Test::Excel now supports regex, for more information, please follow the link.
]]>Here is my response ...
]]>Please checkout my experience decoding hexdump.
]]>Do you want to convert Perl source into .exe?
Please checkout my experience.
]]>Let us all have fun with the latest Perl v5.36.
https://theweeklychallenge.org/blog/get-started-with-perl-v536
]]>Last night, I finally nailed it with the help of my best friend. "Taint" can no longer scare me.
]]>After a very long time, I found time to blog and here is my journey to deal with memory leak in Perl.
]]>Good bye 2021 and Welcome 2022 !!!
Time to look back and review how the year 2021 was for me.
As you all know, I have been editing Perl weekly newsletterGabor Szabo. We agreed, I edit the even numbered newsletter and Gabor would do odd numbered ones. So that way, I got the honour to edit the 500th edition of the weekly newsletter. I am now looking forward to my personal, 100th edition. As of today, I have edited 96 in total.
Thanks to the Team PWC, I completed one more year of weekly challenge. It may not sound a big deal but for me it is. I wouldn't have done without the support of the team. I would like to mention one name, Colin Crain, our in-house, Perl reviewer for the hard work in reviewing Perl solutions every week without fail for so many months now.
There are some of the sharpest brain in our team and we are proud of them. Every week, I get to learn from them, technical or otherwise. You know who I am talking about.
On 15th Feb 2021, we completed 100 weeks. It is unbelievable even today that we have reached so far. Today we achieved another milestone as we are now in the week 150.
Last year, I final gathered the courage to contribute in Raku. I faced tough time initially but with so many friends ready to help 24x7, I sailed through. I feel comfortable now. I can read code written by some of great experts of the language.
I started sharing solutions to the weekly challenge in Python, Java and Swift. Having done for sometimes now, I can now proudly say, I can read/write in 5 different programming languages. Having said, we have, Abigail in the team who can code in, 30+, different languages.
Having worked with some of the great Perl brain at NTT Limited for nearly 9 years, I decided to move on. With the help and guidance from a very close friend of mine, Julien, I joined Oleeo Limited. I must admit, it was the best decision of my entire career. I am so happy to have found such a cool and friendly team. I have been lucky to have very understanding and approachable managers in the past as well. I am very lucky once again to have found cool manager. In a short time so far, I already feel like I am part of the team. Above all, it feels great when my contribution is appreciated.
On 18th Dec 2021, The Weekly Challenge completed 1000 days. I wanted to celebrate the moment in a big way. I shared my ideas with the team and general public. I am pleasantly surprised by the support I received so far. The support came within the team and outside. The best part was when our monthly prize sponsor, Pete Sergeant, came forward to top up the fund to cover the cost of FREE gift. You can find out the details in the blog here.
I have been member of the club from day one. As you all know, being a member, you get assigned a distribution and you are requested to make at least one contribution. So far, I have managed to complete all my assignments without fail. I would like to mention one thing here, my contributions are mostly limited to documentation improvement. So it doesn't take long to find something to contribute. I am also grateful to all who accepted my contributions.
As you all know, Perl Weekly Challenge has been renamed to The Weekly Challenge. I had bought the new domain theweeklychallenge.org long time ago but I was still using the old domain name perlweeklychallenge.org as I didn't have the courage and knowledge to move over to new domain name. Gabor Szabo offered to help me with domain switch. One Sunday afternoon, he helped me to switch the domain over Skype. Thank you, Gabor, for everything.
I started YouTube Channel to share my contributions to the weekly challenge. Although I am not being regular but I do share live coding session as and when I find time. As of today, I have got 163 subscribers. I know, it is not big number but I am proud of myself. There are some very well known names in the Perl community following my YouTube channel. I would like to thank each and every subscriber for the support and encouragement.
Last but not the least, the start of the year didn't go the way I wanted. I am presenting the monthly report on the last day of the month instead of day one. The only grace is I did manage to share and not skipped it altogether. There are couple of things I skipped purposely as it would embaras me, sorry.
Let's take a quick look through last month main activities.
5 Pull Requests submitted in the month of December 2021.
2374 Pull Requests altogether.
718 commits recorded in the month of December 2021.
