view mode. Ok, nevermind. But I'll still try to remember to bring _An Atlas of Map Projections_ with me to Damian's talk, so that Joel can take a look at it. Thanks, t. From emileaben at gmail.com Tue Aug 9 14:36:33 2005 From: emileaben at gmail.com (Emile Aben) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 14:36:33 -0700 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] Meeting Notes: Monday 2005-08-08 In-Reply-To: References: <17144.19544.981384.479962@brand.scrye.com> <28e00a750508090904592097d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <28e00a75050809143643ff14d5@mail.gmail.com> One Ajax-implementation I have been wanting to toy around with is: http://prototype.conio.net/ I know this is integrated in the whole Catalyst framework (that I've also wanted to play around with), interesting article on that here: http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2005/06/02/catalyst.html Another one is: http://www.modernmethod.com/sajax/ (i think it's the one Joel posted before) Emile On 8/9/05, Tkil wrote: > >>>>> "Emile" == Emile Aben writes: > > Emile> One think I promised to do was to provide some info on how to > Emile> get to the SDSC building for Damian's talk. > > Thanks for the info! > > Is there any interest (or point) in carpooling? Bob and I will be > coming down from north county inland, but we'll probably be in two > cars anyway. I'll be going home to O.B., and Bob over to the SDSU > area, so it might make more sense to offer people rides back, if they > want to take transit to get there, or get dropped off. > > One topic that I missed in my writeup was AJAX, following-on from > Joel's post to the list a week or two back. Emile, you mentioned two > different projects that were working to provide a cross-browser API > for DHTML / AJAX. Could you post a bit about those? Name and URL > would be fine, but if you know more, a paragraph or two would be > great. > > AJAX led us to talk about Google Maps, which got me off on a tangent > about their unfortunate choice of map projection -- which seems > necessary for their tiling system to work, but distorts pretty badly > even within the contiguous USA, let alone further north. > > Huh. Now that I'm investigating it, I don't see the distortion at > all. I wonder if I'm misremembering, or whether they got a lot more > smarts imported with the satellite imagery and the "hybrid" view mode. > Ok, nevermind. But I'll still try to remember to bring _An Atlas of > Map Projections_ with me to Damian's talk, so that Joel can take a > look at it. > > Thanks, > t. > From rkleeman at energoncube.net Mon Aug 15 16:42:44 2005 From: rkleeman at energoncube.net (Bob Kleemann) Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 16:42:44 -0700 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] Special Meeting Tommorow Message-ID: <20050815234244.GE25277@energoncube.net> Just a reminder folks, there is a special meeting Tuesday evening. It's at the same time as usual, but at a new location and with a new speaker and improved topics. Tuesday, August 16, 2005 at 7PM come listent to Damain Conway talk about Life, the Universe, and Everything at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. If you need help finding, getting to, or getting back from the event, just let me know. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you there! From merlyn at stonehenge.com Mon Aug 15 18:01:42 2005 From: merlyn at stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) Date: 15 Aug 2005 18:01:42 -0700 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] Special Meeting Tommorow In-Reply-To: <20050815234244.GE25277@energoncube.net> References: <20050815234244.GE25277@energoncube.net> Message-ID: <86acjizocp.fsf@blue.stonehenge.com> >>>>> "Bob" == Bob Kleemann writes: Bob> Damain Conway Da-main! Because Da-Backup isn't available! -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training! From emileaben at gmail.com Fri Aug 19 09:57:35 2005 From: emileaben at gmail.com (Emile Aben) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:57:35 -0700 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] perl the most popular indoor activity? Message-ID: <28e00a7505081909573576f3ce@mail.gmail.com> Hi, according to google zeitgeist, 'perl programming' was the most searched for indoor activity in June 2005: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html (info shamelessly stolen from http://www.askbjoernhansen.com/archives/2005/08/18/zeitgeist.html). emile From christopher.hahn at peregrine.com Fri Aug 19 10:12:11 2005 From: christopher.hahn at peregrine.com (Christopher Hahn) Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:12:11 -0700 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] perl the most popular indoor activity? Message-ID: ...and consider the degree of variation. Perl is way ahead of #2. -----Original Message----- From: Emile Aben [mailto:emileaben at gmail.com] Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 9:58 AM To: San Diego Perl Mongers Subject: [San-Diego-pm] perl the most popular indoor activity? Hi, according to google zeitgeist, 'perl programming' was the most searched for indoor activity in June 2005: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html (info shamelessly stolen from http://www.askbjoernhansen.com/archives/2005/08/18/zeitgeist.html). emile _______________________________________________ San-Diego-pm mailing list San-Diego-pm at pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/san-diego-pm From tkil at scrye.com Mon Aug 22 12:45:54 2005 From: tkil at scrye.com (Tkil) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 13:45:54 -0600 Subject: [San-Diego-pm] virtual desktops for windows and mac Message-ID: <17162.11122.756304.600256@brand.scrye.com> This came up at Damian Conway's talk last week, and I said I'd post links to the two packages I use. Sorry it took so long... For OSX, I use "Desktop Manager": http://desktopmanager.berlios.de/index.php It works great, and is easy to configure; I tend to leave the pager turned off, and put the four windows straight across on my menubar. You can configure the different switching animations as well. This is the package that Damian was using during his presentation. For Windows XP, I use "Virtual Dimension": http://virt-dimension.sourceforge.net/ It's fast, and the only issues I've had with it are some strange interactions with X-Win32 (but MSVDM had the same issues, so I suspect it's just an impedence mismatch between the Win32 WM and what X windows expects...) I have four desktops, again lined up in a row, and I keep the pager at the bottom-right corner of my screen. I make it fairly large, so I can see the icons for the 10-20 windows I have open on each screen, and it lets you move windows from one desktop to another either by dragging their icons in the pager, or by right-clicking any title bar (where it has added "move to desktop ", "make transparent", "put on all desktops", etc.) If you already have MSVDM installed, make sure you uninstall it first, before installing Virtual Dimension; Bob can attest to the unpleasant conflicts if you don't do so... I used to use the Microsoft Power Toy Virtual Desktop Manager ("MSVDM"), but it was lacking in many ways: no easy way to move windows between desktops, and I've had some substantial focus / z-order issues with it. It's unsupported even by Microsoft; the only advantage I can think of is that it lives in the actual task bar, instead of being another window on the screen. *shrug* Anyway, here's the URL for reference: Very brief description: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx Actual download link: http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/DeskmanPowertoySetup.exe Let me know if you have any questions. :) Thanks, t.