As I stated in some recent posts, I have been looking for a programming
language which scientists and other people around the world who are not
professional computer programmers could use with the same ease as Basic.

I suspect that Perl might not be sufficiently reliable that people who are
developing computer programs for air traffic controllers would make it their
first choice.  But for use within the international scientific community it
looks almost ideal because of its versatility, ease of use, and
availability.  Unfortunately I have been encountering one major problem with
it.  And that is with its documentation.

If you are trying to make the transition from some language such as Basic to
Perl it can be difficult because of the very large number of commands etc.
which are available in Perl, because of their many options, and because of
Perl's structure which I myself do not yet fully understand.  So what I have
been doing while I have been learning how to use it during the past few
weeks is prepare a Web page which briefly outlines some of its basic
commands etc.  People who can already write simple programs in other
languages can use those commands to almost immediately begin creating and
running simple Perl programs.

The URL for that Web page is:

Perl For Amateur Computer Programmers
http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/Perl.html

People who would like to see Perl used by more people around the world might
want to examine that Web page and post comments about it here or send them
to me by e-mail.  I believe that all of the commands on that page will work
as is.  But they should probably be checked for errors by someone other than
me.

Unless there is some good reason not to do this then early next week I will
probably begin letting people around the world know about that Web page.
And I am planning to gradually add additional commands information etc. to
that page.

If anyone would like to list the addresses for good introductory Perl
reference manuals that they might know about on the Internet then that would
be appreciated.  I will take a look at them and perhaps add those references
to my own Web page.  However, my Web page is intended to provide people with
a certain type of information.  And it will probably remain active even if I
learn that there are already some excellent reference manuals available.

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
news:qkOSb.4022$jH6.3447@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net: 

> As I stated in some recent posts, I have been looking for a
> programming language which scientists and other people around the
> world who are not professional computer programmers could use with the
> same ease as Basic. 

When I new absolutely nothing baout Perl, I found 
http://www.ebb.org/PickingUpPerl/ very useful. You could benefit from 
taking a look at that as well. The mistake people make in general is that 
to be able to teach material at the beginner level, you have to have years 
and years of experience and accumulated knowledge.

Calling something 'beginner level' or 'for amateurs' is not a good way to 
cover its shortcomings.

I have neither the time nor the inclanation to go through your tutorial 
line by line. 

However, let's look at but one paragraph:

<blockquote>
print localtime  Generates a lengthy number representing the local time.  
Digits 1 & 2 are seconds, 3 & 4 are minutes past the hour, 5 & 6 are hour 
in the day, 7 & 8 are day in the month, 9 & 10 are month in the year, and 
11 & 12 are the last two digits of the present year.  There are several 
more numbers which correspond to things such as the day of the week etc.
</blockquote>

Read perldoc -f localtime and perldoc -f print to understand how wildly 
wrong this statement is.

And if you do not understand what's wrong then you should not be in the 
business of writing tutorials.

Sinan.
-- 
A. Sinan Unur
1usa@llenroc.ude (reverse each component for email address)

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> I suspect that Perl might not be sufficiently reliable that people who are
> developing computer programs for air traffic controllers would make it their
> first choice.  But for use within the international scientific community it
> looks almost ideal because of its versatility, ease of use, and
> availability.  Unfortunately I have been encountering one major problem with
> it.  And that is with its documentation.
<snip>
> The URL for that Web page is:
> 
> Perl For Amateur Computer Programmers
> http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/Perl.html

I do not wish to sound scathing, as I think that what you are trying
to do is laudable; but that page is *very* *very* bad. Please take it
down: there are more than enough sources of wrong information about
Perl as it is.

If you yourself are reasonably indicative of the level of competence
among the people you are hoping to introduce Perl to, and you think
you have the beginnings of a good grasp of it, then I wonder if it is
too complex for what you want. Certainly the level you have pitched
that page at is too low for anyone to get any sort of idea of how to
program: there are some basic programming concepts, such as an
understanding of how logic operators work, that need a decent
expposition rather than the reference-book style you have chosen. To
explain a little more clearly, perhaps, consider your sentence

| && (or) and  for statements where several conditions must be met in
| order for them to be true or correct

.. If your reader has met the concept of 'logical AND operator' in some
other language, and understands it, there is no need to say any more
than '&& is the logical AND operator'. OTOH, if he has not, this
explanation omits many ideas that are essential to using the operator
correctly, such as the idea of an expression being true or false.

Some more specific comments:

| any text editing program such as DOS Edit, Windows Notepad, Wordpad,
| and Word, or WordPerfect can be used to create and edit them.

It would be wise to mention that Perl programs are plain text. Trying
to execute a Word document as a Perl program is unlikely to be
terribly successful.

| lines which begin with the pound sign #.

If this is for international users, then '#' is *not* a pound sign. It
is a hash, or a sharp, or a number sign. A pound sign is the British
currency symbol.

Throughout the document you show a complete misunderstanding of what
"\n" means. It represents a newline character. That is all. If you
execute

    print "hello\nworld\n";

you will get 'hello' and 'world' on separate lines, because of the
newline between them. The fact that often your output does not appear
until you print a newline is quite separate, and is to do with how the
system buffers output. See $| in perlvar for more information.

| However I suspect that it is probably better not to use "/" with
| filenames and directories.

This is quite wrong: in fact, it is much better to use /, even under
Win32, as then at least relative paths are more likely to be portable
to other OSen.

'<>' is not a Perl operator. The numeric not-equal operator is
'!='. You completely fail to mention the string comparison operators
(eq, ne, lt, gt, cmp), even though the difference is very
important. What is unclear about the descriptions in perlop, that you
couldn't simply refer people there?

Don't even mention goto. It is very rarely useful in Perl, and
fledgling programmers should be encouraged to use proper control
structures where possible.

Any new tutorial ought to use lexical rather than bareword
filehandles, as they are a lot less confusing. That is, you should use

my $FILE;
open $FILE, '< file';

rather than

open FILE, '< file';

..

I would not recommend using a raw select command for high-res
sleeping: apart from anything else, the presence of those three
unexplained 'undef's will confuse people. Use Time::HiRes.

The debugger (perl -d) is not an interactive version of perl. It is a
debugger.

-- 
Musica Dei donum optimi, trahit homines, trahit deos.    |
Musica truces mollit animos, tristesque mentes erigit.   |   ben@morrow.me.uk
Musica vel ipsas arbores et horridas movet feras.        |

Ben Morrow <usenet@morrow.me.uk> writes:

> Any new tutorial ought to use lexical rather than bareword
> filehandles, as they are a lot less confusing. That is, you should use
> 
> my $FILE;
> open $FILE, '< file';

Surely you mean:

  open my $FILE, '<', 'file' or die "Cannot read file: $!";

In early versions of Perl the mode and filename arguments were
(unwisely IMNSHO) forcably combined into a single argument[1].  By
the same argument as Ben used above, a new tutorial should not
introduce this confusing legacy syntax first.  You certainly shouldn't
intoduce people to the idea of not checking if open() succedes.
 
[1] Yes I'm aware that in theory it can be good to have a program that
can take a filename or a command with a trailing '|' as an argument.
I've never encountered a situation where this is good in practice.  I
have encountered many situations where this is very bad!

-- 
     \\   ( )
  .  _\\__[oo
 .__/  \\ /\@
 .  l___\\
  # ll  l\\
 ###LL  LL\\

"Ben Morrow" <usenet@morrow.me.uk> wrote in message
news:bvgi66$miu$1@wisteria.csv.warwick.ac.uk...

> I do not wish to sound scathing, as I think that what you are trying
> to do is laudable; but that page is *very* *very* bad. Please take it

This is the purpose of that Web page:

Perhaps 99% of the people around the world who might have a use for a Perl
program cannot use it because something in the code they generate will
produce an error which stops the program from running.  They cannot
determine what is wrong, get frustrated, and switch to some other language.

My Web page is not meant to teach people how to use Perl.  It simply states
that if you want to write a simple program which will do something like
multiply two numbers together and store the result in a text file then here
is how to do it.  It is like a "cookbook" for creating simple Perl programs.

Once you have the system installed and running on your computer you can copy
all of those routines from my Web page and immediately begin using them to
create a simple program which will do what you want.  You do not need to
read instruction manuals for an entire month in order to learn how the
instructions work.

So that is it.  If you create a program following my instructions you will
at least be able to perform some basic operation.  And then when your
program is operational you can go back and use more sophisticated commands
etc.

Last week I myself could not use it to do anything.  And I was not certain
if I would ever be able to use it.  But now I can write fairly useful and
powerful programs just using the codes on that page.  And it is easy to
check the original reference documents for more exact or versatile
instructions.

Finally, remember that my Web page is just a first version.  Information is
being stored there as I learn it.  And I would expect things to improve.

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> My Web page is not meant to teach people how to use Perl.  It simply states
> that if you want to write a simple program which will do something like
> multiply two numbers together and store the result in a text file then here
> is how to do it.  It is like a "cookbook" for creating simple Perl
> programs.
>
> Once you have the system installed and running on your computer you can copy
> all of those routines from my Web page and immediately begin using them to
> create a simple program which will do what you want.  You do not need to
> read instruction manuals for an entire month in order to learn how the
> instructions work.

But you do. Perl is what I would call a 'real' programming language:
it requires a basic understanding of the fundamentals of programming
before anything useful can be written in it, but once you have a grasp
of the language there is essentially no limit to the complexity of
what it is possible to write. This is why I suspect it may not be what
you want, and some noddy language like VBScript may be better suited
to your task.

Your page will not teach anyone how to write a useful Perl program,
and it will not give them any idea of where to go to learn
this. Multiplying two numbers together and storing the result in a
text file is not useful: I can do it quicker with a calculator and
Notepad than I can with Perl.

> Last week I myself could not use it to do anything.  And I was not certain
> if I would ever be able to use it.  But now I can write fairly useful and
> powerful programs just using the codes on that page.

I doubt it. I would be pretty sure you are also using other knowledge,
gleaned from reading the perl docs and from here, which you haven't
put into that page. For instance, you do not explain loops in any way
that would lead to someone being able to use them, and Perl's loops
are rather different from, say, BASIC's loops. You do not explain
subs, even at a really basic level. And while you use some modules,
you do not explain what they are, or how they are used; or that there
is a module to do almost anything, which is the real power of Perl.

You need to learn Perl yourself before you start trying to teach
others.

Ben

-- 
               EAT
               KIDS                                          (...er, whoops...)
               FOR                                             ben@morrow.me.uk
               99p

        The Importance Of Distinguishing Between Using Single Versus
        Double Quotation Marks Something which it is important to
        remember is the fact that Perl usually processes information
        contained within single quotation marks (for example ��text
        message��) differently than information contained within double
        quotation marks (for example ��text message").  I myself do not
        know what all of the rules are regarding the significance of
        single and double quotation marks.  Perhaps the best thing to do
        is to either read the Perl documentation regarding them or to at
        least be careful about which type of quotation mark is used.

GAHHHH!!!!!

if you don't know the difference, then HOW can you write that crap? how
can you be CAREFUL about choosing if you don't TEACH the difference?

that text is almost criminal.

"don't go to the store unless you know how to either steal or buy
stuff. i don't know the difference but you can read some laws and find
out"

this has to be one of the worst intros to perl i have ever seen. we
should make a copy (i just did) before he takes it down (but he sounds
like he won't) so we can use it in a yapc talk. i got dibs on the
lightning talk for this baby.

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

"Ben Morrow" <usenet@morrow.me.uk> wrote in message
news:bvgi66$miu$1@wisteria.csv.warwick.ac.uk...
>
> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> | lines which begin with the pound sign #.
>
> If this is for international users, then '#' is *not* a pound sign. It
> is a hash, or a sharp, or a number sign. A pound sign is the British
> currency symbol.
>

Actually, pound sign is just as valid a name for it as any of the ones you
quoted (and don't forget good old octothorpe). There is the pound sign you
are thinking of (which is for currency) and the pound sign he is referring
to (which I believe was originally used to distinguish a pound as a unit of
weight). Had he not specified which character he was referring to, you would
have a better case. Otherwise, I agree with your assessment completely...
: )

Matt

To quote from the site:

> A version of Perl called ActivePerl can be downloaded from the following
Web site
> for free and then installed.  The Windows 5.8.2 AS package which I myself
> downloaded was about 12 million bytes in size (12 Meg).
> http://www.activestate.com/Products/Download/Download.plex?id=ActivePerl

I assume you have your reasons for installing the AS package, but why
wouldn't you at least advise against it? Even ActiveState doesn't recommend
it unless you absolutely can't install the MSI (or did you just pick it
because it was first in the list?). You do realize that there is no
uninstall option with the AS? So, when all your technically unsavvy people
realize your tutorial is garbage, they're going to be pretty mad to find out
they have to clean out their registry manually.

Matt

btw: Mb is the proper abbreviation, not Meg...

In article <4WSSb.7723$qU3.718185@news20.bellglobal.com>,
Matt Garrish <matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> wrote:
:Actually, pound sign is just as valid a name for it as any of the ones you
:quoted (and don't forget good old octothorpe). There is the pound sign you
:are thinking of (which is for currency) and the pound sign he is referring
:to (which I believe was originally used to distinguish a pound as a unit of
:weight).

# as meaning pound weight (of anything other than silver or gold?)
was still seen in the UK when I was last there about 2 years ago.
I have also (rarely) seen it used in Canada -- I think I saw it
less than a week ago on one sign for one product in the corner deli.

[Last time I posted mentioning that I'd seen it used in the UK, someone
replied to the effect of "No, it isn't used here!". Gee, I guess my
eyes must have been playing tricks on me...]
-- 
Caution: A subset of the statements in this message may be
tautologically true.

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> People who would like to see Perl used by more people around the world
> might want to examine that Web page and post comments about it here or
> send them to me by e-mail.  I believe that all of the commands on that
> page will work as is.  But they should probably be checked for errors by
> someone other than me.
> 
> Unless there is some good reason not to do this then early next week I
> will probably begin letting people around the world know about that Web
> page. 

One very good reason not to do this is because http://learn.perl.org/ 
already exists.  If you really want to help people, send them there.

I don't consider myself an expert at programming or Perl, but even so I can 
see numerous incorrect, incomplete, and misleading statements on that page.

As Ben Morrow said, what you want to do is laudable, but you'll be doing 
people a disservice by sending them to your page.

I also tried to write a Perl tutorial at one time.  After writing several 
pages I realized I didn't know enough to write a tutorial and stopped.  
Luckily for the world, my incomplete tutorial no longer exists and no-one 
but me saw it.

-- 
David Wall

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Walter Roberson wrote:

> [Last time I posted mentioning that I'd seen it used in the UK, someone
> replied to the effect of "No, it isn't used here!". Gee, I guess my
> eyes must have been playing tricks on me...]

Sorry, but I think you've been seeing a cursively-handwritten "lb".
They do look very similar.

However, when trying to name characters in an international context,
I'd suggest it's best to stick to the Unicode names, or at least
something close enough to be recognised as such - we don't all care
for names like "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH CIRCUMFLEX" in all their
Unicode uppercase glory, but at least we can use a term which
distinguishes clearly enough between "POUND SIGN" (U+00A3, the pound
sterling currency character) and "NUMBER SIGN" (U+0023).

Matt Garrish <matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> wrote:
[...]
> > downloaded was about 12 million bytes in size (12 Meg).
>  
[...]
>  btw: Mb is the proper abbreviation, not Meg...

%abbrev = (
    MB => 'megabytes',
    Mb => 'megabits',
);

Tim Hammerquist

edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> Unfortunately I have been encountering one major problem with
> it.  And that is with its documentation.

> Perl's structure which I myself do not yet fully understand.  So what I have
> been doing while I have been learning how to use it 


You do not fully understand it and are just learning it, yet _you_
are qualified to instruct others in how to use it?

That is ludicrous.


> Unless there is some good reason not to do this then early next week I will
> probably begin letting people around the world know about that Web page.


You should not be so mean to people around the world.

You would be doing them a great DISservice.

Perhaps your intentions are honorable, but carrying them out as
you suggest would be dishonorable. Please don't.


> However, my Web page is intended to provide people with
> a certain type of information.  


Wrong information written by someone who doesn't understand
what it is that they are writing about?

It that the type of information you meant?

People don't need that type of information. It hurts them more
that it helps them.


> And it will probably remain active even if I
> learn that there are already some excellent reference manuals available.


I, for one, will do my best to steer people *away* from it.

No information is better than wrong information.


-- 
    Tad McClellan                          SGML consulting
    tadmc@augustmail.com                   Perl programming
    Fort Worth, Texas

It is insane not to use the ActiveState MSI installer.

Get the book:

Elements of Programming with Perl
Andrew L. Johnson
October 1999

This is a great book that you can get fairly cheaply off of Amazon. I am 
about half way through it and it is wonderful. You can even talk to the 
autor off of the Manning site if you have questions.

Also sprach Tad McClellan:

> edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> 
>> Unfortunately I have been encountering one major problem with
>> it.  And that is with its documentation.
> 
>> Perl's structure which I myself do not yet fully understand.  So what I have
>> been doing while I have been learning how to use it 
> 
> 
> You do not fully understand it and are just learning it, yet _you_
> are qualified to instruct others in how to use it?
> 
> That is ludicrous.

[...]

Now that each and every regular in this group has kicked the OP at least
once, I think it is time to move on to something new. It was somewhat
foreseeable that this thread would become rather repetitive in its
nature. And yet I am surprised that so many people felt inclined to say
the same things over and over again.

Tassilo
-- 
$_=q#",}])!JAPH!qq(tsuJ[{@"tnirp}3..0}_$;//::niam/s~=)]3[))_$-3(rellac(=_$({
pam{rekcahbus})(rekcah{lrePbus})(lreP{rehtonabus})!JAPH!qq(rehtona{tsuJbus#;
$_=reverse,s+(?<=sub).+q#q!'"qq.\t$&."'!#+sexisexiixesixeseg;y~\n~~dddd;eval

"Tim Hammerquist" <tim@vegeta.ath.cx> wrote in message
news:slrnc1o5ep.73q.tim@kimari.saiyix...
> Matt Garrish <matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> [...]
> > > downloaded was about 12 million bytes in size (12 Meg).
> >
> [...]
> >  btw: Mb is the proper abbreviation, not Meg...
>
> %abbrev = (
>     MB => 'megabytes',
>     Mb => 'megabits',
> );
>

I stand rightly corrected on that slip up...