Overall 8171 commits recorded in the year 2021.
Following weekly challenges proposed in the month of December 2021:
And RECAPS are listed as below:
Last month, I created 6 videos as listed below. You can take a look at all my past videos on my YouTube Channel.
If you like the video then please do subscribe to my channel so that you don't miss the weekly fun live coding videos.
Last month, we declared W. Luis Mochan as the Champion of The Weekly Challenge.
If you are interested in past champions interview then you can find it all here.
Last month, I received OPM::Maker::Command::sopm by Renee Baecker. I submitted one Pull Request and it has been accepted and merged already.
Overall participation to Pull Request Club
Last month, I blogged about the Monthly Report - November.
Last month, I edited three editions of the Perl Weekly Newsletter i.e. Issue #536, Issue #538 and Issue #540.
Year 2021: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov.
Year 2020: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
Year 2019: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
Year 2018: May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
At the end of last month, December 2021, the following people / organisation supported me in the past or continued supporting me even today. I am humbled by their generosity.
Do you want to sponsor my work?
Please follow the Patreon page.
Thank You.
]]>Time to relax before ...
What a shame, I delayed the Monthy Report once again. Although I did manage to publish last month on time i.e. 4th Nov.
Do I have reason to justify the delay?
Well, December, is always the busiest month. It is the month when I spend more time with family than ususal. Also I was busy with the Advent Calendar 2021.
As you must have guessed, today I am done with the final gift. Hence, the monthly report is getting time. There was another reason for the delay as I started Live Coding again. I have done few, which I will talk about in the end of year report in a week time, insha-ALLAH.
So, what was the highlight of last month?
I started the 1000 days FREE T-shirt campaign. I am so grateful for all the support that I received so far. It feels great. I decided to gift FREE specially designed T-shirt to all the champions of The Weekly Challenge. I am done with the most difficult phase of the campaign i.e. collecting funds. Thanks to all the sponsors, we have collected £1029.64 in total. The fund is enough to cover the cost of T-shirt printing and international delivery as per my own estimation.
As of today, I have received 32 confirmations out of 53 eligible members. I am not in a rush to be honest. I would want to gift each and every eligible members unless anyone says the opposite. I am hoping after the holiday break they will find time to respond to my email request. You can find the regular update to the campaign in the blog here.
I find it hard to remember what I did last month, every time the monthly report gets delayed. Never mind, I will cover up in the annual report in a week time if I remember anything later.
I wish you all Merry Christmas and stay safe with your loved ones.
Let's take a quick look through last month main activities.
5 Pull Requests submitted in the month of November 2021.
2374 Pull Requests altogether.
718 commits recorded in the month of November 2021.
Overall 8171 commits recorded in the year 2021.
Following weekly challenges proposed in the month of November 2021:
And RECAPS are listed as below:
Last month, none created. However, there are plenty of videos available on my YouTube Channel. If you like the video then please do subscribe to my channel so that you don't miss the weekly fun live coding videos.
Last month, we declared Paulo Custodio as the Champion of The Weekly Challenge.
If you are interested in past champions interview then you can find it all here.
Last month, I received Net::Songkick by Dave Cross. I submitted one Pull Request and it has been accepted and merged already.
Overall participation to Pull Request Club
Last month, I blogged about the Monthly Report - October and The Weekly Challenge - 1000 days.
Last month, I edited three editions of the Perl Weekly Newsletter i.e. Issue #536, Issue #538 and Issue #540.
Year 2021: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct.
Year 2020: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
Year 2019: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
Year 2018: May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
At the end of last month, November 2021, the following people / organisation supported me in the past or continued supporting me even today. I am humbled by their generosity.
Do you want to sponsor my work?
Please follow the Patreon page.
Thank You.
]]>In the festive mood again ...
The festive season began already and I miss celebrating festivals with family and friends. But this is nothing new, I should get used to it now. Still sometimes it hurts really bad after all we are humans. In the past, we tried to be with family during festive season. The truth is it didn't feel the same. I don't know why. Could it be we are no longer carefree souls? But that can't be true. I have seen some of my friends on Facebook sharing celebration moments with family. It looks so beautiful and cute. The only difference I can think of is that they with family and I don't.
