mrstlee

• About: Is it just me or is perl too much fun to be shared with the unworthy?

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• Posted Can I just say to mrstlee

  How cool perldoc.perl.org is? There. I've said it.

  Hats off to all involved.

• Commented on RIP John McCarthy
  Well I don't know about being blessed with more spare time. Actually, no, I do, & it just aint true. Nor am I 100% convinced the world is a better place for them, there again that would all depend on...
• Commented on On the object metaphor
  @Aristotle: "The idea that OO reduces implementation complexity because conditionals are superseded by polymorphism .." vs "Since when is “doesn’t stack up” ..." Never said it (polymorphism) doesn't "work". Merely that, in my opinion, the effort to replace conditionals via...
• Commented on On the object metaphor
  The idea that OO reduces implementation complexity because conditionals are superseded by polymorphism doesn't stack up for me. For example "Factories" are popular - you have a class which creates objects of different classes depending on what data you give...
• Commented on is a type system a hindrance to programming creatively ?
  Here's what Doug Crockford says: "JavaScript's loose typing is a big benefit here because we are not burdened with a type system that is concerned about the lineage of classes. Instead, we can focus on the character of their contents."...
• Commented on is a type system a hindrance to programming creatively ?
  Actually I kind of like the metaphor. Although I prefer Mozart to most of the jazz I've made an effort to listen to. There again Moondog is pretty cool. Tangential question: Why do we feel perl is an easier language...
• Commented on My Perl hero of the week: Eric Strom (ASG)
  Seconded. XUL::Gui is wonderful. Though the run-time detection of your Gecko engine of choice has caused me a few problems....
• Commented on How (not) To Load a Module or Bad Interfaces Make Good People Do Bad Things
  Whenever I absolutely don't want require $thing to load any old thing I test $thing first to see if it comes from a pre-determined list of trusted directory paths. Sure it is still possible for the mischevious/malevolent to wreak havoc...
• Commented on YAML vs INI (Again) and the plan for yet another INI module
  Why be so prescriptive about "the" right thing to do? Would trying to configure something as sophisticated as apache, e.g. multiple virtual hosts & mod_rewrite rules, with ini-style notation, really be time well spent? I'd say it would be pretty...
• Commented on YAML vs INI (Again) and the plan for yet another INI module
  Data-only perl config isn't actually that hard for non-programmers to understand. It is basically JSON with '=>' instead of ':'. I've used it for years and had no complaints from our customer deployment support crew. These days I tend to...
• Commented on Variable Names
  I'd say there comes a point where the effects of syntactic conventions are rendered practically negligible in comparison with the difficulties in understanding how the observable states in the operational code are related. Any code that does complicated things will...
• Commented on Introducing DCI to the Perl world.
  @shawnhcorey - Give me a piece of knapped flint rather than a concrete realisation of a polymorphic class that supports a sub-class of an interface with operations Cut-skin-from-mammoth, & Dig-out-belly-button-fluff. Every time. Even if people did think in terms of...
• Commented on Loving 5.14
  Hercynium: Ahh. Thanks - didn't realise 5.14 each can return index in list context. Don't have 5.14 to hand at the moment. The other bits I did know about. I love defined-or! I suppose in "retro-perl" you could achieve the...
• Commented on Loving 5.14
  Quite likely I've missed the point but why is the code fragment shown superior to, say: my %list = qw( 1 3 4 87 5 3 3 65 1 3 ); my %indices_for; while ( my ( $i, $value )...
• Commented on Pod::Plexus meta-yak, editor folding
  When you first look at it Literate programming seems like a good idea - then you try it. After which it still seems like a good idea but is (much) harder work than anticipated. I've had a few goes -...
• Commented on The best widget set to create a GUI program in Perl
  WxPerl is well documented and sophisticated. I have used it on windows and linux for a few years now. The prima gui kit is very good as well. Might be a bit friendlier in some ways. If you have a...
• Commented on Currying
  Here’s one way to add some spice: sub run_prediction { rand $_ } sub make_prediction_runner { my (@range) = @_; return sub { map { run_prediction($_) } (@range) } } my %choice_range_map = ( 'win' => [1..10], 'lose' => [reverse...
• Commented on Perl's "readability"
  Is readability: a) A qualitative assessment of how easy a document is to visually parse or b) A qualitative assessment of how easy the content of the document is to comprehend (however you assess that) or mixture of the 2...
• Posted Where Have You Been All My Life? to mrstlee

  I've only known you for a few months defined-or but if you leave me know you'll take away the biggest part of me.

  State vars, lexical $_, smart matching and switch statements are all wonderful as well.

  A big thank-you to all you perl 5.1x contributors out there.
  