Matt

"Tassilo v. Parseval" <tassilo.parseval@rwth-aachen.de> wrote in message
news:bvhdab$cg4$1@nets3.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE...
>
> Now that each and every regular in this group has kicked the OP at least
> once, I think it is time to move on to something new.
>

True enough, but it's also become a disturbing trend lately. (the Web sites,
that is : )

Best to beat the beast down...

Matt

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 16:49:25 +0000, edgrsprj wrote:

> "Ben Morrow" <usenet@morrow.me.uk> wrote in message
> news:bvgi66$miu$1@wisteria.csv.warwick.ac.uk...
> 
>> I do not wish to sound scathing, as I think that what you are trying
>> to do is laudable; but that page is *very* *very* bad. Please take it
> 
> This is the purpose of that Web page:

<snip>

There has already been one person posting to this group with the
suggestion that there was a need for yet another Perl web site.  I suggest
you read the postings they got.  You *will* get about the same response.
Including the list of other Perl sites that are out there that offer solid
advise and direction on using Perl.  You're re-inventing the wheel.

Please, for the love of everything, just try to learn the language first. 

Sorry, but .....
*plonk*

-- 
Jim

Copyright notice: all code written by the author in this post is
 released under the GPL. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt 
for more information.

a fortune quote ...
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by
spectacular error.   -- John Kenneth Galbraith 

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:qkOSb.4022$jH6.3447@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...

First, the Perl program that I downloaded and installed was the MSI program
and not the AS package.  That information has been corrected on my Web page.
And remember, I stated that this was a trial run version of the Web page
which I was telling people about just to get some comments on the general
idea and contents.

Next, that Web page is not intended to teach people how to be Perl
programmers.  Rather it is intended to do the following:

If you are not a professional computer programmer and you would like to see
if Perl might be useful for your purposes then as far as I can see you are
out of luck.  It is so complex that you will never be able to even test it.
You would have to either take a class on it or spend weeks or more going
through the documentation.  And probably relatively few people are going to
do that.

What that Web page presently does is provide people with groups of
instructions which will let them try the program.  If they download and
install it and then use those codes exactly as I have written them,
substituting their own file names etc., in as little as 10 to 30 minutes
they should be able to create a program which will open a file, read
information from it, do some calculations on the information, store the
results in another file, close all the files, and then open the output file
with some Windows program such as Notepad or whatever and work with it.

Once they are able to do that they can then make a decision regarding
whether or not they wish to learn how to use Perl or instead choose some
other program.  Without that Web page they have no options at all as far as
I can see.  I believe that it is virtually impossible for someone who is not
a computer programming expert to get the program to do enough things that
they can decide if they want to use it.  However, with the information on
that Web page they can at least give it a try.  It is actually a nice
program to use if you have clearly defined routines you can try instead of
having to spend large amounts of time on efforts to learn how to get each
and every command or statement to work.

Regarding style, that Web page is for the most part intended for other
scientists like myself.  I believe that that is exactly the type of
information they would want, explained in terms which they can understand.
Experienced computer programmers might not like the style or content.  But
they already have documentation which they can use with their Perl work.  I
do not think that this is presently the case for many and perhaps most
scientists.  Without that Web page they might try installing Perl, attempt
to write a program, quite in frustration, and then move on to something
else, never to return.

What impact is that Web page likely to have on the world of Perl
programming?

Probably absolutely none.  It is not really intended to move the science
forward.  As I said, it is largely intended to simply open the door for
people who want to see if Perl is a language they might want to use.
Without the information on that Web page they might never be able to give it
a try.

edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> If you are not a professional computer programmer and you would like to see
> if Perl might be useful for your purposes then 


Take a pause and see if Python might suit you better.

Have you evaluated Python for this purpose?


-- 
    Tad McClellan                          SGML consulting
    tadmc@augustmail.com                   Perl programming
    Fort Worth, Texas

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 2004-02-01, Tad McClellan <tadmc@augustmail.com> wrote:
> edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>> If you are not a professional computer programmer and you would like to see
>> if Perl might be useful for your purposes then 
>
> Take a pause and see if Python might suit you better.
>
> Have you evaluated Python for this purpose?

That's not a very nice thing to do to the Python folks.  What have they
ever done to you?  ;-)

- --keith

- -- 
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/cgi-bin/fom

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAHGhhhVcNCxZ5ID8RAl57AKCddmjzQ7EzK8eBhZNAI2ayd5G4NACcDXvK
b8PqgbAxNBAGU2FcIWvHTbY=
=lmvq
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

"Tad McClellan" <tadmc@augustmail.com> wrote in message
news:slrnc1onte.tbq.tadmc@magna.augustmail.com...
> edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Take a pause and see if Python might suit you better.
>
> Have you evaluated Python for this purpose?
>

I haven't looked at Python.  Can it be used for CGI work.  How do you get a
version to test?

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:18YSb.4653$jH6.1518@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> news:qkOSb.4022$jH6.3447@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
This is some additional information which should help clarify things.  I
explained parts of this in notes which were posted a few weeks ago.  But it
appears that a review of some of the information might be helpful.

For more than a decade I have been doing a certain type of earthquake
research as a type of very serious hobby.  Much of that research is
discussed at the 90-05.html page at my Web site.

As the research has become more important and more sophisticated is has
required more and more computing power.  I upgraded my computers several
times during the past year and have now reached the absolute limits of what
my computer programs can do with regard to processing data.  So, I need to
switch to a new program or group of programs.  Excel works fairly well as a
spreadsheet program.  But I need a new number crunching and Windows screen
control program.

Perl looks ideal because it has the computing power and versatility, because
it appears to be the most popular program for CGI work, and because anyone
with a fairly powerful computer can download a copy of it and get it
installed with little trouble.  What that means is that I can develop Perl
programs for the applications I am working with and then give them to other
scientists around the world who can also easily get Perl running on their
computers.  Not only will they then be able to generate the same type of
data I am working with.  But they will be able to get into the programs
themselves and modify them if they wish.  However they have to develop at
least some familiarity with the instructions etc. which Perl uses.  And that
is one of the main reasons I stored that Perl.html Web page at my Web site.
It tells them how to open and close files etc.  Additional information will
be added to the Web page.  But with those preliminary instructions people
can probably figure out how to do other things such as write subroutines and
do sorts etc.

So, as long as I am having to learn those things I thought that I would
establish that page and make the information that I found to be important
available to other people.

However, more importantly, I myself still need to convert my present
programs to Perl and develop new ones.  And there are still quite a few
things I don't know how to do.  For example, I am used to reading one word
at a time from comma separated lists in a file for some applications and
reading the entire line for other applications.  I now know how to read an
entire line and can then break it into individual words if necessary.  But I
imagine that there must be some read command which will let you do that
automatically.

I suspect that the most difficult thing will be to learn how to get Perl to
accept keystrokes from the computer keyboard and act on them when the key is
pressed instead of waiting for someone to hit the Enter key.  And I need to
learn how to get it to send information to the Windows program as if itself
were the keyboard.  It can then be used as a sophisticated computer
operations program similar to what macros do for many different programs.

So, I have made the decision to switch to Perl myself.  It runs pretty fast,
only takes up some 50 MB of disk space as far as I can see, and when it is
in the sleep mode while waiting for another program to start running it
frees up the processor to do other things instead of keeping it busy looking
for input.

Now I need to start doing some fine tuning regarding to learn how to use it
for those read operations etc.  What will result before too long is a
program which will start running.  Instructions would be fed to it from the
keyboard.  It would automatically open files and extract the needed data, do
some calculations, store the results in a file somewhere and close it, and
the open a Windows text file window where the data would be displayed.  They
would then be reviewed and accepted.  Or another run would begin to see if
better data could be generated.  The last major run took me about 4 days.
Much of the data processing had to be done by hand.  I am expecting those
time delays to get down into the minutes range.

So, there is a lot to do and many questions to ask.  And this newsgroup
looks like a good place to find answers for questions regarding read
commands etc.

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> But I need a new number crunching

Perl is perfectly good at this: see PDL. However, you will need to
learn how to write Perl *PROPERLY* before you can use it.

If you are talking to scientists, though, you may be better off with
Fortran, since (at least in my experience) a lot of scientists know
Fortran already.

> and Windows screen control program.

Perl is not suited to this. Something like VBScript is probably
better. It is possible to do it, using the Win32:: modules, but it
isn't terribly easy.

>  But with those preliminary instructions people can probably figure
> out how to do other things such as write subroutines and do sorts
> etc.

No, they can't. You give no indication of how someone might go about
this.

> For example, I am used to reading one word at a time from comma
> separated lists in a file for some applications and reading the
> entire line for other applications.  I now know how to read an
> entire line and can then break it into individual words if
> necessary.  But I imagine that there must be some read command which
> will let you do that automatically.

See $/ in perlvar.

> I suspect that the most difficult thing will be to learn how to get Perl to
> accept keystrokes from the computer keyboard and act on them when the key is
> pressed instead of waiting for someone to hit the Enter key.

Term::ReadKey

> And I need to learn how to get it to send information to the Windows
> program as if itself were the keyboard.

If you are talking console-mode programs that accept keyboard input
from stdin, then

   open my $PROG, '-|', 'program', 'argument'
       or die "can't run program: $!";     # happy, Brian? :)

If you are talking GUI programs then it can't be done. Well, not at
all easily, at any rate; and this applies regardless of which language
you use. GUI programs are not designed to be driven by other programs.

> What will result before too long is a program which will start
> running.  Instructions would be fed to it from the keyboard.  It
> would automatically open files and extract the needed data, do some
> calculations, store the results in a file somewhere and close it,
> and the open a Windows text file window where the data would be
> displayed.  They would then be reviewed and accepted.

I think that what you need is a Perl program that does all of this:
ie. give up on your idea of using other windows programs. If you want
to display a file for review, use Tk. What would serve your colleagues
best would be an application written in Perl which handles all the
difficult stuff of getting data in, displaying it etc.; but which has
the basic data-processing section as a separate module so that people
with little knowledge of Perl can fiddle with the algorithms without
needing to worry about all the GUI stuff.

Writing something like this *will* *not* *be* *easy*. It requires a
lot of thought be put into its design, especially as it is for use by
people who are not very expert. You will never succeed in writing it
unless you stop trying to teach the world how to use Perl and instead
*learn it yourself*.

Ben

-- 
               We do not stop playing because we grow old; 
                  we grow old because we stop playing.
                            ben@morrow.me.uk

edgrsprj wrote:

> What will result before too long is a
> program which will start running.  Instructions would be fed to it from the
> keyboard.

> It would automatically open files and extract the needed data, do
> some calculations, store the results in a file somewhere and close it, and
> the open a Windows text file window where the data would be displayed.

Considering what you want your programs to do, would Visual BASIC be a 
better choice? You already know BASIC syntax, don't you?

edgrsprj wrote:

> "Tad McClellan" <tadmc@augustmail.com> wrote in message
> news:slrnc1onte.tbq.tadmc@magna.augustmail.com...
> 
>>edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>Take a pause and see if Python might suit you better.
>>
>>Have you evaluated Python for this purpose?
>>
> 
> 
> I haven't looked at Python.  Can it be used for CGI work.  How do you get a
> version to test?

Actually, a better language for the purpose would probably be Ruby.  It 
has modern features at its heart that PERL only added on later, and 
requires less understanding of obscure technical notions to do everyday 
things.

news:comp.lang.ruby
http://www.ruby-lang.org

There is a nice Ruby-for-Windows all-in-one, including a convenient 
editor and a good textbook, at
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=67007
I suggest using ruby180-10, rather than ruby181-11 at present.  The 
newer one is only a few days old, and has some packaging problems.

Ruby has a large class library, including CGI and the like.  As a 
general rule, Ruby's libraries are more neatly designed than PERL's, 
though not always as solid.  (Another result of Ruby being a younger 
language.)

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"

In article <X%ZSb.4755$jH6.1953@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net>,
edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
:And there are still quite a few
:things I don't know how to do.  For example, I am used to reading one word
:at a time from comma separated lists in a file for some applications and
:reading the entire line for other applications.  I now know how to read an
:entire line and can then break it into individual words if necessary.  But I
:imagine that there must be some read command which will let you do that
:automatically.

You can set $/ to ',' to treat comma as the line terminator (but it
then won't treat newline as a line terminator.)

:I suspect that the most difficult thing will be to learn how to get Perl to
:accept keystrokes from the computer keyboard and act on them when the key is
:pressed instead of waiting for someone to hit the Enter key.

Please look at www.cpan.org at the modules Term::InKey and Term::ReadKey

-- 
Positrons can be described as electrons traveling backwards in time.
Certainly many Usenet arguments about the past become clearer when they
are re-interpreted as uncertainty about the future.
   -- Walter Roberson

edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> Can it be used for CGI work.


You can use just about _any_ programming language for "CGI work".

Even sh or assembly.


-- 
    Tad McClellan                          SGML consulting
    tadmc@augustmail.com                   Perl programming
    Fort Worth, Texas

are there any other advantages of ruby over perl ?


"John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote in message news:<3Q_Sb.19214$gw3.9159529@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>...
> edgrsprj wrote:
> 
> > "Tad McClellan" <tadmc@augustmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:slrnc1onte.tbq.tadmc@magna.augustmail.com...
> > 
> >>edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >>Take a pause and see if Python might suit you better.
> >>
> >>Have you evaluated Python for this purpose?
> >>
> > 
> > 
> > I haven't looked at Python.  Can it be used for CGI work.  How do you get a
> > version to test?
> 
> Actually, a better language for the purpose would probably be Ruby.  It 
> has modern features at its heart that PERL only added on later, and 
> requires less understanding of obscure technical notions to do everyday 
> things.
> 
> news:comp.lang.ruby
> http://www.ruby-lang.org
> 
> There is a nice Ruby-for-Windows all-in-one, including a convenient 
> editor and a good textbook, at
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=67007
> I suggest using ruby180-10, rather than ruby181-11 at present.  The 
> newer one is only a few days old, and has some packaging problems.
> 
> Ruby has a large class library, including CGI and the like.  As a 
> general rule, Ruby's libraries are more neatly designed than PERL's, 
> though not always as solid.  (Another result of Ruby being a younger 
> language.)

Also sprach Ben Morrow:

> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>>  But with those preliminary instructions people can probably figure
>> out how to do other things such as write subroutines and do sorts
>> etc.
> 
> No, they can't. You give no indication of how someone might go about
> this.

As if that would be a problem. There have been consinstently attempts to
establish the holy grail of the Perl tutorial. I learnt it with the help
of a very flimsy introduction that was actually part of an HTML
tutorial. The hints given in that were far worse than those on the OP's
webside. All I had besides that were the perldocs (which a beginner is
very unlikely to understand) and the little chapter on Perl5 in 'Linux
in a Nutshell' (which doesn't even contain any explanations).

Therefore, I didn't have any indication how to go about. 90% of the time
I was using features and functions I didn't understand. But did I care?
Or did it do me any bad? Apparently not.

So why should it harm other people? I am pretty sure that many people
who can claim to have some expertise in Perl nowadays didn't learn it 
with the help of a structured and good tutorial but instead picked a
rather chaotic approach.

Tassilo
-- 
$_=q#",}])!JAPH!qq(tsuJ[{@"tnirp}3..0}_$;//::niam/s~=)]3[))_$-3(rellac(=_$({
pam{rekcahbus})(rekcah{lrePbus})(lreP{rehtonabus})!JAPH!qq(rehtona{tsuJbus#;
$_=reverse,s+(?<=sub).+q#q!'"qq.\t$&."'!#+sexisexiixesixeseg;y~\n~~dddd;eval

"Scott Bryce" <sbryce@scottbryce.com> wrote in message
news:101ou12lil8cc5f@corp.supernews.com...
> edgrsprj wrote:

> Considering what you want your programs to do, would Visual BASIC be a
> better choice? You already know BASIC syntax, don't you?
>

I have done some work Visual Basic but for certain reasons like Perl better
at the moment.

"Walter Roberson" <roberson@ibd.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca> wrote in message
news:bvhtrt$8r4$1@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca...
> In article <X%ZSb.4755$jH6.1953@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net>,
>
> Please look at www.cpan.org at the modules Term::InKey and Term::ReadKey
>

I did check that site a while ago.  The ReadKey module looks like it might
work.  I did not see one for InKey but will check again.  I noticed that
some modules listed there (probably quite a few) are already included with
the Perl download package and I was wondering if there might be one for
reading the keyboard that I have not found yet.  It doesn't sound like it.

"Tassilo v. Parseval" <tassilo.parseval@rwth-aachen.de> wrote in message
news:bvibij$s0e$1@nets3.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE...
> Also sprach Ben Morrow:
>

Something like 5 years ago I had to create a Perl CGI routine to run at this
one Web site.  I was familiar with Basic and Fortran but had never even
heard of Perl.  And I was concerned that I might create a program which
would get into a loop which would go around and around and never end.  The
code actually worked.  It allowed people to enter data through a Web page
data entry screen.  The data were sent to the CGI program when they hit the
Enter key.  Each night at midnight the program started running.  It looked
at the data sent to it during the day and checked some additional files and
did some calculations.  And it then stored the data in files at the site
which could be viewed by site visitors.

The Perl CGI program ran largely unattended for more than a year at the
site.  Happily it never jumped into any endless loops.

"Ben Morrow" <usenet@morrow.me.uk> wrote in message
news:bvhso0$pvj$1@wisteria.csv.warwick.ac.uk...

> Writing something like this *will* *not* *be* *easy*. It requires a
> lot of thought be put into its design, especially as it is for use by
> people who are not very expert. You will never succeed in writing it
> unless you stop trying to teach the world how to use Perl and instead
> *learn it yourself*.
>
> Ben

Hi Ben, I am already doing all of these things with programs involving a
combination of Basic and another ancient program which has the ability to
start and stop both DOS and Windows programs, open Windows screens, switch
between windows, do calculations, take data off the clipboard etc.  The
problem is that everything is running too slow or has dimension size
limitations.  So, I simply need to find another language which will do what
I am already doing and then translate the programs.

I have to believe that if these ancient programs can do these types of
things then Perl should be able to as well.  And it is probably just a
matter of discovering the right commands to use etc.

