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Yet Another Perl Conference - Canada

Posted by michael on from the canada-oh-canada dept.

minaguib writes "For anyone interested in Perl, Yet Another Perl Conference is coming to Ottawa, Canada May 15th and 16th. Pre-Registration is now open and the calendar is not completely finalized, as they are still accepting presenter entries. This is a great way to get involved either as a presenter or an attendee."

140 comments

  1. Re:fp by wo1verin3 · · Score: 1

    Ahh, yet another anti-Perl activist has realized his world is crumbling!

  2. woo hoo! by Danvarious · · Score: 1

    not only is something fun finally coming to my little ol' town, but its coming to my univeristy too :D

    1. Re:woo hoo! by Kleedrac2 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Danvarious says -> "univeristy"

      Maybe you should enroll in some English classes at that univeristy of yours.

      Kleedrac

      --
      Sure we wang, can.
    2. Re:woo hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's obviously an Arts student! :-)

      Good old Carleton "Last Chance" University! ...and I've never seen that nick at anything to do with /. meetups, (which never seem to happen in Ottawa due to lack of interest).

    3. Re:woo hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and maybe you should realize that flaming someone for a typo in a post is SO 20th century. Get over yourself....

    4. Re:woo hoo! by fatwreckfan · · Score: 1

      What program?

    5. Re:woo hoo! by Slapdash+X.+Hashbang · · Score: 2, Informative

      You must have really had your nose in the books. Ottawa is also home to OLS,
      OSW,
      the GCC Summit, and the Kernel Summit (see http://lwn.net/Articles/3467/ ). Other stuff too. :)

    6. Re:woo hoo! by DasBub · · Score: 0

      Carleton students represent... ...Carleton University... I guess...

      Woo Us.

    7. Re:woo hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ahh, Carleton, where the "K" stands for Kuality!

  3. Re:PERL is a waste of time by jeepee · · Score: 0, Troll

    OO is just a buzzword! when you really know what programming is all about after all I could do a good OO designed program with a couple of struct and well done procedures....

    --
    Overuse of the Pumping Lemma causes blindness
  4. Re:Perl IS a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I program in Commodore BASIC V2.

  5. Depressionary Travel Expenses by Baldrson · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Sure lot's of Perl programmers have time on their hands but:
    How many people can afford the travel expenses during a depression?
    --
    Seastead this.
    1. Re:Depressionary Travel Expenses by zenst · · Score: 5, Funny

      I find this depressing and blame the perl programmers with jobs for writing such good code that nobody ever needs to change it. Curse you perl programmers for disobeying laws of buggy unmanagable code.

    2. Re:Depressionary Travel Expenses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hahahahahahah!

      Blame the perl programmers because they have jobs where they can write unreadable code, so they can lock other people out of getting jobs and maintain their own.

      It's easy to write code that's unreadable in any language. PERL just gives you the TOOLS to do so in a much easier fashion.

      We had a guy who was a pro at doing this -- he's gone now. We're battling hard with this problem everyday.

      Note: I am a PERL programmer by trade, so if you want to call this flamebait, you are misleading yourself.

      Posting as AC due to the fact that I like my job, even if I won't be there for much longer (by choice!) :)

    3. Re:Depressionary Travel Expenses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I'm absolutely positive this is the reason.

    4. Re:Depressionary Travel Expenses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I've never had a problem: I just look up the latest train arrivals and departures. Always wear a good pair of cross-country shoes, of course.

      Half the hoboes headed North will be Perl programmers: join the fun and jump aboard!

    5. Re:Depressionary Travel Expenses by rtaylor · · Score: 1

      Tis in Canada... Canada isn't in a depression, most would not call it a recession. Inflation was around 4% last year -- and they're recently raised interest rates to keep it down.

      There are some industries not doing so well -- but I wouldn't count the tech sector as one of them, anymore.

      --
      Rod Taylor
  6. YAPAYAPC by dj28 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Yet another post about yet another perl conference.

  7. The Superiority of PHP over Perl by egg+troll · · Score: 0, Interesting
    Hello Slashdot,

    Recently I've had a chance to do some web design with PHP. Previously I'd used Perl because I'd heard from many people that Perl was the end all and be all of scripting languages for the web. Imagine my suprise to discover that PHP was vastly superior! I know this is a bold statement, but I have solid arguements to support it.

    Before I begin, let me just clarify something. I'm not arguing that PHP is better than Perl in all cases. There is certainly still a use for Perl. Also, PHP isn't perfect but it does manage to fix many of the shortcomings I've had with Perl. Here are a few of the things I've noticed about PHP. Finally, I'm not the most talented Perl programmer out there. I generally prefer to use the vastly superior Python, but can use Perl if I have to.

