Whammo's Friends' Journals

I'm twittering my Perl stuff at http://twitter.com/briandfoy

brian_d_foy — 2010-01-02T13:06:32+00:00

I'll tweet at (http://twitter.com/briandfoy_perl) when I have something to say in 140 characters. I'll almost always use "Perl" when I post.

Effective Perl Programming master class at Frozen Perl

brian_d_foy — 2010-01-01T13:32:50+00:00

At Frozen Perl 2010 in Minneapolis, I'm teaching a new master class based on my latest book, Effective Perl Programming, 2nd Edition. Perl has changed quite a bit since Joseph Hall wrote the first edition over 10 years ago. Josh McAdams and I have added a lot of new information as well as updated the existing material. In the one-day class for intermediate Perl programmers, I'll cover selected topics from the book, including:

Working with Unicode in Perl
Tricks with filehandles
New regex features in Perl 5.10 and later
Playing with pack()
Using closures to make things simpler
and other topics as time allows

Although the book hasn't been published yet, it is available for pre-order, and attendees to the class can get a sneak peek at the working manuscript as well as a soft copy of the course slides.

What's your coolest Perl one-liner?

brian_d_foy — 2009-12-17T06:19:18+00:00

Josh and I are finishing up Effective Perl Programming, 2nd Edition, and the last part to finish off is the item on Perl one-liners.

Besides going through writing a one liner, we want to list a bunch of them too. Want to get your name in the book? Give us some one-liners that you wrote yourself and a couple of sentences about what it does. Make sure you tell us how you'd like your name to appear in the book, too. :)

Perl 5.11.2

acme — 2009-11-21T08:56:15+00:00

The streets were pretty quiet, which was nice. They're always quiet here
at that time: you have to be wearing a black jacket to be out on the
streets between seven and nine in the evening, and not many people in the
area have black jackets. It's just one of those things. I currently live
in Colour Neighbourhood, which is for people who are heavily into colour.
All the streets and buildings are set for instant colourmatch: as you
walk down the road they change hue to offset whatever you're wearing.
When the streets are busy it's kind of intense, and anyone prone to
epileptic seizures isn't allowed to live in the Neighbourhood, however
much they're into colour.
- Michael Marshall Smith, "Only Forward"

It gives me great pleasure to announce the release of Perl 5.11.2.

This is the third DEVELOPMENT release in the 5.11.x series leading to a stable release of Perl 5.12.0. You can find a list of high-profile changes in this release in the file "perl5112delta.pod" inside the distribution.

You can download the 5.11.2 release from:

http://search.cpan.org/~lbrocard/perl-5.11.2/

The release's SHA1 signatures are:

2988906609ab7eb00453615e420e47ec410e0077 perl-5.11.2.tar.gz

0014442fdd0492444e1102e1a80089b6a4649682 perl-5.11.2.tar.bz2

We welcome your feedback on this release. If you discover issues with Perl 5.11.2, please use the 'perlbug' tool included in this distribution to report them. If Perl 5.11.2 works well for you, please use the 'perlthanks' tool included with this distribution to tell the all-volunteer development team how much you appreciate their work.

If you write software in Perl, it is particularly important that you test your software against development releases. While we strive to maintain source compatibility with prior stable versions of Perl wherever possible, it is always possible that a well-intentioned change can have unexpected consequences. If you spot a change in a development version which breaks your code, it's much more likely that we will be able to fix it before the next stable release. If you only test your code against stable releases of Perl, it may not be possible to undo a backwards-incompatible change which breaks your code.

Notable changes in this release:

It is now possible to overload the C operator
Extension modules can now cleanly hook into the Perl parser to define new kinds of keyword-headed expression and compound statement
The lowest layers of the lexer and parts of the pad system now have C APIs available to XS extensions
Use of C<:=> to mean an empty attribute list is now deprecated

Perl 5.11.2 represents approximately 3 weeks development since Perl 5.11.1 and contains 29,992 lines of changes across 458 files from 38 authors and committers:

Abhijit Menon-Sen, Abigail, Ben Morrow, Bo Borgerson, Brad Gilbert, Bram, Chris Williams, Craig A. Berry, Daniel Frederick Crisman, Dave Rolsky, David E. Wheeler, David Golden, Eric Brine, Father Chrysostomos, Frank Wiegand, Gerard Goossen, Gisle Aas, Graham Barr, Harmen, H.Merijn Brand, Jan Dubois, Jerry D. Hedden, Jesse Vincent, Karl Williamson, Kevin Ryde, Leon Brocard, Nicholas Clark, Paul Marquess, Philippe Bruhat, Rafael Garcia-Suarez, Sisyphus, Steffen Mueller, Steve Hay, Steve Peters, Vincent Pit, Yuval Kogman, Yves Orton, and Zefram.

Many of the changes included in this version originated in the CPAN modules included in Perl's core. We're grateful to the entire CPAN community for helping Perl to flourish.

Jesse Vincent or a delegate will release Perl 5.11.3 on December 20, 2009. Ricardo Signes will release Perl 5.11.4 on January 20, 2010. Steve Hay will release Perl 5.11.5 on February 20, 2010.

Regards, Léon

OOPSLA 2009

acme — 2009-11-05T08:41:53+00:00

OOPSLA 2009 happened a few weeks ago. OOPSLA stands for Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages & Applications and I've always been quite interested in the conference. The proceedings of the conference aren't put online, but I've managed to find two interesting papers:

A Market-Based Approach to Software Evolution (PDF) tries to imagine an open market which is targetted around fixing bugs and improving software. It's quite interesting as it's quite similar to a proposal from Nicholas on spending other people's money. The authors point out many potential flaws.

The Commenting Practice of Open Source (PDF) analyses projects on Ohloh and tries to spot commenting trends. "We find that comment density is independent of team and project size", but they find that it varies from language to language. "Java has the highest mean of comment lines per source lines at.. one comment line for three source code lines" and "Perl has the lowest mean with.. one comment line for nine source code lines". They list as future work to find out why this might be the case.

I'm in Dublin on Sunday

brian_d_foy — 2009-10-22T20:13:37+00:00

I kept meaning to post this, and I can't believe it's already this late in October.

Jonas Nielsen and I are going to be in Dublin, Ireland on Sunday because we're both running the marathon on Monday. If any local Perl Mongers want to get together for a drink on Sunday early evening, let me know. I'm staying about a mile from the marathon start and otherwise have no idea of the geography.

It might be my only time to see Jonas. Once he leaves the start line, I won't see him for hours. :)

I'm a Perl::Critic committer.

brian_d_foy — 2009-10-22T14:07:02+00:00

Elliot forced me to accept a commit bit to the Perl Critic repo.

My first policy will be *::YouArentAllowedToProgramAnymore, which deletes your source if it finds that you fail any policy, you have any use of 'no critic', you run Perl::Critic more than once on the same file, or if it's Friday afternoon. If you have your stuff in source control, you should be safe. That's the fence you have to jump over to get back in, though.

Elliot already shot down my policy suggestions for *::NotEnoughVowels, *::PassiveVoiceInString, *::MisconjugatedVerb, *::StupidVariableName, *::UsesWindows, *:;DependsOnModules, *::YouEditedThisInEmacs, *::Magic8Ball, *::YourNameIsPudge, *::YourModuleWebsiteIsUgly, and *::YourPerlIsSoLastMonth.

Games

acme — 2009-10-19T07:34:03+00:00

A few weeks ago I was up in the hills about Geneva reminiscing with my sister about all the things we used to enjoy when we were smaller. When I was younger I used to really enjoy programming computer games, first on my 48K Spectrum and then later on in STOS BASIC and then 68000 assembly language on my Atari ST.

I haven't programmed a game in a very long time. However, I'm an avid gamer, playing games while travelling on my DS and at home on my Xbox 360. I almost enjoy reading Edge magazine more than I like playing games.

At YAPC::Europe in Lisbon, Domm pointed out that the Perl SDL project (which wraps the Simple DirectMedia Layer) was languishing and that we should all programs games in Perl.

A few months later I got around to playing with SDL and made a simple breakout clone which I styled after Batty on the Spectrum, but with gravity. It was fairly easy to program, but there was a lot to grasp. The Perl libraries are a mix between a Perl interface to SDL and a Perlish interface to SDL, with limited documentation, tests and examples.

Of course this is where I join the #sdl IRC channel on irc.perl.org and start discussing with the other hackers (kthakore, garu, nothingmuch). We decide on a major redesign to split the project into two sections: the main code will just wrap SDL and then there will be another layer which makes it easier to use. I've started writing a bunch of XS on the redesign branch of the repository while trying to keep Bouncy (my game) still working. There is a bunch of work still to do but we've made a good start. This is what Bouncy looks like at the moment:

[YouTube video]

The physics are pretty fun and it runs pretty fast (1800 frames/second). I'm taking a little break as I'm off to Taipei...

