blogs.perl.org

Just Graham and Aristotle this time.

• Discussed tracking perl authorized releasers updates and storing historical data
• Dual-Life modules need some cleanup to get a more normal release process that can be done more regularly. Cleanup has been done on Storable.
• Time::HiRes by default doesn’t seem terrible, if possible
• X509 in core could make sense as part of a more complete interface to OpenSSL
• Discussion about how it would be possible to have support for Markdown or other new Pod extensions in a more backwards compatible way. Possibly a way to define alternate formats for =begin/=end sections.

[P5P posting of this summary]

These are some answers to the Week 285, Task 1, of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Spoiler Alert: This weekly challenge deadline is due in a few days from now (on September 8, 2024, at 23:59). This blog post provides some solutions to this challenge. Please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

Task 1: No Connection

You are given a list of routes, @routes.

Write a script to find the destination with no further outgoing connection.

Example 1

Input: @routes = (["B","C"], ["D","B"], ["C","A"])
Output: "A"

"D" -> "B" -> "C" -> "A".
"B" -> "C" -> "A".
"C" -> "A".
"A".

Sometimes one needs an extra ounce of performance. Why not combine the high level semantics of Perl with the punch of assembly?

This repo includes various examples of how this can be done.

This block of code is valid Perl:

if (my $var1 = calc1()) {
    say $var1;
} elsif (my $var2 = calc2()) {
    say "$var1, $var2";
}

As you can see, $var1, which is declared in the if clause, is visible inside the elsif clause too.

Perl never ceases to amaze me!

(Also appears in my blog)

This week, the whole PSC was in attendance.

We merged HTTP-Tiny#6, and then discussed a number of topics:

• some improvements on the process for releasing blead-upstream dual-life modules are needed
• the instructions for releasing a new Perl are difficult to follow and partly redundant, the process takes longer than it should, and more of it could be automated
• the pumpkin permission list has grown over time, and probably needs to be trimmed
• more talk about Markdown documentation
• thoughts on how to strike a better balance with the verbosity/brevity of meeting minutes

These are some answers to the Week 284, Task 1, of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Spoiler Alert: This weekly challenge deadline is due in a few days from now (on September 1, 2024, at 23:59). This blog post provides some solutions to this challenge. Please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

Task 1: Lucky Integer

You are given an array of integers, @ints.

Write a script to find the lucky integer if found otherwise return -1. If there are more than one then return the largest.

A lucky integer is an integer that has a frequency in the array equal to its value.

Example 1

Input: @ints = (2, 2, 3, 4)
Output: 2

Example 2

Input: @ints = (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3)
Output: 3

Example 3

Chapter 3 of Higher Order Perl describes various approaches to memoization of an expensive function: private cache and the Memoize module. The book was written in 2005 (Perl was at version 5.8 back then) , so it does not include another way for function caching that is now available : caching through state variables (introduced in Perl 5.10). The Fibonacci example considered in HOP also requires the ability to initialize state hash variables (available since Perl 5.28). The code below contrasts the implementation with a state variable v.s. the memoize module:

I remember when one one of my grandchildren helpfully decided reorganise a bookshelf whilst by himself. Upon being discovered, sitting in front of an empty shelf with books strewn all around him, his instinctive reaction made me feel proud to be his grandpa. He looked up and said, “Oh dear! Oh dear! what happened?”, as if this calamity had occurred spontaneously, astonishing him as much as the angry parent who was going to have to tidy it all up. It is hard to hide amusement when you watch your kids have to deal with their kids.

Advanced Disaster Management Strategy for Grandchildren and Programmers

Here I share my personal favourite core enhancements in Perl v5.40.

https://theweeklychallenge.org/blog/what-is-new-in-perl

These are some answers to the Week 283, Task 2, of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Spoiler Alert: This blog post provides some solutions to this challenge. Please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

Task 2: Digit Count Value

You are given an array of positive integers, @ints.

Write a script to return true if for every index i in the range 0 <= i < size of array, the digit i occurs exactly the $ints[$i] times in the given array otherwise return false.

Example 1

Just Graham and Philippe this time.

We talked about HTTPS in core, and some ideas about it, while the CPAN Security Group is preparing some proposals. Today was the deadline for releasing 5.41.1, but we don’t have volunteers yet, so Graham said he would do it sometime soon.