    • Ease of use. After about a day I had an excellent understanding of both PHP and SQL. I was able to get a stable, useable and presentable website up within 24 hours of reading the basics of PHP. Learning Perl took me weeks and I'm still not even as good with it as I am with PHP. I would definitely not recommend anyone new to programming begin with Perl.
    • The OO of PHP is excellent. In my experience, it rivals Smalltalk. We all know that Perl's OO still needs work (whether or not OO is all that great is another discussion.) Hopefully Perl will be patched up so it supports such must-have OO features like introspection, reflection, self-replication and ontological data-points.
    • Outstanding database support. PHP supports virtually every DB under the sun (although Berkeley DB is missing, oddly enough.) Perl seems limited to MySQL and PostgreSQL, and its really a kludge for the later. I've heard that this will be fixed in upcoming versions of Perl though.
    • Speed. PHP is one of the fastest languages I've ever used. While it won't be replacing assembly or C, its definitely faster than Perl in almost every case, particularly in regex which has long been Perl's strongest point. I'm sure there are cases where Perl is equal to PHP, but I can't think of any at the moment.
    • Portability. I can take PHP code off my Linux box and plop it onto an IIS server, or even one of those new Macintosh servers and have it run without having to change a single line of code. Try doing this with Perl! Its as though it was written in assembly, Perl requires that much rewriting.
    • Graphics. PHP comes with a nice little graphics library. While I wouldn't use its to code the new Doom (VB would be a better choice) its adequate for most web pages, and should be considered as a substitute for Flash for certain things. Perl lacks a graphics library of any kind.
    • Data Structures. Under PHP you can create any type of datastructure you need: Linked lists, binary trees, hash tables, queues, inverse Reiser-biased recursion trees, etc. Under Perl you're extremely limited in what you can do. This is because Perl isn't OO (so you can't create Node classes, for example, usefull in a linked list) and because it lacks pointers. Some of you may notice that PHP lacks pointers, but look deeper! Behind the scenes, hidden from the user pointers are used. Because of this, PHP can support complex data structures.

    Again this is just my experience. I don't mean to offend any Perl coders because Perl was an excellent language. However, in certain cases it may behoove one to write the back end in PHP instead of Perl.

    Thank you and God bless,

    Egg Troll

    --

    C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
    1. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by Tyler+Eaves · · Score: 1

      Wow, great example of how slashdot moderation works.

      --
      TODO: Something witty here...
    2. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by hatrisc · · Score: 1

      perl is not just a web language. what you say is very true for web based stuff. however, as far as scripting is concerned for system administration and just "having fun" you can't beat it. there are many things i don't agree with in the perl world but all in all it's great.

      --
      I write code.
    3. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by Darth_Burrito · · Score: 1

      heh, obviously some strange new definition of the word "works" I was previously unfamiliar with.

    4. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      VB would be a better choice) its adequate for most web pages>

      You would want the new Doom written in Visual Basic, one of the worst programming languages ever made? I think I'll stick with Doom in C++ although I think Objective-C is better.

    5. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by Erik+Hollensbe · · Score: 3, Informative
      I don't want to be over-corrective, and I certainly don't like getting into language vs. language, but this whole argument is poorly formed.

      Ease of use. After about a day I had an excellent understanding of both PHP and SQL. I was able to get a stable, useable and presentable website up within 24 hours of reading the basics of PHP. Learning Perl took me weeks and I'm still not even as good with it as I am with PHP. I would definitely not recommend anyone new to programming begin with Perl.

      Personally, I wouldn't recommend any language that is meant for programming for a specific medium (and do not provide the argument that PHP can be used for non-web scripting -- that's just ludicrous) to be a good idea. You lose a lot of core knowledge while learning a language that is meant for that.

      After all, would you really want to teach someone 'programming' by giving them a PL/SQL manual? I think not.

      The OO of PHP is excellent. In my experience, it rivals Smalltalk. We all know that Perl's OO still needs work (whether or not OO is all that great is another discussion.) Hopefully Perl will be patched up so it supports such must-have OO features like introspection, reflection, self-replication and ontological data-points.

      Yes, the OO in PERL is horrible. But, OO is a design methodology, one which is supported (or mandated) by some languages. For instance, take a look at the berkeley DB code. It's very OO, and pure C.

      Hell, it's easy to write procedural Java, too.

      Outstanding database support. PHP supports virtually every DB under the sun (although Berkeley DB is missing, oddly enough.) Perl seems limited to MySQL and PostgreSQL, and its really a kludge for the later. I've heard that this will be fixed in upcoming versions of Perl though.

      Take another look. Tim Bunce, creator of DBI for perl (DataBase Interface), wrote the DBD::Oracle driver -- IIRC, this was the first DBD for DBI, which makes your point moot.

      In our shop, we use Berkeley DB and Oracle, and a very minor touch of Pg and MySQL. Almost all of this is done w/ PERL.

      Speed. PHP is one of the fastest languages I've ever used. While it won't be replacing assembly or C, its definitely faster than Perl in almost every case, particularly in regex which has long been Perl's strongest point. I'm sure there are cases where Perl is equal to PHP, but I can't think of any at the moment.