I would like to mention one friend from Nepal. We never met but I always watch his Facebook post having great time with his family. I think we became friends because of common love for Perl.
One thing I noticed, year ends (Oct/Nov/Dec) never been lucky for me. I have very bad memories from last year. I am watching myself more closely this time and try to avoid getting trapped. But the trouble is COVID-19 is not helping the cause either. If I look at the positive sides, The month of September brings Wedding Anniversary celebration. Followed by October brings in my wife's birthday then November brings my twins birthday. Finally
December my own birthday which I have never ever celebrated in my life so far.
As per the tradition in the last few months, I always talk about my current job. In this difficult time, the work I am doing during the day at work is keeping me sane. In fact, it gives me immense pleasure every time I accomplish something. They aren't groundbreaking though I still feel better. So thanks to all my work colleagues and Oleeo in general.
Time to talk about the main point of this blog ...
I have a cute story to share with you all. In the middle of nowhere, I received an email from a student (appears to be from India). I used to get such email more frequently in the past but not in the recent times as I hardly contribute to CPAN. I only do when it is needed the most.
The email made me revisit my code after really long time. It is all about mathematical calculations. It is always easy to fix the calculations if it isn't yours. All the mathematical formula I used in the code, is borrowed from someone else who publicly given permission. Having spent some time, I noticed a very subtle error in my adaptation. It felt like winning lottery as I wasn't sure where to get help from. I released quick path (v0.13).
I then informed the student and sent her a small Perl script to give it a try. Same day, I got another email saying:
This was embarrassing moment for me. However, I noticed she is not technically playing with Julian date. In fact she is processing Modified Julian date. My distribution, Date::Julian::Simple, currently do not have support for Modified Julian date. Just a quick Google got me the answer to the issues. I decided to add the new feature and make sure it returns the correct result. It took me 30 minutes to get the patch ready and released (v0.14).
I sent her another reply with updated sample Perl to try out the new feature to help with Modified Julian date.
Apparently it didn't work for her. She shared a link in the email she is using to compare the result. It turned out a big help. I looked at the calculation behind and it seems different from mine. So I decided to use the new calculation for Modified Julian date. with the new formula I am getting the expected result. So time to push another patch (v0.16).
I did and sent her the update. I haven't heard back from her, so I assume she is happy now. By the way, did you notice I jumped from v0.14 to v0.16?
Well in between, I received Pull Request for the same from one of my best buddy, Lance Wicks.
Lance was having fun with Hacktoberfest.
Let's take a quick look through last month main activities.
4 Pull Requests submitted in the month of October 2021.
2369 Pull Requests altogether.
786 commits recorded in the month of October 2021.
Overall 7453 commits recorded in the year 2021.
Following weekly challenges proposed in the month of October 2021:
And RECAPS are listed as below:
Last month, none created. However, there are plenty of videos available on my YouTube Channel. If you like the video then please do subscribe to my channel so that you don't miss the weekly fun live coding videos.
Last month, we declared Jan Krnavek as the Champion of The Weekly Challenge.
If you are interested in past champions interview then you can find it all here.
Last month, I received Const::Fast::Exporter by Neil Bowers. I submitted one Pull Request.
Overall participation to Pull Request Club
Last month, I blogged about the Monthly Report - September.
Last month, I edited two editions of the Perl Weekly Newsletter i.e. Issue #532 and Issue #534.
Year 2021: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep.
Year 2020: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
Year 2019: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
Year 2018: May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.
At the end of last month, October 2021, the following people / organisation supported me in the past or continued supporting me even today. I am humbled by their generosity.
Do you want to sponsor my work?
Please follow the Patreon page.
Thank You.
]]>Finally enjoying again ...
The month of September is very special to me personaly.
Why?
Well, I got married in the very same month 18 years ago. The best part is, I choose the day 11 to get married. I have never missed my wedding anniversary, thanks to all the TV news channel.
How?
On the day, every year I find every TV news channel talk about 9/11 episode. It works like reminder to me.
Let's get back to the main topic ...
