Neil Bowers

• Website: neilb.org/reviews
• About: Perl hacker since 1992.

Recent Actions

• Commented on The clearest way(s) to check if a List contains...
  The syntax I'd like is the following, which would also be the easiest to understand, even for someone who is new to perl: do_something() if 'flour' in @ingredients; The smart match operator is closest, but there are various issues with...
• Commented on Reviewing web frameworks
  Oh yeah, good point. I'll do that....
• Commented on /usr/local/bin rant
  But the flipside is that knowing about the various package management tools is a PITA if you're a perl programmer who happens to have to admin various boxes :-) I install Perl in a number of places, and like the...
• Commented on Reviewing web frameworks
  Thanks Ron — I've added CGI::Snapp to the list. I'll follow up with you directly on the disqus issue - I've assumed that disqus will just work for everyone, but if not then I might have to reconsider the commenting...
• Posted Reviewing web frameworks to NeilB

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• Commented on Thank you Ack!
  Can we assume that it was a successful defense, given you’re mentioning it in public?...
• Commented on CPAN {Spring|Autumn} cleaning time again
  We could have a checkbox on PAUSE for authors to say "I'm happy for old superseded dists to be auto-purged" (with a clear definition for that). Lots of (past) CPAN authors won't do this though, so ... A quarterly check...
• Commented on Crowd funding Pinto
  Thanks for organising this brian - I think/hope this can be a good way to fund bits of work on key/useful bits of the perl infrastructure....
• Commented on Is the module list useful?
  The list in its current form isn't useful, but there are parts of it that could be usefully re-imagined. One good part of registration was getting feedback on the idea, suggestions for naming, and pointing out potential existing modules. PrePAN...
• Commented on Play Perl is a Startup
  So a year from now, when you're living on the street, holding up a piece of card with "will hack Perl for food", we'll know who to blame!...
• Commented on Play Perl is a Startup
  Good for you. If you don't add the ability for people to donate to support, maybe you should at least add flattr :-)...
• Commented on Code Pornography
  Like a favicon for modules? Or should it be for dists? Probably both: specifying a cpanicon for a dist would be the same as specifying it for all modules, but then you might want to have a generic one for...
• Commented on Idea: perl community homepage
  Thanks for the good comments and encouragement — I'd better get on with it! Current working name is theperlhub.com, but suggestions for a better name (with .{org,com} available) gratefully received). I'll play around with the prototype while thinking about design...
• Commented on Encouraging bloggers to use the 'extended' feature
  If someone types "perl blog" into google, blogs.perl.org (BPO) is the top result. I think it would be a much better user experience if Joe Random Browser got a page of brief abstracts, rather than scads of code, config, data,...
• Commented on Encouraging bloggers to use the 'extended' feature
  Heh. Like you (Ether) and brian, and bowtie, I'm not particularly enamored of MT, but so far I've been lazy enough to stick with it. Is there a good perl-based static blogging engine?...
• Commented on Encouraging bloggers to use the 'extended' feature
  Maybe I didn't word idea #3 very clearly? ;-)...
• Commented on Encouraging bloggers to use the 'extended' feature
  Good idea — I added it as idea #4....
• Commented on Idea: perl community homepage
  Hadn't come across Plagger, but from a quick skim it's clearly worth a look. The documentation says "look at plagger.org for cookbook examples", so I did. Shame, it's all in Japanese. Ah, a link mentions phonesex, so I guess Miyagawa-san...
• Posted Encouraging bloggers to use the 'extended' feature to NeilB

  This is a collection of ideas for how we can encourage bloggers using blogs.perl.org to split their posts into an abstract and body. Attempts at education have largely failed, so I think we should try something else.

• Commented on Idea: perl community homepage
  Added a link to perl-tutorial.org. Were you thinking a section for videos in the links (upper half of the page) or a feed box. I was thinking the "Recent talks" was where they would go, or were you thinking of...
• Posted Idea: perl community homepage to NeilB

  and there isn't a single place I can go to try and keep up. I suspect I'm not the only one. This post outlines an idea for a "perl community home page", where you could go to "keep up". I've wh…

• Commented on What's wrong with CPAN?
  Spooky timing. I was working on this over the weekend, and have RT as one of the inputs, but couldn't work out how to get the info I was after. So emailed the perl RT support. Thanks....
• Commented on The CPAN Unknown Usage problem
  Olaf: I like the idea of being able to follow a CPAN author - added a section on that, with some mulling on what to do if an author you're following releases a dist they're co-maint on. Also like the...
• Commented on The CPAN Unknown Usage problem
  Steven: installation stats should come from CPAN clients (or Toby's popcon) I agree, but not usage stats: just because a module's installed, doesn't mean you're using it....
• Commented on The CPAN Unknown Usage problem
  Poor man's version: script wraps it up and sends it via email. Use procmail or similar to run it through a script, which saves it then regenerates static pages with stats. Individuals would be given a "secret" token which would...
• Posted The CPAN Unknown Usage problem to NeilB

  To help CPAN authors keep track of who is using their modules, we could introduce two concepts: "follow module" and "I'm using this module". Both would be similar to the 'following' and +1 features found in nearly all social media services, and ++ in MetaCPAN.

• Commented on What's wrong with CPAN?
  Another problem with CPANratings is that you can only review dists, not modules. This is fine for single-module dists like Session-Token, but I'm a bit scuppered if I want to review Mojo::Loader, for example — all I can do is...
• Commented on What's wrong with CPAN?
  One of the ideas I'm mulling, and writing down notes on, is a "perl community engagement metric". A bit like klout etc, but specifically designed to encourage community engagement, rather than just pimping up the number of modules you have...
• Commented on Whats wrong with the Perl Community?
  I do it because I want perl to be Awesome....
• Commented on What's wrong with CPAN?
  educated_foo: on SEE ALSO, amen brother. Ben, and Gabor ("Lack of usage statistics"): I think that's the "Unknown Usage" problem?...

Comment Threads

• Alex Kapranoff commented on /usr/local/bin rant

  Looks like your questhub/play-perl links are broken here.

• Vyacheslav Matyukhin commented on /usr/local/bin rant

  Oops, I copy-pasted Neil's code and forgot to replace the link. Thanks! :)

• mascip commented on The clearest way(s) to check if a List contains...

  Yep, i would also prefer 'in' over '~~'

• Alexey Shrub commented on The clearest way(s) to check if a List contains...

  All variant is bad, good variant is:
  do_something if 'flour' in @ingredients
  but I don't now how make it

• mascip commented on The clearest way(s) to check if a List contains...

  What do you mean "all variant is bad"?

  Do you know Perl's TIMTOWTDI motto?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_more_than_one_way_to_do_it
  (the examples on this page suck...i might go and propose something better later). And (as NOT written in this wikipedia page unfortunately) TIMTOWDI does not only enable to write concisely, but also very expressively.