      Do a search for 'doug bagley's language shootout'. You'll find that PHP is a much harder sell after you read this. If you want to argue about interpreter startup, take a look at mod_perl for apache. They are very comparable.

      Portability. I can take PHP code off my Linux box and plop it onto an IIS server, or even one of those new Macintosh servers and have it run without having to change a single line of code. Try doing this with Perl! Its as though it was written in assembly, Perl requires that much rewriting.

      I have done this a few times, and never had a problem with it. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, just that I've never had that problem. Perl on IIS also supports COM, which means you can do quite a bit with it on the windows side. You can also script it just like PHP, mixed inside the HTML (you can do it on UNIX with embperl, AxKit, and I think mason).

      Graphics. PHP comes with a nice little graphics library. While I wouldn't use its to code the new Doom (VB would be a better choice) its adequate for most web pages, and should be considered as a substitute for Flash for certain things. Perl lacks a graphics library of any kind.

      GD. PerlMagick. I'm going to ignore the rest of your comment (as you obviously have no clue what performance means). I wouldn't use Perl to write Doom III, either. :)

      Data Structures. Under PHP you can create any type of datastructure you need: Linked lists, binary trees, hash tables, queues, inverse Reiser-biased recursion trees, etc. Under Perl you're extremely limited in what you can do. This is because Perl isn't OO (so you can't create Node classes, for example, usefull in a linked list) and because it lacks pointers. Some of you may notice that PHP lacks pointers, but look deeper! Behind the scenes, hidden from the user pointers are used. Because of this, PHP can support complex data structures.

      Um.... You are referring to references. If PHP uses real pointers in it's scripting, garbage-collection-based language I would be SERIOUSLY amazed.

      Regardless, PERL supports these too, but who the hell needs linked lists in a language which has built-in structures? If you want good examples of how various trees work, check out Mastering Algorithms in PERL, or spend 20 minutes and figure them out yourself -- it's not that hard :)

      On this though, one has to have intimate knowledge and experience with the PERL reference-counting GC to pull off queues and any form of circularly-linked structure without creating a lot of extra overhead.

      Here are some reasons I prefer Perl over PHP:

      • Namespaces
      • No Auto-Vivifying variables (read BUGTRAQ if you want more info on why these are bad)
      • Clean seperation regarding MVC, without extra work
      • Can be used for more than the web (Realistically!)
      • With mod_perl, significantly more finer-grained control over apache processes
      • You can at least fake function overloading in perl


      Things I hate about both languages:

      • No attempt at typing, at all. (well, perl does at the XS level, but it's a hack)
      • No ability to compile to any form of byte-code or machine-code (read: bypassing the interpreter for speed)
      • They're slow. Really, really, slow.
    6. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by Mr+Bill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why is it that whenever someone mentions Perl, everyone has to mention how superior insert favourite language is. Does everyone feel that threatened by Perl? Do that many people hate Perl that much?

      I use Perl because it lets me get the job done with little or no hassle. I like the TMTOWTDI nature of Perl, and Perl had one of the best support communities out there. There is a huge public codebase that you can draw from. And if you are building websites, there is a plethora of application frameworks and templating languages to choose from (HTML::Mason, Apache::ASP, OpenInteract, CGI::Application, AxKit, Embperl, Apache::PageKit, Template Toolkit, HTML::Template just to name a few).

      What really annoys me is most of the time the complaints made against Perl are completely unfounded (like the claims made by the parent post). If someone wants me to refute the complaints made about Perl in the parent post I can, but for now I'll just end my rant here...

      If you haven't used Perl before, try it, it's good!

    7. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by finalfantasydog · · Score: 1

      Heh, I don't see why anybody is actually bothering to respond to this guy, writing out extremly long rebbutals to everything he says.

      I mean look at his username it's eggtroll for pete's sake, and just the fact that he said doom 3 should be written in vb says something. As the other people have already said, he's merarly showing how the slashdot moderator works.

      (also another note to moderators I've seen: if your replying to someone else's off topic post, then it's not an off-topic post, Thank you)

    8. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by Captain+Nitpick · · Score: 1
      I don't want to be over-corrective, and I certainly don't like getting into language vs. language, but this whole argument is poorly formed.

      YHBT. YHL. HAND.

      --
      But then again, I could be wrong.
    9. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 1
      No Auto-Vivifying variables

      Has been fixed in PHP and is now the default.

      You can at least fake function overloading in perl

      You can with PHP as well. PHP has function pointers, makes this easy.

      No attempt at typing, at all.

      That's a feature of both languages. They're just loosely typed languages. I suspect the reasoning is that scripts aren't suppose to be doing anything large and complex, so the auto typing should screw up anything, just guessing.

      No ability to compile to any form of byte-code or machine-code

      There are several opcode caches for PHP http://www.turcksoft.com/en/e_mmc.htm

      --
      Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    10. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      If you haven't used Perl before, try it, it's good!
      What about those of us who have tried it and still think it's garbage? I guess we're S.O.L. then?
    11. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by slamb · · Score: 2, Informative

      Fucking moderators. It's not even new. Turn your brains on before giving out the "Interesting" points to stupid arguments from "eggtroll".

