Hello!

[Walker, Michael E.]

Hi, I am writing to introduce myself, since I am new to the entire concept of Perl mongers in general. I work as a programmer/analyst for Boeing, and am starting to use Perl in the apps I support. Perl is part of my career development plan, so I am interested in seeing what a Perl monger, such as this one, has to offer, when I came across this through Perl.org. Are any of the meetings offered online? I like the idea of online, because of my schedule in and outside of work. If meetings have never been offered online, I wonder how other members would feel about that, such as if it would be beneficial to offer some meetings online, via a service like Google Hangouts, or another VoIP service. Meetings could be offered both online and in person, to work with everyone's schedule.

Thanks, and I look forward to meeting new friends and learning more about Perl!

Mike

[Kyle Pointer]

Hey Michael,

Welcome to the St. Louis Perl Mongers' mailing list. The meetings are generally on the 3rd Wednesday of the month at 6:30pm at Riot Games in Clayton:

Floor 10

7777 Bonhomme Ave

Saint Louis, MO

More info on the physical meeting location and schedule can be found on the Perl Mongers' meetup page: http://meetu.ps/e/Bwxs3/mqDC6/a

The number of people who show up to the meetings is usually between five and ten people, but it's a likable and enthusiastic crowd. 

I know that the meetings are frequently recorded, but we generally don't have any facility set up for remote attendance unfortunately. I'm not sure that we have the equipment for that available to us. If Don sees this and responds, he might be able to point you to an archive of past meetings' videos. But I've never tried to find them online before, so I'm honestly not even sure if they're hosted anywhere. 

The meetings themselves are generally very informal. No minutes or points of order or anything. We usually just chat and someone will generally have prepared a presentation.

If you're able to join us on the 18th of this month, we'd be glad to have you. Otherwise, this thread may be able to spark a discussion about remote attendance- but beware, I don't think we've ever tried to do that before, so I don't want to give you the impression that it's likely to happen this month. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but welcome ~

-kyle 

-kyle 

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[Walker, Michael E]

Hi Kyle,

 

Thank you for the information on the location.

 

When looking into the idea of remote attendance, I noticed that a lot of Perl mongers run IRC channels. I began digging deeper into the page at perl.org about Perl mongers. I would be happy to run an IRC channel, if the group is open to that. I used to chat on IRC all the time back in my teenage years, and I ran my own servers and channels. Running a channel on an existing IRC network is free. So, that might be an option for members of this Perl monger to informally get together, if Google Hangouts or another VoIP service is not. If I attended in person, how user friendly are the presentations for blind people? What I like about remote attendance is that I have all of my screen reading equipment set up on my home computer, so I could easily follow along. I am totally blind.

 

Thanks and best regards,

Mike

[Kyle Pointer]

I would say that for the most part, the presentations consist of a single speaker reading from slides with typical bullet points and source code. Occasionally someone will break out their text editor to hack on something. But the content could easily be made available before the meeting I imagine. Other than that, there's generally lots of questions and such from the audience.

I'm curious about what technologies have provided you with the best experience in past, because I don't have very much experience in this realm. Does using Google Hangouts to present video/audio along with slides provide a good user experience? And does the screen reader attempt to use OCR or does it rely on being able to access the actual presentation (be it a pdf, PowerPoint, etc)?

I think we can get something working, especially since we have plenty of time before the next meeting. 

Generally the St. Louis Perl Mongers communicate on this mailing list, and there's not much of a presence outside of here or the occasional comment on the meetup page. I'm sure nobody would mind if you wanted to make an #stlperlmongers on freenode or something, but I'm not sure how many of us spend any significant time lurking on IRC. But, it's also a nice way to communicate, so I know I for one have no problem popping into the channel if it's there. I just wouldn't expect it to be terribly active given our relatively small numbers. But feel free and we can see if it catches on. Perhaps some of the people who have been around longer than me know of an existing IRC channel or something similar, but as far as I'm aware we mostly use this email list.