I need some Unicode examples for Effective Perl Programming

brian_d_foy — 2009-09-25T07:25:05+00:00

Josh McAdams and I are updating Effective Perl Programming, and I'm working on a bunch of items dealing with Unicode.

I need some really nice non-english and especially non-romance language examples for some of the features we want to discuss. I'd love to be able to include sample strings in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Portugeuse, Arabic, and all sorts of other languages I have no clue about. Most of what I need are the sample phrases. If you don't have something interesting, maybe you can translate "Perl mongers" for me in an example like:

use utf8; my $phrase = '...'; # fill in your phrase if( $phrase =~ m/\N{Some charname}/ ) { say 'I matched a ...'; }

I also want to add a couple of examples of other encodings, especially non-Western ones. I have no idea about those encodings, but I don't need anything fancy.

I'm sure that everything is going to get messed up and translated incorrectly, so I'll be sure to let you see the proofs of your example to ensure the typesetters get it right in the end. :)

Perl/iX for HP e3000 MPE

acme — 2009-09-15T13:54:28+00:00

I'm trying to update various URLs in the Perl source code. Regarding the Perl/iX for HP e3000 MPE README.

It's very out of date now and most of the URLs are broken. I've contacted Mark Bixby, but he no longer has any involvement with the MPE/iX OS or that particular Perl port.

Does anyone run Perl on this platform? Does anyone build Perl on this platform? If so, please contact me and we'll try and update the details. Cheers!

$9.99 Learning Perl and Mastering Perl e-books from O'Reilly

brian_d_foy — 2009-08-24T20:00:18+00:00

O'Reilly dropped the regular price of e-books for Learning Perl and Mastering Perl to $9.99. I volunteered to be the guinea pig for pricing experiments. I specifically want to see if this makes it easier to get these books when access to the hard-copies is prohibitively expensive. You can get these books in Mobi, PDF, or ePub directly from O'Reilly. I'd like to do more of these sorts of experiments to get the books into as many hands as possible.

The $9.99 price is the regular price, so all existing discount and coupon codes apply. For instance, you can still use the 35% user group discount to get either book for $6.50.

These are the updated versions of the books too. All reported errata should be corrected, so they are slightly fresher than the hard copies.

Remember, the great thing about PDFs is that they don't take up any shelf space. Buy as many as you like!

YAPC::Europe 2009

acme — 2009-08-16T13:46:30+00:00

Two weeks ago I attended YAPC::Europe 2009 in Lisbon, Portgual. This wasn't the first YAPC in Portugal - in 2005 we went to Braga, a university town inland and it was a very well organised conference. It's no surprise the YAPC in Lisbon was also amazingly well organised, as it was the same organisers - José Castro (cog), Alberto Simões (ambs) and Magda Joana Silva. Thank you so much José, Alberto, Magda and all the others involved - it was amazing.

The theme of the conference was "Corporate Perl" and this made a useful track in the vast schedule. It's amazing all the places Perl is used. Every talk I attended was great - the speakers knew their material and explained their content well. Some of the presentations are already online, see "Talk" in the schedule.

I liked the venue, three metro stops away from our hotel (also very walkable). The main room was huge and the three other tracks were just nearby, leaving a large space behind these for socialising with the just-over 300 attendees (and easy access to the sun). This was also where the terribly-important refreshments were, including oh-so-tasty pastéis de Nata.

The attendees' dinner was great. It was in a huge churrascaria (meat on swords!) by the river. It was also a good location for the Quizz Show, with 16 two-person teams fighting to be the geekiest. This was quite hard, as the questions varied from Portuguese history, Star Trek, Buffy and Perl internals ("How many levels of precedence does Perl 5.10.0 have?") to Unix history.

Community was very important at the conference - there are lots of seperate groups of Perl people clustered around the core, Perl modules, Perl projects or even cities and conferences are where you can mix, meet people in real life and start making crazy plans for the future. There are so many exciting things going on in Perl and I'm really looking forward to YAPC::Europe in Pisa in 2010!

SIGGRAPH 2009

acme — 2009-08-15T12:18:16+00:00

I always enjoy reading the papers of the SIGGRAPH conference. It's nice to see what new graphical techniques are coming. Here are my favourite picks from 2009:

The last one contains great quotes like "A stretched cow that is torn when two bars scissor together" and "These images from an animation show viscoelastic horses being dropped onto one another".

Moose book

acme — 2009-08-06T15:45:38+00:00

I love Moose. It's a postmodern object system for Perl 5. It's very powerful, saves me writing a lot of code and is very extensible. Dave Rolsky received a grant to write the Moose::Manual and it's a great introduction to Moose, how to use Moose and covers every part of it in detail. I don't really enjoying reading documentation on a screen, so I converted the manual from Pod to LaTeX so that the typography would be beautiful, fixed a few typos in the manual, designed a nice cover and you can now buy a copy for yourself. At the YAPC::Europe 2009 auction a copy of the book signed by Yuval Kogman and Larry Wall went for €120!

London.pm Technical Meeting 30th July 2009

acme — 2009-07-15T08:21:24+00:00

London Perl Mongers organises technical meetings every two months. The technical meetings are a chance to find out what has been going on in the Perl community, what techniques people are using and how Perl integrates with other software.

The next technical meeting will be on the 30th July from 7pm to 9pm (you may arrive from 6.30pm, sign in at the reception) and the theme is “Corporate Perl”. You have to sign up to attend, see below. It will be held at Gumtree's's offices near Richmond station. Many thanks to Dave Cross, Gumtree and everyone involved for allowing us to use this wonderful venue.

Talks planned so far:

Dave Cross - Why do so many companies re-invent well-known CPAN
modules badly and end up writing far too much code?
Pedro Figueiredo - Perl in the cloud
Léon Brocard - Fewer cables

Our venue size is limited so you will have to sign up to attend this meeting.

http://londonpmtech.appspot.com/

See you there, Léon

Digital Britain

acme — 2009-06-17T11:11:42+00:00

"The Digital Britain Report is the Government's strategic vision for ensuring that the UK is at the leading edge of the global digital economy. It is an example of industrial activism in a crucial growth sector.

The report contains actions and recommendations to ensure first rate digital and communications infrastructure to promote and protect talent and innovation in our creative industries, to modernize TV and radio frameworks, and support local news, and it introduces policies to maximize the social and economic benefits from digital technologies."

Got me watching BBC Parliament to see the announcement.

The Digital Britain was down after the announcement, leading to amusing comments on twitter.

It is available in PDF and MS Word formats

The report itself is 245 pages and the executive summary has 83 points, so here are my notes:

JPEG artifacts by every page number

Chapter 2: Being Digital

Chapter 2 is entitled "Being Digital", same title as a great book by Nicholas Negroponte published in 1995 where he tries to predict how the technologies will evolve. It's far more futuristic than this report, and the rate of change since 1995 is impressive.

P27 "Universal Broadband Service, at a speed of 2 Megabits per second, by no later than 2012"

P30 "The financial savings flowing from an ability to use comparison websites and online-only deals are worth an average of around £23 per month, per individual"

Economic benefits of digital inclusion by UK Online Centres (which disables right-clicks on links so I couldn't copy and paste, sigh)

P32 "It is already increasingly the case that those without access to the Internet suffer economic disadvantage"

P33 "Awareness of the Internet was widespread with only 3% of respondents saying they had never heard it"

P36 "Many of these personal computers could be put to secondary use". Computers are cheaper now, but affordability is key

P40 This figure is pointless and shows consultants were involved

P44-45 Shows how some television programmes can drive people online

Chapter 3a: A Competitive Digital Communications Infrastructure

No, I'm not quite sure why it's 3a either

P47 "The UK’s communications infrastructure is a vital enabler for the country’s society, economy, safety, security and well being"

P47-48 "In the case of broadband, realising the full value of the copper network cost tens of millions of pounds of investment; replacing it with a fibre network will take billions"

P48 "Our communications infrastructure finds itself in continuing and rapid technology evolution, in which the new
generation already looks unambitious by the time is fully rolled out. The Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) promised the ultimate international goal in 1984 of two telephone lines and a 16 Kbps data link to every home. The
Total Access Communications (TACS) mobile networks licensed in 1984 was viewed as the foundation of modern mobile communications, while the Videotex Services heralded as the last word in browsing for information. Not
only were none of them the last word, they were not even the last generation of “modern” networks but the generation before. All have been overtaken."

