metaperl's Journal

I was born to be gardener

metaperl — 2005-11-25T20:55:43+00:00

I dont know what it is, but whenever I get outdoors and start working with the soil and tilling earth and making compost, and hearing the wind run through the trees and putting plants in the ground, I really feel like who I am.

Maybe one day I will retire and have a garden and a few cows.

CPAN::SeeAlso - an idea for linking related CPAN modules

metaperl — 2005-08-16T21:25:01+00:00

Me and another developer were discussing the fact that the SEE ALSO
section of CPAN modules is often lacking, sometimes due to ignorance
and other times due to arrogance.I have created a few such documents
over time.

One of them is [1]a list of lazy loaders and the other is [2]a list of
SQL phrasebooks.

We were trying to come up with some ways to make this data available
and browseable to others.

I figured as long as the data was in a sqlite database, that people
could develop web and text interfaces as they pleased.
_________________________________________________________________

References

1. http://www.metaperl.com/article-pod/Catalog-lazy_loaders/lazy_loaders.html
2. http://www.metaperl.com/article-pod/Catalog-sql_phrasebooks/sql_phrasebooks.pod

Learning Haskell

metaperl — 2005-03-08T16:35:28+00:00

I banged and thrashed around a bit to learn some Haskell. I started with "Gentle Introduction to Haskell" and then "YAHT - Yet another Haskell Tutorial", but I wish I had started with "Algorithms: A Functional Programming Approach" by Rabhi and Lapalme.

This is a great book.

November/December 2004 Topics in Perl Software::Design

metaperl — 2005-01-03T02:14:30+00:00

NAME

The Month in Perl Software Design

DESCRIPTION

Overview of topics discussed on the Perl Software::Design mailing list in the months of November and December 2004.

TOPICS

HTML::Seamstress Design Dilemma

http://www.mail-archive.com/sw-design@metaperl.com/msg00095.html

Whether or not to use compiler hints to drive the HTML methodmaking capacity of the HTML::Seamstress manpage.

Whether or not to use explicit getter/setter notion for method names.

Inversion of Control and DBI

http://www.mail-archive.com/sw-design@metaperl.com/msg00072.html

How to create IOC containers for the extended information needed with DBI.

The Design of the Querylet SQL Report Writer tool

http://www.mail-archive.com/sw-design@metaperl.com/msg00068.html

Two Alternate Approaches to Mixin Functionality

http://www.mail-archive.com/sw-design@metaperl.com/msg00060.html

the Class::MixinFactory manpage by Simon Cavaletto is a new module offering another approach to handling the problems inherent in multiple inheritance. The module lists other approaches such as delegation and then shows the utility of __MODULE__ in solving said problems.

Brannon responds with working functional and protoype-based object solutions which cover the apparent functionality of __MODULE__. Cavaletto assesses.

Stosberg discusses plugins in the context of CGI::Application::Plugin::*. Cavaletto evaluates.

Test coverage in Java

http://www.mail-archive.com/sw-design@metaperl.com/msg00056.html

Plans for a Software::Design CPAN-based Magazine

http://www.mail-archive.com/sw-design@metaperl.com/msg00043.html

Discussed at length then rejeected.

Short-circuting method chains

http://www.mail-archive.com/sw-design@metaperl.com/msg00033.html

Method chaining is attractive but what about exceptions thrown in the middle of the chain?

Code and block size as complexity metrics

http://www.mail-archive.com/sw-design@metaperl.com/msg00023.html

Commands::Guarded

http://www.mail-archive.com/sw-design@metaperl.com/msg00022.html

Presented at Usenix, Trey Harris discusses the motivation and design of his module design to support resumable, point-checking, verbose, robust scripting in Perl.

RESOURCES

Perl Software::Design mailing list: http://www.metaperl.com/sw-design; The Perl Software::Design mailing list is available from a number of sources:; nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.software-design http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.perl.software-design sw-design-subscribe@metaperl.com; Here are the mailing list archives to give you an idea of the content:; http://www.mail-archive.com/sw-design@metaperl.com/
This document: http://www.metaperl.com/sw-design/review/2004/12/12.pod http://www.metaperl.com/sw-design/review/2004/12/12.txt http://www.metaperl.com/sw-design/review/2004/12/12.html

List::Part - a module for partioning Lists

metaperl — 2003-12-29T09:07:15+00:00

This is a nice module. I hope to one day have a need to use it. I would write up a review for Perlmonks.org, but I don't want to put the time into it. I hope that they get the CPAN-weekly mailing from kobesearch.cpan.org and read it and found something they liked.

