goon's Journal: new format journal - longer articles of interest - p1

Upcoming articles of interest

• Rather than just add links, topics and code without focus. This year I've decided to delve deeper into a particular areas of interest. I tend to post most stuff at slashdot sometimes at my use.perl.com site for perl stuff and occasionally my home page. This year I want to do much the same but filter the topics intelligently depending on the audience.

  • slashdot - using slashdot themes (books, developer, etc). use.perl.org - using perl themes. www.perlmongers.org - heavily summarised perl themes. my homepage - everything.

  Of course I could add an rss link and you roll your own ... one step at a time ... here's some monthly upcoming topics I'm currently writing up ... in no particular order

  • • powershift - and how it effects software developers. can it be exploited?
      chefs and development - how cooking shows shed insight into software development.
      desktop, server integration - python on the desktop, perl at the server.
      networks and connections - slashdot friends, foe and foaf.
      stubby - automatic test unit generation.
      slither - simple email and sending complex markup. how POD/YAML saves the day.
      hack the block 1. - why I like (and my kiddies) to use blocks, not just toys. some surprising results.
      hack the block 2. - code visualisation with LEGO
      compiling and aggregating data - what can we learn from map making when compiling data (rss, xml, etc)?

  architecture

  • building components in high level language python (getting sick of writing business logic in low level code, object pascal, c/cpp).

    • the delphi/python for delphi combination allows you to code business logic in python and the GUI in Delphi/cpp builder.

      andy bulka has a nice explanation explaining the why's and how patterns fit in.

      perl fits into this picture because it strategically gloves apache, CPAN is mature, the language is mature and evolving in a stable manner.

      python integrates into g's better. something that perl sucks at (being embedded). python also runs on windows. something perl via active state tries but has yet to pull off. (see past posts on using ActiveState and CPAN).

      python on the desktop, perl at the server.

  admin

  • installed and using sqlite instead of mysql

    • replacing ms access as a generic data bucket.
      not have to worry about running a heavier than necessary server on a client machine
      but now having to think about sqlite restrictions.

  • installed firefox 0.8

    • and thinking about the first firefox in thunderbird, episode 1 ... when I should be thinking of (clints russian flying epic!)
      using firefox->tools->DOM inspector to tackle regexes.
      DOM inspector does that parsing so you can see what tags you need to extract
      why aren't regexes used in mozilla firefox->bookmark manager->manage manager to search for saved links?
      unstable, had a hang with a download and takes longer to save complete pages
      quick mozilla hack - type in, about:mozilla in nav toolbar

  misc

  • installed andy lesters - www::mechanise and his 5min hack

    • and learning that for quick hacks, regex is better than using html/sgml parser
      but still undecided as debugging regexs is harder than using parser and lexer.
      for perl, www:mechanise does a lot of google parsing for you.

  • missed TheDamian at this months psuedo ~ melbourne perl monger meeting on perl6

    • still close to the pub, but at the wrong time of day :(

  • getting email from miguel for pointing out inaccuracy in mono 0.3 readme
  • found out google wrote their own web server, gws.

    • speculating that qws is optimised for the google data pipeline much like graphics rendering pipelines.

  • reading perl hiaku winners at activestate
  • reading steve mconnells new edition of Code Complete before it goes to print.