For the last few months, I have been late in making monthly report on time. This has created many problems for me. One of them and the most important is that I don't remember what I did last month. I then look back my activities on various social platforms that I am active on e.g. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It doesn't always help as I am not very active either socially these days.
BTW, I started working on this report around 6 am today.
So what's going on?
Honestly speaking, I am too busy and involved in my day work at Oleeo. And I am enjoying it. Apart from that, running the Weekly Challenge is another beast, I enjoy. Last but not least I am also working on my new Perl Book. How can I forget about editing the Perl Weekly newsletter? As you all know, I edit every alternate week. Even weeks belong to me and odd weeks belong to the chief editor, Gabor Szabo. Having done (editing) for so long, I find it easier now that I sometimes start on the last of day of submission. I enjoy writing editorials and it gives me freedom to express myself and share my thought process. I must admit, I have made mistakes as well. Recently I have been reminded by the blog authors that I missed their blog. I accept my failure as they are popular bloggers.
BTW, it is my turn to work on next week newsletter.
Let's change the topic ...
I have started taking part in the weekly challenge again. I noticed a big change in my task analysing power because of the weekly challenge. The weekly challenge club is the best place for anyone looking for bright ideas. The best part is, you don't need to be a member of the club to enjoy the fun. It is FREE and available 24x7.
I have been doing recaps of weekly contributions and get the opportunity to go through each of them. I sometimes bookmark it for later reading. Another place for you, if you are looking for inspiration is the weekly reviews by the best brains. Colin Crain is currently leading the front.
Is there anything I missed?
To be honest with you, I missed doing live coding session. I have been thinking of getting back on that front for months now. I hardly find any time to do it these days. By the time, I am done with my day job, I am already exhausted. Having said, I will definitely do at least couple of sessions this weekend, promise.
Enjoy hacking with Hacktoberfest till then you take care of yourself and loved ones.
Let's take a quick look through last month main activities.
2 Pull Requests submitted in the month of September 2021.
2367 Pull Requests altogether.
511 commits recorded in the month of September 2021.
Overall 6667 commits recorded in the year 2021.
Following weekly challenges proposed in the month of September 2021:
And RECAPS are listed as below:
Last month, none created. However, there are plenty of videos available on my YouTube Channel. If you like the video then please do subscribe to my channel so that you don't miss the weekly fun live coding videos.
Last month, we declared Jorg Sommrey as the Champion of The Weekly Challenge.
If you are interested in past champions interview then you can find it all here.
Last month, I received Math::GSL by Håkon Hægland. I submitted one Pull Request and it has been kindly accepted and merged already.
Overall participation to Pull Request Club
Last month, I blogged about the Monthly Report - August.
Last month, I edited two editions of the Perl Weekly Newsletter i.e. Issue #528 and Issue #530.
At the end of last month, September 2021, the following people / organisation supported me in the past or continued supporting me even today. I am humbled by their generosity.
Do you want to sponsor my work?
Please follow the Patreon page.
Thank You.
]]>Finally enjoying again ...
Ever since I joined Oleeo, I keep talking about it in every monthly report.
Why?
Well, right from day one, I have been getting to work on something I never worked on before. To be honest with you, I was expecting to fight with good old CGI ridden code mostly. I find myself lucky to have such a great supporting team. Right now I am playing with Elastic Search and I am enjoying it. Thanks to CPAN for such a cool library, Search::Elasticsearch.
Did you notice last monthly report was published on 22nd Aug?
I have never been so late ever since I started the series of monthly report.
You must be thinking, why bother with monthly report? Who cares what I do?
I agree, nobody cares. But I still do it every month since Nov 2018, my first monthly report was published on 2nd Nov 2018. In two months time, I would complete 3 years of monthly reporting. Honestly speaking, I didn't realise it until now.
Going back to the original question, why?
Well, I do it to keep myself self-motivated and keep track of my pet projects. This time, at least I am not as late as last time. So there is a improvement, little bit though. I am getting the monthly report out on 16th as compared to 22nd last month. Hopefully in the near future, I would be back on track.
I am so much involved in learning new things these days, I hardly find time to do any YouTube videos. For the first time, I didn't do any Live Coding YouTube videos last month. In fact, I have even not participated in the weekly challenge in the month of August. I promise to get back on track soon.