"Tad McClellan" <tadmc@augustmail.com> wrote in message
news:slrnc1p6v5.tnn.tadmc@magna.augustmail.com...
> edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> You can use just about _any_ programming language for "CGI work".
>

I have looked at a number of Web sites where you can run CGI programs.  And
almost all of them say CGI - Perl.  I know that some let you run other types
of programs.  But Perl seems to be the one which is universally acceptable.

"John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3Q_Sb.19214$gw3.9159529@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> edgrsprj wrote:
>
>
> news:comp.lang.ruby
> http://www.ruby-lang.org
>
> There is a nice Ruby-for-Windows all-in-one, including a convenient
> editor and a good textbook, at
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=67007
> I suggest using ruby180-10, rather than ruby181-11 at present.  The
> newer one is only a few days old, and has some packaging problems.
>

I will give it a look.  I have no special attachment to Perl.  I simply need
to do an upgrade from the programs I am using right now.  And Perl appeared
to be the most promising language.

"Robert" <bobx@linuxmail.org> wrote in message
news:C7GdnX7iicvLuYHdRVn-hA@adelphia.com...
> It is insane not to use the ActiveState MSI installer.
>
> Get the book:
>
> Elements of Programming with Perl
> Andrew L. Johnson
> October 1999
>

Thanks. I will make a note of that if I decide to stay with Perl.

"Keith Keller" <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote in message
news:59phvb.00n.ln@goaway.wombat.san-francisco.ca.us...
> >
> > Take a pause and see if Python might suit you better.
> >

I found a Python Web site and will take a look at the information on it.

"David K. Wall" <dwall@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:Xns9481978B1775Bdkwwashere@216.168.3.30...
> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>
> I don't consider myself an expert at programming or Perl, but even so I
can
> see numerous incorrect, incomplete, and misleading statements on that
page.
>

Those short sections of code are what is important at my Web site.  I have
Perl up and running.  It is possible that some errors might have gotten into
those codes during copy operations.  But I ran each of them on my own
computer.  And they all appeared to work fine.

"Matt Garrish" <matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:t8XSb.7838$qU3.741637@news20.bellglobal.com...
>
> > %abbrev = (
> >     MB => 'megabytes',
> >     Mb => 'megabits',

I used Meg. at my Web site so that my colleagues in science who don't know a
bit from a byte would understand the information.  They know that Meg.
probably refers to a million of something.

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:X%ZSb.4755$jH6.1953@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> news:18YSb.4653$jH6.1518@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> > "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> > news:qkOSb.4022$jH6.3447@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> >

I took a look at Python and Ruby Web sites to see what those programs look
like.  Perl, Python, and Ruby all look like they could easily handle the
types of data processing that I need to do.  If any of them had specific
commands installed for controlling Windows programs and screens then I might
decide to use that program.  And this coming week I am planning to try to
determine if there are actually routines like that which I did not see in my
first check of the Python and Ruby documentation.

I checked again and found several Inkey modules at Cpan.  I don't how I
missed them with my last search.  And at the moment, for a number of reasons
I am still leaning towards going with Perl.

In my opinion this effort is quite important.  For example, last December 22
we had an earthquake in California, USA which claimed several lives.  And
one on December 26 in Iran appears to have claimed more than 40,000 lives.
I myself began circulating international earthquake warnings around November
10, 2003.  And I believe that my forecasting procedure did an excellent job
of pointing to where that California earthquake could occur.  I am still
evaluating my data regarding that Iran earthquake.  That is because my
present data processing programs are so slow and limited.  However I
do feel that they work.  And its time to make the change to a more powerful
programming language.

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

: This is the purpose of that Web page:

Stating the document's purpose up front is very good.

In its current state, the document's purpose is difficult to identify.
In places it looks like a partial synopsis of existing Perl
documentation.  In other places it looks like a Perl tutorial.  In still
other places it looks like a Windows primer.

Choose your focus before writing, and explicitly state that focus in the
simplest, most boring terms.

    The purpose of this document is [purpose].
    This document is intended for [audience description].
    The reader of this document is expected to know [prerequisites].
    This document does not cover [list of stuff outside its scope].

With that done, you will more easily recognize when you have wandered
off course.

: Perhaps 99% of the people around the world who might have a use for a Perl
: program cannot use it because something in the code they generate will
: produce an error which stops the program from running.  They cannot
: determine what is wrong, get frustrated, and switch to some other language.

This is bad.  You've already jumped track from stating the document's
purpose into finding reasons to justify its existence.  

: My Web page is not meant to teach people how to use Perl.

This is good, but say what the document is about before saying what it
is not about.

: It simply states
: that if you want to write a simple program which will do something like
: multiply two numbers together and store the result in a text file then here
: is how to do it.

Eh.  That really belongs in an introductory section.

: It is like a "cookbook" for creating simple Perl programs.

There we go.  That's the document's purpose.  Now you just need to keep
it in mind while writing the rest.

If you're really considering writing it as a cookbook, you might like to
adopt the style of _Perl Cookbook_ by Christiansen and Torkington:
1. Very simply state the problem to be solved.
2. Give some code the solves the problem.
3. Discuss the nuts and bolts of the solution, possibly suggesting
alternative solutions.
4. List references to appropriate Perl documentation.

But I'm not so sure you really want a cookbook approach.  What you have
written reads almost like a journal.
 
: Finally, remember that my Web page is just a first version.  Information is
: being stored there as I learn it.
                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That also suggests a journal.  Maintaining it as a chronological journal
of your explorations would be a unique approach to instructing others.
After all, if you found yourself stumbling over some arcane bit of
syntax, other novices will probably stumble as well.  They might
appreciate seeing the language untangled one piece at a time through the
eyes of a fellow novice.  The problem/solution/discussion style outlined
above would also work well in a journal context.

Your enthusiasm for the language is admirable, as well as your ability
to stay level-headed during these discussions.  Your desire to share
that enthusiasm with colleagues is good, but you need to deliberately
choose a purpose and style for your writing.

"Jay Tilton" <tiltonj@erols.com> wrote in message
news:401cd09f.34067135@news.erols.com...
> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>

I am not going to disagree with much of what you said in your note.  But you
have to look at things from my perspective.

It appears that I am near the center of an informal effort to get a variety
of international earthquake forecasting procedures coordinated.  Just a few
hours ago I finished having the documentation for a novel procedure
translated from Spanish to English and will now format it and start
circulating that report.  You can see quite a few of those other forecasting
programs listed at my Web site on the following page:

http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/141.html

For some reason the international picture regarding this type of research is
in my opinion largely chaotic.  And one of the goals in order to get things
more organized is to get people equipped with better or at least consistent
computer programs.  Generally with my Web site pages I have time to prepare
them and check them for spelling and to see that the sentence structure is
reasonable.  There is not too much time available to organize them much
better than that.  However, things do gradually improve with time.  And I
expect that that Perl page will either improve or disappear if I choose a
different language.  Also as I said in another note, the information on the
page should already be adequate for the other scientists and researchers
with whom I communicate.

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Alan J. Flavell wrote:

> On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Walter Roberson wrote:
>
> > [Last time I posted mentioning that I'd seen it used in the UK, someone
> > replied to the effect of "No, it isn't used here!". Gee, I guess my
> > eyes must have been playing tricks on me...]
>
> Sorry, but I think you've been seeing a cursively-handwritten "lb".
> They do look very similar.

Apologies if I seem to be prolonging this off-topic subthread beyond
reason, but I've been searching around a bit, and this does seem to
throw reasonable light on the whole thing:

http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/n/number-sign.html

    * Used as the symbol for the pound avoirdupois in the U.S. (where
 lb. would be used in the UK and Canada). Never called 'pound' in the
 UK.
          o Keith Gordon Irwin in, The Romance of Writing, p. 125
 says: "The Italian libbra (from the old Latin word libra, "balance")
 represented a weight almost exactly equal to the avoirdupois pound of
 England. The Italian abbreviation of lb with a line drawn across the
 letters was ... used for both weights. The business clerk's hurried
 way of writing the abbreviation appears to have been responsible for
 the # sign used for pound."

http://home.swipnet.se/PharmHist/Frsvar/lbsign.html

has some nice pictures of old handwritten lb signs.

cheers

>>>>> "edgrsprj" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:

edgrsprj> It appears that I am near the center of an informal effort
edgrsprj> to get a variety of international earthquake forecasting
edgrsprj> procedures coordinated.

Then do us all a favor.  Stick to your domain of expertise.  If you
want to nudge other people toward Perl, just point them at
http://learn.perl.org, where people with an expertise in *Perl* are
organizing references and pointers, far better than you will ever have
the time to do.

Please.

The most thing I've learned about writing tutorials is that I have to
know about ten times as much as what I'm trying to teach, so that I
can know what *not* to say as well as what to say.  "What to leave
out" is a very important decision.

print "Just another Perl hacker,"
-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!

Tassilo v. Parseval <tassilo.parseval@rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
> Also sprach Ben Morrow:
>> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> 
>>>  But with those preliminary instructions people can probably figure
                                             ^^^^^^

I think "people" here is meant to be: 

   people with little or no training/experience in programming

??


>>> out how to do other things such as write subroutines and do sorts
>>> etc.
>> 
>> No, they can't. You give no indication of how someone might go about
>> this.
> 
> As if that would be a problem. 

> I learnt it with the help
> of a very flimsy introduction


Were you in edgrsprj's suggested target audience then, or were you
already a "programmer"?


-- 
    Tad McClellan                          SGML consulting
    tadmc@augustmail.com                   Perl programming
    Fort Worth, Texas

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> "David K. Wall" <dwall@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
> news:Xns9481978B1775Bdkwwashere@216.168.3.30...
>> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>> I don't consider myself an expert at programming or Perl, but even so I
>> can see numerous incorrect, incomplete, and misleading statements on
>> that page. 
> 
> Those short sections of code are what is important at my Web site.  I
> have Perl up and running.  It is possible that some errors might have
> gotten into those codes during copy operations.  But I ran each of them
> on my own computer.  And they all appeared to work fine.

It's not only possible that there are errors, it's certain. 

*  There's code there that uses open() without a comma after the 
filehandle, which will not compile. 

*  Whatever HTML editor you used apparently uses Microsoft's so-called 
"smart quotes". If someone cuts and pastes code with "smart quotes" in it, 
that code will not compile even if it is otherwise syntactically correct. 
(Yes, I tried it.)  

*  '$char = getc <STDIN>;' ?  That's just wrong. It doesn't "work fine". It 
won't even compile. 

Even when the syntax is okay, there are other problems. 

For example, here are a few things that jumped out at me from just skimming 
the page:

*  you use open() without mentioning that you should always check to see if 
the open() succeeded.  

*  $a and $b are special variables, but you'd never guess it from this web 
page.  

*  'print localtime  Generates a lengthy number representing the local 
time.'  That is not what is happening. (and where is the semicolon ending 
the statement?)  localtime() is in list context because of the print(), so 
it returns a list of numbers, which are then printed without anything in 
between them because *that's what you told perl to do*. Sigh.


We here in c.l.p.m could go over every word in that page and point out all 
the flaws, but we're not going to. It's a waste of time. Besides, we might 
miss something subtle or just not mention it because it's so obviously 
wrong. Then you might think the code is okay because no-one said anything 
about it.

A number of people whose opinions I respect have told you that this web 
page is a bad idea and that the information on it is flawed at best.  If 
you're going to ignore their opinions, why did you even bother to ask?  

Here's a thought experiment:  I get interested in earthquakes, think 
they're really cool, and enthusiastically write a web page about them and 
post to alt.earthquake (or whatever) asking for opinions.  You write back 
telling me the page is inaccurate because, among other things, earthquakes 
aren't caused by rock trolls having sex.  I respond by saying, ok, I have a 
few mistakes, but I still want to tell people about earthquakes, I'm 
leaving the page on the server. Do you help me correct my page, or write me 
off as an ignorant but well-intentioned crank and go on to more interesting 
things?

-- 
David Wall

>>>>> "DKW" == David K Wall <dwall@fastmail.fm> writes:

  DKW> Here's a thought experiment: I get interested in earthquakes,
  DKW> think they're really cool, and enthusiastically write a web page
  DKW> about them and post to alt.earthquake (or whatever) asking for
  DKW> opinions.  You write back telling me the page is inaccurate
  DKW> because, among other things, earthquakes aren't caused by rock
  DKW> trolls having sex.  I respond by saying, ok, I have a few
  DKW> mistakes, but I still want to tell people about earthquakes, I'm
  DKW> leaving the page on the server. Do you help me correct my page,
  DKW> or write me off as an ignorant but well-intentioned crank and go
  DKW> on to more interesting things?

i was taught that it was because we didn't appease the gods and they
were stomping around doing polkas. and that we can stop them by offering
up perl virgins in sacrifice. i should put this up in a web page
too. does anyone who knows how to *program* in html wanna help me?

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

In article <Pine.LNX.4.53.0401311940400.7469@ppepc56.ph.gla.ac.uk>,
Alan J. Flavell <flavell@ph.gla.ac.uk> wrote:
:On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Walter Roberson wrote:

:> [Last time I posted mentioning that I'd seen it used in the UK, someone
:> replied to the effect of "No, it isn't used here!". Gee, I guess my
:> eyes must have been playing tricks on me...]

:Sorry, but I think you've been seeing a cursively-handwritten "lb".
:They do look very similar.

It was definitely # I saw, not a cursive "lb" (with or without a line
across it.) In the UK, it was mostly in small stores that I saw it,
but occasionally in places like Safeway.
-- 
Aleph sub {Aleph sub null} little, Aleph sub {Aleph sub one} little,
Aleph sub {Aleph sub two} little infinities...

Also sprach Tad McClellan:

> Tassilo v. Parseval <tassilo.parseval@rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
>> Also sprach Ben Morrow:

>>> No, they can't. You give no indication of how someone might go about
>>> this.
>> 
>> As if that would be a problem. 
> 
>> I learnt it with the help
>> of a very flimsy introduction
> 
> 
> Were you in edgrsprj's suggested target audience then, or were you
> already a "programmer"?

I wasn't yet a programmer by this time. I had listened to the
introduction lecture to programming at university (that was Modula3;
guess how much of a programmer you can be after that).

Looking back, I am quite happy that I learnt Perl the way I did. I
immediately started with programs that I wanted to write. I ignored all
the features that I didn't seem to need for them. Thus I learnt Perl
with somes "holes" in it that I closed later en-passant.

Tassilo
-- 
$_=q#",}])!JAPH!qq(tsuJ[{@"tnirp}3..0}_$;//::niam/s~=)]3[))_$-3(rellac(=_$({
pam{rekcahbus})(rekcah{lrePbus})(lreP{rehtonabus})!JAPH!qq(rehtona{tsuJbus#;
$_=reverse,s+(?<=sub).+q#q!'"qq.\t$&."'!#+sexisexiixesixeseg;y~\n~~dddd;eval

edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>  I took a look at Python and Ruby Web sites to see what those programs
>  look like.  Perl, Python, and Ruby all look like they could easily
>  handle the types of data processing that I need to do.  If any of
>  them had specific commands installed for controlling Windows programs
>  and screens then I might decide to use that program.

While none of these languages as built-in support for native Win32
GUI operations, wach one has made special accomodations for the OS:

For Perl, see `perldoc perlwin32`, and search the CPAN for 'win32'.

Python provides the win32api module, as well as many other modules, for
Win32-specific control. See
<http://python.org/doc/current/modindex.html>.

Ruby provides an explanation of it's Win32 support at this URL:

http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ruby-doc-bundle/ProgrammingRuby/book/win32.html

Ruby also provides the Win32API module and the win32ole extension for
dealing with Win32-specific features.

>  And at the moment, for a number of reasons I am still leaning towards
>  going with Perl.

I'm glad.  But assuming this post wasn't troll-bait (like it seemed),
the above should be enough to dispose of this "Such-and-such is better
for MS Windows" argument.

If, in your research, you discover any Perl-specific questions which the
perldocs don't answer, you would be welcome to post them here.

HTH,
Tim Hammerquist

edgrsprj wrote:

> http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/Perl.html

You should immediately rewrite the section on 'print localtime';
it is completely wrong.  Use
   C:\>perl -le "print join ':',localtime"
   C:\>perl -le "print scalar localtime"
to see what's really there.
	-Joe

-- 
I love my TiVo - http://www.inwap.com/u/joe/tivo/

Michele Dondi wrote:
> I don't know Ruby, but FWIW I've heard very good cmts about it. OTOH
> you surely know that there is not such a thing called 'PERL', don't
> you?!?

When I first learned the language, I was told in no uncertain terms that 
the name was an acronym.  Acronyms are capitalized in English.

I do understand that the acronym is now officially spurious.  (Sigh!)  I 
wish people would get their stories straight the first time.

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"

Sumit Garg wrote:
> are there any other advantages of ruby over perl ?

Well the main thing is that it's a pure OO language.  Even plain old 
integers are first-class objects, as in SmallTalk.  And because it's 
always been an OO language, you don't have the conceptual confusion that 
Perl has between modules and classes, and objects and hashes, or the 
wierdity of "bless".

Which means a Ruby learner can plunge straight into OO.

In general, Ruby runs slower than non-OO Perl, and probably always will, 
but in more advanced cases Ruby can be faster.  (My perfect-number 
generator is a lot faster in Ruby than Perl, though it's fastest in GCLISP.)

Oh yes.  Ruby has exceptions.  No more remembering to put "or die" on 
everything.

I'd really have to say that Ruby is better than Perl for casual 
programmers.  In fact, I'd say it's the best language I know (out of 
perhaps thirty) for casual programmers.

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"

edgrsprj wrote:
> I took a look at Python and Ruby Web sites to see what those programs look
> like.  Perl, Python, and Ruby all look like they could easily handle the
> types of data processing that I need to do.  If any of them had specific
> commands installed for controlling Windows programs and screens then I might
> decide to use that program.  And this coming week I am planning to try to
> determine if there are actually routines like that which I did not see in my
> first check of the Python and Ruby documentation.

All of them have the Tk library (which originated with yet another 
language, Tcl).  The Tk library was originally written for Unix 
windowing, but has been ported to Windows, and probably (I don't know 
offhand) to MacOS.

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"

John W. Kennedy <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:

> When I first learned the language, I was told in no uncertain terms that 
> the name was an acronym.


You were told wrong then, eh?

Who told you?


