Alberto Simões

About the Grants Committee

2013-02-11T13:28:19Z

As some of you probably noticed, from my post in TPF blog, there were no grant proposals in the last six months. I am not sure how to interpret this lack of interest in grants. But there are some ideas that come to my head:

People do not need money :-)

People prefer to do things by themselves, without any schedule or pressure;

Nobody uses Perl anymore

Everything Perl needs is already on CPAN

The maximum amount of a grant ($3000) it not paying anything

I am not sure if there are other reasons. But I would love to hear comments (constructive comments, please) about this issue.

I must say that the less grants proposals we receive, the less I need to work. But I volunteered, and it would make me happy to have interesting projects running.

TPF with new Call For Grants

2013-01-04T13:29:39Z

As usual TPF just published another call for grant proposals, ranging from $500 to $2000. The official call for proposals is available here: http://news.perlfoundation.org/2013/01/2013q1-call-for-grant-proposal.html

Versioning Loops

2012-12-03T18:01:48Z

I just found something interesting.. well, at least, fun:

Package namespace         installed    latest  in CPAN file
Perl::MinimumVersion           1.29      1.30  CHORNY/Perl-MinimumVersion-1.30.tar.gz

After installing Perl::MinimumVersion, I get:

Package namespace         installed    latest  in CPAN file
Perl::MinimumVersion::Reason      1.20      1.29  CHORNY/Perl-MinimumVersion-1.29.tar.gz

And if I ask to install Perl::MinimumVersion::Reason, yeah, of course, I get:

Package namespace         installed    latest  in CPAN file
Perl::MinimumVersion           1.29      1.30  CHORNY/Perl-MinimumVersion-1.30.tar.gz

Probably a good idea to add a bug report... later.

But fun to have problems with versions on a module that deals with versions.

Filters with Template Toolkit

2012-11-15T18:08:46Z

In the last days I've been preparing a web site where I want to show values in four different currencies, accordingly with the user choice, and keeping up with the current exchange quote. I do not want to talk about how to get those values, or what values or website I am building, but just share an experience I've got with Template Toolkit that made it easy to separate the values conversion from the core code.
]]>
I called this filter Currencify, and its code is something like this:

package GF::Template::Plugin::Currencify;

use warnings;
use strict;

use Template::Plugin::Filter;
use parent qw( Template::Plugin::Filter );


sub filter {
  my ($self, $text) = @_;

  my $args     = $self->{_ARGS};
  my $currency = $args->[0] || 'USD';
  my $rate     = $args->[1] || 1;

  $text = sprintf("%.3f", $text * $rate);

  if ($currency eq "EUR") { return "€ $text";    }
  elsif ($currency eq "GBP") {  return "£ $text";   }
  elsif ($currency eq "CHF") {  return "CHF $text";  }
  else {  return "\$ $text"; }

  return $text;
}

The arguments that are extracted in the beginning are the currency code (like EUR) and the rate to convert the value from USD to the supplied currency. The template, then, imports the filter with those arguments:

[% use Currencify currency rate %]

and in the template, it is just a matter of calling Currencify filter to all values that should be converted:

[% value | $Currencify %]

To fill in the template, you just need to supply the currency code, the rate, and all the values in USD.

PtPW 2012 recorded in Video

2012-10-26T20:58:08Z

This is not that interesting for most people that can not understand Portuguese. Nevertheless, the Portuguese Perl Workshop was recorded in Video, and we managed to upload the talks and a Moose tutorial to youtube. Check the talk list and links to the videos in out perl.pt blog.

YAPC::EU::2012, the good parts

2012-08-27T18:24:48Z

I think some people did not interpret my last post correctly, I think I hated YAPC::EU::2012 (or at least, that is what I understand from Gabor comment on his Perl Weekly). Well, no, the post points three things I did not like, meaning that everything else was fun.

But I would like to point some details. First, congratulations to the organizers for the courage to prepare proceedings. Of course I was angry because the article I took some time to write was not there. Also, because although I mailed the organizers, they did not answer or said anything. Nevertheless, I like the idea of having proceedings for YAPC::EU. Not like the mojolicious article with screenshots of the slides, but like mostly all the others articles. And the proceedings are with great quality, both in printing, paper and design. I hope they make the final PDF available as well (paper is hard to find after some months).

It was very cool to have lightning talks in all days. I think we should go in that direction. It is difficult for a speaker to get the listener attention for more than 20 minutes (even 20 minutes is hard for me... but I am a pretty bad speaker).

From the talks I attended to, I liked very much the MOP talk from Stevan Little. I think this is the way to go for Perl (5): continue evolving. Now I am here expecting that MOP becomes a reality.

I loved having Matt closing the conference, with his typical crazy keynote. I don't know whose idea was, but my congratulations. It was very cool.

The place for the pre-conference meeting was great. Lot of space to chat, seated, walking, etc. I know we had some issues with the Caffee, waiting more than one hour and half for a simple breaded beef, but the place was great. And there were other caffees one could use.

Oh, and talking about Frankfurt, I loved the girls, blond and blue eyed girls...

YAPC::EU::2012, what I missed

2012-08-24T12:25:41Z

YAPC::EU is over. It was a nice conference, but there were a couple of things I've missed. The first one is obvious: air conditioning. We had a too hot weather. I understand that Germany is used to cold, not hot. Nevertheless, next YAPC::EU users, remind that 300 or more people in a room, half with their laptops and gadgets turned on, produce a lot of heat. So, be sure at least the main room has a decent air conditioning system.