    12. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I tried it, found out it was shit, and went back to using a professional language.

    13. Re:The Superiority of PHP over Perl by Erik+Hollensbe · · Score: 1

      In response to two responses to my responses (heh), I noticed that .... about 2 seconds after I hit submit. :)

  8. What is it good for? by t0ny · · Score: 2, Informative
    A few years ago I was interested in learning Perl. However, job requirements took me another way, and I ended up going thru KiXtart, INF files, Active Directory, and a whole lot of other things.

    My question, however, is what are the strengths of Perl? And is it well suited for manipulating information in a database?

    --

    Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.

    1. Re:What is it good for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well to start, "INF Files" aren't a scripting language, buddy. Are you one of those shitty "sysadmins"?

    2. Re:What is it good for? by JackPo · · Score: 1

      PERL is AMAZINGLY well suited for string manipulation and fast up and running programs.

      Much of genetics sequencing (the small chunks) and Wall Street uses PERL to parse their data (RegExp!!).

      However, the main backbone is still often C because it's just simply the fastest.

    3. Re:What is it good for? by dodobh · · Score: 2, Informative

      Perl's greatest strengths are in text manipulation.
      Perl has some fantastic regex support.
      www.cpan.org [Central Perl Archive Network] has Perl modules for almost everything you need it for.
      To talk to a SQL handling RDBMS,
      perl -MCPAN -e 'install DBI'
      perl -MCPAN -e 'install DBD::DBtype'

      DBI is like ODBC, a wrapper over DBMS specific drivers.

      If you want to talk to a Directory server, install Net::LDAP.

      Perl greatest strength is its flexibility, and tis weakness as well. It takes some effort to write good code in Perl, because it is so easy to write very bad unmaintainable Perl code. You need to discipline yourself when writing Perl.

      --
      I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
    4. Re:What is it good for? by etcpasswd · · Score: 1
      Perl's DBI module allows to connect to different databases directly (as in SQL queries). I know that ODBC is supported, but I haven't used it.

      Perl is amazingly fast for text manipulation - both in development and execution time. To me, the strengths are ease of development (obviously), and the availability of a whole spectrum of modules that run natively.

    5. Re:What is it good for? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where did he say it was? Are you one of those "illiterates"?

    6. Re:What is it good for? by doom · · Score: 1
      It takes some effort to write good code in Perl, because it is so easy to write very bad unmaintainable Perl code. You need to discipline yourself when writing Perl.
      On the other hand, if you're writing in a *real* language like Python or Java, bug-free, easily maintainable code flows out of your finger tips like bullshit from the white house.
    7. Re:What is it good for? by dodobh · · Score: 1

      Not really. I have seen good C code, good Perl code, unmaintainable Java code, bad Python code.
      It finally depends on the quality of the programming team, which designs and implements the program.
      I am an administrator primarily, with enough knowledge of code to know buggy programs.
      Writing code is easy, writing good code is hard.

      I prefer to learn more than one language, and use the right tool for the right job.
      I have no desire to implement graphics in C, or high performance on low memory systems in Java.

      Perl is great for text processing, for database work, but not for numeric manipulation.
      IDEs are nice for doing user interfaces (unless the user is a poweruser/admin, in which case, shell access has to be available for piping data around.)

      Finally, it boils down to the right tool for the right job, and one language does not fit all requirements.
      And programmer discipline is always needed for good code.

      --
      I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
    8. Re:What is it good for? by doom · · Score: 1
      Not really.
      Right. And just to make myself perfectly clear, that was saracasm.

      I didn't mean to imply that your summary of perl's strength/weaknesses was a bad job. For one thing, you point out that it is indeed possible to use discipline in developing perl code, something that many of it's detractors seem to miss.

      And as for that "right tool for the job" philsophy, that's another cliche I'm a little tired of, though I don't know that I really want to get into it... briefly there is no "right tool": e.g. your opinion that perl isn't the best for numeric work probably has some technical merits, but if you've got a shop full of perl programmers, and it turns out you need to do some numeric crunching, the "right thing to do" might be to use the "wrong" tool.

    9. Re:What is it good for? by dodobh · · Score: 1

      My apologies for missing the sarcasm. Too many people are dead serious when they speak about the one true language.
      As for the right tool, TMTOWTDI :P
      Use the tool you know works. I would rather that programmers know more than one language, and the strengths and weaknesses o the language.
      Just because you can do everything in sendmail.cf macros, does not mean you should. Different languages exist for a reason, and the developer should be able to judge what best fits the situation.

      --
      I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
  9. YAPAYAPAYAPC by Janssen's_Mom · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Yet another post about yet another post about yet another Perl conference.

    --
    Janssen Choy
    1. Re:YAPAYAPAYAPC by Janssen's_Mom · · Score: 0

      Lighten up, mods.