-- 
    Tad McClellan                          SGML consulting
    tadmc@augustmail.com                   Perl programming
    Fort Worth, Texas

Also sprach Michele Dondi:

> On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 13:45:58 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
> wrote:

>| If it is used within double quotation marks "\n" then it becomes
>| something called an Escape Sequence command modifier which
> 
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
> 
> It is *by no means* an escape sequence and there is not such a thing
> called "Escape Sequence command modifier".

Sure it is an escape sequence. From perlop.pod:

   The following escape sequences are available in constructs that inter- 
   polate and in transliterations.

       \t          tab             (HT, TAB)
       \n          newline         (NL)
   [...]

Tassilo
-- 
$_=q#",}])!JAPH!qq(tsuJ[{@"tnirp}3..0}_$;//::niam/s~=)]3[))_$-3(rellac(=_$({
pam{rekcahbus})(rekcah{lrePbus})(lreP{rehtonabus})!JAPH!qq(rehtona{tsuJbus#;
$_=reverse,s+(?<=sub).+q#q!'"qq.\t$&."'!#+sexisexiixesixeseg;y~\n~~dddd;eval

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 17:28:02 +0000 (UTC), Ben Morrow
<usenet@morrow.me.uk> wrote:

>this. Multiplying two numbers together and storing the result in a
>text file is not useful: I can do it quicker with a calculator and
>Notepad than I can with Perl.

<OT>
But when I do not have a calculator I often do it with Perl on the
bash cmd line, notwithstanding the many alternatives that there could
be. Including bash itself...

Just too Perl-addict!
;-)
</OT>



-- 
#!/usr/bin/perl -lp
BEGIN{*ARGV=do{open $_,q,<,,\$/;$_}}s z^z seek DATA,11,$[;($,
=ucfirst<DATA>)=~s x .*x q^~ZEX69l^^q,^2$;][@,xe.$, zex,s e1e
q 1~BEER XX1^q~4761rA67thb ~eex ,s aba m,P..,,substr$&,$.,age
__END__

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 14:15:56 -0500, "Matt Garrish"
<matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> wrote:

>> for free and then installed.  The Windows 5.8.2 AS package which I myself
>> downloaded was about 12 million bytes in size (12 Meg).

>btw: Mb is the proper abbreviation, not Meg...

And BTW (for the OP!): A Mb is *not* a "million bytes"!


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

Michele Dondi <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote:
> On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 04:04:36 GMT, "John W. Kennedy"
><jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:
> 
>>> you surely know that there is not such a thing called 'PERL', don't
>>> you?!?
>>
>>When I first learned the language, I was told in no uncertain terms that 
>>the name was an acronym.  Acronyms are capitalized in English.
> 
> BTW: just to be fussy as much as possible, I *think* that (also in
> English) the correct term should be "abbreviation" and not "acronym"
> (it is definitely so in Italian, where one finds a sharp distinction
> between "acronimo" and "sigla"), but in fact one most often finds
> "acronym" in that acceptation...


Actually, "PERL" might be called a "bacronym", ie: a backwards acronym.

The name came first, the coming up with words for each letter came
_after_ choosing the name.


-- 
    Tad McClellan                          SGML consulting
    tadmc@augustmail.com                   Perl programming
    Fort Worth, Texas

Tad McClellan wrote:
> John W. Kennedy <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:
>>When I first learned the language, I was told in no uncertain terms that 
>>the name was an acronym.

> You were told wrong then, eh?

> Who told you?

It's been a while (this was '95-'96) -- some textbook or other.  (Not 
the Camel, because I didn't get that until later.)  But I'm fairly sure 
that other sources confirmed it.

And I notice that the perl man page, on Cygwin, at least, still presents 
it on the NAME line.

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"

Michele Dondi wrote:
> On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 04:04:36 GMT, "John W. Kennedy"
> <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:

>>>you surely know that there is not such a thing called 'PERL', don't
>>>you?!?

>>When I first learned the language, I was told in no uncertain terms that 
>>the name was an acronym.  Acronyms are capitalized in English.

> BTW: just to be fussy as much as possible, I *think* that (also in
> English) the correct term should be "abbreviation" and not "acronym"
> (it is definitely so in Italian, where one finds a sharp distinction
> between "acronimo" and "sigla"), but in fact one most often finds
> "acronym" in that acceptation...

No, "acronym" is correct in English if it makes a pronouncable word. 
I'm afraid my Italian dictionaries don't even list "acronimo", so I 
can't speak to that (of course, I have them more for Arrigo Boito than 
for computers).  But "sigla" would certainly be wrong.

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"

On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, edgrsprj wrote:

> If you are not a professional computer programmer and you would like to
> see if Perl might be useful for your purposes then as far as I can see
> you are out of luck. It is so complex that you will never be able to
> even test it. You would have to either take a class on it or spend weeks
> or more going through the documentation.  And probably relatively few
> people are going to do that.

Balderdash.


> What that Web page presently does is provide people with groups of
> instructions which will let them try the program.  If they download and
> install it and then use those codes exactly as I have written them,
> substituting their own file names etc., in as little as 10 to 30 minutes
> they should be able to create a program which will open a file, read
> information from it, do some calculations on the information, store the
> results in another file, close all the files, and then open the output file
> with some Windows program such as Notepad or whatever and work with it.

Not if you give them "codes" that are syntax errors:

    open FILENAME “> c:/textfile.txt”;

Not if you state things that simply aren't true:

    print "Text message\n";
    print 'Text message',"\n";

    Both of those commands produce the same result.  They cause the string
    "Text message" to immediately print.  If the \n is not present the
    Perl program will wait until it is done with all of its calculations
    etc. before it prints anything.


> Once they are able to do that they can then make a decision regarding
> whether or not they wish to learn how to use Perl or instead choose some
> other program.  Without that Web page they have no options at all as far as
> I can see.  I believe that it is virtually impossible for someone who is not
> a computer programming expert to get the program to do enough things that
> they can decide if they want to use it.

Balderdash.


> Experienced computer programmers might not like the style or content.  But
> they already have documentation which they can use with their Perl work.  I
> do not think that this is presently the case for many and perhaps most
> scientists.

Anyone who has Perl or has Web access has the documentation to Perl.  You
should take a look at it.


> As I said, it is largely intended to simply open the door for people who
> want to see if Perl is a language they might want to use. Without the
> information on that Web page they might never be able to give it a try.

I think you think too highly of your page and too little of your audience.
"They might never be able to ..."?  Pulleez.

Or are you just trolling ...

Regards,

Brad

Michele Dondi <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote:
> A Megabyte is not a *million* bytes. This mathematically boils down to
> the fact that the equation 5^n=2^m doesn't have a solution in integers
> (>0) and that computers tend to privilege powers of two. But n=3, m=7
> is quite a good approximation and a "better" one , for a precise
> definition of "better", involves considerably larger numbers.

Eh? What do powers of 5 have to do with the price of cheese? Don't you
mean 10^3 ~~ 2^10?

And, just to be pedantic, ISO call a million bytes a megabyte (MB),
and 1024^2 bytes a megibyte (MiB), for the sake of consistency with
the rest of the ISO system.

Ben

-- 
               EAT
               KIDS                                          (...er, whoops...)
               FOR                                             ben@morrow.me.uk
               99p

In article <bvm88h$i94$1@wisteria.csv.warwick.ac.uk>,
Ben Morrow  <usenet@morrow.me.uk> wrote:

|Michele Dondi <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote:
|> A Megabyte is not a *million* bytes. This mathematically boils down to
|> the fact that the equation 5^n=2^m doesn't have a solution in integers
|> (>0) and that computers tend to privilege powers of two. But n=3, m=7
|> is quite a good approximation and a "better" one , for a precise
|> definition of "better", involves considerably larger numbers.

|Eh? What do powers of 5 have to do with the price of cheese? Don't you
|mean 10^3 ~~ 2^10?

10 = 5 * 2, so 10^n = 5^n * 2^n. If you then factor out the 2^n on
both sides, you get the form 5^n ~= 2^m .
-- 
Positrons can be described as electrons traveling backwards in time.
Certainly many Usenet arguments about the past become clearer when they
are re-interpreted as uncertainty about the future.
   -- Walter Roberson

On 31 Jan 2004 23:21:47 GMT, "Tassilo v. Parseval"
<tassilo.parseval@rwth-aachen.de> wrote:

>Now that each and every regular in this group has kicked the OP at least
                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>once, I think it is time to move on to something new. It was somewhat
>foreseeable that this thread would become rather repetitive in its
>nature. And yet I am surprised that so many people felt inclined to say
>the same things over and over again.

Well, it is clear that the OP is *not* "yet another troll", or at
least he is not behaving like that! So it is perfectly understandable
that people want to explain him exactly why, where and how his attempt
is wrong. 

In fact I may be wrong but my judjement is that overall he's not been
"kicked": some posters were more rude than others, but many of them
kindly analyzed and addressed each point posed by him.


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 00:55:25 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

>If you are not a professional computer programmer and you would like to see
>if Perl might be useful for your purposes then as far as I can see you are
>out of luck.  It is so complex that you will never be able to even test it.

I would tend to disagree with your claim! I am *not* a professional
computer programmer and once I happened to try and see if Perl may
have been useful for my purposes, that BTW were to do some arithmetic
computations and (on a completely unrelated basis) off-line HTML
generation, and I found that indeed it was. Still programming in Perl
since then...

<OT but="important!">
To cut the story down, at some (early) stage I found this wonderful
community that unlike other newbies I found helpful and friendly from
the start, and I feel like claiming that probably I've learnt more
things here than from any other resource.
</OT>

I have an exam in two days so I literally don't have the time to
expand on the subject with the depth it would deserve. But I think you
may find my own experience relevant. Just hold on...


Michele
-- 
#!/usr/bin/perl -lp
BEGIN{*ARGV=do{open $_,q,<,,\$/;$_}}s z^z seek DATA,11,$[;($,
=ucfirst<DATA>)=~s x .*x q^~ZEX69l^^q,^2$;][@,xe.$, zex,s e1e
q 1~BEER XX1^q~4761rA67thb ~eex ,s aba m,P..,,substr$&,$.,age
__END__

On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 03:58:55 GMT, "John W. Kennedy"
<jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:

>Actually, a better language for the purpose would probably be Ruby.  It 
>has modern features at its heart that PERL only added on later, and 
>requires less understanding of obscure technical notions to do everyday 
>things.
[snip]
>general rule, Ruby's libraries are more neatly designed than PERL's, 

I don't know Ruby, but FWIW I've heard very good cmts about it. OTOH
you surely know that there is not such a thing called 'PERL', don't
you?!?

See

  perldoc -q 'difference between "perl" and "Perl"'


Michele
-- 
# This prints: Just another Perl hacker,
seek DATA,15,0 and  print   q... <DATA>;
__END__

Ben Morrow wrote:
> Michele Dondi <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote:
>>A Megabyte is not a *million* bytes. This mathematically boils down to
>>the fact that the equation 5^n=2^m doesn't have a solution in integers
>>(>0) and that computers tend to privilege powers of two. But n=3, m=7
>>is quite a good approximation and a "better" one , for a precise
>>definition of "better", involves considerably larger numbers.

> Eh? What do powers of 5 have to do with the price of cheese? Don't you
> mean 10^3 ~~ 2^10?

The immediate instinct of any mathematician is to take out the common 
factors.  Thus:  5^3 ~~ 2^7.

> And, just to be pedantic, ISO call a million bytes a megabyte (MB),
> and 1024^2 bytes a megibyte (MiB), for the sake of consistency with
> the rest of the ISO system.

Quite so, except it's "mebi"--"bi" for "binary".  Kibi (Ki), Mebi (Mi), 
Gibi (Gi), Tebi (Ti), Pebi (Pi), and Exbi (Ei).

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"

In article <qkOSb.4022$jH6.3447@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net>,
 "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> As I stated in some recent posts, I have been looking for a programming
> language which scientists and other people around the world who are not
> professional computer programmers could use with the same ease as Basic.

<snip>

> 
> If you are trying to make the transition from some language such as Basic to
> Perl it can be difficult because of the very large number of commands etc.
> which are available in Perl, because of their many options, and because of
> Perl's structure which I myself do not yet fully understand.  So what I have
> been doing while I have been learning how to use it during the past few
> weeks is prepare a Web page which briefly outlines some of its basic
> commands etc.  People who can already write simple programs in other
> languages can use those commands to almost immediately begin creating and
> running simple Perl programs.

Keep in mind the joke-with-a-seed-of-truth:

"Perl makes a lousy first programming language, thats because its 
designed to be the *last* programming language you ever need to learn."

:-)

The seed of truth is both about its pretty universal usefulness 
(realtime 3d rendering and similar problems excepted), but also, as you 
mention, it has documentation containing things like this:

>perldoc -f sprintf

       sprintf FORMAT, LIST
               Returns a string formatted by the usual `printf'
               conventions of the C library function `sprintf'.
               See sprintf(3) or printf(3) on your system for an
               explanation of the general principles.


People with a few other languages under their belts wont be too fazed by 
that, and will work out they need to try the system man pages and get 
something like:

>man 3 sprintf

PRINTF(3)           Linux Programmer's Manual           PRINTF(3)

NAME
       printf,  fprintf,  sprintf,  snprintf,  vprintf, vfprintf,
       vsprintf, vsnprintf - formatted output conversion

SYNOPSIS
       #include <stdio.h>

       int printf(const char *format, ...);
       int fprintf(FILE *stream, const char *format, ...);
       int sprintf(char *str, const char *format, ...);
       int snprintf(char *str, size_t size, const  char  *format,
       ...);

Which is fine if you once knew enough c to be able to work out what you 
get there, but like you've identified, its not in the useful for "people 
around the world who are not professional computer programmers could use 
with the same ease as Basic" category...

(note, the perldoc -f sprintf doco actually does go on a lot more than 
just the bit I quoted up there, but I think my arguement holds - in that 
I suspect a complete programming beginner is going to be completely 
mystified by everything it provides, its clearly written for a 
non-newbie audience. Perhaps intentionally - maybe the doco 
writers/maintainers aren't intending to write beginners programming 
doco, but _programmers_ programming doco...)

big

-- 
'When I first met Katho, she had a meat cleaver in one hand and
half a sheep in the other. "Come in", she says, "Hammo's not here.
I hope you like meat.' Sharkey in aus.moto

Iain Chalmers <bigiain@mightymedia.com.au> wrote:
> The seed of truth is both about its pretty universal usefulness 
> (realtime 3d rendering and similar problems excepted), but also, as you 
> mention, it has documentation containing things like this:
> 
> >perldoc -f sprintf
> 
>        sprintf FORMAT, LIST
>                Returns a string formatted by the usual `printf'
>                conventions of the C library function `sprintf'.
>                See sprintf(3) or printf(3) on your system for an
>                explanation of the general principles.
> 
> 
> People with a few other languages under their belts wont be too fazed by 
> that, and will work out they need to try the system man pages and get 
> something like:
<snip>
> (note, the perldoc -f sprintf doco actually does go on a lot more than 
> just the bit I quoted up there, but I think my arguement holds

I don't. It goes on to explain everything about sprintf except
'everything in the format string is printed literally except certain
sequences starting with '%''; and it only takes a little imagination
to work out that's what's going on from the multitude of examples.

The main problem with trying to learn Perl from the perldocs is that
they teach you Perl perfectly well, especially all the new *tut ones,
but they don't teach you how to program. This is a much harder task,
not at all suited to online documentation. For that you need a book,
or a teacher (personally I'd always prefer a book, but that's probably
just habit: I've never had any formal training in programming).

Ben

-- 
   If you put all the prophets,   |   You'd have so much more reason
   Mystics and saints             |   Than ever was born
   In one room together,          |   Out of all of the conflicts of time.
ben@morrow.me.uk |----------------+---------------| The Levellers, 'Believers'

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 13:45:58 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

>As I stated in some recent posts, I have been looking for a programming
>language which scientists and other people around the world who are not
>professional computer programmers could use with the same ease as Basic.
[snip]
>Perl's structure which I myself do not yet fully understand.  So what I have
>been doing while I have been learning how to use it during the past few
>weeks is prepare a Web page which briefly outlines some of its basic
>commands etc.  People who can already write simple programs in other
>languages can use those commands to almost immediately begin creating and
>running simple Perl programs.

So, as another poster pointed out, that is fundamentally a journal.
But it aims at being just at the same time a mixture of a tutorial and
a cookbook.

Thus far, fine! In the sense that I can imagine a document that is a
journal *and* a tutorial *and* a cookbook in consistent way. But this
is not the case with yours.

For example you may have a cookbook that behaves like a tutorial by
introducing each example gradually from the very "kernel" and adding
more and more details, and having examples ordered increasingly by
complexity (which is often the case, anyway). And then you may have
clearly marked journal-like "sections" in which you comment the
existing material with your new discoverings. That *could* make sense
(if done properly!), but your attempt IMO plainly doesn't.

>The URL for that Web page is:
>
>Perl For Amateur Computer Programmers
>http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/Perl.html

Since I think that your efforts are quite laudable, I'll comment some
portions of your page, trying to avoid as much as possible
overlappings with other posters cmts, in the hope that this will serve
to HELP YOU directing your efforts in more productive directions.

| Perl  -  Practical Extraction and Report Language

No! Quoting from perldoc -q 'difference between "perl" and "perl"':

    while "awk and Perl" and "Python and perl" do not. But never write
    "PERL", because perl is not an acronym, apocryphal folklore and
    post-facto expansions notwithstanding.

| Perl computer language but who are not professional computer programmers.  I am planning to gradually add information to
| this Web page as I myself learn how to use Perl. 

You're implicitly assuming that your learning process will be purely
incremental, i.e. that learning "how to use Perl" will be a matter of
learning "new stuff": this is plainly wrong, and it would be wrong for
virutallty any kind of learning process. As a scientist, as you claim
to be, you should know that learning always implies a pars denstruens
along with a pars construens...

In this particular case, if you'll learn some more of Perl, you will
soon realize that many of the things you wrote in the first place were
simply wrong even if you will be able to understand why they used to
seem right. So maybe you'll update them, but in the meanwhile the
document will have been available for public reading. Can you
understand the possible issues with this approach?

|        A version of Perl called ActivePerl can be downloaded from the following Web site for free and then installed.  The
| Windows 5.8.2 MSI program which I myself downloaded was about 12 million bytes in size (12 Meg).

A Megabyte is not a *million* bytes. This mathematically boils down to
the fact that the equation 5^n=2^m doesn't have a solution in integers
(>0) and that computers tend to privilege powers of two. But n=3, m=7
is quite a good approximation and a "better" one , for a precise
definition of "better", involves considerably larger numbers.