The second miss was Josette Garcia, from O'Reilly. This year's O'Reilly bank was a delusion. First, more than half the books were in German. This doesn't just limit the people that will buy a book to half, but it also shows lack of consideration for the remaining attendees. Also, the books that weren't in German, were the basic Perl books that most people have. Perl hackers like to learn other languages, like to read about other technologies. They even like to buy books not at all related to technology. I imagine Josette has a lot of work on every YAPC, with the amount and diversity of books, but I also imagine that she would have a higher revenue on sold books.

Finally, I missed the auction. Not sure about you people, but I don't look to YAPC's auction as just a mean to get money. It is a social event. Without the auction, and with my experience dealing with O'Reilly, I wonder how was the sponsorship. They usually don't give money, only books. If we didn't have an auction, how was the sponsorship? It is just strange. But that doesn't matter. I just missed the auction. Please, bring back the tradition.

Building C and C++ libraries with Perl

2012-08-21T08:02:51Z

It seems that somebody screwed it, and forgot one 20 pages article I wrote for YAPC::EU::2012 proceedings. Therefore, the proceedings are shorter, and are shamelessly incomplete. Anyway, you can read my article in all its glory here. And sooner or later I'll add the presentation too.

TPF with new Call For Grants

2012-07-12T15:12:57Z

The Perl Foundation has a new call for grants open. Check details here

CPAN is all broken, now

2012-06-05T18:02:25Z

I am not sure whose fault is, but Test::Pod now verifies for characters outside ASCII, and complains a missing =encoding directive. I like this check to be done, but I do not think that breaking half of the CPAN is a good idea. It would be better to just carp for the error, but not make it fail. This would give time to authors to fix their modules. In a later release, this could be a fatal error.

Now, we have Dancer, DBI and a lot of other modules broken, not installing cleanly from CPAN.

Stealing from Python

2012-06-03T19:59:54Z

We all know that Python, Perl and Ruby (ok, and PHP, and probably other languages) are always stealing ideas from one another. This is a nice thing to do.

After programming a few with Python there is a couple of details I like. I know not all are possible to implement in Perl. Some of them are, and I would love if they were. I know not all people agree with me (that good, too). Nevertheless, I present here a couple of ideas.

Although I do not like relying only in indentation for blocks, I like the fact that conditionals and loops does not need parenthesis. It makes the code much more legible. I imagine that to make this in Perl it would be crazy. Good enough we don't need them when using it as a modifier.

Another clean idea from Python is the in operator. For me it makes more sense to ask if $var in @array or if $var in %hash than using the ~~ operator (that some claim to have a couple of flaws) or using if grep { $_ eq $var } @array or if exists($hash{$var}). Notice the number of characters needed in each approach, and the number of characters that need modifier keys.

Having in as a reserved word, we might even be able to write things like for $x in @array or for $x in keys(%hash). I agree I am walking in Python direction. But that's not necessarily bad.

Finally, Python has a couple of built-in methods that might make some sense, like max and min (that are parametrized letting you specify how to compute values from the elements in the list). Even sum might make some sense (but would not be a priority). I know these are available on modules, and that blessed() is more urgent.

OK, now, please, do not slap me too hard :)

Using the Record Separator

2012-05-13T12:35:51Z

I use Perl for years, but there are some details that I still am unable to use correctly in Perl. I think they should be my fault. And probably, if I rtfm I would get an answer. Nevertheless, and although this is not perlmonks, I'll post my problem anyway.

I use local $/ = "\n\n" as record separator to read a file. The code that processes that file, uses a module, that decides to open a config file, and that expects that the record separator is a single new line. That library fails.

My main doubt is if all modules shout set the record separator explicitly, as we never know if someone changed it, or if there is any way I can change my own copy of it without messing with other modules.

Dancer article on SDJ

2012-04-03T18:02:20Z

Some time ago I was invited to write a Perl article to Software Developers Journal. It is (as far as I could gather) a magazine based on Poland. Their website is at http://en.sdjournal.org/. It is a paid magazine, so to read it you should buy the magazine.

Although the magazine doesn’t have good procedures for publication (there isn’t a review phase where the authors can check if everything is fine) we think (yes, I co-authored the article with Nuno “smash” Carvalho) that the article is interesting. Probably with some English errors written by us, and probably with some others introduces by the editors. And yes, it is not our fault that they write Pearl instead of Perl… oh shame…

We are working the permission to post the article in the web. Probably we can in some time. For now, buy the magazine.

Perl Code Sprint 2012

2012-03-29T14:53:32Z

Sorry for writing this post in Portuguese, but if you are unable to read Portuguese it would be quite difficult to be part of this competition. Also, it was designed for the Portuguese Perl Community (for this year, at least).

A APPP está a organizar um concurso de programação Perl. Será um concurso virtual, em que os participantes são convidados a resolver pequenos problemas usando a linguagem Perl. Serão disponibilizados 6 problemas (um por dia, em vários dias de Maio) e serão recebidas soluções usando um sistema de avaliação automática.

O regulamento está disponível, e as inscrições terminam a 30 de Abril (inscrição gratuita e aberta a qualquer membro da comunidade Perl em Portugal). Existirão duas tabelas classificativas, para sócios APPP e não sócios, e prémios para os três vencedores (em cada uma das tabelas classificativas).

Contamos com a vossa participação.

More module versioning pain

2012-02-02T14:10:35Z

Yeah, I know, I am always complaining about module versioning. But I think this is something we need to take care when releasing.

This time, it seems that Mail::SPF (JMEHNLE/mail-spf/Mail-SPF-v2.8.0.tar.gz) was indexed by CPAN as v2.8.0, but identifies itself as v2.008. Oh, joy!