P48 "Next generation fixed fibre and cable networks offer not just conventional high-definition video entertainment and
games, but potentially more revolutionary benefits for our economy and society – telepresence, e-healthcare in the home and, for small and medium sized businesses, access to cloud computing (which substantially cuts hardware
and application costs and allows much more rapid product and service innovation)" seems rather unambitious and and odd place to hype cloud computing

P49 "The pattern over the past 25 years has been the arrival of more advanced fixed and mobile networks at roughly 8-10 years intervals and it should come as no surprise that the next cycle is coming up fast"

P50 "The areas of the country that are covered by the Virgin Media network already have local optical fibre rings that run through Virgin’s street cabinets serving typically 500-1000 homes. Broadband coaxial cables then connect to individual homes. Coaxial cable can support 4 Gbps bandwidth on a shared basis. Virgin Media will this year extend its 50Mbps offering...". Errr, 4Gbps/500 is 8Mbps, not 50Mbps

P50 "The other half of the country is served nearly exclusively by BT’s copper network as the only fixed network"

P50 "Without action being taken it is possible that entire metro areas could suffer data ‘brown outs’"

P52 "For those households who have it, broadband has become an essential utility as important as electricity, gas or voice telephony"

P53 "Universal availability of today’s network essentially requires incremental upgrades of existing infrastructure and the costs are therefore limited to the hundreds of millions of pounds. Delivering tomorrow’s network essentially involves installing a new network or networks, and the costs are in the billions... We will therefore take action on two fronts. First, we will ensure delivery of the Universal Service Commitment at 2Mbps, and second we will take action separately to address the issue of next generation broadband availability". This is the most important point that
people who have not read the report fail to grasp.

P54 "and wireless network engineered solutions (including satellite)" implies that 330k homes might be able to get 2Mbps but with the high latency of going via satellites in geostationary orbit

P54 "c.11%, or about 2.75m, homes cannot readily get a 2Mbps (or higher) broadband service today"

P56 image showing that Wales is a broadband deadzone

P59: "There are genuine negative consequences for a country still connected to the Internet at 14.4 Kbps today. In twenty years’ time, countries still connected to the Internet at 3.3Mbps (or the 256 Kbps that characterises the up-link speeds for many consumers today) will similarly be left behind" is a rare reference to up-link.

P59 "We welcome the substantial investment already taking place, and are confident that the UK’s competitive markets will provide the stimulus for further investment without any Government intervention, providing competitive coverage of superfast, next generation broadband for between half and two-thirds of the population"

P60-62 has interesting comparisons on how Finland (1Mbps by 2010, 100Mbps to 99% by 2016), Germany (1Mbps by 2010, 50Mbps to 75% by 2014), USA (US$7.2bn investment), Australia (FTTH or wireless by 2017) and
New Zealand (FTTH to 75% proposal) are investing in broadband.

P62-63 show the costs involved rolling out FTTC (£400 per connection) or FTTH (£2000 per connection)

P63-64 "There is no obvious means whereby the market, unaided, will serve the final third of the population. We therefore propose a Final Third Project to deliver at least 90% coverage of Next Generation broadband for homes and businesses by 2017"

P64 "The Government intends to propose a small general supplement on all fixed copper lines... from 2010 for a Next Generation Fund.... of 50p per month on fixed lines" is odd as it is the only price mentioned per month instead of per annum.

P65 "can be expected to raise £150m-£175m a year for the Fund" - it's not that much money.

P67 "there is at present no wholesale offering over Virgin Media’s network, a fact which BT and others have claimed is a factor limiting service innovation"

P69-70 "Today there is near universal coverage of GSM... But the extensive coverage we now take for granted with GSM has not yet happened with 3G networks... For these reasons, if we eventually move to a phasing out of GSM networks in favour of the next generation, we might face the end of universal mobile coverage in the UK. There are strong public policy arguments for wishing to preserve very extensive coverage" so it looks like GSM is here to stay

P79 "The Government... will, as part of its integrated package, convert existing 3G licences from time limited to indefinite" to help get to universal coverage for mobile broadband

P82 "one option is to make the provision of high speed broadband services part of the rail franchise requirements for train operators"

P82 "On the underground, the London Olympics in 2012, which will be the most digital Olympics in history, seems a particularly good reason for the Mobile Network Operators to work with the Mayor of London to provide and fund solutions to take the initiative to improve the broadband mobile access for mobile customers travelling by Tube"

Chapter 3b: Going Digital

P92 "digital offers a number of possibilities for radio to grow"

P93 "Radio services on MW will either upgrade to DAB or, if they are within the ultra-local tier, to FM. This will deliver an upgrade from FM to DAB and from MW to FM... by 2013" so by 2015 we will all need DAB receivers instead of FM

P94 "Digital radio is not now, nor should it be in the future, a single platform medium"

P95 "We are clear that at least for the foreseeable future DAB is the right technology for the UK" but they will hedge their bets with DAB+ or DMB-A

P97 "At a national level we will look to the BBC to begin an aggressive roll-out of its national multiplex to ensure its national digital radio services achieve coverage comparable to FM by the end of 2014..."

Chapter 4: Creative Industries in the Digital World

P109 "a significant proportion of consumers are choosing to access digital content unlawfully, principally via unlawful peer-to-peer file sharing" is a lot of unlawful

P111 "the Government will also provide for backstop powers for... Blocking (Site, IP, URL), Protocol blocking, Port blocking, Bandwidth capping (capping the speed of a subscriber’s Internet connection and/or capping the volume of data traffic which a subscriber can access); Bandwidth shaping (limiting the speed of a subscriber’s access to selected protocols/services and/or capping the volume of data to selected protocols/services); Content identification and filtering– or a combination of these measures.

P117 "introduce exceptional statutory maxima of £50,000 for all IP offences" to match penalties for online and physical copyright infringement

P119 "Industry participants argue that consumers should pay for a ‘right to copy’, reimbursing the copyright holder for the privilege of (a) retaining a recording of the material, and (b) being able to watch the material outside of the linear broadcast window" - but the Government will to add this as a tax on recording devices

Chapter 5: Public Service Content in Digital Britain

P140 "Free is very difficult for any paid-for business models to compete with"

P143 "the Government has therefore decided to consult openly on the idea of a Contained Contestable Element of the
Licence Fee used by or channelled through other organisations, primarily for news" might well lead to the end of the BBC's unique way of funding

Chapter 6: Research, Education and Skills for Digital Britain

P186 "It will soon not be possible to run a business effectively unless it is equipped with high-bandwidth access to the Internet. These are the roads of the 21st Century... the UK Government must seek next generation access that is scalable to 1Gb/s and beyond"

Chapter 7: Digital Security and Safety

P190 "It is not the Government’s policy to react to the challenge of the change the Internet presents by retreating to a position of protectionism or oppressive regulation"

P195 "The Government will carry out a major test in late 2009 of our ability to manage and recover from a major loss of network capacity"

Chapter 8: The Journey to Digital Government

P209 "Almost half of the UK population today have used the Internet in the last year to access information about Government or local council services or completed a Government form or process online, according to Ofcom research"

P212-213 "In addition to the Public Service Network we need to be able to add business applications to create a ‘G-Cloud’, using Cloud Computing... The G-Cloud delivery model would also help make other parts of the Government IT marketplace more cost-effective, flexible and competitive... and it would reduce the barriers to entry to the Government marketplace for application and other IT vendors, including SMEs, who would be able to provide services running on standardised, secure infrastructure without having to incur the costs of establishing and accrediting their own infrastructure"

P216 "Geographical data sets present some of the most valuable assets from which to develop online applications and services" but no changes for the Ordnance Survey

P220 "Concerns over privacy are only multiplied when arms of Government areinvolved in data gathering"

Chapter 9: Delivering Digital Britain

P229 "There is no room for complacency. The Government intends to do all it can to achieve the policy objectives we set out in this report, and urges all others to join it in the effort. The prize on offer is great. It will require a common effort to achieve it"

NOSQL

acme — 2009-06-16T13:02:07+00:00

"Non relational databases" have seen quite a bit of interest recently. There was a NOSQL meeting in San Francisco last week and they have very kindly put some slides and videos up. I find it interesting but haven't got enough data yet...