Also, taking into account that you're appealing to "scientists", it
seems strange that you document is so much Windows-centric, since
scientists are often used to and working on other OSen.

More precisely, there's something strange that your "tutorial" is so
OS-specific whereas the project would probably benefit from being
OS-independent and, as a side note, probably benefit from being run on
a more performant platform. (No Holy wars, please!)

|        One of the easiest ways to get information regarding individual Perl commands appears to be to have Windows run a
| search of the c:\Perl\html\lib\pod directory for references to the desired command.

Huh?!? It may be just MHO, but Windows search is crappy, and why using
a file search anyway, when you have a privileged UI to the
documentation through perldoc?

  perldoc perldoc
  perldoc perl

And since you're so "Windows-specific", why not using the HTML version
of the documentation kindly provided to you with no efforts by AS?

Also, as a side note, you seem to use the noun "command" in a naive
and not well defined way.

| Creating And Editing Perl Programs
| c:\program.pl
| Perl programs are written using English text.  And so any text editing program such as DOS Edit, Windows Notepad, Wordpad,
                                  ^^^^^^^

So I suppose that you use to the grocery and say

  @ARGV=grep -e, @ARGV;

don't you? Also,

  Lingua::Romana::Perligata

;-)

| and Word, or WordPerfect can be used to create and edit them.

While one may well use a wordprocessor as a text editor (being
careful!), it wouldn't be the best tool in any case. Worth mentioning
it! At least, taking into account what you wrote, I think it is worth
mentioning it to *you* and consequently it should be worth for you to
mention it to *your expected audience*.

| Programs should be saved with the ".pl" extension, for
           ^^^^^^

it is *customary* to save programs with the .pl extension. Under
Windows there *can* be some advantages saving with the .pl extension.
Period.

| Perl normally ignores lines which begin with the pound sign #.  Comment lines do not need to end with a semicolon.
                                    ^^^^^

  print; # edgrsprj thinks this is *not* a comment!

OTOH

  $_='';
  s#
  # edgrsprj thinks this *is* a comment!#x; print;

| If \n is contained within single quotation marks �\n� then when it is used with a print command it will simply print as \n

"it will be printed literally"

| If it is used within double quotation marks �\n� then it becomes something called an Escape Sequence command modifier which

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

It is *by no means* an escape sequence and there is not such a thing
called "Escape Sequence command modifier".

| print 'text message','\n';
| print 'text message\n';
| print 'text message',"\n";
| print "text message","\n";
| print "text message\n";
| The first two commands will cause text message\n to be printed when the Perl program has finished with its other operations
| such as doing calculations.  The third, fourth, and fifth commands will cause text message to be immediately printed.  
| will not appear.

Believe me, this is pure *crap*. Please do a favour yourself and read
the documentation. At least about this!

| filenames and directories.  The third command will also work.  However I suspect that it is probably better not to use �/�
| with filenames and directories.

Your suspect is wrong. In fact it is "probably better" to use '/' as a
directory separator even on Windows.

| These are Perl command modifiers which do things such as affect printing etc.  They have the form  \text-string.  Only a
| few are listed here. 

Ditto as above. Pleeease!!!


No, I don't have the time and the forces to go on... I give up!
Please, if you really don't want to give up with this thing yourself,
at least consider "trying it later". I *assure* you that both you and
your intended audience will greatly benefit from such a choice...


Michele
-- 
# This prints: Just another Perl hacker,
seek DATA,15,0 and  print   q... <DATA>;
__END__

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 04:04:36 GMT, "John W. Kennedy"
<jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:

>> you surely know that there is not such a thing called 'PERL', don't
>> you?!?
>
>When I first learned the language, I was told in no uncertain terms that 
>the name was an acronym.  Acronyms are capitalized in English.

BTW: just to be fussy as much as possible, I *think* that (also in
English) the correct term should be "abbreviation" and not "acronym"
(it is definitely so in Italian, where one finds a sharp distinction
between "acronimo" and "sigla"), but in fact one most often finds
"acronym" in that acceptation...


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

On 2 Feb 2004 10:47:54 GMT, "Tassilo v. Parseval"
<tassilo.parseval@rwth-aachen.de> wrote:

>> It is *by no means* an escape sequence and there is not such a thing
>> called "Escape Sequence command modifier".
>
>Sure it is an escape sequence. From perlop.pod:
>
>   The following escape sequences are available in constructs that inter- 
>   polate and in transliterations.

Once again I stand corrected! I thought that "escape sequences" would
necessarily involve the ESC charachter as in ANSI escape sequences,
i.e. \e aka \x1B (IIRC).


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

Michele Dondi <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote:
> >Michele Dondi wrote:
> >>
> >> BTW: just to be fussy as much as possible, I *think* that (also in
> >> English) the correct term should be "abbreviation" and not "acronym"
> >> (it is definitely so in Italian, where one finds a sharp distinction
> >> between "acronimo" and "sigla"), but in fact one most often finds
> >> "acronym" in that acceptation...
>
> However you may find it interesting to know what my own dictionary
> says about these two terms:
> 
<snip>
> And here you have their respective translations (modulo my limited
> linguistic skills!):
> 
>   [probably from the lating "singula littera"] abbreviation of one or
>   more words most often represented by their initials.
>   
>   Noun formed with the initial letters of other words.
>   ^^^^
> 
> Now, I underlined that detail because I've always thought that an
> "acronimo" (and possibly an "acronym" too) can be more generally a
> *word* or even a *phrase* formed with the initial letters of other
> words. I *think* this is actually the case, but I don't have other
> dictionaries at home to check...

Certainly in English usage the distinction is between an abbreviation
such as USA or CIA which is pronounced by its initials, or such as Mr
or etc which is a generic shortening rather than necessarily initial
letters; and an acronym such as NATO or BASIC which is pronounced as a
word.  Properly speaking, an abbreviation should be written with dots
U.S.A. unless the last letter of the abbrev is the last letter of the
word (so Mr. is wrong); an acronym should have no dots, and probably
be in small caps. These are the classical rules, anyhow: as usual, the
times they are a-changin'.

This means that PERL would be an acronym.

Ben

BTW your English is at least as good as most English people's... :)

-- 
Like all men in Babylon I have been a proconsul; like all, a slave ... During
one lunar year, I have been declared invisible; I shrieked and was not heard,
I stole my bread and was not decapitated.
~ ben@morrow.me.uk ~                   Jorge Luis Borges, 'The Babylon Lottery'

Michele Dondi <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 19:26:09 +0000 (UTC), Ben Morrow
> <usenet@morrow.me.uk> wrote:
> 
> >Eh? What do powers of 5 have to do with the price of cheese? Don't you
> >mean 10^3 ~~ 2^10?
> 
> Ben, I must admit I'm a bit scared of replying to your comments,
> taking into account the kind and the number of mistakes I'm doing
> lately! However I think you'll find that the problem of finding
> approximate solutions to 5^n=2^m has *much* to do with that of finding
> approximate solutions to 10^n=2^m.

Yes, OK. I'm a mathematician, I can't do arithmetic... :)

> But is that really ISO or SI? (I *think* there's a difference between
> them, even though both have to do with "standardization".)

ISO is the body that write the standards, SI is the system of units
based on the kilogram/second/metre put forward by them.

SI => POSIX as ISO => IEEE, if that helps.

Ben

-- 
It will be seen that the Erwhonians are a meek and long-suffering people,
easily led by the nose, and quick to offer up common sense at the shrine of
logic, when a philosopher convinces them that their institutions are not based 
on the strictest morality.  [Samuel Butler, paraphrased]       ben@morrow.me.uk

Michele Dondi wrote:
> However you may find it interesting to know what my own dictionary
> says about these two terms:
> 
>   SIGLA sf. [prob. dal lat. singula littera] abbreviatura di una o
>   piu' parole per lo piu' rappresentata dalle iniziali di esse.
>   
>   ACRONIMO sm. nome formato con le lettere iniziali di altre parole.
>                ^^^^
> 
> And here you have their respective translations (modulo my limited
> linguistic skills!):
> 
>   [probably from the lating "singula littera"] abbreviation of one or
>   more words most often represented by their initials.
>   
>   Noun formed with the initial letters of other words.
>   ^^^^
> 
> Now, I underlined that detail because I've always thought that an
> "acronimo" (and possibly an "acronym" too) can be more generally a
> *word* or even a *phrase* formed with the initial letters of other
> words. I *think* this is actually the case, but I don't have other
> dictionaries at home to check...

Interesting.  In the 40 or so years since my dictionary was published, 
"sigla" seems to have shifted its meaning a little; I have only 
"initials, monogram; abbreviation".  Of course, there are far, far more 
acronyms now than there were then, thanks to computers.  (But none as 
famous as "Vittorio Emmanuele, Re D'Italia".)

I notice that the two entries you quote above label the words "sf" and 
"sm".  That suggests to me that your dictionary's editors call a noun a 
"sostantivo", not a "nome", and that "nome" in the definition of 
"acronimo" simply has its ordinary meaning of "name".

By the way, on the derivation of "sigla", I confess that I had guessed 
it to derive from Lat. "sigilium", which appears in English as "sigil". 
  But I am very ignorant in these matters.

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"

"David K. Wall" <dwall@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:Xns9482824C73591dkwwashere@216.168.3.30...
> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>
> It's not only possible that there are errors, it's certain.
>

I will take another look at the codes on that page.  I checked the .html
file with both Internet Explorer and Newscape and the I thought that the
codes looked Ok.  Perhaps some characters are not printing correctly with
certain browsers.

If correction upates to that Web page are not being posted there immediately
it is simply because of time limitations.  Also, remember that my primary
goal here is to find the best programming language to shift to for the types
of applications being considered.  That Web page is more of an afterthought.
It will eventually disappear if I do not choose Perl or if the page does not
seem to be serving any useful function.

"Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
news:x74quan0ls.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
> >>>>> "DKW" == David K Wall <dwall@fastmail.fm> writes:
>

> i was taught that it was because we didn't appease the gods and they
> were stomping around doing polkas. and that we can stop them by offering
> up perl virgins in sacrifice. i should put this up in a web page
> too. does anyone who knows how to *program* in html wanna help me?
>

Netscape has a free, downloadable Web page editor which I find works nicely.
You don't really need to understand html to create Web pages though it
helps.

"Michele Dondi" <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote in message
news:apus101fs05mppvmeccqrc5pqkqgh55rtn@4ax.com...
> On 31 Jan 2004 23:21:47 GMT, "Tassilo v. Parseval"
> <tassilo.parseval@rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
>

> Well, it is clear that the OP is *not* "yet another troll", or at

There is a very serious informal, international scientific project involved
with this.  As I have said in other posts, time limitations are controlling
what is and is not being done.  I managed to get a full day free in order to
create that Perl Web page.  And since then I have not been able to get any
large blocks of time free to do any more work on it.  At the moment there
can even be several day periods of time between the times when I can post
notes here or answer my e-mail.

"John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:DjkTb.37592$gw3.14401190@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...

> In general, Ruby runs slower than non-OO Perl, and probably always will,
> but in more advanced cases Ruby can be faster.  (My perfect-number
> generator is a lot faster in Ruby than Perl, though it's fastest in
GCLISP.)
>

I would have to check on those execution speed differences though I would
expect that they might not be important for the applications that I have in
mind.

Do you know if Ruby will generate code which can be used for CGI programs at
Web sites?  That is another feature that made Perl look attractive.

"Brad Baxter" <bmb@ginger.libs.uga.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.A41.4.58.0402021311110.21724@ginger.libs.uga.edu...
> On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, edgrsprj wrote:

> Not if you give them "codes" that are syntax errors:
>
>     open FILENAME &#8220;&gt; c:/textfile.txt&#8221;;
>

I have a third browser that I am going to have to try in order to examine
the statements on that page. Your post makes it appear that for some reason
they are not displaying correctly with certain browsers.  Perhaps they will
need to be stored there with a preformatted text format.

"Michele Dondi" <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote in message
news:neet10tpdpp5ohphoarndvivadu0mkc2qg@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 00:55:25 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>

> I would tend to disagree with your claim! I am *not* a professional
> computer programmer and once I happened to try and see if Perl may
> have been useful for my purposes, that BTW were to do some arithmetic
> computations and (on a completely unrelated basis) off-line HTML
> generation, and I found that indeed it was. Still programming in Perl
> since then...
>

I have been developing computer programs in a number of languages for quite
a few years.  And it usually does not take me too long to shift from one to
another for simple applications.  But I found it to be difficult to get
started with Perl and still have quite a bit to learn.  And my feeling is
that if I could not learn it right away with all of my programming
experience then many other people would probably have trouble.  I am not
saying that it is not a good language but only that it does not appear to be
one where you can install it and then never having seen it before just sit
down and immediately start writing simple programs which will open and close
files etc.

"Tim Hammerquist" <tim@vegeta.ath.cx> wrote in message
news:slrnc1r0ih.27d.tim@kimari.saiyix...
> edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

Thanks for all of that helpful information.

"Iain Chalmers" <bigiain@mightymedia.com.au> wrote in message
news:bigiain-39F8C2.15434703022004@news.fu-berlin.de...
> In article <qkOSb.4022$jH6.3447@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net>,
>  "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>

> Which is fine if you once knew enough c to be able to work out what you
> get there, but like you've identified, its not in the useful for "people
> around the world who are not professional computer programmers could use
> with the same ease as Basic" category...
>

The applications it is needed for are not that complex.  I myself can
already create the necessary code.  So once things get past a certain point
it might work fine.  Right now I need to determine how well Perl, Python,
Ruby, or some other language can do with controlling Windows screens.  On my
PC I already have Perl controlling Windows screens by having it send
instructions to a simple Windows control program through the Windows
clipboard.  And it works.  But it is slow.  And I would rather have Perl or
whatever do all of those Windows screen operations itself.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 2004-02-04, edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> "David K. Wall" <dwall@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
> news:Xns9482824C73591dkwwashere@216.168.3.30...
>> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>> It's not only possible that there are errors, it's certain.
>
> I will take another look at the codes on that page.  I checked the .html

David was not just referring to the html, but to your Perl code and
explanations, a significant amount of which is also either wrong or
extremely bad.  He even quoted a few examples--did you fix those yet?

- --keith

- -- 
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/cgi-bin/fom

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAISh2hVcNCxZ5ID8RAlZiAJ9gI6V33iI/IJJ7bR2ltfxZTFiLFgCeLmHB
qgaQt4MsciEg0+HLnbttcEY=
=5HXg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

edgrsprj wrote:

> I have been developing computer programs in a number of languages for quite
> a few years.  And it usually does not take me too long to shift from one to
> another for simple applications.  But I found it to be difficult to get
> started with Perl and still have quite a bit to learn.

Has anyone suggested the llama book? That might be the fastest way to 
learn the language. Some might argue that with your background in 
programing that the llama book is a bit slow, but I have been 
programming in higher level languages for years, and I found the llama 
book useful as I started using Perl.

"Michele Dondi" <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote in message
news:9unu10d236pg8sfi86jpmg5p3rvn64q4di@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 13:45:58 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
> wrote:
>

Michele, here is what that Web page says or is intended to say:

If you have never used Perl and want to write a simple program which will
read two numbers from the keyboard, multiply them together, and store the
results in a file then do "this, this, and that."  And when you are done the
numbers you want should be present in that file.

It explains where to find the original download Perl file and the location
of some helpful Web sites etc.

It is presently intended to a large extent just to provide people with
enough information that they can write a simple program and get it running
without having to spend weeks reading through the documentation.  The codes
on the page are not meant to be perfect.  They are simply ones which will
work for someone who just wants to see if he or she can write a Perl program
which will let him or her add or subtract two numbers etc.

From what I can tell, so far just a relatively few people have looked at
that Web page.  And I would guess that most of them were probably
experienced Perl users who are not about to change the way they write
programs based on the information on that page.

I have been making extensive use of the available .html documentation files.
However I found that quite often there would be helpful information in some
file which you would not be able to find by just following the links.  If
you do a Windows search for a particular word or group of words then you can
find all of those references and check them individually.

Most of the people with whom I am talking are using the Windows program as
am I.  So I am trying to organize things so that as many people as possible
will be able to understand the material.

And finally, as I have been saying, that Web page will probably remain there
only if it appears that it is going to be helpful to people.  It is largely
experimental at the moment.  At this point no decision has been made on its
future.

>>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:

  e> "Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
  e> news:x74quan0ls.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
  >> >>>>> "DKW" == David K Wall <dwall@fastmail.fm> writes:
  >> 

  >> i was taught that it was because we didn't appease the gods and they
  >> were stomping around doing polkas. and that we can stop them by offering
  >> up perl virgins in sacrifice. i should put this up in a web page
  >> too. does anyone who knows how to *program* in html wanna help me?
  >> 

  e> Netscape has a free, downloadable Web page editor which I find
  e> works nicely.  You don't really need to understand html to create
  e> Web pages though it helps.

OY!!!!

you are so clueless, that i don't want to be in any area where you are
doing earthquake research. have you sacrificed a perl virgin yet or are
you still alive?

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

"Keith Keller" <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote in message
news:o99rvb.5ro.ln@goaway.wombat.san-francisco.ca.us...

>
> David was not just referring to the html, but to your Perl code and
> explanations, a significant amount of which is also either wrong or
> extremely bad.  He even quoted a few examples--did you fix those yet?
>

I have made a few corrections to that Web page.  Checks for others will have
to wait until I can get some more time free.

As I have been saying, it is an experimental Web page at the moment.  If I
decide to use another language, if it does not look like it is going to be
helpful, or if it is too much trouble to maintain it will probably
disappear.

"Scott Bryce" <sbryce@scottbryce.com> wrote in message
news:1022abns6vvor8d@corp.supernews.com...
> edgrsprj wrote:
>

Thanks for the information.  The main thing that I want to do right now in
order to make a decision regarding whether to use Perl or some other
language is to determine how well it can control Windows program screen
operations.  If it is too difficult I will probably try to find some other
language to use.

"Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
news:x7y8ri4txs.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
> >>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>

> you are so clueless, that i don't want to be in any area where you are

Your original post was fairly clear.  I was just trying to be nice.

