[RANT] Apparently I don't know "localisation"..

..because I didn't include mysql utf8 cruft in a connection string in something.

Thing is, I've done tonnes of localisation, from parsing named entities in german, to dealing with misconfigured mysql databases, localising currency, numbers and dates to dealing with special cases of greek capitalisation in pattern matching.

So for future reference, if you're relying on connection strings client side, you're doing it wrong - that's brittle and will eventually fuck up when somebody forgets to do it or uses a dodgy my.cnf - instead force it at server side and don't risk messed up …

[off-topic] I'm cycling 170km around Cornwall for local hospices

Ok it's not perl, but plenty of people in bicycle.pm indicate there's an overlap between perl nerdery and bike nerdery..

Anyway next weekend I'm cycling 106 miles around west cornwall and I'm raising some money for a local hospice charity that I care deeply about - any support or sponsership is much appreciated.

Comparing Apples and Oranges - rubygems vs cpan part 3

In part 2 of this series I looked at the "shop window" for rubygems and cpan, and you could see a massive difference in focus both in terms of what was highlighted on the main page and the kind of documentation provided when you looked further (TL;DR is rubygems is frictionless and encouraging with few warnings or rules mentioned up front, while cpan involves poking around fusty old usenet style FAQs full of warnings, expectations and saying to wait for a week or so…

Comparing Apples and Oranges - rubygems vs cpan part 2

In part 1 I looked at numbers, now I want to look at uploading and the uploads themselves.

Uploading to rubygems is very simple, I don't know or use ruby, but just from looking at the frontpage I'm pretty confident that it would be pretty quick and easy : 1/2 of the main content of the page is a quickstart guide in 3 simple steps. Neat! (I'm sure there is more to writing a good gem, but that definately leaves you feeling confident to give…

Comparing Apples and Oranges - rubygems vs cpan part 1

So I noticed that CPAN is no longer king of the hill when it comes to sheer number of packages - rubygems took that title mid 2011 (when exactly depends on whether you include dev version and backpan which it lacks).

Rubygems had previously claimed the title based on dodgy numbers, but by the start of 2012 there really wasn't any doubt - that's a hell of a lot of uploaded code.

At first I was a little downhearted and disappointed, luckily I remembered a ="http…