      --
      Janssen Choy
  10. Re:PERL is a waste of time by Orthanc_duo · · Score: 1

    True but doing OO in a language that supports OO. (eg. Java or even Perl) is easier and makes for more readable code.
    Also when you do OO in a non OO language you are enforcing the OO only through convention. If someone else works on your code they can make a real mess by breaking encapsulation and other such non-OO practises

  11. Re:Perl IS a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's pathetic.

    Try REAL-WORLD programming using punchcards.

    Jeez, get with the times.

  12. O'Reilly: Perl Conference for System Admins. by zenst · · Score: 2, Funny

    What can I say - the above title is clearly needed and has a fantastic sales oppotunity waiting several times a year.

  13. Re:PERL is a waste of time by jericho4.0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You could do that in assembly, also. OOP is about ease of use and maintenance.

    --
    "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
  14. Hope I can cross the border by Hao+Wu · · Score: 2, Funny

    Shoot. How the hell do we all get to Canada and back when half of all Perl developer population are on green cards. God dam mother----s!

    --
    I suggest you read Slashdot
    1. Re:Hope I can cross the border by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simple. Hop on a train.

    2. Re:Hope I can cross the border by houseofmore · · Score: 1

      "Shoot. How the hell do we all get to Canada and back when half of all Perl developer population are on green cards."

      No worries. That's just the ones who continuously misspent their names on their resumes.

  15. Perl vs. Python. by jericho4.0 · · Score: 0, Interesting
    Trollish, but...
    Have any of you perl coders looked at python or PHP for whatever your apps are? I still use perl for little quick and dirty type things, but the 'line noise' phenomena makes something like python much more atractive for prototyping. And PHP much more atractive for dynamic web stuff. Where does perl shine anymore?

    flame on...

    --
    "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    1. Re:Perl vs. Python. by Erik+Hollensbe · · Score: 1

      Please mod this back up -- this is a good discussion!

      I haven't spent as much time as I'd like with Python... Although I'd like to. I don't think I could justify using it for web stuff, though. (Although the zope guys seem to have no problem with it)

      I can't stand PHP. If I were to choose one thing, it would have to be auto-vivifying variables. Frankly, I don't need the language helping undermine the security of my applications.

      I have found Pike to be an interesting place to fill the PERL gap where I would consider Python another contender. Pike is type-safe, or not, depending on how you write your application. The greatest thing is that you can specify multiple, specific types for a variable, and the VM will check it. Pike also beats the pants off all the above languages in terms of speed.

      With mod_perl, I still think you can do more with the web than with PHP, even if it only takes a little longer.

    2. Re:Perl vs. Python. by fanatic · · Score: 1

      Python: syntactically significant white-space. Need I say more? I just can't get past this one. (Every few years I forget this one and think 'maybe I should look at this Python stuff again' - then I do, remember this, and am torn between nausea and laughter.)

      PHP: I suppose if you need to mix code w/ html, this is as good or bad a way as any. But I don't do that (I have that luxury, I code by myself and needn't accomodate webmasturbators).

      As others have said, web or non-web, the shortest path between 'need/want' and 'have' is often a perl script. Pretty much anything you want to do (and a lot that you would never even think of doing) is on CPAN.

      --
      "that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
    3. Re:Perl vs. Python. by JackPo · · Score: 1

      Actually, PHP is REALLY Hot for database management and ready made packages. For a lot of web programmers that just want to deploy a professional websites (PHP Nuke, Gallery, JPGraph), a whole bunch of packages are out there for instant deploy (and for free). Python's whitespace coding also pissed me off to no end. I mean it's nice to use whitespace to help identify structure of a program, but to use it to determine the structure? Gimme a break.

    4. Re:Perl vs. Python. by jericho4.0 · · Score: 1
      Ahhh. The whitespace thing. You either hate it, or accept it (not love it) for the benefits it gives. It took me a while to get used to, but the increased readability is great. In a way, it's the exact opposite of the 'there's more than one way to do it' school. I'll assume you've heard all the arguments already.

      I agree with your assessment of CPAN. The range is pretty much unequaled anywhere. The python analog looks pretty weak in comparison. Still, there's only time in the way.

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    5. Re:Perl vs. Python. by jericho4.0 · · Score: 1

      I thought the 'trollish' intro would indicate to people I was asking a real question. In fact it's just waving a flag in front of bulls. Oh well..
      I'd never heard of pike. I'm not sure if it's resemblance to C would be comfortable or confusing. The claim as to speed is interesting. The website is being very slow, though, so I haven't seen much.
      And what's with the 4 letter 'P' words for languages these days? Back in my day, we had 'B', which begat 'C', and that was good enough for us!

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
  16. Why can't get we a conferance... by jpt.d · · Score: 1

    in London, Ontario, Canada that I can afford? MacWorld London anyone?

    --
    What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
    1. Re:Why can't get we a conferance... by Large+Green+Mallard · · Score: 1

      London is a very interesting place. I did a year of my degree at Western, and was back there last year too for a holiday/catchup.