-kyle 

[Bob Ernst]

I suspect the presenters would be happy to accommodate special needs, especially if they have advanced notice. Our meetings have been smaller lately, so they tend to be conversations as much as presentations.

Why don't you try a meeting and let us know how you are using Perl?

[Walker, Michael E.]

Bob and Kyle,

 

Thank you very much for the willingness to accommodate. I cannot get into specifics about how I am using Perl, as what I do at work is proprietary, but I could see if Perl mongers are what is right for me, or if I am better off just lurking on the existing IRC channels. If I lurk on the existing IRC channels, do you think there are people around the St. Louis area that I would be able to network with? My understanding is that since Freenode is so large, a #Perl channel would have users from all over the place.

 

To answer Kyle’s questions, my screen reader relies on the PowerPoint or PDF file itself. Google Hangouts would be so I could hear the presenters. The idea of this though is not only to think about my needs, but to explore how an online Perl monger would benefit everyone. There are articles out there that talk about how disability can drive innovation, and often benefits everyone. I would like other members on this list to chime in on this subject too.

 

Thanks,

Mike

--

[Steven Lembark]

On Tue, 10 May 2016 00:11:05 +0000

"Walker, Michael E." <michael...@mail.umsl.edu> wrote:

> Thank you very much for the willingness to accommodate. I cannot get
> into specifics about how I am using Perl, as what I do at work is
> proprietary, but I could see if Perl mongers are what is right for
> me, or if I am better off just lurking on the existing IRC channels.
> If I lurk on the existing IRC channels, do you think there are people
> around the St. Louis area that I would be able to network with? My
> understanding is that since Freenode is so large, a #Perl channel
> would have users from all over the place.
>

> To answer Kyle___s questions, my screen reader relies on the PowerPoint

> or PDF file itself. Google Hangouts would be so I could hear the
> presenters. The idea of this though is not only to think about my
> needs, but to explore how an online Perl monger would benefit
> everyone. There are articles out there that talk about how disability
> can drive innovation, and often benefits everyone. I would like other
> members on this list to chime in on this subject too.

If you don't want to come to the meetings then adding streaming
audio is trivial (video is the difficult part). There's no reason
we couldn't add an audio feed for the next meeting. If hangouts
works for you already we should check the connection with my
notebook before the meeting one day and I'll get there early enough
that we can debug the connectivity issues before the talk starts.

--
Steven Lembark 3646 Flora Pl
Workhorse Computing St Louis, MO 63110
lem...@wrkhors.com +1 888 359 3508

[Walker, Michael E]

Audio alone would be perfect for me.

Thanks,
Mike

[Steven Lembark]

On Tue, 10 May 2016 15:49:45 +0000

"Walker, Michael E." <michael...@mail.umsl.edu> wrote:

> I am a beginning Perl programmer, and am interested in database
> development. At work, I support an application that does data loads.
> Thank you for sharing the topics you will be presenting.

Welcome to bedlam :-)

> At this stage, I am also subscribed to the beginning Perl mailing
> list: begi...@perl.org. What should I be looking for, overall, if
> I am interested in online Perl groups? Is IRC the best way to go?

I'd start reading before chatting with people.

Perl has more documentation than you will ever probably read
through. For starters, try:

perldoc perl;

at the command line. Notice that the FAQ is broken up into ten
sections: It got too large for the memory on older machines.

A short intro to perl is at:

perldoc perlintro;
perldoc perlrun;

Unless you happen to still use punched cards, I'd suggest using
Berkeley braces (especially if you use VI), other than that the
contents of "perldoc perlstyle" are useful.

A few things to always remember when working with Perl:

- It gives you just enough rope to shoot yourself.

- From perlstyle: "Just because you CAN do something a particular
way doesn't mean that you SHOULD do it that way. Perl is designed
to give you several ways to do anything, so consider picking the
most readable one."

So far as using the language itself, the best site to start with today
is probably the Perl Maven:

<http://perlmaven.com/>

Gabor's tutorials are a good introduction:

<http://perlmaven.com/perl-tutorial>

Pretty much anything on the site is worth reading through.