We also noted that we’ll need some volunteers for the next 10 or so development releases.

Wir freuen uns, die Veröffentlichung von OTOBO 11 bekannt zu geben! Die neueste Version der beliebten Open-Source-Ticketsystem-Software bringt zahlreiche Verbesserungen und neue Funktionen mit sich. Erfahren Sie mehr über die neuen Features und Änderungen auf OTOBO

Over the years that I have existed in four dimensions, I have come to accept that time is not a linear concept heading inexorably in one direction at a uniform rate. It didn't take an Einstein or Hawking to convince me either. Time is as malleable as the distortions applied by our consciousness, or imposed by those around us. Consider my youngest daughter's essay due to be handed in on Tuesday, a task assigned 4 months earlier. At 4,000 words, it represented roughly 6 words an hour allowing for eating, sleeping, work, weekend fun, and other essential time-devouring activities. Yet the "I have got plennnnty of time, chill, dad!" of a few months ago, has now turned into cries of despair, as she has to do an all nighter at her desk instead of being at some selfie-rich event critical to her mental well-being and social standing.

These are some answers to the Week 283, Task 1, of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Spoiler Alert: This weekly challenge deadline is due in a few days from now (on August 25, 2024, at 23:59). This blog post provides some solutions to this challenge. Please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

Task 1: Unique Number

You are given an array of integers, @ints, where every element appears more than once except one element. ` Write a script to find the one element that appears exactly one time.

Example 1

Input: @ints = (3, 3, 1)
Output: 1

Example 2

Input: @ints = (3, 2, 4, 2, 4)
Output: 3

Example 3

Graham and Philippe met briefly today.

Now that Perl 5.40 is out, and the nomination process for the next PSC is underway, there wasn’t much to discuss, so we cut the meeting short.

The Weekly Challenge 270/2

In the week 270, the second task was really interesting and difficult. Here’s a slightly reformulated version:

We’re given an array of positive integers @ints and two additional integers, $x and $y. We can apply any sequence of the following two operations: 1. Increment one element of @ints. 2. Increment two elements of @ints. The cost of each application of operation 1 is $x, the cost of operation 2 is $y. What’s the minimal cost of a sequence of operations that makes all the elements of @ints equal?

Why do I say it was difficult? I compared all the Perl and Raku solutions I could find in the GitHub repository and none of them gave the same results as mine. It took me several days to find an algorithm that would answer the tricky inputs I generated with a pen and paper, and one more day to optimise it to find the solutions in a reasonable time.

Last year at the Perl Toolchain Summit (PTS) in Lyon, I left three draft pull requests: one about the class declaration introduced in Perl 5.37, one about the PAUSE on docker, and one about multifactor authentication. I wanted to brush them up and ask Andreas König to merge some, but which should I prioritize this year?

These are some answers to the Week 282, Task 2, of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.

Spoiler Alert: This weekly challenge deadline is due in a few days from now (on August 18, 2024, at 23:59). This blog post provides some solutions to this challenge. Please don’t read on if you intend to complete the challenge on your own.

Task 2: Changing Keys

You are given an alphabetic string, $str, as typed by user.

Write a script to find the number of times user had to change the key to type the given string. Changing key is defined as using a key different from the last used key. The shift and caps lock keys won’t be counted.

Example 1

Brett Estrade, did it again with yet another excellent talk at TPRC 2024 about the use of OpenMP for parallelizing Perl/C code. This is an area that is extremely interesting as OpenMP is a rather straightforward way to parallelize code using simple compiler pragmas in Inline::C sections of code. Furthermore, as I discussed at TPRC2024, the combination of the Many Core Engine (MCE) and OpenMP allow the Perl user to endow a specific piece of code with both process and thread level parallelism, bleeding the hardware for performance without losing the benefits of Perl for high level coding.

Since this an area that may not be familiar to many users, I decided to start blogging about Perl/C parallel application programming at Killing It With Perl . The first post in this series is about a rudimentary control of the OpenMP environment , e.g. setting up the number and scheduling of the threads and you can read all about it here.

The three of us were there, and our discussion covered:

• 5.40.0 has no more blocking bugs 🎉
• It should be released by the end of the week
• PPC0021 progress continues with Paul and Veesh discussing debugging and development
• The maintainer of HTTP::Tiny delegates design decisions to the PSC. There’s one PR outstanding that we looked over and found agreeable