0.02% of perl is my fault

acme — 2009-06-05T16:07:58+00:00

I found a script by Jan Engelhardt which uses the git blame command to work out who owns how much of bleadperl. Results:

Total lines: 2056059
      627291 30.51% Jarkko Hietaniemi
      308800 15.02% Nicholas Clark
      171558   8.34% Rafael Garcia-Suarez
      139288   6.77% Gurusamy Sarathy
       73773   3.59% Perl 5 Porters
       69452   3.38% Steve Peters
       64664   3.15% Larry Wall
       60445   2.94% Paul Marquess
       31900   1.55% Steve Hay
       30166   1.47% Marcus Holland-Moritz
       28996   1.41% Ilya Zakharevich
       27693   1.35% Nick Ing-Simmons
       22334   1.09% Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes
       20316   0.99% Andy Dougherty
       19755   0.96% Michael G. Schwern
       19141   0.93% Jos I. Boumans
       18858   0.92% Dave Mitchell
       17999   0.88% Yves Orton
       12218   0.59% Tels
       12120   0.59% H.Merijn Brand
       10602   0.52% Andreas Koenig
       10544   0.51% Hugo van der Sanden
        9918   0.48% Jerry D. Hedden
        9614   0.47% Andy Lester
        8455   0.41% Jim Cromie
        7883   0.38% Abhijit Menon-Sen
        7815   0.38% Vadim Konovalov
        7705   0.37% John E. Malmberg
        6429   0.31% Abigail
        6221   0.30% Craig A. Berry
        5975   0.29% Radu Greab
        5841   0.28% Robin Houston
        5195   0.25% Tom Christiansen
        5062   0.25% Dan Kogai
        4734   0.23% SADAHIRO Tomoyuki
        4720   0.23% Charles Bailey
        4416   0.21% Jan Dubois
        4389   0.21% Tim Bunce
        4376   0.21% Stephen McCamant
        4290   0.21% *initial checkin
        4032   0.20% Malcolm Beattie
        3984   0.19% Sébastien Aperghis-Tramoni
        3801   0.18% Paul Fenwick
        3700   0.18% Richard Foley
        3461   0.17% John Malmberg
        3452   0.17% chromatic
        3266   0.16% Brandon Black
        3243   0.16% Steffen Mueller
        3111   0.15% Graham Barr
        3042   0.15% Jos Boumans
        2968   0.14% Gisle Aas
        2950   0.14% Peter Prymmer
        2947   0.14% Hans Mulder
        2671   0.13% Wolfgang Laun
        2667   0.13% Sean M. Burke
        2652   0.13% Anno Siegel
        2482   0.12% Robin Barker
        2301   0.11% Simon Cozens
        2196   0.11% Ton Hospel
        2027   0.10% Brendan O'Dea
        2008   0.10% Chip Salzenberg
        1774   0.09% John Peacock
        1764   0.09% Artur Bergman
        1695   0.08% Andreas König
        1669   0.08% Spider Boardman
        1633   0.08% David Landgren
        1565   0.08% Karl
        1555   0.08% Steven Schubiger
        1512   0.07% Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
        1460   0.07% Stas Bekman
        1253   0.06% Dominic Dunlop
        1232   0.06% Mark-Jason Dominus
        1213   0.06% Slaven Rezic
        1178   0.06% Paul Green
        1152   0.06% LAUN Wolfgang
        1082   0.05% Charles Lane
        1069   0.05% Vincent Pit
        1042   0.05% Joshua ben Jore
        1041   0.05% Prymmer/Kahn
        1034   0.05% Abe Timmerman
        1018   0.05% Raphael Manfredi
         932   0.05% karl williamson
         913   0.04% Ben Morrow
         899   0.04% Lupe Christoph
         895   0.04% Rick Delaney
         892   0.04% Ken Hirsch
         842   0.04% Ivan Tubert-Brohman
         828   0.04% Adriano Ferreira
         765   0.04% Kirrily Robert
         763   0.04% Jonathan Stowe
         758   0.04% Reini Urban
         735   0.04% Bram
         734   0.04% Tim Jenness
         715   0.03% Barrie Slaymaker
         707   0.03% Alan Burlison
         704   0.03% Ronald J. Kimball
         695   0.03% Gerard Goossen
         690   0.03% Chris Nandor
         673   0.03% Nathan Torkington
         671   0.03% Michael G Schwern
         645   0.03% Albert Dvornik
         630   0.03% Jeffrey Friedl
         625   0.03% Yuval Kogman
         607   0.03% Adrian M. Enache
         582   0.03% Randy W. Sims
         579   0.03% Inaba Hiroto
         559   0.03% Jeff Pinyan
         545   0.03% Juerd Waalboer
         544   0.03% Doug MacEachern
         536   0.03% Jesse
         504   0.02% Molnar Laszlo
         491   0.02% Philip Newton
         478   0.02% John P. Linderman
         473   0.02% Thomas Wegner
         469   0.02% Mike Guy
         461   0.02% Leon Brocard
         458   0.02% Joseph S. Myers
         444   0.02% Johan Vromans
         432   0.02% Ben Tilly
         428   0.02% Audrey Tang
         423   0.02% Steven Knight
         418   0.02% John Borwick
         412   0.02% Olaf Flebbe
         410   0.02% Allen Smith
         392   0.02% Elizabeth Mattijsen
         389   0.02% Ingo Weinhold
         388   0.02% Russ Allbery
         386   0.02% Tassilo von Parseval
         383   0.02% Tye McQueen
         377   0.02% Tom Phoenix
         375   0.02% John Nolan
         372   0.02% Douglas Lankshear
         365   0.02% Paul Johnson
         356   0.02% Andy Armstrong
         345   0.02% Alexander Gough
         327   0.02% Norton T. Allen
         319   0.02% Dan Sugalski
         318   0.02% Edward Avis
         309   0.02% Casey R. Tweten
         294   0.01% Renee Baecker
         294   0.01% Benjamin Sugars
         269   0.01% Rainer Tammer
         269   0.01% Gabor Szabo
         257   0.01% Casey West
         254   0.01% Michael Stevens
         252   0.01% Kurt D. Starsinic
         250   0.01% Wilfredo Sánchez
         248   0.01% Sam Vilain
         247   0.01% Edgar Bering
         243   0.01% Alexey Tourbin
         237   0.01% Piotr Fusik
         232   0.01% Andreas J. Koenig
         232   0.01% Dave Rolsky
         229   0.01% Chris 'BinGOs' Williams
         228   0.01% Fifer, Eric
         226   0.01% Joe McMahon
         225   0.01% Mike Hopkirk (hops)
         222   0.01% Daniel Chetlin
         210   0.01% beau beaucox.com
         203   0.01% Stephen Zander
         202   0.01% Roderick Schertler
         201   0.01% Joshua Pritikin
         199   0.01% James Bence
         193   0.01% Hal Morris
         192   0.01% Shlomi Fish
         190   0.01% Sam Tregar
         186   0.01% Tom Horsley
         186   0.01% François Désarménien
         186   0.01% Robert May
         181   0.01% Ilmari Karonen
         173   0.01% Andrew Savige
         171   0.01% Mattia Barbon
         170   0.01% Paul Moore
         168   0.01% Randy J Ray
         160   0.01% anders broadcom.com
         157   0.01% Fergal Daly
         157   0.01% Hallvard B Furuseth
         155   0.01% Mark Fisher
         154   0.01% Jens Hamisch
         154   0.01% Richard Clamp
         148   0.01% Russell Mosemann
         147   0.01% Bo Lindbergh
         147   0.01% Colin Kuskie
         147   0.01% Steffen Müller
         146   0.01% Scott Henry
         143   0.01% Steve Grazzini
         142   0.01% Chris BinGOs Williams
         142   0.01% Brian Ingerson
         139   0.01% Jari Aalto
         139   0.01% Mike Pomraning
         133   0.01% Stephen P. Potter
         133   0.01% John L. Allen
         132   0.01% Damian Conway
         131   0.01% Lincoln Stein
         129   0.01% Anders Johnson
         128   0.01% Salvador Fandiño
         128   0.01% John Tobey
         127   0.01% Ken Fox
         127   0.01% Robert Sebastian Gerus
         126   0.01% David Golden
         124   0.01% Vishal Bhatia
         123   0.01% Laszlo Molnar
         122   0.01% Benjamin Smith
         121   0.01% David Hammen
         119   0.01% Brent Dax
         118   0.01% David Muir Sharnoff
         118   0.01% Ville Skyttä
         116   0.01% Mark Pease
         114   0.01% bonefish cs.tu-berlin.de
         113   0.01% David H. Adler
         113   0.01% Thomas Dorner
         109   0.01% Anton Tagunov
         108   0.01% Florian Ragwitz
         107   0.01% reneeb
         105   0.01% Max Maischein