For a variety of subjects you can wander through my slideshare site:

<http://www.slideshare.net/lembark>

Kindly ignore Neonatal Cranial Ultrasound and the W-curve slide
decks, they largely aren't about Perl.

A few good things to start with would be the perl debugger and
general testing with Perl:

<http://www.slideshare.net/lembark/short-introduction-to-perl-d?qid=3233eba7-3cf1-4bd9-83a4-75633f96d5ed>
<http://www.slideshare.net/lembark/testy-12641024?qid=3233eba7-3cf1-4bd9-83a4-75633f96d5ed>

If you are dealing with databases then you will be dealing with DBI,
which was originally written by Tim Bunce. He has a number of good
talks on it available:

<http://www.slideshare.net/Tess98/integrating-perl-and-databases-making-simple-things-easy?qid=4b36c16b-1a96-4fff-977c-b35ce688db8e&v=&b=&from_search=5>
<http://www.slideshare.net/oscon2007/dbi-advanced-talk-200708?qid=4b36c16b-1a96-4fff-977c-b35ce688db8e&v=&b=&from_search=2>

One useful tool is NYTProf for looking at how well code runs:

<http://www.slideshare.net/Tim.Bunce/nyt-prof-201406key?qid=439817e4-d937-4d34-a24a-8b465acfabbc&v=&b=&from_search=4>

And some general feedback on Perl Myths that are worth being able to
refute if you are asked about it:

<http://www.slideshare.net/Tim.Bunce/perl-myths-200909?qid=07ed4aa1-3a8e-4cbf-b8e3-193fc43b8d3a&v=&b=&from_search=1>


The Perl Monks site has quite a bit of stored knowledge:

<http://perlmonks.org/>

[Steven Lembark]

Q: What database are you using (i.e., what's on the other end of your
DBI connection)?

[Steven Lembark]

One I left out: the Perl Monks Tutorials:

<http://perlmonks.org/?node=Tutorials>

[Walker, Michael E]

Thank you for taking the time to compile all of this! I have seen some of these sites, and they are indeed very helpful. I should have been a little more specific on the data loads I was talking about. I will be working a lot with ETL.

-----Original Message-----
From: stl...@googlegroups.com [mailto:stl...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steven Lembark

Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 3:22 PM
To: Walker, Michael E.
Cc: lem...@wrkhors.com; stl...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [perl-hackers] Hello!

[Walker, Michael E]

I believe it will be Oracle. I will have to reach out to my mentor within the company. Please see my email about ETL, that I just sent. I will also have to find out if our in-house framework is designed to work with multiple databases (i.e. it abstracts away from a specific database server). I see what you mean about reading documentation, before really getting involved in a Perl community. That will allow me to be more specific.

Thanks, again, for all the info, pointers, and tips.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: stl...@googlegroups.com [mailto:stl...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steven Lembark
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 3:24 PM
To: Walker, Michael E.

[Bob Ernst]

Steven said: It gives you just enough rope to shoot yourself.

Nonsense, it gives you more than enough rope to harm yourself in multiple ways. More importantly, there are several modules in CPAN that will automatically shoot you.

[Walker, Michael E]

I am glad Steven posted the resources he did though. It really gave me a lot of insight on where to go, to get started with Perl. That is part of why I joined this group. At this time, it looks like the begi...@perl.org mailing list will be the best, along with irc.perl.org, and channels on Freenode, with reading the docs and PerlMaven tutorials first. I actually went through perlmaven.com a while back, but still, for now, it does look like the Perl mailing lists are my best places.

 

Thanks,

Mike

 

From: stl...@googlegroups.com [mailto:stl...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bob Ernst
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 3:30 PM
To: stl...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [perl-hackers] Hello!

 

Steven said: It gives you just enough rope to shoot yourself.

Nonsense, it gives you more than enough rope to harm yourself in multiple ways. More importantly, there are several modules in CPAN that will automatically shoot you.

