use Perl

I almost have my proposal numbers together; I just need to get a price estimate on a high-speed B&W laser scanner/printer and an estimate on a high-speed laser printer. (Yes, I realize the redundancy. This is supposed to be for a law firm that has to scan older records in order to archive them digitally (hence the scanning) and has high-output printing to do on a regular basis (hence two laser printers and an inkjet in every partner's office)). These people must never be at a loss for printing capability.

Unfortunately, I wasn't ballsy enough to speak with a rep at the company I'm quoting for desktop prices. I suspect I could have gotten a fair discount. Oh well -- it's their money, not mine, and they don't really exist anyway. :)

Finally, finally, finally, I'm feeling comfortable with references, due to lengthy Camel perusal.

Some back-of-the-envelope diagramming I did recently on the GUICS may have solved the conceptual problem I was having (how to handle the possibility of lots of simultaneous access attempts without confirmation of locking). Got a few options to look into:

• BerkeleyDB
• a sentinel file
• ignore it and hope the target system is *nix

Unless I have this thing all wrong in my head, *nix handles locking fine, la la la, but doing it on Win* requires footwork (in the form of BerkeleyDB or a sentinel file). More research required, of course.

The renewed interest in GUICS is due to my realization of reuse: If this works for my friend/client who has no deadline/timetable/hosting as-of-yet, then it might also handle the antique ceramic tile guy.

I can't believe I just typed that sentence.