>>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:

  e> "Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
  e> news:x7y8ri4txs.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
  >> >>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:
  >> 

  >> you are so clueless, that i don't want to be in any area where you are

  e> Your original post was fairly clear.  I was just trying to be nice.

telling me about html editors is being foolish and not nice. not
detecting sarcasm is not nice either.

you just don't get it. teaching anything to any group is hard. teaching
programming to non-programmers can be very hard. your skills in perl and
teaching are non-existant and it shows. i can't imagine anyone getting
any value from your site. just getting the free beginning perl or a
quality free tutorial (a couple exist) would do more for any perl
newbie. just point your earthquake people to those resources and drop
your silly site already.

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the information.  The main thing that I want to do right now in
> order to make a decision regarding whether to use Perl or some other
> language is to determine how well it can control Windows program screen
> operations.  If it is too difficult I will probably try to find some other
> language to use.

You have had this answer: it can be done but it is difficult. You
would be better off using VBscript and cscript.exe. Now go away.

Ben

-- 
"The Earth is degenerating these days. Bribery and corruption abound.
Children no longer mind their parents, every man wants to write a book,
and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching."
     -Assyrian stone tablet, c.2800 BC                         ben@morrow.me.uk

On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 19:26:09 +0000 (UTC), Ben Morrow
<usenet@morrow.me.uk> wrote:

>> A Megabyte is not a *million* bytes. This mathematically boils down to
>> the fact that the equation 5^n=2^m doesn't have a solution in integers
>> (>0) and that computers tend to privilege powers of two. But n=3, m=7
>> is quite a good approximation and a "better" one , for a precise
>> definition of "better", involves considerably larger numbers.
>
>Eh? What do powers of 5 have to do with the price of cheese? Don't you
>mean 10^3 ~~ 2^10?

Ben, I must admit I'm a bit scared of replying to your comments,
taking into account the kind and the number of mistakes I'm doing
lately! However I think you'll find that the problem of finding
approximate solutions to 5^n=2^m has *much* to do with that of finding
approximate solutions to 10^n=2^m.

>And, just to be pedantic, ISO call a million bytes a megabyte (MB),
>and 1024^2 bytes a megibyte (MiB), for the sake of consistency with
>the rest of the ISO system.

I had heard that, probably in a post similar to this one. And I must
say it does make sense, but it is a matter of a fact that most people
*and programs* think that e.g. a megabyte is 1024^2.

But is that really ISO or SI? (I *think* there's a difference between
them, even though both have to do with "standardization".)

Please note, BTW that the manpage for du (but also df, ls, etc.) both
*slightly* supports my first claim and shows a relevant choice for the
name of a switch related to these issues:

       -h, --human-readable
              print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)

       -H, --si
              likewise, but use powers of 1000 not 1024


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 15:40:25 GMT, "John W. Kennedy"
<jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:

>> BTW: just to be fussy as much as possible, I *think* that (also in
>> English) the correct term should be "abbreviation" and not "acronym"
>> (it is definitely so in Italian, where one finds a sharp distinction
>> between "acronimo" and "sigla"), but in fact one most often finds
>> "acronym" in that acceptation...
>
>No, "acronym" is correct in English if it makes a pronouncable word. 

OK, I'll take your word for that!

>I'm afraid my Italian dictionaries don't even list "acronimo", so I 
>can't speak to that (of course, I have them more for Arrigo Boito than 
>for computers).  But "sigla" would certainly be wrong.

Huh?!? Why do you say that? Did you consider the fact that if I
mentioned Italian, there may have been a good reason for that? Like...
it being my native language, for example! And even if I'm not an
"Accademico della Crusca" (*please* don't ask me to translate that in
English!), I'm quite sure I know what (one of) the (two) common
acceptation(s) of "sigla" is.

However you may find it interesting to know what my own dictionary
says about these two terms:

  SIGLA sf. [prob. dal lat. singula littera] abbreviatura di una o
  piu' parole per lo piu' rappresentata dalle iniziali di esse.
  
  ACRONIMO sm. nome formato con le lettere iniziali di altre parole.
               ^^^^

And here you have their respective translations (modulo my limited
linguistic skills!):

  [probably from the lating "singula littera"] abbreviation of one or
  more words most often represented by their initials.
  
  Noun formed with the initial letters of other words.
  ^^^^

Now, I underlined that detail because I've always thought that an
"acronimo" (and possibly an "acronym" too) can be more generally a
*word* or even a *phrase* formed with the initial letters of other
words. I *think* this is actually the case, but I don't have other
dictionaries at home to check...


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

edgrsprj wrote:

> I have made a few corrections to that Web page.  Checks for others will have
> to wait until I can get some more time free.

You haven't fixed the error in 'print localtime'.  The year is three
digits, not two, and the month is a number from 0 to 11, not 01 to 12.
	-Joe

edgrsprj wrote:

> "Brad Baxter" <bmb@ginger.libs.uga.edu> wrote in message
> news:Pine.A41.4.58.0402021311110.21724@ginger.libs.uga.edu...
> 
>>On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, edgrsprj wrote:
> 
> 
>>Not if you give them "codes" that are syntax errors:
>>
>>    open FILENAME &#8220;&gt; c:/textfile.txt&#8221;;
>>
> 
> 
> I have a third browser that I am going to have to try in order to examine
> the statements on that page. Your post makes it appear that for some reason
> they are not displaying correctly with certain browsers.  Perhaps they will
> need to be stored there with a preformatted text format.

It's not a problem with any browser.  It's your source code.

1: open FILENAME �> c:\textfile.txt�;  # �smart quotes�
2: open FILENAME "> c:/textfile.txt";  # "double quotes" forward slash

Any code you post needs to be formatted such that the quote marks
are vertical, not slanted left and right like line 1 above.
	-Joe

"Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
news:x7ptcu4qud.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
> >>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:
newbie. just point your earthquake people to those resources and drop
> your silly site already.

Something will likely happen sooner or later.

>>>>> "JS" == Joe Smith <Joe.Smith@inwap.com> writes:

  JS> edgrsprj wrote:
  >> I have made a few corrections to that Web page.  Checks for others will have
  >> to wait until I can get some more time free.

  JS> You haven't fixed the error in 'print localtime'.  The year is three
  JS> digits, not two, and the month is a number from 0 to 11, not 01 to 12.

the year is not 3 digits nor 2 digits. it is the year - 1900.

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

Iain Chalmers <bigiain@mightymedia.com.au> wrote in message news:

> "Perl makes a lousy first programming language, thats because its 
> designed to be the *last* programming language you ever need to learn."

<snip>

Iain, I am one of the few who agrees with you I guess. The Perl docs
often have terrible form.

Exhibit A: "sprintf" which you used:

"Returns a string formatted by the usual printf conventions of the C
library function sprintf. See sprintf(3) or printf(3) on your system
for an explanation of the general principles.

Perl does its own sprintf formatting--it emulates the C function
sprintf, but it doesn't use it (except for floating-point numbers, and
even then only the standard modifiers are allowed). As a result, any
non-standard extensions in your local sprintf are not available from
Perl.

Perl's sprintf permits the following universally-known conversions:"

Three paragraphs go by and I still don't know WTF this thing does,
except that it somehow returns a string. All technical writing needs
to start with a summary sentence covering what we are going to talk
about and why. Ben made the point that the stuff is explained further
down in detail and this is certainly true. However, even as a
experienced programmer I want to be able to read in the first sentence
what this function is used for. There is no excuse for not having a
summary sentence at the very beginning, such as "This function takes a
format string and a list as scalars. It's return value is a string
where the parts of the format string such as the %d are replaced by
arguements from the list of scalars." Ok, I know that's a crappy
sentence but at least it tells the reader what is happening and what
to expect. The official version has the person guessing and looking up
other docs rather than telling them right off the bat if that is the
function they are looking for.

Exhibit B: "exit"

"Evaluates EXPR and exits immediately with that value. Example:"

It uses the same word to define itself. Does anyone else have a
problem with this? What if you found this in the dictionary:

Exit: v. To exit something.

Also it exits what? Exits a loop? Exits the program? Exits a block?
Exits what? How about "Evaluates EXPR and terminates the process
immediately returning EXPR's value to the calling process." At least
this way I know from the first sentence what this is used for.

These are examples only, written to show what type of information
should be in the first sentence of every page of documentation. I am
not claiming that these are technically correct. All I ask for is a
one sentence overview of what arguments it takes, what it does with
those arguements and what it returns. That way if I am searching
through functions trying to see if it is the one I want to use I don't
need to read 2 pages of docs to learn that it won't do what I want.

-Greg

G Klinedinst wrote:
> Iain Chalmers <bigiain@mightymedia.com.au> wrote in message news:
>> "Perl makes a lousy first programming language, thats because its
>>  designed to be the *last* programming language you ever need to
>> learn."
> 
> Iain, I am one of the few who agrees with you I guess. The Perl
> docs often have terrible form.

I agree as well. The documentation occationally introduces the nature
of functions etc. very poorly, which the examples posted by Iain and
Greg illustrate.

Perl is my first (and so far only) programming language, and with a
better documentation it would certainly have taken less time to learn
some things.

This isn't the first time this issue is brought up. One reason why
nothing is changed may be that the most skilled and dedicated Perl
programmers don't see the shortcomings, since the nature of those
functions and other features has been natural to them since long.

Maybe a beginner should be engaged to proof read and suggest changes
to the docs? ;-)

-- 
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl

edgrsprj <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> Do you know if Ruby will generate code which can be used for CGI programs at
> Web sites?  


Why ask Perl people about what Ruby can do?

Don't you think you might get a better answer from Ruby people?


Please don't ask Ruby questions in the Perl newsgroup, 
ask Ruby questions in the Ruby newsgroup:

   comp.lang.ruby


-- 
    Tad McClellan                          SGML consulting
    tadmc@augustmail.com                   Perl programming
    Fort Worth, Texas

Scott Bryce <sbryce@scottbryce.com> wrote:
> edgrsprj wrote:
> 
>> I have been developing computer programs in a number of languages for quite
>> a few years.


You've managed to miss a lot along the way then.


> Has anyone suggested the llama book? 


The Llama book is for programmers, edgrsprj is not a programmer,
despite any claims to the contrary.

A Real Programmer would not blame the language for OS features
as edgrsprj does:

   print "Text message\n";
   print 'Text message',"\n";

   Both of those commands produce the same result.  They cause 
   the string "Text message" to immediately print.  If the \n is 
   not present the Perl program will wait until it is done with 
   all of its calculations etc. before it prints anything.


If you make that same output in Python or Ruby you'd get the
same behavior (due to output buffering), so it cannot be
the languages "fault".

It is not the "Perl program" that waits, it is the "terminal"
(aka the OS) that waits.


-- 
    Tad McClellan                          SGML consulting
    tadmc@augustmail.com                   Perl programming
    Fort Worth, Texas

Also sprach Gunnar Hjalmarsson:

> I agree as well. The documentation occationally introduces the nature
> of functions etc. very poorly, which the examples posted by Iain and
> Greg illustrate.
> 
> Perl is my first (and so far only) programming language, and with a
> better documentation it would certainly have taken less time to learn
> some things.
> 
> This isn't the first time this issue is brought up. One reason why
> nothing is changed may be that the most skilled and dedicated Perl
> programmers don't see the shortcomings, since the nature of those
> functions and other features has been natural to them since long.
> 
> Maybe a beginner should be engaged to proof read and suggest changes
> to the docs? ;-)

In the past, there were often complains about the perldocs on the
porters-list. The reason why not so many things change is that those
complaining weren't the ones providing patches. 

It's a question of priority. There aren't so many people that can work
on the core of perl. It would be a waste of ressources if those people
additionally had to spend excessive time on the perldocs. Doc-patches
can also be provided by all those people who are solid Perl programmers
but don't understand the perlguts. Those who do are rare enough.

Tassilo
-- 
$_=q#",}])!JAPH!qq(tsuJ[{@"tnirp}3..0}_$;//::niam/s~=)]3[))_$-3(rellac(=_$({
pam{rekcahbus})(rekcah{lrePbus})(lreP{rehtonabus})!JAPH!qq(rehtona{tsuJbus#;
$_=reverse,s+(?<=sub).+q#q!'"qq.\t$&."'!#+sexisexiixesixeseg;y~\n~~dddd;eval

"David K. Wall" <dwall@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:Xns9482824C73591dkwwashere@216.168.3.30...
> "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>
> *  There's code there that uses open() without a comma after the
> filehandle, which will not compile.
>

I changed some of the code on the page.  I still suspect that parts of it
might just look different with other browsers.  I will check further on
that.

I am guessing that you are referring to that open statement in the section
of code I listed for an optional way to open files.  I have tried it a
number of time and it appears to work without the comma.  I suspect that
this is because there is no file address included in the statement.

edgrsprj wrote:
> Do you know if Ruby will generate code which can be used for CGI programs at
> Web sites?  That is another feature that made Perl look attractive.

Ruby has, in its standard distribution, a CGI package that is similar, 
on the whole, to the PERL CGI package.  If you are building your own 
server, either one will work.

Note, however, that many website-hosting services (e.g., Tripod), 
support _only_ Perl (and Tripod supports only an obsolete and badly 
broken version of Perl at that).

-- 
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
   -- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"

Tassilo v. Parseval wrote:
> Also sprach Gunnar Hjalmarsson:
>> One reason why nothing is changed may be that the most skilled
>> and dedicated Perl programmers don't see the shortcomings, since
>> the nature of those functions and other features has been natural
>> to them since long.
>> 
>> Maybe a beginner should be engaged to proof read and suggest
>> changes to the docs? ;-)
> 
> In the past, there were often complains about the perldocs on the 
> porters-list. The reason why not so many things change is that
> those complaining weren't the ones providing patches.

I'm not surprised. :(

> It's a question of priority. There aren't so many people that can
> work on the core of perl. It would be a waste of ressources if
> those people additionally had to spend excessive time on the
> perldocs.

Would it, really? Shouldn't the docs be given high priority? After
all, the value of new and/or sophisticated features is limited if they
are understood by just a few...

> Doc-patches can also be provided by all those people who are solid
> Perl programmers but don't understand the perlguts. Those who do
> are rare enough.

Would it be that impossible to involve not so solid programmers? I'm
not suggesting that beginners should write docs *independently*, but
giving a few of the more dedicated beginners an opportunity to give
their *input* might add value.

-- 
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl

"Joe Smith" <Joe.Smith@inwap.com> wrote in message
news:MDdUb.173729$Rc4.1316159@attbi_s54...
> edgrsprj wrote:
>

> It's not a problem with any browser.  It's your source code.
>
> 1: open FILENAME �> c:\textfile.txt�;  # �smart quotes�
> 2: open FILENAME "> c:/textfile.txt";  # "double quotes" forward slash
>
> Any code you post needs to be formatted such that the quote marks
> are vertical, not slanted left and right like line 1 above.
> -Joe

Now I see what you mean.  I will have to check on how my word processor is
generating those quotes.  There is probably some way to ensure that they all
look the same.

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> "David K. Wall" <dwall@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
> news:Xns9482824C73591dkwwashere@216.168.3.30...
> >
> > *  There's code there that uses open() without a comma after the
> > filehandle, which will not compile.
> >
> 
> I changed some of the code on the page.  I still suspect that parts of it
> might just look different with other browsers.  I will check further on
> that.

No matter what browser you use, it'll still be WRONG. localtime DOES
NOT RETURN ONE LONG NUMBER.

> I am guessing that you are referring to that open statement in the section
> of code I listed for an optional way to open files.  I have tried it a
> number of time and it appears to work without the comma.  I suspect that
> this is because there is no file address included in the statement.

Oh, for God's sake! Earnest misunderstanding I can cope with,
stupidity I can cope with, complete lack of sense of humour I can cope
with, but lying I cannot.

*PLONK*

Ben

-- 
               We do not stop playing because we grow old; 
                  we grow old because we stop playing.
                            ben@morrow.me.uk

Gunnar Hjalmarsson <noreply@gunnar.cc> wrote:
> Tassilo v. Parseval wrote:
> > It's a question of priority. There aren't so many people that can
> > work on the core of perl. It would be a waste of ressources if
> > those people additionally had to spend excessive time on the
> > perldocs.
> 
> Would it, really? Shouldn't the docs be given high priority? After
> all, the value of new and/or sophisticated features is limited if they
> are understood by just a few...

The docs are perfectly *comprehensible*, indeed comprehensive. They
are just not very friendly: if you know nothing, and in particular
with some of the older docs if you know no C, you have to work quite
hard to figure out what's going on. Or buy a book, of course.

> > Doc-patches can also be provided by all those people who are solid
> > Perl programmers but don't understand the perlguts. Those who do
> > are rare enough.
> 
> Would it be that impossible to involve not so solid programmers? I'm
> not suggesting that beginners should write docs *independently*, but
> giving a few of the more dedicated beginners an opportunity to give
> their *input* might add value.

The standard response at this point is that if you wish to submit a
patch to the docs I'm sure it will be well received. If you are not so
confident of your ability to write clearly enough, post here for
criticism. It's much easier to improve a piece of text someone else
has written than to write one yourself.

Ben

-- 
$.=1;*g=sub{print@_};sub r($$\$){my($w,$x,$y)=@_;for(keys%$x){/main/&&next;*p=$
$x{$_};/(\w)::$/&&(r($w.$1,$x.$_,$y),next);$y eq\$p&&&g("$w$_")}};sub t{for(@_)
{$f&&($_||&g(" "));$f=1;r"","::",$_;$_&&&g(chr(0012))}};t    # ben@morrow.me.uk
$J::u::s::t, $a::n::o::t::h::e::r, $P::e::r::l, $h::a::c::k::e::r, $.

In article <168f035a.0402041403.7effb0bc@posting.google.com>,
 g_klinedinst@hotmail.com (G Klinedinst) wrote:

> Iain Chalmers <bigiain@mightymedia.com.au> wrote in message news:
> 
> > "Perl makes a lousy first programming language, thats because its 
> > designed to be the *last* programming language you ever need to learn."
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Iain, I am one of the few who agrees with you I guess. The Perl docs
> often have terrible form.
> 

Err, let me clarify, I think they have "terrible form" for _some_ of the 
target audience. 

I think they are probably close to optimally worded for *nix using 
programmers at least familiar with C and the "unix way" of doing things. 
Those poeple are _perfectly_ happy with doco that says "foo emulates the 
C function foo. See foo(3) for details".