      Ironically, I also learnt Perl while living in Sydenham Hall using a book from the Taylor Library ;)

    2. Re:Why can't get we a conferance... by twoshortplanks · · Score: 1
      Well, as the duely elected leader of London Perl Mongers...Oh, wait, wrong London...let's try that again ;-)

      I remember people were saying that about London UK not so many years ago. That was back in 2000. Then my fellow London.pm members got their act together and organised one! And that was YAPC::Europe, and the rest is history as they like to say.

      Of course, they got help from YAS. YAS is Yet Another Society designed to help people, amongst other things, set up their own conferences.

      So, if there's no conference near you...why not try and hold your own? From what I saw, it wasn't easy, but everyone I know that was involved had a hell of a lot of fun.

      --
      -- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
    3. Re:Why can't get we a conferance... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because London, Ontario is in the middle of buttfuck nowhere.

  17. Void marketing scheme? by tedhiltonhead · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I smell a marketing scheme. According to yapc.ca, the only scheduled training sessions are from employees of ExitCertified, an IT training company. Conveniently, ExitCertified is also in Ottawa. Further, why would I fly to a conference where they're still looking for speakers *two months* out? All they have are "Dick Hardt, founder of ActiveState" and two ExitCertified guys. If you want a truly amazing training/networking/fun experience, try a GeekCruise. I went on Linux Lunacy II in the Caribbean and hung out with Linus, Guido van Roosum (sp; invented Python), and Eric S. Raymond.

    1. Re:Void marketing scheme? by skier0178 · · Score: 1

      Man you need to get out more. When you consider a vacation to be a cruise with more geeks there's something really wrong.

    2. Re:Void marketing scheme? by $$$$$exyGal · · Score: 1

      The next GeekCruise goes to Hawaii, and one of the listed attractions is "Pearl Harbor". I'm not kidding ;-).

      --
      Very popular slashdot journal for adul
    3. Re:Void marketing scheme? by ablair · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Geek Cruises certainly are great, I haven't gone on any but the list of luminaries that give presentations are impressive, and I've heard good things about them. Is the Ottawa YAPC turning into a marketing scheme at all? ExitCertified has been quite active & helpful for not only the local PerlMongers group, but also the Ottawa Unix Users' Group (OCUUG); as you'll notice from their Meetings page, they're actually held every month at ExitCertified. There's also substantial cross-pollination between ExitCertified people, the Ottawa Capital Linux Users' Group (OCLUG which hold monthly meetings just around the corner from ExitCertified, hmmm...), as well as PMs and some of the same suspicious characters can be seen at the Macintosh User's Group of Ottawa (MUGOO) (ahem, Jay et al)

      These nefarious groups indeed seem to be as thick as theives. But if a firm like ExitCertified is devoting their time, office space, and personnel to so much in the local OSS/programming communities, haven't they earned the respect of our community? Just because they're an active company dosen't mean they're all bad. I wouldn't worry about the vacancies either; speakers were still being lined up for the local Open Source Weekend/Business Of Open Source Conference (BOSS) held a few weeks ago in the city and look who showed up.

  18. Canadian Pearl Conference by Microsofts+slave · · Score: 1

    While all of you perl developers are here in the great white north, why not enjoy some of famous beer, and have a quick chance to check out our famous igloos, and our great Parliment buildings made of ice( Like your white house eccept ours doesn't need to be painted, it get painted daily by Mr. Winter)

    --

    Tragek

    1. Re:Canadian Pearl Conference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...another 20 cm falling onto the Peace Tower as I type this.

    2. Re:Canadian Pearl Conference by Microsofts+slave · · Score: 1

      The weather really that bad out there? All those poor developers will freeze to death!

      --

      Tragek

    3. Re:Canadian Pearl Conference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like this weather just fine! It has snowed 20 cm or greater for the past three weekends! I have a snowblower, four wheel drive, and plenty of half-decent local ski slopes! What more could you ask for?

      I have a friend in Charlotte NC, but originally from just outside Ottawa, who laughs herself shitless watching the run on gas stations, grocery stores and banks just because a half-inch of snow gets forecast!

  19. Wait a second... by Akardam · · Score: 3, Funny

    Canada is a Perl conference?

    That would explain so many things on so many levels.

    I wonder what the Perl syntax for "... eh?" is...

    1. Re:Wait a second... by r3jjs · · Score: 2, Funny

      I know!

      "eh?" is the official pronunciation of the ";" character.

    2. Re:Wait a second... by jdkincad · · Score: 3, Funny

      I wonder what the Perl syntax for "... eh?" is...

      I don't actually know Perl, but my guess would be @#!$&^%eh!@#$@$*&

      --
      The great advantage of having a reputation for being stupid: People are less suspicious of you.
    3. Re:Wait a second... by etcpasswd · · Score: 1
      I wonder what the Perl syntax for "... eh?" is..

      There is no such word as _the_ in Perl. TMOWTDI.