--

[Steven Lembark]

> Nonsense, it gives you more than enough rope to harm yourself in
> multiple ways. More importantly, there are several modules in CPAN
> that will automatically shoot you.

Never: Nothing on CPAN will reach out to you and cause harm. If you
are crazy enough to download something without any references and try
to use it untested then you shot yourself in the <pick an organ>.

One module -- forgot which one -- provided a quite useful service
that was turned off due to popular outrage; may have been File::Find.

If you ran the installation with superuser (a.k.a., "root") priv's
it would (a) display the text "testing: rm -rf /", (b) perform a find
on the root directory to cause lots of disk activity, and (c) disable
maskable interrupts.

After about 10 sec running -- after which most users hit ^C a zillion
times in desparation -- a message showed up asking why you would
run something at root without knowing *exactly* what it was doing.

Excellent point, but the medium proved too painful for too many
users and the author had to take that part out :-)

If you pick up a current copy of DBI the odds are it'll do what
you expect and what the documentation describes without blowing
your <pick an organ> off. This is why you "make test" prior
to installing and never, ever run anything you havn't tested
already as SU, or even outside of a sandbox.

Or as Damian likes to say: Caveat Utilitor.

[Steven Lembark]

On Tue, 10 May 2016 15:29:45 -0500
Bob Ernst <bober...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Nonsense, it gives you more than enough rope to harm yourself in multiple
> ways. More importantly, there are several modules in CPAN that will
> automatically shoot you.

Nothing anywhere in Perl will reach out and shoot you.

If you install something unkown without testing
it you've shot yourself.

That applies to CPAN, GNU, or Oracle.

Or as Damian likes to say: Caveat Utilitor.

[Mike808]

Steven Lembark wrote:
> If you install something unkown without testing
> it you've shot yourself.
>
> That applies to CPAN, GNU, or Oracle.

You forgot GitHub and NPM. They are the favorite repos for DevOps and NodeJS ignorati everywhere, from Bangalore to O'Fallon.

*cough* left-pad *cough*
http://www.haneycodes.net/npm-left-pad-have-we-forgotten-how-to-program/

Mike808
Perl greybeard

[Walker, Michael E]

If you install something unknown from anywhere, open source or closed source, you run the risk of hanging yourself.

 

From: michael.ev...@gmail.com [mailto:michael.ev...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Mike808
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2016 8:18 AM
To: stl...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [perl-hackers] Hello!

 

Steven Lembark wrote:

--

[Bob Ernst]

I'm just saying there is probably a module SKYNET::Armament::Targeting::Appendage::Foot.

[Steven Lembark]

On Wed, 11 May 2016 08:26:04 -0500
Bob Ernst <bober...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm just saying there is probably a module
> SKYNET::Armament::Targeting::Appendage::Foot.

Then don't use stuff from Acme :-)

--

[David H. Adler]

On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 12:45:53AM -0500, Steven Lembark wrote:
> On Wed, 11 May 2016 08:26:04 -0500
> Bob Ernst <bober...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm just saying there is probably a module
> > SKYNET::Armament::Targeting::Appendage::Foot.
>
> Then don't use stuff from Acme :-)

Oh, there's modules that aren't labelled Acme that you shouldn't touch
with a ten foot pole.

The one I maintain is Semi::Semicolons. Schwern has an amusing story
about someone who didn't read the docs for DNA before using it - in
production, IIRC.

So, yeah, actually look into what you're using before you use it, okay?

dha

--
David H. Adler - <d...@pobox.com> - http://www.panix.com/~dha/
Had deep and meaningfuls with kitty_goth, about BDSM, scarring, love,
and compiler theory, which was good. - Alex Page

[Steven Lembark]

On Wed, 11 May 2016 13:23:55 +0000
"Walker, Michael E" <michael....@boeing.com> wrote:

> If you install something unknown from anywhere, open source or
> closed source, you run the risk of hanging yourself.

One major advantage to OSS: at least is comes with tests :-)