There's also _mountains_ of perl doco that _isn't_ like this (lwpcook, 
perlreftut, and perlboot spring to mind), *but* I can easily understand 
why some people don't understand lots of perlfunc if they don't have any 
*nix/c background at all.

big

-- 
'When I first met Katho, she had a meat cleaver in one hand and
half a sheep in the other. "Come in", she says, "Hammo's not here.
I hope you like meat.' Sharkey in aus.moto

In article <c39Ub.10288$GO6.9784@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>,
 "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> "Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
> news:x74quan0ls.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
> > >>>>> "DKW" == David K Wall <dwall@fastmail.fm> writes:
> >
> 
> > i was taught that it was because we didn't appease the gods and they
> > were stomping around doing polkas. and that we can stop them by offering
> > up perl virgins in sacrifice. i should put this up in a web page
> > too. does anyone who knows how to *program* in html wanna help me?
> >
> 
> Netscape has a free, downloadable Web page editor which I find works nicely.
> You don't really need to understand html to create Web pages though it
> helps.

perldoc perlnewsgroupsarcasm

ISAGN...

big

-- 
'When I first met Katho, she had a meat cleaver in one hand and
half a sheep in the other. "Come in", she says, "Hammo's not here.
I hope you like meat.' Sharkey in aus.moto

Ben Morrow wrote:
> Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
>> Tassilo v. Parseval wrote:
> 
> The docs are perfectly *comprehensible*, indeed comprehensive. They
> are just not very friendly: if you know nothing, and in particular
> with some of the older docs if you know no C, you have to work
> quite hard to figure out what's going on.

And what a few of us are trying to say is that that is not very good.

>>> Doc-patches can also be provided by all those people who are
>>> solid Perl programmers but don't understand the perlguts. Those
>>> who do are rare enough.
>> 
>> Would it be that impossible to involve not so solid programmers?
>> I'm not suggesting that beginners should write docs
>> *independently*, but giving a few of the more dedicated beginners
>> an opportunity to give their *input* might add value.
> 
> The standard response at this point is that if you wish to submit a
> patch to the docs I'm sure it will be well received. If you are
> not so confident of your ability to write clearly enough, post here
> for criticism. It's much easier to improve a piece of text someone
> else has written than to write one yourself.

Standard response, indeed, that did not actually address my point. ;-)

Personally I may try to contribute to the docs some day when I feel
confident enough.

-- 
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl

Gunnar Hjalmarsson <noreply@gunnar.cc> wrote:
> Ben Morrow wrote:
> > 
> > The docs are perfectly *comprehensible*, indeed comprehensive. They
> > are just not very friendly: if you know nothing, and in particular
> > with some of the older docs if you know no C, you have to work
> > quite hard to figure out what's going on.
> 
> And what a few of us are trying to say is that that is not very
> good.

Fine. Fix it, then. Personally, I like the docs how they are; if you
want them to be different, rewrite them.

> >> Would it be that impossible to involve not so solid programmers?
> >> I'm not suggesting that beginners should write docs
> >> *independently*, but giving a few of the more dedicated beginners
> >> an opportunity to give their *input* might add value.
> > 
> > The standard response at this point is that if you wish to submit a
> > patch to the docs I'm sure it will be well received. If you are
> > not so confident of your ability to write clearly enough, post here
> > for criticism. It's much easier to improve a piece of text someone
> > else has written than to write one yourself.
> 
> Standard response, indeed, that did not actually address my
> point. ;-)

Umm... did it not? I'm not sure whether you class yourself as a
'dedicated beginner' or not, but if you do then feel free to put
forward suggestions for specific changes, and if you don't then go ask
some beginners for suggestions and put forward a collation. In either
case we have input from the beginners to the docs, which is what you
want.

Perl is the product of a community. Something will only get done if
someone either needs it to be done so they can use it or feels
sufficiently strongly that it ought to be done that they do it out of
the goodness of their heart.

> Personally I may try to contribute to the docs some day when I feel
> confident enough.

If confidence is the only thing stopping you then I would say your
grasp of both Perl and English is quite sufficient to write a decent
explanation of sprintf.

Ben

-- 
  Joy and Woe are woven fine,
  A Clothing for the Soul divine       William Blake
  Under every grief and pine          'Auguries of Innocence'
  Runs a joy with silken twine.                                ben@morrow.me.uk

>>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:

  e> Now I see what you mean.  I will have to check on how my word
  e> processor is generating those quotes.  There is probably some way
  e> to ensure that they all look the same.

simple. don't use a word processor to edit code. use a text
editor. people who use word to edit code are stupid twice over.

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

>>>>> "TM" == Tad McClellan <tadmc@augustmail.com> writes:

  TM> It is not the "Perl program" that waits, it is the "terminal"
  TM> (aka the OS) that waits.

actually it is the stdio library that is waiting. it doesn't flush until
it sees a \n when you are in normal line buffered mode. and in modern
perl's that is done (emulated) in PerlIO so it is in perl. now
regardless of who deals with the line buffering, our earthquaking troll
is clueless and won't learn or listen. but he is much more fun than the
japanese monster who must not be named. long break this time and i hope
it continues.

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

"edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:vz9Ub.10340$GO6.10298@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
> I have been developing computer programs in a number of languages for
quite
> a few years.

There's a frightening thought. Do you stick to one language at a time, or do
you just mash them all together in your code and hope for the best?

> And it usually does not take me too long to shift from one to
> another for simple applications.

Most people have the ability to not understand a language in very little
time. How does that make you special?

> But I found it to be difficult to get
> started with Perl and still have quite a bit to learn.

print 'Who is the bigger fool: the fool or the fool who follows him?';

You have a Perl program in that line, Obi Wan. If you think it's hard to get
started in Perl, you definitely have no programming experience.

> And my feeling is
> that if I could not learn it right away with all of my programming
> experience then many other people would probably have trouble.

And so you're going to guide them to the light by proving how little you
were able to understand? Are you oblivious to the illogic that permeates
your writing?

> I am not
> saying that it is not a good language but only that it does not appear to
be
> one where you can install it and then never having seen it before just sit
> down and immediately start writing simple programs which will open and
close
> files etc.
>

And what would be a simpler language, in your worldly experience?

Never mind, on second thought. How about instead you just do everyone here a
favour and STFU already!

Matt

"Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
news:x7ptcu2qe0.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
> >>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>
>   e> Now I see what you mean.  I will have to check on how my word
>   e> processor is generating those quotes.  There is probably some way
>   e> to ensure that they all look the same.
>
> simple. don't use a word processor to edit code. use a text
> editor. people who use word to edit code are stupid twice over.
>

If you've got an easier way to get a binary from your code than by using
Word I'd like to hear it. Sometimes I wonder what you're smoking...

Matt

>>>>> "MG" == Matt Garrish <matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> writes:

  MG> "Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
  MG> news:x7ptcu2qe0.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
  >> >>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:
  >> 
  e> Now I see what you mean.  I will have to check on how my word
  e> processor is generating those quotes.  There is probably some way
  e> to ensure that they all look the same.
  >> 
  >> simple. don't use a word processor to edit code. use a text
  >> editor. people who use word to edit code are stupid twice over.
  >> 

  MG> If you've got an easier way to get a binary from your code than by
  MG> using Word I'd like to hear it.

what in the world does that mean? we are talking about editing code
which is text.
>>>>> "MG" == Matt Garrish <matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> writes:


  MG>  Sometimes I wonder what you're smoking...

wanna buy some?

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

"John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:gDfUb.11416$%93.3170759@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
>
> Ruby has, in its standard distribution, a CGI package that is similar,
> on the whole, to the PERL CGI package.  If you are building your own
> server, either one will work.
>

Thanks for the information.

"Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
news:x7ptcu2qe0.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
> >>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:

> simple. don't use a word processor to edit code. use a text
> editor. people who use word to edit code are stupid twice over.

The actual html pages are being created and edited with the Netscape Web
page Composer.  As I said, I need to take a look at how the text are being
managed.

"Tad McClellan" <tadmc@augustmail.com> wrote in message
news:slrnc22u7m.20g.tadmc@magna.augustmail.com...
> Scott Bryce <sbryce@scottbryce.com> wrote:
> > edgrsprj wrote:

> A Real Programmer would not blame the language for OS features
> as edgrsprj does:
>

I am not blaming Perl for anything.  My code examples simply say to people
who are not experts, if you do "this" then the result will be "that."  It
can save people some guessing and experimenting time.  Also I am having
discussions with someone else regarding how to do all of this in a more
accurate and acceptable way.  If there is some success with that then my Web
page will probably disappear.  It might anyway.

>>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:

  e> I am not blaming Perl for anything.  My code examples simply say to
  e> people who are not experts, if you do "this" then the result will
  e> be "that."  It can save people some guessing and experimenting
  e> time.  Also I am having discussions with someone else regarding how

huh? giving wrong information helps people from guessing? your comments
on how printing works is beyond clueless. they have nothing to do with
the reality of the underlying reasons. it is like saying stuff gets
printed or not based on the phase of the moon.

  e> to do all of this in a more accurate and acceptable way.  If there
  e> is some success with that then my Web page will probably disappear.

random text will be more accurate than your stuff. try to get it. you
don't know perl so how can you possibly try to teach it?

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

edgrsprj wrote:

> "Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
> news:x7ptcu2qe0.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
> 
>>>>>>>"e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>simple. don't use a word processor to edit code. use a text
>>editor. people who use word to edit code are stupid twice over.
> 
> 
> The actual html pages are being created and edited with the Netscape Web
> page Composer.  As I said, I need to take a look at how the text are being
> managed.

Real programmers use EDIT or vi or emacs or TECO.    :-)
	-Joe

>>>>> "JS" == Joe Smith <Joe.Smith@inwap.com> writes:

  JS> edgrsprj wrote:
  >> "Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
  >> news:x7ptcu2qe0.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
  >> 
  >>>>>>>> "e" == edgrsprj  <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com> writes:
  >> 
  >>> simple. don't use a word processor to edit code. use a text
  >>> editor. people who use word to edit code are stupid twice over.
  >> The actual html pages are being created and edited with the Netscape
  >> Web
  >> page Composer.  As I said, I need to take a look at how the text are being
  >> managed.

  JS> Real programmers use EDIT or vi or emacs or TECO.    :-)

ever do teco on a la-50?

and teco was a major step up from punch cards!

no clay tablet jokes, please. 

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

Also sprach Gunnar Hjalmarsson:

> Tassilo v. Parseval wrote:

>> It's a question of priority. There aren't so many people that can
>> work on the core of perl. It would be a waste of ressources if
>> those people additionally had to spend excessive time on the
>> perldocs.
> 
> Would it, really? Shouldn't the docs be given high priority? After
> all, the value of new and/or sophisticated features is limited if they
> are understood by just a few...

Higher priority than bugfixes and fixing security holes such as the
hashing exploit that was fixed in 5.8.1? I don't think so. It's not that
there are only a handful people around the world who can program Perl.
There are many places where a beginner can get the help he needs such as
this group or beginners@perl.org. 

>> Doc-patches can also be provided by all those people who are solid
>> Perl programmers but don't understand the perlguts. Those who do
>> are rare enough.
> 
> Would it be that impossible to involve not so solid programmers? I'm
> not suggesting that beginners should write docs *independently*, but
> giving a few of the more dedicated beginners an opportunity to give
> their *input* might add value.

That is already how it is. perlpatch.pod explains in lengthy details how
to create and submit patches. You don't have to be registered or
anything to contribute to Perl. Just create a patch and send it to
perl5-porters@perl.org. The patch will then be discussed or, this is my
experience, very often just applied without further discussion. Let me
quote Nicholas Clark, the current pumpking for 5.8.2 - 5.8.x:

    Calling all happy passive readers of perl5-porters - submit a patch,
    get your name into the AUTHORS file: fame, immortality and more
    spam.

The development of Perl5 happens in a most informal way really and is
open to anyone. It's not a closed circle.

Tassilo
-- 
$_=q#",}])!JAPH!qq(tsuJ[{@"tnirp}3..0}_$;//::niam/s~=)]3[))_$-3(rellac(=_$({
pam{rekcahbus})(rekcah{lrePbus})(lreP{rehtonabus})!JAPH!qq(rehtona{tsuJbus#;
$_=reverse,s+(?<=sub).+q#q!'"qq.\t$&."'!#+sexisexiixesixeseg;y~\n~~dddd;eval

>>>>> "MD" == Michele Dondi <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> writes:

  MD> On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 16:26:48 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
  MD> wrote:

  >>> i was taught that it was because we didn't appease the gods and they
  >>> were stomping around doing polkas. and that we can stop them by offering
  >>> up perl virgins in sacrifice. i should put this up in a web page
  >>> too. does anyone who knows how to *program* in html wanna help me?
  >>> 
  >> 
  >> Netscape has a free, downloadable Web page editor which I find works nicely.
  >> You don't really need to understand html to create Web pages though it
  >> helps.

  MD> 4 words: it-was-a-joke!

4 words: he-has-no-clue!!

uri

-- 
Uri Guttman  ------  uri@stemsystems.com  -------- http://www.stemsystems.com
--Perl Consulting, Stem Development, Systems Architecture, Design and Coding-
Search or Offer Perl Jobs  ----------------------------  http://jobs.perl.org

"Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
news:x7u12615n5.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
> >>>>> "MG" == Matt Garrish <matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> writes:
>
>   MG> "Uri Guttman" <uri@stemsystems.com> wrote in message
>   MG> news:x7ptcu2qe0.fsf@mail.sysarch.com...
>   >>
>   >> simple. don't use a word processor to edit code. use a text
>   >> editor. people who use word to edit code are stupid twice over.
>   >>
>
>   MG> If you've got an easier way to get a binary from your code than by
>   MG> using Word I'd like to hear it.
>
> what in the world does that mean? we are talking about editing code
> which is text.
>

Stupid people => Word => doc => binary == compiled code. I thought everyone
knew that's how it works...

Matt

edgrsprj wrote:

> discussions with someone else regarding how to do all of this in a more
> accurate and acceptable way.

My own $.02:

Think about this. Your knowledge of Perl (such as it is) did not come from a
vacuum. You had to have gotten it from a web site, man page, or some other
resource that was comprehensible to a beginner at your current level.

What reason do you have for thinking others couldn't benefit from the same
source? I think you're not giving your fellow researchers enough credit.
Don't you think you could better serve your community with a list of links
to resources you found useful, rather than with a badly-written summary of
them?

sherm--

On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 15:43:47 +1100, Iain Chalmers
<bigiain@mightymedia.com.au> wrote:

>mention, it has documentation containing things like this:
          ^^

[Perl, that is]

>>perldoc -f sprintf
>
>       sprintf FORMAT, LIST
>               Returns a string formatted by the usual `printf'
>               conventions of the C library function `sprintf'.
>               See sprintf(3) or printf(3) on your system for an
>               explanation of the general principles.
[snip]
>Which is fine if you once knew enough c to be able to work out what you 
>get there, but like you've identified, its not in the useful for "people 
>around the world who are not professional computer programmers could use 
>with the same ease as Basic" category...

I disagree, for one. I am not a professional computer programmer. I've
been programming in C/C++, as an amateur. But that was over 10 year
ago and I hardly remember anything about it!

When I started programming in Perl I didn't knew anything about
printf() formats any more. Now I'm still definitely at a pre-expertise
level in Perl, but when I first *needed* to use sprintf() I checked
the documentation and had no problem finding the relevant pieces of
info.

So either I have a higher intelligence, which is not the case, I
assure you! or your claim is plainly unsupported by facts.

>(note, the perldoc -f sprintf doco actually does go on a lot more than 
>just the bit I quoted up there, but I think my arguement holds - in that 

Should you have carefully checked the "lot more" you could have
verified yourself that you think it wrong!

>I suspect a complete programming beginner is going to be completely 
>mystified by everything it provides, its clearly written for a 
>non-newbie audience. Perhaps intentionally - maybe the doco 

Under this point of view, you *may* be partially right, in the sense
that for the very newbie a simple print() should suffice in most
cases, whereas printf() and sprintf() are somewhat more advanced
functions.

But honestly I can't understand which parts of that page are not well
suited, in your opinion, to a beginner.

>writers/maintainers aren't intending to write beginners programming 
>doco, but _programmers_ programming doco...)

For what is my experience, parts of the documentation dealing with
general/basic topics are well suited *both* for beginners and
experienced programmers. Parts of the documentation dealing with more
advanced topics are naturally biased towards a more experienced
audience. It doesn't seem so strange to me, after all...


Michele
-- 
#!/usr/bin/perl -lp
BEGIN{*ARGV=do{open $_,q,<,,\$/;$_}}s z^z seek DATA,11,$[;($,
=ucfirst<DATA>)=~s x .*x q^~ZEX69l^^q,^2$;][@,xe.$, zex,s e1e
q 1~BEER XX1^q~4761rA67thb ~eex ,s aba m,P..,,substr$&,$.,age
__END__

Iain Chalmers <bigiain@mightymedia.com.au> wrote in message news:

> Err, let me clarify, I think they have "terrible form" for _some_ of the 
> target audience. 

Sorry Iain, I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth there. Maybe I
should have qualified that a little more. Let me try again:

I agree with Iain that some of the docs could use a looking over. In
my opinion some of the docs seem to have terrible form which makes
them hard to understand for beginners without previous C or *nix
experience. It also makes them hard to browse through as an
experienced programmer due to the fundemental organization of some of
the documents. It would be worth while to take a look at them and see
which ones could use some improving, keeping users of all levels and
experience in mind.

-Greg

Michele Dondi <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote:
>>And, just to be pedantic, ISO call a million bytes a megabyte (MB),
>>and 1024^2 bytes a megibyte (MiB), for the sake of consistency with
>>the rest of the ISO system.

> I had heard that, probably in a post similar to this one. And I must
> say it does make sense, but it is a matter of a fact that most people
> *and programs* think that e.g. a megabyte is 1024^2.

Hmm.  I used to think that.  I really think it depends on context
though.

I think that if I ask people how big is this file...

-rw-r--r--   1 root     other    20189240 Feb  3 12:04 nw_sol.tar.gz

most of them will say "20 megabytes" because they do the "yank 6 digits"
operation that is equivalent to dividing by 10^6.

I think this is even more true with GB range files...

-rw-r--r--   1 root     other   1030189240 Feb  3 12:04 nw_sol.tar.gz

Quick.  How big?  That's a Gigabyte, right?