         103   0.01% Jesse Vincent
         102   0.00% Ilya Martynov
         100   0.00% Carl Eklof
         100   0.00% Iain Truskett
          99   0.00% 0000-Admin (0000)
          97   0.00% Daniel S. Lewart
          96   0.00% Peter Scott
          96   0.00% Jerry Hedden
          95   0.00% chocolateboy
          95   0.00% 貞廣知行
          94   0.00% Ricardo SIGNES
          94   0.00% Jon Orwant
          91   0.00% Alex Waugh
          87   0.00% Gerrit P. Haase
          87   0.00% Alex Vandiver
          85   0.00% Todd C. Miller
          84   0.00% brian d foy
          84   0.00% Anton Berezin
          84   0.00% Marek Rouchal
          83   0.00% M. J. T. Guy
          83   0.00% David Mitchell
          83   0.00% Juerd
          82   0.00% Randy J. Ray
          79   0.00% Jerrad Pierce
          78   0.00% Green, Paul
          78   0.00% Solar Designer
          78   0.00% Benjamin Stuhl
          77   0.00% Marty Pauley
          74   0.00% Andy Wardley
          73   0.00% Dmitry Karasik
          72   0.00% Chia-liang Kao
          72   0.00% Mark Overmeer
          68   0.00% David Feldman
          68   0.00% Craig A. Berry) <Craig A.
          68   0.00% Nigel Sandever
          67   0.00% David Dyck
          67   0.00% Sherm Pendley
          67   0.00% Achim Bohnet
          66   0.00% Benjamin Holzman
          65   0.00% Tom Wyant
          64   0.00% Andrew Pimlott
          63   0.00% Rocco Caputo
          63   0.00% Father Chrysostomos
          63   0.00% Peter Dintelmann
          62   0.00% Lucas Holt
          61   0.00% Robert Spier
          61   0.00% Richard Soderberg
          61   0.00% Alexander Smishlajev
          59   0.00% Nikola Knezevic
          59   0.00% Tony Cook
          58   0.00% rabbit+bugs rabbit.us
          58   0.00% Lanning, Scott
          58   0.00% Marc Lehmann
          53   0.00% Simon Glover
          52   0.00% Jason Vas Dias
          51   0.00% Jeff Okamoto
          51   0.00% Garry T. Williams
          51   0.00% Roca, Ignasi
          51   0.00% Larry W. Virden
          50   0.00% Tom Phoenix (with help from M.J.T. Guy
          50   0.00% Valeriy E. Ushakov
          50   0.00% M.J.T. Guy
          49   0.00% Mike Mestnik
          48   0.00% Tom Hughes
          48   0.00% Marcel Grünauer
          48   0.00% David Nicol
          47   0.00% Olli Savia
          46   0.00% Matthijs van Duin
          46   0.00% Matt Kraai
          46   0.00% agrow thegotonerd.com
          45   0.00% Niko Tyni
          45   0.00% Peter Chines
          45   0.00% Marvin Humphrey
          45   0.00% Daniel P. Berrange
          45   0.00% Jan-Pieter Cornet
          43   0.00% Niklas Edmundsson
          43   0.00% Bill Campbell
          42   0.00% RonaldWS aol.com
          41   0.00% Moritz Lenz
          41   0.00% Nicholas Oxhøj
          41   0.00% Ken Williams
          40   0.00% Nicholas Clark (sans From field in mail header) <Nicholas Clark (sans From field in mail
          40   0.00% Blair Zajac
          39   0.00% yves orton
          38   0.00% josh
          37   0.00% Brian Harrison
          37   0.00% Tony Sanders
          37   0.00% Pradeep Hodigere
          36   0.00% Michael Carman
          35   0.00% Todd Vierling
          35   0.00% Dan Brook
          35   0.00% DH
          34   0.00% Stephen Potter
          34   0.00% Sascha Blank
          34   0.00% Ulrich Pfeifer
          34   0.00% Michael Schroeder
          34   0.00% Torsten Schoenfeld
          34   0.00% Kenichi Ishigaki
          32   0.00% nothingmuch woobling.org
          32   0.00% Mark Kettenis
          32   0.00% Luther Huffman
          32   0.00% Peter J. Farley III
          32   0.00% Jonathan Hudson
          31   0.00% nick babyhippo.com
          31   0.00% glasser tang-eleven-seventy-nine.mit.edu
          31   0.00% Giroux, Mike (Exchange)
          31   0.00% Ovid
          30   0.00% david nicol
          30   0.00% Rujith S. de Silva
          30   0.00% Paul Szabo
          29   0.00% Yasushi Nakajima
          29   0.00% Martin Hasch
          29   0.00% Ronald F. Guilmette
          29   0.00% Gwyn Judd
          28   0.00% Goro Fuji
          28   0.00% johnh isi.edu
          28   0.00% Wilson P. Snyder II
          28   0.00% Alexandr Ciornii
          27   0.00% Jose Auguste-Etienne
          27   0.00% David R. Favor
          27   0.00% Srezic Iconmobile.Com
          26   0.00% Winfried Koenig
          26   0.00% Ian Phillipps
          26   0.00% Christian Kirsch
          26   0.00% Alain Barbet
          26   0.00% Jonathan Steinert
          26   0.00% James Mastros
          26   0.00% Torsten Foertsch
          26   0.00% Andy Bussey
          25   0.00% Enrico Sorcinelli
          25   0.00% perl-5.8.0 ton.iguana.be
          25   0.00% Xavier Noria
          25   0.00% Christian Winter
          25   0.00% Stéphane Payrard
          24   0.00% js ddre.dk
          24   0.00% Kurt Starsinic
          24   0.00% José Pedro Oliveira
          24   0.00% Gerben Wierda
          24   0.00% Martin J. Bligh
          23   0.00% Stephanie Beals
          23   0.00% Arthur Bergman
          23   0.00% Paul Saab
          23   0.00% Kenneth Albanowski
          22   0.00% Kay Röpke
          22   0.00% Dan Hale
          21   0.00% David D. Kilzer
          21   0.00% Ash Berlin
          21   0.00% kipp shonanblue.ne.jp
          20   0.00% Axel Kollmorgen
          20   0.00% Owen Taylor
          20   0.00% YAMASHINA Hio
          20   0.00% Andrej Borsenkow
          20   0.00% Bas van Sisseren
          19   0.00% Michael De La Rue
          19   0.00% Sergey Skvortsov
          19   0.00% Christophe Grosjean
          19   0.00% Norbert Pueschel
          19   0.00% padre elte.hu
          19   0.00% Casey Tweten
          18   0.00% Archer Sully
          18   0.00% abela geneanet.org
          18   0.00% Elaine -HFB- Ashton
          18   0.00% coral eekeek.org
          18   0.00% Ian Goodacre
          18   0.00% Norton Allen
          18   0.00% Unknown Ricoh Contributor II
          18   0.00% Aaron J. Mackey
          18   0.00% Michael Cummings
          17   0.00% matthew green
          17   0.00% Brad Hughes
          17   0.00% Spiros Denaxas
          17   0.00% Chuck D. Phillips
          16   0.00% jdhedden 1979.usna.com
          16   0.00% Joe Buehler
          16   0.00% Steve Purkis
          16   0.00% Matthew Sachs
          16   0.00% Chris Pepper
          15   0.00% Boyd, Brooks D
          15   0.00% Devin Heitmueller
          15   0.00% daniel biz.bitpusher.com
          15   0.00% Richard Hitt
          15   0.00% Tkil
          15   0.00% John Holdsworth
          15   0.00% Matthias Ulrich Neeracher
          14   0.00% Martti Rahkila
          14   0.00% Anatoly Vorobey
          14   0.00% unknown
          14   0.00% Tim Sweetman
          14   0.00% Dave Bailey
          14   0.00% Earl Hood
          14   0.00% Ed Allen Smith
          14   0.00% Redvers Davies
          13   0.00% ian.goodacre xtra.co.nz (via RT)
          13   0.00% Steven N. Hirsch
          13   0.00% ilmari vesla.ilmari.org
          13   0.00% Neil Watkiss
          13   0.00% Krishna Sethuraman
          13   0.00% Philippe M. Chiasson
          13   0.00% Brian McCauley
          13   0.00% Offer Kaye
          13   0.00% Paul David Fardy
          13   0.00% Jan Starzynski
          13   0.00% Mark Kvale
          13   0.00% Dorner Thomas
          13   0.00% Chun Bing Ge
          13   0.00% John Hughes
          12   0.00% Thomas Conté
          12   0.00% Max Baker
          12   0.00% Marcel Grunauer
          12   0.00% Shinya Hayakawa
          12   0.00% Greg Matheson
          12   0.00% kaminsky math.huji.ac.il
          12   0.00% Rajesh Vaidheeswarran
          11   0.00% Daniel M. Quinlan