• Commented on Using PowerShell is Like Passing Hashes in Perl
  Is there a particular reason you'd rather not use cygwin? You may have to muck about when mixing windows & native cygwin - for example if you have cyg perl AND ASPerl - but you have a well proven shell....
• Commented on Perl 101: avoid "elsif"
  For fun I'll occasionally take dispatch tables and generate chained if-else code. The generated code looks gruesome but runs quickly. Of course if you install the code on-the-fly you don't even have to look at it....
• Commented on What non-Perl books do you recommend to Perlers?
  `Software Requirements & Specifications' by Michael Jackson. Deceptively slim compilation of insights into one of the trickiest aspects of soft dev. At least "No Silver Bullet", but really "The Mythical Man Month" should be read by everyone in the industry....
• Commented on Writing Large Systems in Perl is a Privilege Not A Right
  Gauss said something along the lines that it was the notions that are important, not the notation. It may be the case that the notation may affect the notions but is it true to say this lessens with continued exposure...
• Commented on Modern Perl: Are You A Dedicated Follower Of Fashion?
  AB? I think not. Developing with maintainability concerns in mind can only increase the problem space beyond the narrower confines of a particular development exercise. Increasing the accidental complexity of the problem in other words. The question I posed is...
• Commented on I Don't Do Deadlines
  Our dance goes like this: Developers estimate how long a piece of work will take. Management reject the estimate on grounds that the universe will implode unless a certain date is hit. Development refine their estimate, usually by dropping features...
• Commented on Modern Perl: Are You A Dedicated Follower Of Fashion?
  The problem is discerning between dogma and best practice, and having the experience to understand when best practice applies, and when it does not. Nicely put. I sympathise on the grad front. Been in the same position. It bugs me...
• Commented on Modern Perl: Are You A Dedicated Follower Of Fashion?
  It is not so straightforward I think. For one I don't work in an environment where 6 months effort will be tolerated when 2 months will fulfill requirements. "You are trivially close to simply saying "Code for maintainability." Working hard,...
• Commented on Modern Perl: Are You A Dedicated Follower Of Fashion?
  How far do you go with keeping maintainability in mind when you code? Who do you keep in mind? The neophyte, the competent, or the battle-scarred veteran? Or is it possible to satisfy the needs (How do you define what...
• Commented on Removing database abstraction
  A discussion I have with colleagues from time to time. SQL has been shown to be a productive language in its own domain (Software Productivity Research group) so why go to so much effort to OO-ise the data model? Each...
• Posted Modern Perl: Are You A Dedicated Follower Of Fashion? to mrstlee

  jared recently took considered - if mischievous - aim at the Modern Perl crusade:

  http://curiousprogrammer.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/does-your-perl-suck-if-you-dont-use-moose

  A …

Comment Threads

• [deleted] commented on On the object metaphor

  @mrstlee

  From the way I see it, OOP is not a hammer. It's just one of the tools to tackle code base. To make an entire code base switchless, might actually obfuscate it !

  When I made the analogy with structured programming(gotoless programming), I made with it with knuth in mind.

  "switch" is a very general thing. Being switchless just implies the possibility of seeing the problem from a more disciplined way.

  One advantage that I can from the switchless perspective is that if you are r…

• Aristotle commented on On the object metaphor

  mrstlee:

  Hence it does not guarantee reduction in implementation complexity.

  No single modelling technique does. You use it where appropriate and don’t where not.

  mr foo bar:

  I think smalltalk and self style OOP are completely different from the inside-out-dispatch table. It seems to me that they make the disptach-table and replace it with a more general dispatch middleman with objects as clients.

  It’s not fundamentally different. They just make it meta-circular: essentially the inside-out dispatch …

• Michael G Schwern commented on How (not) To Load a Module or Bad Interfaces Make Good People Do Bad Things

  Taint mode just tells you if your inputs have been checked. It does not tell you that your check is secure. While it will help to use taint mode, and add a filter, it still means you're passing user input to an insecure function (whether "eval qq[require $module]" or "require $path"). There's no reason that function has to be so insecure. Security must be many layered to work.

  We all know taint is a royal pain in the ass, made some what less by the -t flag (you're …

• Steven Haryanto commented on YAML vs INI (Again) and the plan for yet another INI module

  @Joel: Depends on who the users are :)

• Peter Rabbitson commented on How (not) To Load a Module or Bad Interfaces Make Good People Do Bad Things

  Hi, and sorry for resurrecting this old thread.

  This blogpost seems to be bookmarked among many fellow programmers, but it fails to even mention Module::Runtime, which (at the time of this writing) already was implementing everything you describe, except for the unicode stuff (which it considers invalid, see RT#74804).

  Would you mind updating this post for the sake of fellow googlers?

  Cheers!