1030189240 / 10^9 => 1.03
1030189240 / 2^30 => 0.95

-- 
Darren Dunham                                           ddunham@taos.com
Senior Technical Consultant         TAOS            http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper?                           San Francisco, CA bay area
         < This line left intentionally blank to confuse you. >

Tassilo v. Parseval wrote:
> Also sprach Gunnar Hjalmarsson:
>> Shouldn't the docs be given high priority? After all, the value
>> of new and/or sophisticated features is limited if they are
>> understood by just a few...
> 
> Higher priority than bugfixes and fixing security holes such as the
> hashing exploit that was fixed in 5.8.1? I don't think so.

Neither do I. That was not what I said, was it?

>>> Doc-patches can also be provided by all those people who are
>>> solid Perl programmers but don't understand the perlguts.
>> 
>> Would it be that impossible to involve not so solid programmers?
> 
> That is already how it is. perlpatch.pod explains in lengthy
> details how to create and submit patches. You don't have to be
> registered or anything to contribute to Perl. Just create a patch
> and send it to perl5-porters@perl.org. The patch will then be
> discussed or, this is my experience, very often just applied
> without further discussion. Let me quote Nicholas Clark, the
> current pumpking for 5.8.2 - 5.8.x:
> 
> Calling all happy passive readers of perl5-porters - submit a
> patch, get your name into the AUTHORS file: fame, immortality and
> more spam.
> 
> The development of Perl5 happens in a most informal way really and
> is open to anyone. It's not a closed circle.

Thanks for that info, Tassilo. I for one was not aware of that channel
being open to anyone with a (sensible) suggestion.

Maybe I'd pick something, and give it a shot. :)

-- 
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl

Ben Morrow wrote:
> Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
>> Ben Morrow wrote:
>>> if you know nothing, and in particular with some of the older
>>> docs if you know no C, you have to work quite hard to figure
>>> out what's going on.
>> 
>> And what a few of us are trying to say is that that is not very 
>> good.
> 
> Fine. Fix it, then.

You just asked somebody without any formal programming training, and
who started his programming 'career' a few years ago by modifying Matt
Wright's guestbook script, to fix the Perl documentation. :)

> Personally, I like the docs how they are; if you want them to be
> different, rewrite them.

Maybe you have the presupposed C and *nix background. Even I, without
that background (actually without any background), have begun to get
used to the documentation style, and typically I'm able to figure out
the answer to my questions by help of the docs.

However, I believe that a less 'presupposive' docs would make Perl an
even more attractive programming language, which would be of benefit
to all of us.

>> Standard response, indeed, that did not actually address my 
>> point. ;-)
> 
> Umm... did it not? I'm not sure whether you class yourself as a 
> 'dedicated beginner' or not, but if you do then feel free to put 
> forward suggestions for specific changes, ...

Well, I wasn't actually inviting myself to write docs...  On the other
hand, my concern may have been based on a misunderstanding with
respect to the way contributors are recruited. Tassilo's post was
clarifying to me.

>> Personally I may try to contribute to the docs some day when I
>> feel confident enough.
> 
> If confidence is the only thing stopping you then I would say your 
> grasp of both Perl and English is quite sufficient to write a
> decent explanation of sprintf.

I may give it a try. Unless somebody else, who reads this, comes
first, of course. ;-)

-- 
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl

"G Klinedinst" <g_klinedinst@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:168f035a.0402050844.4381d07c@posting.google.com...
> Iain Chalmers <bigiain@mightymedia.com.au> wrote in message news:
>
> > Err, let me clarify, I think they have "terrible form" for _some_ of the
> > target audience.
>
> Sorry Iain, I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth there. Maybe I
> should have qualified that a little more. Let me try again:
>
> I agree with Iain that some of the docs could use a looking over. In
> my opinion some of the docs seem to have terrible form which makes
> them hard to understand for beginners without previous C or *nix
> experience. It also makes them hard to browse through as an
> experienced programmer due to the fundemental organization of some of
> the documents. It would be worth while to take a look at them and see
> which ones could use some improving, keeping users of all levels and
> experience in mind.
>

I'm actually surprised that no one has put together a better html form of
the documents. perldoc.com is a very good site for searching for
information, but it still suffers from the man pageiness of the
documentation. I understand the usefulness of this ordering and naming for
using the perldoc tool (and for updating), but timtowtdi is equally
applicable to the documentation. Activestate makes a nice bundle of the html
documenation, but there's just something disconcerting about using a menu
where every entry is perlxxxx. (perllol, in particular, has a way of making
me laugh out loud whenever I come across it... : )

And to avoid the inevitable "well stop whining about it and do something"
responses, I may just work on a script to build a more user-friendly html
interface to the existing docs.

Matt

On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, edgrsprj wrote:

> "Joe Smith" <Joe.Smith@inwap.com> wrote in message
> news:MDdUb.173729$Rc4.1316159@attbi_s54...
> > edgrsprj wrote:
>
> > It's not a problem with any browser.  It's your source code.
> >
> > 1: open FILENAME =93> c:\textfile.txt=94;  # =93smart quotes=94
> > 2: open FILENAME "> c:/textfile.txt";  # "double quotes" forward slash
> >
> > Any code you post needs to be formatted such that the quote marks
> > are vertical, not slanted left and right like line 1 above.
> > -Joe
>
> Now I see what you mean.  I will have to check on how my word processor i=
s
> generating those quotes.  There is probably some way to ensure that they =
all
> look the same.

And. It's. Still. A. Syntax. Error.

(I don't know why I can't resist jumping in on this thread.  I wonder if
it's a mass hypnosis worm ...)

Brad

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 2004-02-06, Brad Baxter <bmb@ginger.libs.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> (I don't know why I can't resist jumping in on this thread.  I wonder if
> it's a mass hypnosis worm ...)

It must be the usenet equivalent of a spectacular car crash, where
passersby feel compelled to stop and stare.

- --keith

- -- 
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/cgi-bin/fom

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAIwrChVcNCxZ5ID8RAjtnAJwIiTduqdBFQ4nK4dLOLp3CXYKF+QCeISdF
iVvUuY5kCzmWaDkB6yosNsc=
=xwj9
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 16:26:48 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

>> i was taught that it was because we didn't appease the gods and they
>> were stomping around doing polkas. and that we can stop them by offering
>> up perl virgins in sacrifice. i should put this up in a web page
>> too. does anyone who knows how to *program* in html wanna help me?
>>
>
>Netscape has a free, downloadable Web page editor which I find works nicely.
>You don't really need to understand html to create Web pages though it
>helps.

4 words: it-was-a-joke!


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 09:12:16 -0600, Tad McClellan wrote:

> Actually, "PERL" might be called a "bacronym", ie: a backwards acronym.
> 
> The name came first, the coming up with words for each letter came
> _after_ choosing the name.

We did that on our programming project in school. Our project involved
getting data from "Geografisk Informasjons Nett" (GIN) so we obviously
constructed the name to have the acronym TONIC.

-- 
NPV

"the large print giveth, and the small print taketh away"
                                Tom Waits - Step right up

"Keith Keller" <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote in message
news:5s1vvb.ilv.ln@goaway.wombat.san-francisco.ca.us...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 2004-02-06, Brad Baxter <bmb@ginger.libs.uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > (I don't know why I can't resist jumping in on this thread.  I wonder if
> > it's a mass hypnosis worm ...)
>
> It must be the usenet equivalent of a spectacular car crash, where
> passersby feel compelled to stop and stare.
>

More like a smash-up derby. The sheer stupidity of the OP (which makes me
wonder about his claims of being a scientist) and his utter inability to
comprehend what is being told to him just makes you want to take a run at
him in the hopes of finally knocking him out of commission.

Matt

"Michele Dondi" <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote in message
news:eh1a201etma5pkq52vqsagb9j03684d5kh@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 22:36:37 -0500, "Matt Garrish"
> <matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> >> simple. don't use a word processor to edit code. use a text
> >> editor. people who use word to edit code are stupid twice over.
> >
> >If you've got an easier way to get a binary from your code than by using
> >Word I'd like to hear it. Sometimes I wonder what you're smoking...
>
> This must be some sort of sarcasm, but I don't get it...
>

No, sarcasm would be: "Oh gee look, Michele wants to play golf again. That
*never* gets tiresome!"

The question of whether I'm being serious or just making an example with you
as the target is more to the heart of the above.

Matt

On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 16:36:07 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

>"Michele Dondi" <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote in message
>news:apus101fs05mppvmeccqrc5pqkqgh55rtn@4ax.com...
>> On 31 Jan 2004 23:21:47 GMT, "Tassilo v. Parseval"
>> <tassilo.parseval@rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
>>
>
>> Well, it is clear that the OP is *not* "yet another troll", or at
>
>There is a very serious informal, international scientific project involved
>with this.  As I have said in other posts, time limitations are controlling
>what is and is not being done.  I managed to get a full day free in order to
>create that Perl Web page.  And since then I have not been able to get any
>large blocks of time free to do any more work on it.  At the moment there
>can even be several day periods of time between the times when I can post
>notes here or answer my e-mail.

I don't know what you intended to communicate with this comment. You
had already said this and IMHO there was no need to stress the point.

*My* point was indeed that notwithstanding what the OP wrote, it is
worth to continue discussing with you. Because *it is clear* that
you're not a troll, even if, sorry to say this, there's something
(unintendedly, I hope) trollish in your modus operandi.

What is being discussed here is *not* your scientific project but your
web page about Perl, some misunderstandings you expressed, related to
that web page and other related issues.


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 17:10:31 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

>The applications it is needed for are not that complex.  I myself can
>already create the necessary code.  So once things get past a certain point
>it might work fine.  Right now I need to determine how well Perl, Python,
>Ruby, or some other language can do with controlling Windows screens.  On my
                                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

One thing that continues puzzling me in your posts is this repeated
recurrence of the above underlined expression. AFAICT there's not such
a concept as a "Windows screen": I suppose you mean simply a Windows
(TM, i.e. the OS) window (GUI concept), am I right?

Well a window is something and the program associated with that window
is another thing. The program uses resources provided by the window
manager to create the window itself and the various elements of the
UI, but this relationship AFAIK *generally* is not two-way, period.

>PC I already have Perl controlling Windows screens by having it send
>instructions to a simple Windows control program through the Windows
>clipboard.  And it works.  But it is slow.  And I would rather have Perl or
>whatever do all of those Windows screen operations itself.

You have already received informed hints from more knowledgeable
posters than I am. The fact is that there is no one answer, but *many*
answers and they're all partial. As a general rule programs can
interact/intercommunicate only if they were designed to do so.

Standard input and output streams together with that tiny, slim thing
called pipe provide an extremely simple but just at the same time
surprisingly powerful way for programs to intercommunicate each other.
And then one has FIFOs, sockets, and more complex protocols.

I'm very ignorant in these matters, but for Windows applications you
have OLE as a protocol for the exchange of information between
programs, and there's also CORBA et similia. And yes, I've never used
them, but there are Perl modules to deal "natively" with these
protocols. But then the programs you need to "drive" must be compliant
in the first place...

Said this, a practical suggestion could be as follows: instead of
writing to the clipboard, write to a file. Then write a daemon (but I
think it would be called "service" under win) to monitor that file and
launch programs and do other stuff as new stuff is written to the
file. Does this make sense?!?


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 17:47:45 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

>"Michele Dondi" <bik.mido@tiscalinet.it> wrote in message
>news:9unu10d236pg8sfi86jpmg5p3rvn64q4di@4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 13:45:58 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>
>Michele, here is what that Web page says or is intended to say:

As a side note, please quote correctly the post you're replying to as
common sense (and the posting guidlines regularly posted here, in case
common sense lacks) suggests.

Here this is not a major problem for me, because I do remember more or
less what I wrote, which is not something obvious, btw, but it may
well be a problem for others to follow this discussion, that is not
our private discussion.

>If you have never used Perl and want to write a simple program which will
>read two numbers from the keyboard, multiply them together, and store the
>results in a file then do "this, this, and that."  And when you are done the
>numbers you want should be present in that file.

Wrong assumption! it should be:

| If you have never... then you *can* do "this, this, and that."!

The wrong assumption being that "there is one way to do it". Indeed
TMTOWTDI, as is well known. This is true of any language, but it is
much "more true" for Perl than any other language. Now I suppose that
you're aware of this, but judging both from your attempt itself and
from what you wrote in that page it *seems* that you ignore it
instead.

"So what?", you may say, "I'll present them just *one* WTDI". So far
so fine. But even assuming that each particular example you give will
be free of errors, due to the nature of Perl the particular
"ingredient" you're focusing on may not be well suited for recipes
other than the one under consideration.

For more details on this issue, please read on...

>It is presently intended to a large extent just to provide people with
>enough information that they can write a simple program and get it running
>without having to spend weeks reading through the documentation.  The codes

The point is, and it is supported by *facts* that there are plenty of
information available either in printed form or on-line that would
enable one to "write a simple program and get it running without
having to spend weeks reading through the documentation".

And AFAICT all those resources are far better than yours and more well
suited to their purpose.

I wrote my first program with the help of an old edition of the llama
book (Perl4, unfortunately!): I was not doing "Hello World!" kind of
stuff, I wrote the program I needed, and yes: it was horrible, but
worked.

Now, if you only need Perl for *one* task like that, then probably
Perl is not the language for you. It is a complex language, face it!
And if it is that complex there will be a reason: if you choose it you
choose to cope with that complexity and use it to your own advantage.
But this means: *never* *stop* *learning*!

Never stop learning... why?!? Because you want to get the best out of
it, don't you? Otherwise you should have chosen a language more
suitable for a one-time-only task.

Well, what I exposed above is MHO anyway, based upon my own
experience.

>From what I can tell, so far just a relatively few people have looked at
>that Web page.  And I would guess that most of them were probably
>experienced Perl users who are not about to change the way they write
>programs based on the information on that page.

They may also be experienced Perl users who first learned Perl from
sources that gave them "wrong" ideas and habits. And they may have
been used to apply bad programming techniques learned from such
sources and may have had to learn how to overcome them...

>I have been making extensive use of the available .html documentation files.
>However I found that quite often there would be helpful information in some
>file which you would not be able to find by just following the links.  If

I must admit you're right: this is true of any kind of documentation
that is sufficiently complex. Only I have the *impression* you're
overestimating the size of the phenomenon, as far as perl is
concerned. May well be wrong, though...

>you do a Windows search for a particular word or group of words then you can
>find all of those references and check them individually.

Don't mind, I have an idiosincrasy with Windows search... fortunately
I have find.exe from UNXUTILS, and File::Find.

>Most of the people with whom I am talking are using the Windows program as
>am I.  So I am trying to organize things so that as many people as possible
>will be able to understand the material.

This is sensible. To be fair I don't know anyone in that area of
research. Would have thought that scientists working in it would have
more experience with some flavour of UNIX though...

>And finally, as I have been saying, that Web page will probably remain there
>only if it appears that it is going to be helpful to people.  It is largely
>experimental at the moment.  At this point no decision has been made on its
>future.

As it is *now* it can't be helpful to anyone. More precisely, it can
be *falsely* helpful, that is: it can be helpful in being a sort of
advertising that says "hey, you know, there's this thing called Perl
and you can happily use it without risking impotence".

It will be counterproductive in that you provide wrong information
that can work (at most) only in a restricted set of cases. Most
probably people following your advices may soon get frustrasted by
insuccesses arising from this lack of proper information and decide
that perl is not for them.

So, I would judge it as an extremely positive thing that you want to
keep the "ad", possibly by describing how useful Perl was for your own
reasearch work. But then point them to good resources, be them already
existing ones (such as those you've been suggested) or something
you'll write when you will have the maturity to do that...


Michele
-- 
>It's because the universe was programmed in C++.
No, no, it was programmed in Forth.  See Genesis 1:12:
"And the earth brought Forth ..."
- Robert Israel on sci.math, thread "Why numbers?"

On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 18:00:03 -0500, "Matt Garrish"
<matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> wrote:

>And to avoid the inevitable "well stop whining about it and do something"
>responses, I may just work on a script to build a more user-friendly html
>interface to the existing docs.

Taking into account that I rarely use the HTML form of the docs, but
as far as they are concerned, I find them next to as terse and nice as
possible, I really wish you succeed in you purpose: the result should
be impressive!


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 07:15:14 GMT, Joe Smith <Joe.Smith@inwap.com>
wrote:

>Real programmers use EDIT or vi or emacs or TECO.    :-)
>	-Joe

No, both vi and emacs are better than joe...


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 06:24:29 GMT, "edgrsprj" <edgrsprj@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

>> A Real Programmer would not blame the language for OS features
>> as edgrsprj does:
>
>I am not blaming Perl for anything.  My code examples simply say to people
>who are not experts, if you do "this" then the result will be "that."  It

As a result those people who are not experts will *think* that if you
do "this" then the result will be "that".

Only, you really have that if you do "this" then the result will be
"that other".

Only, in the particular situation you're examining, "that" *seems*
"that other".

But when those people who are not experts will be trying to do "that"
by doing "this", they may find out that "this" doesn't do "that" and
won't understand what's going on. (And when they will understand it,
they will blame you!)

I JUST CAN'T EXPLAIN THE CONCEPT IN SIMPLER WORDS. PLEASE TELL ME IF
THERE'S ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND!

As an example, IIRC you wrote that "\n" causes the print() statement
to immediately print its output whereas not including it at the end of
the list of arguments causes the actual printing to be delayed. But
consider this:

  $|++; # Here for some reason...
  # ...
  # Some code
  # ...
  print 'foo'; # D'Oh, it prints immediately!


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 22:36:37 -0500, "Matt Garrish"
<matthew.garrish@sympatico.ca> wrote:

>> simple. don't use a word processor to edit code. use a text
>> editor. people who use word to edit code are stupid twice over.
>
>If you've got an easier way to get a binary from your code than by using
>Word I'd like to hear it. Sometimes I wonder what you're smoking...

This must be some sort of sarcasm, but I don't get it...


Michele
-- 
you'll see that it shouldn't be so. AND, the writting as usuall is
fantastic incompetent. To illustrate, i quote:
- Xah Lee trolling on clpmisc,
  "perl bug File::Basename and Perl's nature"

Uri Guttman wrote:

>   JS> Real programmers use EDIT or vi or emacs or TECO.    :-)
> 
> ever do teco on a la-50?

Yep.  At 300 baud, it was a lot faster than running TECO on an
ASR-33 Teletype.  Freshmen were forced to use punched cards for
a few more years, until there were enought LSI ADM-3 terminals
to go around.
	-Joe