          11   0.00% ian dial.pipex.com
          11   0.00% Martien Verbruggen
          11   0.00% Charles F. Randall
          11   0.00% John Peacock via RT
          11   0.00% Sisyphus
          11   0.00% Sven Verdoolaege
          11   0.00% Iain Spoon Truskett
          11   0.00% Jay Hannah
          11   0.00% David Cantrell
          11   0.00% Nikolai Eipel
          11   0.00% Claes Jacobsson
          11   0.00% root
          11   0.00% Alexey Toptygin
          11   0.00% Wilson, Doug
          10   0.00% Joe Smith
          10   0.00% Joe Schaefer
          10   0.00% grommel sears.com
          10   0.00% James Jurach
          10   0.00% ml1050
          10   0.00% Per Einar Ellefsen
          10   0.00% Information Service
          10   0.00% Mark Fowler
          10   0.00% Mike Hopkirk
          10   0.00% Kriton Kyrimis
          10   0.00% arbor al37al08.telecel.pt
          10   0.00% Andrey Sapozhnikov
          10   0.00% Jon Eveland
          10   0.00% Rich Morin
           9   0.00% Adam Krolnik
           9   0.00% bah longitude.com
           9   0.00% Daniel Muiño
           9   0.00% AUGUSTE-ETIENNE Jose
           9   0.00% William R Ward
           9   0.00% Steven Philip Schubiger
           9   0.00% Kay_Röpke
           9   0.00% Randal L. Schwartz
           9   0.00% Mark Bixby
           9   0.00% bharanee rathna
           9   0.00% srezic cpan.org
           8   0.00% Mark Pizzolato
           8   0.00% Robert Millan
           8   0.00% Jeremy H. Brown
           8   0.00% Horst von Brand
           8   0.00% Nick Williams
           8   0.00% Edward S. Peschko
           8   0.00% Larry Parmelee
           8   0.00% knew-p5p pimb.org
           8   0.00% Byron Brummer
           8   0.00% wolfgang.laun chello.at
           8   0.00% David M. Syzdek
           8   0.00% Andreas Schwab
           8   0.00% Brian Jepson
           8   0.00% gomar md.media-web.de
           8   0.00% Risto Kankkunen
           8   0.00% Steffen Ullrich
           8   0.00% Salvador FandiXXo
           7   0.00% Unknown Contributor
           7   0.00% Andrew Burt
           7   0.00% Luke Closs
           7   0.00% Pixel
           7   0.00% Graham TerMarsch
           7   0.00% Glenn Linderman
           7   0.00% John Bley
           7   0.00% Walt Mankowski
           7   0.00% Slaven_Rezic
           7   0.00% Jeremy D. Zawodny
           7   0.00% Eric E. Coe
           7   0.00% Matt Sergeant
           7   0.00% Benjamin J. Tilly
           7   0.00% pxm nubz.org
           7   0.00% Milosz Tanski
           7   0.00% Ken Neighbors
           7   0.00% Dan Jacobson
           7   0.00% William Mann
           6   0.00% Matthew T Harden
           6   0.00% Conrad E. Kimball
           6   0.00% Jesse Glick
           6   0.00% Hernan Perez Masci
           6   0.00% Frank Wiegand
           6   0.00% Luke Ross
           6   0.00% Mike W Ellwood
           6   0.00% George Necula
           6   0.00% Daniel Frederick Crisman
           6   0.00% Adam Spiers
           6   0.00% Paul de Weerd
           6   0.00% Makoto MATSUSHITA (=?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCJF4kRCQ3JD8kXiQzJEgbKEI=?=)
           6   0.00% Igor Sutton
           6   0.00% Calle Dybedahl
           6   0.00% Yasuhiro Matsumoto
           6   0.00% Zsban Ambrus
           6   0.00% Len Johnson
           6   0.00% Benjamin Carter
           6   0.00% Dan Schmidt
           6   0.00% Matthias Urlichs
           6   0.00% Paul Schinder
           6   0.00% David Manura
           5   0.00% Mike Giroux
           5   0.00% Trevor Blackwell
           5   0.00% Eric Promislow
           5   0.00% Martin Pool
           5   0.00% Raul Dias
           5   0.00% Sean Dague
           5   0.00% John Kristian
           5   0.00% Alex Davies
           5   0.00% Brian Callaghan
           5   0.00% Scott L. Miller
           5   0.00% oracle pcr8.pcr.com
           5   0.00% Mathias Koerber
           5   0.00% author scotth sgi.com 842220273 +0000 <author scotth sgi.com 842220273
           5   0.00% Tony Bowden
           5   0.00% Mike Schilli
           5   0.00% Arjen Laarhoven
           4   0.00% Matt Taggart
           4   0.00% Jonathan Roy
           4   0.00% Chris Heath
           4   0.00% Thomas Bowditch
           4   0.00% Newton, Philip
           4   0.00% ilya juil.nonet
           4   0.00% david dhaller.de
           4   0.00% Jon Gunnip
           4   0.00% Larry Shatzer
           4   0.00% coral
           4   0.00% Nikola Milutinovic
           4   0.00% David Leadbeater
           4   0.00% Stian Seeberg
           4   0.00% alexander_bluhm genua.de
           4   0.00% Brad Baxter
           4   0.00% James
           4   0.00% Roca Carrio, Ignasi (PO EP)
           4   0.00% James A. Duncan
           4   0.00% (Ilya Martynov)
           4   0.00% Mark Dickinson
           4   0.00% spidb cpan.org
           4   0.00% andrew deryabin
           4   0.00% kevin brintnall
           4   0.00% Rainer Orth
           4   0.00% Dan Boorstein
           4   0.00% Chris Ball
           4   0.00% Larry Shatzer Jr.
           4   0.00% perlbug veggiechinese.net
           4   0.00% David Dick
           4   0.00% Mark Mielke
           4   0.00% Ed Peschko
           4   0.00% Mark Stosberg
           4   0.00% Michael A Chase
           4   0.00% Scott Bronson
           4   0.00% Len Weisberg
           4   0.00% Jeremy Zawodny
           4   0.00% Patrick Dugnolle
           4   0.00% Mark A. Hershberger
           4   0.00% Merijn Broeren
           4   0.00% W.BRISCOE ponl.com
           3   0.00% Hans Ranke
           3   0.00% bilbo ua.fm
           3   0.00% Nat Torkington
           3   0.00% Warren Jones
           3   0.00% Kevin Ryde
           3   0.00% Dave Paris
           3   0.00% Mik Firestone
           3   0.00% Alan Ferrency
           3   0.00% Brian Clarke
           3   0.00% Patrick O'Brien
           3   0.00% Chris Dolan
           3   0.00% Aaron Crane
           3   0.00% Duncan Findlay
           3   0.00% Tatsuhiko Miyagawa
           3   0.00% Lukas Mai
           3   0.00% Fyodor Krasnov
           3   0.00% John Macdonald
           3   0.00% Tsutomu IKEGAMI
           3   0.00% Kevin Chase
           3   0.00% chris broadband.att.com
           3   0.00% Kenneth Duda
           3   0.00% Jan D
           3   0.00% Karl Heuer
           3   0.00% Mathieu Arnold
           3   0.00% Joe Orton
           3   0.00% mike exegenix.com
           3   0.00% Joost van Baal
           3   0.00% Ask Bjoern Hansen
           3   0.00% Luc St-Louis
           3   0.00% Amick, Eric
           3   0.00% system PRIVILEGED account
           3   0.00% Paul Gaborit
           3   0.00% premchai21 yahoo.com
           3   0.00% Eric Fifer
           3   0.00% David J. Fiander
           3   0.00% Benjamin Low
           3   0.00% Helmut Jarausch
           3   0.00% Ben Carter
           3   0.00% Paul Eggert
           3   0.00% Olivier Thauvin
           2   0.00% Mark Jason Dominus
           2   0.00% kan dcit.cz
           2   0.00% bob starlabs.net
           2   0.00% dLux
           2   0.00% Andreas Karrer
           2   0.00% Aaron Kaplan
           2   0.00% Charles Randall
           2   0.00% Greg Ward
           2   0.00% Paul Holser
           2   0.00% Benjamin Goldberg
           2   0.00% Clinton Pierce
           2   0.00% Dinger, Tom
           2   0.00% Dr.Ruud
           2   0.00% Peter.Dintelmann dresdner-bank.com <Peter.Dintelmann dresdner-bank.com
           2   0.00% SAKAI Kiyotaka
           2   0.00% Bob Wilkinson
           2   0.00% Tom Spindler
           2   0.00% Coral
           2   0.00% Mr. Nobody
           2   0.00% Hrunting Johnson
           2   0.00% Larry Shatzer, Jr.
           2   0.00% Stephane Payrard
           2   0.00% Steve Nielsen