    4. Re:Wait a second... by Ed+Avis · · Score: 1

      I nominate '... or die;'.

      open(FH, 'file') or die;
      print FH "test\n" or die;
      close FH or die;

      This code is much simpler in a language (like Python) that throws an exception when something goes wrong rather expecting you to remember to check the return value every single time.

      (Yeah yeah I know the quotation: 'failing to open a file is hardly exceptional'. I submit that what's truly exceptional is the time when you don't want to throw an error on opening a file but instead handle the problem at the same level. It's that less common case that should require extra code, not the more common case of 'if the file couldn't be opened, throw an exception and let the caller handle it if he wants'.)

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  20. Re:Perl IS a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Real men code in binary.

  21. Re:Perl IS a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reminds me of what I told my parents when I got my CBM 64 for Christmas back in '82: "Don't you droids know *Microsoft* wrote their Basic!!!!"

    With those two-letter shortened commands it looked pretty ugly, but I wasn't satisfied until I found Perl. If only Perl could include the SYS command.

  22. Re:Perl IS a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Punchcards?

    Too fancy-assed for me!

    I prefer to do my "programming" by hard wiring it into place with thousands of jumper cables.

  23. Re:First Ninnle Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is Ninnle? I'm from Russia.

  24. Re:First Ninnle Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ninnle Linux is the latest and greatest Linux distribution EVER! ...and it beats Hooty Linux hands down!

  25. Re:First Ninnle Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By the way, it can be downloaded from this site.

  26. Re:First Ninnle Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nah... too easy.

  27. Re:Not off-topic fucking moderators by nelsonrn · · Score: 1

    Yes, and because of that, she doesn't need to be Natalie Portman'ed, thankyouverymuch.
    -russ

  28. Re:Not off-topic fucking moderators by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dear Russ.

    If you think she's gonna let you fuck her because you're playing knight in shining armor: You're wrong.

  29. Re:Maybe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Two, but no idea how you can squeeze them both in there!

  30. Re:First Hooty Post! by Black+Rabbit · · Score: 1

    You sure that's not the right site for Hooty Linux?

    Hooty rules! Ninnle sucks!

  31. JSP by Kunta+Kinte · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'll bite. Plus I'll throw another contender into the ring even.

    Before I begin, let me just clarify something. I'm not arguing that PHP is better than Perl in all cases. There is certainly still a use for Perl. Also, PHP isn't perfect but it does manage to fix many of the shortcomings I've had with Perl.

    Same here, there are cases where PHP works better than JSP. Very small, quick and dirty web scripts come to mind.

    Ease of use. After about a day I had an excellent understanding of both PHP and SQL. I was able to get a stable, useable and presentable website up within 24 hours of reading the basics of PHP. Learning Perl took me weeks and I'm still not even as good with it as I am with PHP. I would definitely not recommend anyone new to programming begin with Perl.

    Power and ease of use, is very often at odds. This is not always the case, but very often that's the trade-off you get with languages. Deal with it. Perl, along with JSP and other application servers give you many ways to do what is *apparently* the same thing. For example in many cases you may be able to get away with using "|", "||", or "or" in exactly the same statement and get what is to you the same effect ( if you don't care about bitwise operation or presedence).

    Nice to see you got your web application up and running so quickly. Now try to connection pooling ( php persistant connections are db specific, ldap and less popular dbs don't get it ), or any other optimizations where you optimize the generation or retrival of variables or other resources by limiting that operation to once per session.

    Ever wonder why so many slashdoted sites say "max connections in mysql reached"? Because often every hit is creating and closing a connection to the database. It's difficult to do any session scope or application scope optimizations using PHP. Is there a variable you need once per user session? Tough, you have to get it from the DB each hit, or store it in the URL, eg.

    The OO of PHP is excellent. In my experience, it rivals Smalltalk.

    Java vs. PHP's OO. Hmmm.... Grap a design pattern textbook and try implementing any non trivial pattern in PHP. PHP OO is an afterthought, and it shows.

    Outstanding database support. PHP supports virtually every DB under the sun (although Berkeley DB is missing, oddly enough.)

    ODBC

    Speed. PHP is one of the fastest languages I've ever used.

    Hah! Try a real web application. There standard PHP engine does not have an opcode optimizer. Every hit to your site is compile. While most application servers come with opcode optimizations by default. Your site is compiled on startup or on the first hit only. Afterwards the in memory code is executed. Even if you use a PHP opcode optimizer, it would be interesting to see PHP vs Tomcat. My money's on Tomcat.

    Portability.

    JAVA. Nuff said. There's isn't 20 different dependent libraries at compile time, or realizing that you need to recompile PHP because you don't have PDF lib support built in. That's suppose to change soon, I hear, but until then.

    Graphics

    Java2D

    Data Structures. Under PHP you can create any type of datastructure you need: Linked lists, binary trees, hash tables, queues, inverse Reiser-biased recursion trees, etc.

    Check out java.util .