I would like to talk about my involvement with Pull Request Club. During the peak of my game with Pull Request, I used to spend at least 2-4 hours every day looking for low hanging issues to fix. Ever since the weekly challenge started, I hardly find any time for the pull requests. Although I have never missed a monthly assignment for Pull Request Club, I am not happy with my contributions. Most of my contributions are limited to documentation and nothing ground breaking. I am grateful to everyone who have accepted my small contributions so far. It brings smile on my face every time.
In all of these drama, I am unable to give due attention to the book I am currently working on. At least, I have not dumped the idea. It is still very much alive. I should get back on track asap.
Let's take a quick look through last month main activities.
3 Pull Requests submitted in the month of August 2021.
2365 Pull Requests altogether.
686 commits recorded in the month of August 2021.
Overall 6156 commits recorded in the year 2021.
Following weekly challenges proposed in the month of August 2021:
And RECAPS are listed as below:
Last month, none created. However, there are plenty of videos available on my YouTube Channel. If you like the video then please do subscribe to my channel so that you don't miss the weekly fun live coding videos.
Last month, we declared Flavio Poletti as the Champion of The Weekly Challenge. Please checkout the interview with him.
If you are interested in past champions interview then you can find it all here.
Last month, I received ARGV::OrDATA by E. Choroba. I submitted one Pull Request and it has been kindly accepted and merged.
Overall participation to Pull Request Club
Last month, I blogged about the Monthly Report - July.
Last month, I edited two editions of the Perl Weekly Newsletter i.e. Issue #524 and Issue #526.
At the end of last month, August 2021, the following people / organisation supported me in the past or continued supporting me even today. I am humbled by their generosity.
Do you want to sponsor my work?
Please follow the Patreon page.
Thank You.
]]>Never been so busy ...
The guilt is killing me every time I delay the monthly report. I finally found time to get this out on 22nd day of the month where I would do that on the very first day of the month in the past.
Life can be challenging at times, balancing personal and professional aspect can be difficult, I must confess.
In all of these up and down, I have to keep myself motivated and find ways to stay happy.
I try to avoid negative thoughts coming on my way and stay positive.
For the last few weeks, I have been too busy with my new day job. I am happy that I got to explore things that I have never done in the past. For example, I tried CSRF in Dancer2 application. It was fun. I will soon share the code when I get time. Also I got to play with Elastic Search. I was very nervous initially as the work in hand was mostly around it. I spent few evenings and finally got my head around it. At least I know enough now to build the API for the task. Last but not the least, I tried something new for unit testing, Test::Unit::TestCase. In the past, Test::More had been more than enough for unit testing. I am in love with Test::Unit::TestCase now, I can tell you with confident. I would like to thank, Oleeo for giving me the opportunity to explore so many different things. I am very happy with my decision to change job.
As you see, with all the fun going around, I find very little time to participate in the weekly challenge. However I did manage to do FOUR live videos with regard to my weekly challenge contributions last month. I hope you like it.
Let's take a quick look through last month main activities.
4 Pull Requests submitted in the month of July 2021.
2362 Pull Requests altogether.
913 commits recorded in the month of July 2021.
Overall 5470 commits recorded in the year 2021.
Following weekly challenges proposed in the month of July 2021:
And RECAPS are listed as below:
Last month, I created 2 videos working on various tasks of the weekly challenges.
There are plenty of videos available on my YouTube Channel. If you like the video then please do subscribe to my channel so that you don't miss the weekly fun live coding videos.
Last month, we declared Abigail as the Champion of The Weekly Challenge.
If you are interested in past champions interview then you can find it all here.
Last month, I received Plack::App::ServiceStatus by Thomas Klausner. I submitted one Pull Request.
Overall participation to Pull Request Club
Last month, I blogged about the Monthly Report - June.
Last month, I edited two editions of the Perl Weekly Newsletter i.e. Issue #520 and Issue #522.
At the end of last month, July 2021, the following people / organisation supported me in the past or continued supporting me even today. I am humbled by their generosity.
Do you want to sponsor my work?
Please follow the Patreon page.
Thank You.
]]>