Thanks to Swaroop CH for drawing this to our attention! FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Perl. com Newsletter <elists-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Jul 15, 2006 6:00 AM Subject: State of The Perl Foundation To: swaroop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Perl.com update -------------------------------------- The Email for www.perl.com Subscribers =================================================================== Add Tag Clouds to Your Site "Building Tag Clouds in Perl and PHP" teaches you skills for constructing your own tag clouds. You can use these techniques to create other kinds of innovative, Web 2.0-style interfaces. In this PDF you'll learn: -what is and isn't a tag cloud -design tips for using tag clouds effectively -how to create your own tag clouds in Perl and PHP Just $9.99! <http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/tagclouds/index.html?CMP=NLC-9C6I64005015&ATT=w3> =================================================================== Hello, readers. This is the Perl.com newsletter, sent out bi-weekly in a transparent attempt to keep you somewhat up to date with the latest news in the increasingly diverse Perl community. Did you know that the country with the second-largest number of Perl.com readers is India? That's right! Greetings to everyone on the subcontinent; tell your friends about us. Here's what's new in the world of Perl this fortnight. * Perl News The Pittsburgh Perl Workshop is yet another example of local, low-cost, community-lead conferences to promote Perl and the Perl community. If you'll be on the east coast in late September, here is your chance to help: <http://pghpw.org/> David Golden has released versions of both Vanilla and Strawberry Perl. These are self-contained distributions of Perl, a compiler, and useful modules for Windows users. Yes, that means you can install modern Perl modules from the CPAN with (relative) ease: <http://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/12/148200> Ann Barcomb revived the Perl 6 summaries with help from Audrey Tang and Yuval Kogman. This first version covers February 2006: <http://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/12/145233> Andy Lester issued a call for Parrot Cage Cleaners (more on that in a few paragraphs): <http://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/11/095244> The Perl Foundation issued a call for the next round of grant applications: <http://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/11/0832229> Audrey Tang and the Pugs hackers released Pugs 6.2.12 and the Perl 5 modules v6 (you have to see it to believe it): <http://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/07/1532235> amoore gave excellent suggestions on how to sneak testing into your development team's routine: <http://use.perl.org/~amoore/journal/30215 > Josh McAdams, fresh from organizing YAPC::NA and moving, interviewed the Pragmatic Programmer Andy Hunt for Perlcast: <http://www.perlcast.com/audio/Perlcast_Interview_031.mp3> * Perl Jobs The Pugs and Parrot projects each maintain a small list of tasks for programmers interested in spending an hour or two helping out. You often don't have to know much about either project or much beyond Perl 5. Audrey Tang suggests a few tasks in the Pugs repository <http://svn.openfoundry.org/pugs/>: * Go through examples/ and see if any of the examples fails to run; if so, seek advice at #perl6 to get them fixed. Along the way, write regression tests for those examples; currently only a handful of examples are tested under t/examples/. * Harness Pugs's interactive shell with perl5's IPC::Run (or something else) and produce a web-based evalbot, similar to http://tryruby.hobix.com/. Remember to set the PUGS_SAFEMODE environment variable to true--use &Pugs::Safe::safe_getc, &Pugs::Safe::safe_readline, and &Pugs::Safe::safe_readline for interaction with the user, if needed. * Check in the current http://pugscode.org/ home page to the repository and merge it with the docs/feather/, and reorganize the home page a bit to make e.g. downloads easier to locate. * Look over test files in t/bugs/, especially the fixed ones (they lack :todo), and move them into other more descriptive directories under t/. Join #perl6 on irc.freenode.net for more information. Andy Lester suggests a few Parrot tasks: * As we search for automated ways to check code quality, splint looks really good. It's also really picky and pernicious. It won't be perfect from the start, but it's an improvement. Take us to a decent splint or lint target in the Makefile. * Change all of the Perl 5 files from using -w to use warnings. * Any of the CAGE tasks in Parrot's RT are up for grabs: <http://xrl.us/owsd> Contact andy@xxxxxxxx if you are interested. Remember, you don't have to know C or Perl 6 (yet) to be a big help. There are plenty of small tasks for an afternoon or evening--you could be the next person praised in the Perl.com newsletter! (Thanks to Andy, Audrey, Ann, Jerry Gay, and Will Coleda so far.) * Perl on ORN It's been a while since the last batch of lightning articles. These short pieces are practical tidbits of knowledge ready for you to absorb and reuse in your world. Steven Philip Schubiger demonstrates how to convert crufty MakeMaker installation scripts into shiny pure-Perl installers; Phil Crow demonstrates the use of Java's