    PHP alright, but isn't all that hot. I still use PHP for small scripts that few people use ( eg. scripts to add/del IMAP or LDAP users for instance which only a small number of admins use), but the truth is most application servers would eat its lunch.

    --
    Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
    1. Re:JSP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny...you counter each of his point by saying Java is better, except for one. Speed. Yeah, so how does Java compare to PHP (or Perl (or any other language)) as far as speed goes? Hmm?

    2. Re:JSP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I appreciate that the guy you're refuting is an idiot, but just so you know, PHP actually can do persistent database connections. It's not "pooling" per se, but it doesn't require connecting to the database on every hit either.

  32. Re:First Hooty Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's actually a magic site powered by the government's latest cutting edge mind control technology. It will automatically detect what kind of files you like most and let you download them! Isn't that great?

    But frankly, neither Ninnle nor Hooty are ready for the desktop. Some guy named Joe Average told me last week.

  33. No One Will Remain Depressed In My Presence! by Bowie+J.+Poag · · Score: 1, Offtopic



    You must see me eat a donut. It's remarkable.

    Click the link below.

    --
    Bowie J. Poag

    1. Re:No One Will Remain Depressed In My Presence! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fatass

  34. Re:First Hooty Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He any relation to Joe Sixpack?

  35. I swing my dick in your direction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    n/t

  36. Did we forget about the florida one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    YAPC is also coming to Boca Raton, Florida. Hopeful speakers should volunteer their time for lightning talks and general speech topics soon!

    http://www.yapc.org/America/venue.shtml

    They didn't list it on the "Seeing Boca Raton" section, but there are other things to do in the Boca area, such FLUX (Florida Linux Users eXchange - http://www.flux.org/) and the 2600 meeting (not to mention Sawgrass Mills Mall which is an attraction all it's own - just come on a friday night).

    1. Re:Did we forget about the florida one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you mean La Boca Vista

    2. Re:Did we forget about the florida one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...No... what exactly is "La Boca Vista" ?

    3. Re:Did we forget about the florida one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      George's parents were going to buy a condo there... Jerry's parents lived there...

  37. Howdy Hooty Sapper Ticker! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .

    How'd you spell that Hooty, cutie?

  38. Re:I just want to know if Heidi Wall will be there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you sir rock. -1 funny is funny as hell

  39. Quit Bitchin by Yo+Grark · · Score: 1

    All you Americans can attend "half price" because of our sagging currency/exchange rate, while us "Canadians" can't afford to buy lunch there let alone travel.

    Yo Grark
    Canadian Bred with American Buttering

    --
    Canadian Bred with American Buttering
    1. Re:Quit Bitchin by RobinH · · Score: 2, Informative

      All you Americans can attend "half price" because of our sagging currency/exchange rate, while us "Canadians" can't afford to buy lunch there let alone travel.

      You haven't been watching the exchange rate recently, have you? 12 months ago, 1 U.S. dollar was worth $1.60 Canadian, but my last exchange occurred at the rate of $1.47, and the U.S. dollar is still dropping in value.

      Whoever is in charge of the dollar policy in the U.S. recently changed. The previous guy was an advocate of a strong U.S. dollar (I'm not sure why), but the new guy realizes that was hurting U.S. exports, so you can expect the rate to settle somewhere around $1.35 to $1.40 after the dust settles. That would at least bring it inline with purchasing power on both sides of the border.

      It will also bring comparative salaries more inline on both sides, so it might slow down the "brain drain" of Canadian talent to the U.S.

      --
      "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
  40. Re:I just want to know if Heidi Wall will be there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can someone please tell me where I may download nice pictures of this uber-chick?

  41. Perl shmerl by houseofmore · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Time to let go

  42. Whew! by Lord_Slepnir · · Score: 2, Funny
    This is a great way to get involved either as a presenter or an attendee.

    And I was going to go as a sharpshooter on the roof, but this is an even better idea!

  43. Re:I just want to know if Heidi Wall will be there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oscon2001/07/24/tu esday_photos2.html

  44. Ruby by Cranx · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Am I the only one who sits here scratching his head wondering why anyone would go to a Perl convention when they could be home coding in Ruby?

  45. Stealth Canada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stop exposing us.

    The Americans are still not aware of the plan.

  46. Perl in Canada by RealBeanDip · · Score: 2, Funny

    perl -eh 'print "pass the poutine\n"'

    --

    You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.

  47. Re:First Hooty Post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry? I don't speak Ebonics.

  48. Re:script kiddies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should have it in mexico, then the taco bell script kiddies could buy a penthouse.

  49. Hrmm by Raul654 · · Score: 1

    Macintosh user's group... mugoo... sounds about right :)

    --


    To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
    --E.C. Stanton
  50. Re:PERL is a waste of time by Shade,+The · · Score: 1

    Ok, I know you're a troll, but *gak* Java?! I've just returned from 18 hours of solid Swing coding. *Shudder*. I'd do anything to be allowed to implement this in Perl/Qt.