An evening of dynamic languages

acme — 2009-06-01T07:05:55+00:00

[Note: I'm looking for non-Perl lightning talks for the following event. Please contact me: acme@astray.com]

The next technical meeting will be on the Wednesday 10th June 2009 from 6.30pm to 9pm and the theme is “Dynamic”. Space is limited, you have to sign up to attend, see below.

There are many dynamic programming languages out there, and the difference between them is quite small. These evening will consist lightning talks from many dynamic language user groups: Perl, PHP, Ruby and Django and a few more surprises.

It will be held at the British Computer Society, First Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA. Many thanks to Billy Abbott, the BCS and everyone involved for allowing us to use this wonderful venue.

http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.25940

Gallifrey.pm

acme — 2009-05-18T12:48:40+00:00

Way back in 2001, London.pm organised a series of tshirts. As Dave Cross explained:

They all have a large "Programming Republic of London" logo on the back and one of a series of small "fictional" PM group logos on the front. I'm currently wearing my Sunnydale.pm shirt, but we also have Rivendell.pm, Tatooine.pm, ZZ9PluralZAlpha.pm[1] and Anhk-Morpork.pm (the last is for those strange people who can't see that Terry Pratchett is an unfunny, fifth-rate Douglas Adams wannabe).

Also, see the images as Simon Wistow explains:

Yes, the rumours are true. After epic battles with every t-shirt printer in london the official Winter Season London.pm t-shirts are finally ready.

Embarassingly we left out our favourite fictional Perl Monger group. However, it was, how shall I say, quite a lot of organising and quite tiring to ship tshirts around London and the world. Luckily, now we live in the future and I can outsource all that, so behold the official London.pm Gallifrey.pm tshirt.

It's being sold at cost and you can wear one at all fashionable geek gatherings. Enjoy!

Update: now with a women's tshirt and also available in the USA: men's, women's.

Travelling to YAPC::Europe 2009

acme — 2009-05-13T12:27:52+00:00

YAPC::Europe 2009 will be held in Lisbon from the 3rd to the 5th August. I will be presenting a new talk entitled Fewer cables. As Leader of London.pm, I will be travelling on Sun 2nd August at 18:15 on TAP Portugal 357 from Heathrow to Lisbon, staying at the Hotel Alif, and travelling back at 18:35 on Sun 9th August on TAP Portugal 358 from Lisbon to Heathrow. You may join me if you wish. The wiki has useful pages about accommodation, who is staying where, air arrivals, air departures and details about the TAP discount. See you in Lisbon!

What files does your Perl load?

acme — 2009-05-06T15:27:50+00:00

It can interesting to see what files your Perl loads. One way to do this is to use the Linux::Inotify2 module which uses inotify to monitor file changes. Something like:

#!/home/acme/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Linux::Inotify2;
use File::Find::Rule;
use Perl6::Say;

my $inotify = new Linux::Inotify2
or die "Unable to create new inotify object: $!";

foreach my $inc (@INC) {
    next if $inc eq '.';
    foreach my $directory ( File::Find::Rule->new->directory->in($inc) ) {
        $inotify->watch( $directory, IN_ACCESS )
            or die "watch creation failed";
    }
}

while () {
    my @events = $inotify->read;
    unless ( @events > 0 ) {
        print "read error: $!";
        last;
    }
    foreach my $event (@events) {
        say $event->fullname if $event->IN_ACCESS;
    }
}

Which outputs something along the lines of the following if you load Moose by running perl -e 'use Moose' in another terminal:

/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/l ib/5.10.0/strict.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/warnings.pm
/home/acme/p erl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/warnings.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/warnings.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/warnings.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10 .0/i686-linux/Scalar/Util.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/vars.pm
/home/a cme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/warnings/register.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10 .0/Exporter.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/i686-linux/List/Util.pm
/home /acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/ 5.10.0/i686-linux/auto/List/Util/Util.so
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/Carp .pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Exporter.pm
/home/acme/p erl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/ lib/site_perl/5.10.0/MRO/Compat.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/mro.pm
/h ome/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/MRO/Compat.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/ lib/site_perl/5.10.0/MRO/Compat.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/ i686-linux/Devel/GlobalDestruction.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10 .0/i686-linux/auto/Devel/GlobalDestruction/GlobalDestruction.so
/home/acme/perl -5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Sub/Exporter.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_pe rl/5.10.0/Data/OptList.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Params/Ut il.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/overload.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib /5.10.0/overload.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Params/Util.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Params/Util.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.1 0.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Sub/Install.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5. 10.0/Sub/Install.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Sub/Install.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Data/OptList.pm
/home/acme/perl-5. 10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Sub/Exporter.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/ 5.10.0/Sub/Exporter.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Sub/Exporter .pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Sub/Exporter.pm
/home/acme/per l-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Sub/Exporter.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_p erl/5.10.0/Sub/Exporter.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Sub/Expo rter.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Sub/Exporter.pm
/home/acme /perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Sub/Name.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0 /lib/5.10.0/base.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/base.pm
/home/acme/perl- 5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/i686-linux/DynaLoader.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/i6 86-linux/Config.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/i686-linux/DynaLoader.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/AutoLoader.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10 .0/AutoLoader.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/auto/Su b/Name/Name.so
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP /Class.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Immu table.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Metho d/Constructor.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/M OP/Method/Generated.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/C lass/MOP/Method.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class /MOP/Object.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP /Method/Constructor.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/C lass/MOP/Immutable.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Cl ass/MOP/Immutable.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Cla ss/MOP/Instance.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class /MOP/Instance.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/M OP/Method/Wrapped.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Cla ss/MOP/Method/Wrapped.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux /Class/MOP/Module.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Cla ss/MOP/Package.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/i686-linux/B.pm
/home/acme /perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/i686-linux/B.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/i686- linux/auto/B/B.so
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/ MOP/Package.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP /Class.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Clas s.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Class.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Class.pm
/hom e/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Class.pm
/home/acm e/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Class.pm
/home/acme/per l-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Class.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.1 0.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Attribute.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10 .0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Method/Accessor.pm
/home/acme/perl -5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Method/Accessor.pm
/home/acme /perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Attribute.pm
/home/acme/ perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Attribute.pm
/home/acme/p erl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP/Attribute.pm
/home/acme/pe rl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/l ib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_per l/5.10.0/i686-linux/Class/MOP.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i6 86-linux/Class/MOP.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/au to/Class/MOP/MOP.so
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/List /MoreUtils.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/List/MoreU tils.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/auto/List/MoreUt ils/MoreUtils.so
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util/MetaRol e.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Exporter.pm
/home/acme/ perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Exporter.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/s ite_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Class.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0 /Moose/Meta/Method/Overridden.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Mo ose/Meta/Method.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Metho d/Augmented.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Error/Default. pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/Carp/Heavy.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/ 5.10.0/Carp/Heavy.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/Carp/Heavy.pm
/home/acm e/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Class.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/l ib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Class.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5. 10.0/Moose/Meta/Class.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta /Method/Constructor.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/M ethod/Constructor.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Met hod/Constructor.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Metho d/Constructor.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Method/ Destructor.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Class.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeConstraint.pm
/home/ acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/i686-linux/metaclass.pm
/home/acme/perl-5 .10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeConstraint.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/ lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeCoercion.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site _perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Attribute.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10. 0/Moose/Meta/Method/Accessor.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moo se/Meta/Method/Accessor.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Me ta/Method/Accessor.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Me thod/Delegation.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util.pm
/ home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0 /lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util/TypeConstraints.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/ site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeConstraint/Union.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/ site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeCoercion/Union.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/si te_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeConstraint/Parameterized.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10. 0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeConstraint/Parameterizable.pm
/home/acme/ perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeConstraint/Class.pm
/home/acme/ perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeConstraint/Role.pm
/home/acme/p erl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeConstraint/Enum.pm
/home/acme/pe rl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/TypeConstraint/Registry.pm
/home/acme /perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util/TypeConstraints/OptimizedConstraint s.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util/TypeConstraints.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util/TypeConstraints.pm
/hom e/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util/TypeConstraints.pm
/home/acm e/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/i686-linux/re.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/i68 6-linux/re.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util/TypeConstr aints.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util/TypeConstraints .pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Attribute.pm
/home/ acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Attribute.pm
/home/acme/perl-5 .10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Attribute.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/s ite_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Attribute.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5. 10.0/Moose/Meta/Attribute.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/ Meta/Instance.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Object.pm
/ home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/5.10.0/if.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.1 0.0/Moose/Meta/Role.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/R ole/Method.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Role/Metho d/Required.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Role.pm
/ home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Role.pm
/home/acme/perl-5 .10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Role.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_p erl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Role.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose /Meta/Role.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Role/Compo site.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Role/Application .pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Role/Application/Rol eSummation.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/Role/Appli cation/RoleSummation.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/Meta/ Role/Application/ToClass.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moose/M eta/Role/Application/ToClass.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/Moo se/Meta/Role/Application/ToRole.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10.0/ Moose/Meta/Role/Application/ToRole.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_perl/5.10 .0/Moose/Meta/Role/Application/ToInstance.pm
/home/acme/perl-5.10.0/lib/site_pe rl/5.10.0/Moose.pm

No, I'm not sure why it's accessing some files multiple times. Now, who can change this into a CPAN module popularity contest?