powerful Swing UI toolkit from Perl; Joshua McAdams explains how to turn any module into a script; and your editor removes duplication from test suites: <http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2006/07/13/lightning-articles.html> In other news, your editor summarized Bill Odom's "State of The Perl Foundation" talk at YAPC: <http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2006/07/bill_odom_and_the_state_of_the.html > Andy Oram suggested a change in focus for producing community-created documentation: <http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/onlamp/2006/07/06/rethinking-community-documentation.html> Meanwhile, OSCON is a week and a half away. Are you ready? Storing up sleep and food, - c chromatic@xxxxxxxxxxx Editor, Perl.com, et cetera =================================================================== O'Reilly 2006 Photoshop Cook-Off Inside Lightroom Announcing the 2006 O'Reilly Photoshop Cook-Off: a contest open to U.S. residents who use Adobe Photoshop. Win great prizes and get your work in front of the industry's A-list judges. Entries accepted from May 15 until August 15, 2006. Enter now to win! http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/contest/ =================================================================== *** Featured Articles *** Still More Perl Lightning Articles Perl lightning articles are short, direct, and full of electrifying practical information. This time, Steven Philip Schubiger demonstrates how to convert crufty MakeMaker installation scripts into shiny pure-Perl installers, Phil Crow demonstrates the use of Java's powerful Swing UI toolkit from Perl, Joshua McAdams explains how to turn any module into a script, and chromatic removes duplication from test suites. <http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2006/07/13/lightning-articles.html> *** FEAR-less Site Scraping Many web programmers talk about "domain-specific languages" as if defining functions and methods were a new discovery. A real domain-specific language provides concise syntax and symatics for a particular purpose, such as Yung-chung Lin's FEAR::API. He explains how this toolkit allows you to scrape, modify, store, and re-present web data easily, effectively, and economically. <http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2006/06/01/fear-api.html> *** Charting Data at the Bottom of the World Alex Gough has a curious job. He's the only programmer for 500 miles at a remote Antarctic research station. His problems are like your problems too, though--gathering, manipulating, recording, and displaying data. Here's how he uses several CPAN modules to make pretty charts and graphs with almost no work. <http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2006/05/04/charting-data.html> *** Unraveling Code with the Debugger Reading other people's code can be difficult, especially if you have no idea what happens when and where. Understanding code flow is vital to maintenance and bug fixes, but littering code with print and debugging statements is tedious and prone to error. There's another way: use the debugger! Daniel Allen demonstrates how to pinpoint a problem with Perl's debugger. <http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2006/04/06/debugger.html> *** Using Ajax from Perl The recently rediscovered Ajax technique makes the client side of web programming much more useful and pleasant. However, it also means revising your existing web applications to take advantage of this new power. Dominic Mitchell shows how to use CGI::Ajax to give your Perl applications access to this new power. <http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2006/03/02/ajax_and_perl.html> *** Advanced Subroutine Techniques Subroutines seem like a basic building block of code. They're simple and easy to understand and use, right? That's true--but there are a few advanced techniques to make your code more maintainable and robust. Rob Kinyon goes beyond making sense of subroutines to making subroutines work for you. <http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2006/02/23/advanced_subroutines.html> *** =================================================================== $300 Rebate on O'Reilly Learning Linux/Unix Admin Series Plunge into the art of system administration with our four-course Linux/Unix System Administration Certificate Series, spanning basic directories to sed, awk, and perl. You'll get your own root server to work on, free O'Reilly books for reference, and upon completion, certification from the University of Illinois Office of Continuing Education. Right now, pre-enroll in all four courses and receive a $300 instant rebate. http://www.oreillylearning.com/ =================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------ Visit our Sponsored Developer Resource Pages and learn about cool stuff from our sponsors! Downloads - Free Training - Webinars - Updates Driver Agents Driver Updates: http://www.oreilly.com/go/driver_updates GoToMyPC(R) Remote Access: http://www.oreillynet.com/etel/citrix/ Inside Lightroom: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/lightroom/ Rackspace Managed Hosting: http://www.onlamp.com/onlamp/zones/rackspace/ ------------------------------------------------------------------ Interested in sponsoring the Perl.com newsletter? 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