20 Sep 2000 dlc   » (Apprentice)

ActiveState

I have to hand it to ActiveState -- I think they've done a pretty good job packaging up Perl into ActivePerl. I just grabbed and installed the latest build for my wife's Win95 box, and I'm pretty impressed. I even went so far as to download the .deb of 5.6.0 for my Potato box, and I'm really quite impressed. They've done a good job of packaging many of the groovier modules, like libnet and libwww, and the XML::Parser stuff, and they've come a long way since the 500 versions, which were the last ActivePerls I used regularly.

Writing

I've been trying my hand at writing lately; I just finished an article about compiling Apache, and the various standard modules. I am currently writing an article about using Perl to do interesting things with the RSS files that everyone and their mother seems to be publishing nowadays (have you seen GeekBoys?). Here's a hint -- it will involve Perl, XML::RSS, and DBI/DBD::mysql. I think it's coming along nicely. Hopefully I'll be able to post a draft on Advogato, if I get certified as something other than an Observer soon. It is based on a few modules and scripts that I use on my own box, but cleaned up and de-idiosyncratized (is that a word? Is that even a concept?) so they will be readable and usable by someone other than me.

bashlib

I realized yesterday that one of the key things bashlib is missing is a templating system. Well, other than a usable API, the main thing it's missing is a tem-- oh yeah, it's also missing users. But of the three main things that bashlib is missing, a way to implement a templating system occured to me last night. It mostly awk, and a little bit sed. I wonder, has anyone else done anything like this, using common shell tools? I haven't to date been able to find anything on the web. Or should I take that as a hint...?

bashdot

The idea for bashlib arose out of a pissing contest at work (we take turns coming up with the most off the wall ideas we can, and then try to implement them); I won this one, by declaring I was going to rewrite Slashdot in bash, and call it bashdot. (This was right after the first release version (0.9) of the Slash code, and, since we are all Perl programmers, we were a little (!) disgusted with it.) Any large scale project needs libraries, of course, and so bashlib was born. In time, bashlib may evolve into bashdot, but I, for one, and not holding my breath.

Happy Birthday, Casey!

On a personal note, my son turns 1 year old today (Wednesday). Happy birthday, Casey! Daddy loves you!

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