Google Summer of Code 2009

acme — 2009-04-23T15:46:01+00:00

For the past few years, Google has been organising the summer student hackfest that is the Google Summer of Code. The Perl Foundation has nine projects this year, but every year I dig through and get some statistics and read through every project to see which ones interest me. This year there are 995 projects by 148 organisations. The organisations with the most projects are:

38 Welcome to KDE in GSoC 2009!
38 The Apache Software Foundation
30 Homepage (Python)
25 GNOME's SoC Homepage
20 OSGeo GSoC 2009
20 FreeBSD Project SoC Homepage
20 Eclipse Foundation Summer of Code 2009
18 Joomla! 2009 Summer of Code Home
18 Welcome to the Drupal Summer of Code homepage
15 VideoLAN
14 OpenMRS
12 MySQL
11 The NetBSD Project Summer of Code 2009 Home Page
11 The Linux Foundation
11 The Globus Alliance @ GSoC 2009
11 Debian's SoC Home Page
10 SIP Communicator's Home Page
10 Sahana GSoC 2009 Home Page
10 Mozilla Project Home Page
10 Maemo Community
10 GenMAPP Home Page
10 Freifunk

There are a lot of projects, the ones that I find interesting (for various reasons, see if you can guess) are:

ffaudio - stripped ffmpeg to handle audio formats for Atheme.org
RAT 1 Cut&Paste Detector for The Apache Software Foundation
Graph Partitioning in The Boost Graph Library for Boost C++ Libraries
Proposal for Generic Trie, Radix Tree, and Suffix Array Data Structures
Cloud computing/Amazon EC2 integration with Debian
Aptitude Package Management History Tracking with Debian
boot.kernel.org - Universal remote network booting for the masses with Etherboot
Package tools rewrite via a new package library, with new features with FreeBSD
Small distributed storage for Freifunk
OpenGL GPU-based Buffer & Operations in GEGL for GNU Image Manipulation Program
Improving the DVB experience with GNOME DVB Daemon for GNOME
Using mercurial as a client for git repositories for Mercurial
Mercurial on Py3k for Mercurial
screen - embedded scripting support for GNU Project
Improve "sort" on multi-core systems for GNU Project
Improving the Register Allocator of Trace Monkey for Mozilla Project
Web pages over rsync for Mozilla Project
Automated Duplicate Detection for Bugzilla for Mozilla Project
Implementing Git as class libraries in managed code for Mono Project
High throughput, low jitter stratum-1 NTP server for NTP Project
Implementing efficient wide character regular expressions for The NetBSD Project
Label placement for Quantum GIS for OSGeo - Open Source Geospatial Foundation
Automatic Street-Sign Detection and Reading for OpenStreetMap
Renovate sftp(1) for OpenSSH
An architecture independent SIMD library for Python for Python Software Foundation
3to2 tool for backporting Py3 code for Python Software Foundation
LLVM backend for PyPy's JIT compiler generator for Python Software Foundation
GitFS for Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Make Rockbox a musical instrument for Rockbox
"You can't control what you can't measure" for R Foundation for Statistical Computing
InstantMirror for Fedora Project & JBoss.org (Red Hat)
Hush-hush chats with Off The Record (OTR) messaging for SIP Communicator
Project Game script decompiler for ScummVM
Implement Perl binding for Xapian using SWIG for SWIG
Show progress output for Subversion
Regexp engine cleanup for Tcl Community Association
Implement a fishing task in WorldForge for WorldForge
A universal Image Rendering and Resizing Daemon for Wikimedia Foundation

Good luck to all the students! Léon

London.pm technical meeting 16th April 2009

acme — 2009-04-22T08:40:27+00:00

Last Thursday we held another London Perl Mongers technical meeting. The theme was "Less code" and I started by showing off Elevated, a 4KB graphics intro by rgba which recently won first place at Breakpoint 2009. Yes, 4KB, including the music. It's all procedurally generated using flat mesh displaced with a Perlin noise-based procedural vertex shader, with textures computed procedurally and even camera movements are generated in the GPU. In 4KB!

Chris Jack - Perl one-liners
James Laver - Generic higher order Perl
Ovid - Role driven programming
Adeola Awoyemi - Using JQuery to make your life easier
Ben Evans - Perl on the JVM

The talks were all great and you can download the slides on the London.pm site. Thanks to all the speakers!

backticks make my Windows testing service hang on ack

brian_d_foy — 2009-04-13T21:54:29+00:00

I've run into an interesting situation in testing CPAN modules on Windows using TeamCity. Testing from the command line, either cygwin or command, works fine, but when the automated tester has a go, it fails. I traced this back to modules that use system() or backticks. The ack distribution has been the one to demonstrate the problem first. I wonder if anyone else has seen a similar problem.

I've been working on a custom internal CPAN for a big company, and their CPAN is actually in subversion. When the subversion repo changes, lots of tests kick off, including tests for individual modules as well as integration tests. These tests run on both unix and Windows using the TeamCity build agents. Some of the Windows tests just hang forever, although they run fine on my workstation.

It appears that the Windows build agents are run as a Windows service, so it's not connected to something that can handle system calls. I don't understand the Windows set-up and architecture enough to say more than that. Once the build agent hits a line of code that wants to shell out somehow, it hangs forever. It only does this in the build agent.

I was working with ack, which has a t/Util.pm for things that most of the tests use. There is a run_ack_with_stderr() subroutine which uses backticks, and that's where the code hangs. Once it runs t/ack-1.t, everything stops.

Paul's IPC::System::Simple::capture() works as a backticks replacement and has already solved many problems we've had with Windows. However, my first try in replacing backticks made all sorts of other tests fail even though it could run the commands now. Nothing hung, but there was something I wasn't capturing correctly or putting in the right place, I figure. I eventually had to cut bait since I'm not getting paid to work on third-party modules.

I'm curious how this works for the Windows CPAN testers. Are you just running the testing script from a command or terminal window? Do you ignore distros that just hang? I didn't see any sort of ack failure that showed the same symptoms.

And, is there some sort of medal or award that Paul can get for IPC::System::Simple? I wasn't keen on depending on it at first, but now that I've experienced a bit of grief trying to make Windows be unix, I really appreciate IPC::System::Simple taking care of all of that.

Get 15% off OSCON

brian_d_foy — 2009-04-04T23:57:35+00:00

I'm going to Moscow for YAPC::Russia

brian_d_foy — 2009-04-04T02:03:48+00:00

I get to go to YAPC::Russia because United Airlines has ridiculously cheap airfares to Moscow to celebrate their new direct service from Washington, DC. Even better than that, the frequent flier deals get me to Moscow for the price of a domestic ticket.. The conference is May 16-17, but I'll be there the week before too.

I just got my Lonely Planet Moscow City Guide, so now I have to start planning my trip.

2008 jobs.perl.org report

brian_d_foy — 2009-03-08T10:10:37+00:00

Here are the numbers for the number of job advertisements posted to jobs.perl.org in 2008, by month.

I'm not affiliated with jobs.perl.org, and this is only the simplest of analyses. I didn't try to correct for duplicate posts where the same job was re-advertised. I don't attempt to draw any conclusions about the popularity (up or down) of Perl from these numbers. In general, I think that the continual uptrend through 2006 is about more people discovering the service, and the dismal numbers in 2008 mostly reflect the current economic cycle more than anything to do with technology.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Year | Total | Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- 2001 | 280 | 0 2 8 21 40 34 33 29 34 30 35 14 2002 | 413 | 34 33 35 16 45 26 37 46 33 42 31 35 2003 | 560 | 43 36 56 56 21 39 44 64 53 52 52 44 2004 | 949 | 75 58 78 88 74 88 82 87 65 87 85 82 2005 | 1429 | 93 110 120 135 135 125 115 113 106 132 144 101 2006 | 1857 | 164 138 157 151 166 153 140 176 152 172 179 109 2007 | 1966 | 182 156 181 190 177 168 176 165 145 179 148 99 2008 | 1451 | 156 140 152 158 156 158 136 110 85 87 71 42 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------

Also see the threads for the 2006 and 2007 jobs.perl.org reports for past discussions.. Some other resources include:

Perl 5.005_05 RC2

acme — 2009-02-27T16:28:19+00:00

Hi there porters,

Perl 5.005 is a great version of Perl and still used by many people.
There have been a few distribution updates and tool changes which mean
that it no longer compiles cleanly everywhere, so I believe it's time
for another maintenance release of perl5.005, which will lead to
perl5.005_05.

Please compile and make test this release candidate on as many
platforms as possible:

http://acme.s3.amazonaws.com/perl/perl5.005_05-RC2.tar.gz

This is a release candidate. I'm interested in compilation fixes. I'm
not interested in fixing warnings.

It is hosted on the Perl 5 Git repository:

http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/log/refs/heads/maint-5.005

Which means you can see the Changes file here:

http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob_plain/6b83263:/Changes

See perlrepository.pod if you want to play with Git:

http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob/HEAD:/pod/perlrepository.pod

Thanks! Léon

What is Moose and why is it the future?

acme — 2009-02-26T17:18:07+00:00

Last week London.pm organised a technical meetings themed along the question "What is Moose and why is it the future?". I was in Taipei on the day but Peter Edwards took charge and the speakers Ash Berlin, Tomas Doran, Mike Whitaker and Piers Cawley introduced us to Moose, how to use it effectively and explained advanced techniques. I think everyone was convinced to at least try it out. The slides are available on the London.pm website.