Perl.com update
--------------------------------------
The Email for www.perl.com Subscribers
============================================================
=======
Hello, readers.
This is the Perl newsletter, written and mailed
approximately once
every two weeks. Sometimes it comes out on a Friday. Other
times
it goes out on a Monday. We're just that kooky crazy here!
Enough preliminaries. Let's get down to...
* Perl News
David Cantrell wrote a shiny visualizer for CPAN
distributions and their
dependencies. This is very useful for correlating the
likelihood of being
able to install a module with failures in its dependencies:
h
ttp://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/04/1748242
The New Yorker had an interesting piece on antispam
technologies,
featuring Perl guru, Matt Sergeant. Thanks for keeping our
inboxes clear!
h
ttp://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/05/0633229
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason submitted a patch to Perl 5.10,
which makes
split // three times faster. Improvements are always nice!
h
ttp://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/11/0234247
Are you now or will you be near the Eastern Seaboard in time
for the
Pittsburgh Perl Workshop 2007? If so, consider sharing your
wisdom.
Submit a talk now!
h
ttp://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/14/0049217
Speaking of tests and CPAN modules (just a few paragraphs
ago), barbie and
the rest of the CPAN testers guru crew have just created a
new mailing list
to discuss the development and use of tools for automated
testing. If you
rely on CPAN modules and have a few extra machines with a
few extra cycles,
please join the list and offer your assistance:
ht
tp://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/15/188231
Your editor minuted the Perl 6 design meetings:
ht
tp://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/10/208220
* Perl at O'Reilly
The fundamental unit of reuse in Perl is the subroutine.
What comes after
that? Modules. Hardly a week goes by without a PerlMonks
querant asking
how to redirect from one CGI program to another or how to
call one script
from another. The answer is almost always to embrace Perl's
mechanism of
code reuse. Andy Sylvester demonstrates how to take
standalone programs
and make their features available to other programs in
simple, reversible,
testable, and understandable steps:
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2007/08/09/making-perl-mo
dules.html
Given the relative heat and light of JT Smith's "Perl
isn't dead!"
polemic, it's no surprise that several commenters said,
"OMG! Perl is
hard to read!" Your editor humbly suggests that that
line of thinking may
suggest a replacement for English in comments and symbol
names:
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp
/blog/2007/08/is_it_time_to_replace_english.html
Kirrily Robert (who, along with Andy Lester, has a surprise
in store for
the Perl world very soon) dissected a meaningless job ad for
a Perl
programmer. What's better is that she suggested
improvements. Want to
hire a coder? Start here:
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlam
p/blog/2007/08/why_your_company_cant_find_per.html
Your editor took an offhand comment about the long
incubation period of
Perl 6 and drew connections between the creative process of
writing
fiction and inevitable constraints in software development.
Why has the
Perl 6 process stretched longer than any of us had hoped?
There are
several reasons, and understanding them may help you produce
better
software:
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlam
p/blog/2007/08/constraints_and_software_devel.html
And with that in mind, Parrot's next contributor day is
August 18. Yes,
that's tomorrow for everyone reading this when it first goes
out. If
that's not you, then your editor hopes you had a nice
weekend:
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlam
p/blog/2007/08/parrot_new_contributor_day_thi.html
* Other ORN News
Mike Hendrickson announced the second Ignite Boston, a free
tech-focused
meetup sponsored by O'Reilly. It will take place on
Thursday, September 6,
from 6 to 10 p.m. at Hurricane O'Reilly’s, with a few
launches and plenty of
discussion of new technologies and ideas. If you plan to
attend, email
IgniteBoston at oreilly dot com for the chance to win $300
worth of O'Reilly
books of your choosing. You must be present to win.
Ignite Seattle was good, so go to this one if you can,
- c
chromatic oreilly.com
Editor, Perl.com, et cetera
============================================================
=======
Visit our Sponsored Developer Resource Pages and learn about
cool
stuff from our sponsors!
Downloads - Free Training - Webinars - Updates
Inside Lightroom: http://digi
talmedia.oreilly.com/lightroom
------------------------------------------------------------
------
Interested in sponsoring the Perl.com newsletter? Please
email us at
advertisingoreilly.com for rate and availability information.
Thank you!
------------------------------------------------------------
------
To change your newsletter subscription options, please
visit
http://www.oreil
lynet.com/cs/nl/home
For assistance, email helporeillynet.com
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
1005 Gravenstein Highway North
Sebastopol, CA 95472
(707) 827-7000
------------------------------------------------------------
------
|