Parse::Recdescent::FAQ --- plateauing?

metaperl — 2003-10-24T13:23:59+00:00

I am fairly happy with the organization of the FAQ. I just discovered the "=head4" tag, so I will be changing some "=over 4 =item* =back" over to that soon to improve the TOC. I might write something to automate a google search as pretty much all resources (save perlmonks?) that I use to beef up the FAQ be they news or web exist on google somewhere.

dbi.perl.org is an embarrassing mess

metaperl — 2003-09-02T23:26:08+00:00

Long ago, this site was to be turned over to Ilya Sterin. I am talking 2-3 months ago. And yet it hasn't happened. And there are broken links. They are switching to a content mgmt system called combust (combust.develooper.com) and in the meantime I look like a careless webmaster.

new version of Unix.pm uploaded --- with response to critics

metaperl — 2003-09-02T23:20:20+00:00

I uploaded a new version of Unix.pm. I tried to address my critics in a polite and reasonable fashion and also made the changes to the distribution that they suggested.

This jobless thing is getting to me

metaperl — 2002-03-04T22:55:50+00:00

Ok, I've had it. I left a major database company back in late October. Then vacationed around Southern California and Mexico. I came back to New York City not because I like concrete. Not because I like cold weather. Not because I like rude people. Not because I like a subways. Not because I like noise. But only because I thought it was the most lucrative job market in the US. And since Jan I have been here and gotten 4 calls and about as many emails. And nothing but dead ends. ! sigh ! I just dont know what to do ... besides bag groceries and substitute teach until the economic slump blows over. ! /sigh ! Then again, I have had plenty of time to sleep and relax and meditate.

Anyway, if anyone knows of anything anywhere in the US, please have them get in touch with me, my resume is here and I should add to it: I am the official maintainer of the soon-to-be-released http://dbi.perl.org website.

AppConfig::DBI and my toasted laptop

metaperl — 2002-03-03T15:00:13+00:00

I recently published AppConfig::DBI to the CPAN after emailing p5ee and dbi-users that it would not be uploaded until an RFC process ending Sunday night. That was all very true until my laptop emitted smoke... I had been jiggling the power cord for about the last 2 weeks to keep the power working and did not realize that I was loosening the soldering around the power supply and then yesterday I was jiggling it when poof! Smoke and no more power... so I kept going on the battery and in a panic uploaded everything I feared I would never see again - including my proposal to Sam's on my DBI book. NEXT TOPIC - Module naming Randy Ray made a good point on perlmonks.org - my module is named as if it is providing a database persistent store for AppConfig. So I think it should be called DBIx::Connect. But then again Tim has said that DBIx is polluted. So what now DBIxxx?

SAX - a new road in XML?

metaperl — 2002-03-02T13:17:47+00:00

I am still in search of one XML module that is simple yet powerful and will take me a long way. I am going crazy. I just downloaded everything that has the word "SAX" in it and I hope to find my magic bullet there. And the only thing you can infer about that it is that it is something other than the ones I am going to look at today.

Class::MakeMethods rocks the house

metaperl — 2002-02-18T14:38:48+00:00

Wow, this module is a complete tour-de-force. If the flexibility and power of Perl objects is one of Perl's strengths then just imagine how awesome this module is for providing concise yet comprehense and flexible access to Perl method making. I created a sig for myself just because of this module: $terrence->{brannon} = Class::MakeMethods -> hacker (type => 'just another');

Parse::RecDescent::FAQ is 30k + now

metaperl — 2002-01-08T18:50:14+00:00

This is my first journal entry. I am just trying it out. But to make this look important, I should mention that the Parse::RecDescent FAQ is now over 30k.

I wonder if it should turn into a book at some point? I don't have a job, so now would be a good time to write one... I got an offer to do a book on DBI, and I want to do one based on on application design rather than nuts-and-bolts DBI...