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Best of The Perl Journal
All three volumes reveal a good hand at choosing articles and editing the contributions; after spending three years as a magazine editor I know that not all the contributors could have written this well. The writing is consistently good, tight, well edited and readable.
Across them all you will find articles by almost every major contributor to Perl and a great many of the people who have contributed major modules to CPAN. It's good to feel that perhaps a few cents from your book purchase is flowing into each of these pockets and repaying their work.
Viewing the 3 books as a whole my one real concern is that perhaps a little tighter restrictions on the article choice may have been better -- some of the articles are really only of historical interest, discussing methods overtaken by further development in Perl or the modules available. You may also find only one or two of the volumes contain articles of particular interest to you, I discovered that my favourites were spread across all three and bemoaned the semi-arbitrary division of topics as I only closely read about two books worth from the three volumes -- of course your milage may vary.
The first and largest volume, Computer Science & Perl Programming, is the one volume where I read and enjoyed almost every one of the seventy articles (by 41 different authors) included. The topics covered vary widely, from an essential trilogy of articles about regular expressions by Jeffrey Friedl to some esoteric discussion of Perl internals by Chip Salzenburg.
The second volume, Web, Graphics and Perl/Tk, contains 39 articles, around half of which are devoted to topics such as mod_perl, spidering, and other web stuff. Here is where you can find yourself reading an article about topics now made redundant by changes to Perl and its modules. The graphics section is an eclectic mix while the Perl/Tk section adds up to a fairly good tutorial on the topic.
The third volume, Games, Diversions and Perl Culture, collects 47 articles on a broad range of topics: 15 of them are about various sorts of language processing in Perl that I found extremely interesting. It also includes the Obfuscated Perl Contests, the Poetry Contest and a bunch of other "silliness." An article on how the magazine's covers were photographed seemed particularly pointless.
I'd recommend the first volume for almost anyone interested in Perl. The second might be worth purchasing if you wanted the web coverage. The third is worth it if you want the coverage of language processing or have an interest in the culture that surrounds Perl. Check the O'Reilly pages for one, two and three to see the tables of contents, index, grab the code examples and download a sample chapter (the third volume has two example chapters.) I've given the first volume an 8 but the other two get 7 and 6 respectively as the article choices make them less useful, though the quality of writing and editing is as good.
I think all three would be a marvelous addition to any decent tech library - they seem perfect for a library as they have all the benefits of a five year collection of TPJ without the problems of magazine storage, cataloging and conservation. For everyone else, grab the first one and then decide based on the content for the other two.
You can purchase Best of the Perl Journal (Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3) from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
because it will succeed this time. The mistakes of the past are behind us. Communism is enjoyable for the whole family, very much unlike scarlet fever, for example.
...the popular adult flick "Best of the Perl Necklace"
Think someone forgot to close an italics html tag... entire of /. appears in italics...
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
to vote for me so I can finish at least 2nd?
I'm afraid they are all sweet on Johnny Edwards---
Dr. Howard Dean
Your blackboard should look like this by the end of the day:
...
I will remember my closing tags, especially </I>.
I will remember my closing tags, especially </I>.
I will remember my closing tags, especially </I>.
God I'm bored today. What is it with Mondays?
Easy ways to get admin rights on NT servers!
I have recently found a really easy way to get Admin rights on an NT
box....
so easy I'm surprised it wasn't discovered earlier.
Here we go:
A plain old user has write access to the winnt\system32 directory.
He renames logon.scr to logon.old.
He then renames usrmgr.exe (or musrmgr.exe on Workstations) to logon.scr.
He then shuts down the computer using the "close all programs and log on as
different user" option.
He then waits.....
The system will start logon.scr if left long enough.
User Manager will load......
The user then selects his domain. (You have to type the domain name in)
He then adds himself to the Administrators group.
He then exits and logs back on.
There must be some code in the comment submission code that checks makes sure all tags are closed and closes them if not (so posters can't screw up the rendering). Is there some reason that this same code can't be used in whatever script the editors use to post stories?
Just curious, seems this happens at least once every few months.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
FYI: The close-tag for is not optional.
Howard Dean's 'smart ID' plan
By Declan McCullagh
CNET News.com
January 26, 2004, 5:18 AM PT
COMMENTARY--After Howard Dean's unexpected defeat last week in Iowa, public attention has focused on his temper, his character, and that guttural Tyrannosaurus bellow of his not-quite-a-concession speech. But Dean's views on Americans' privacy rights may be a superior test of his fitness to be president.
Dean's current stand on privacy appears to leave little wiggle room: His campaign platform pledges unwavering support for "the constitutional principles of equality, liberty and privacy."
Fifteen months before Dean said he would seek the presidency, however, the former Vermont governor spoke at a conference in Pittsburgh co-sponsored by smart-card firm Wave Systems where he called for state drivers' licenses to be transformed into a kind of standardized national ID card for Americans. Embedding smart cards into uniform IDs was necessary to thwart "cyberterrorism" and identity theft, Dean claimed. "We must move to smarter license cards that carry secure digital information that can be universally read at vital checkpoints," Dean said in March 2002, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. "Issuing such a card would have little effect on the privacy of Americans."
Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."
The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. "On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money," Dean said.
There's probably a good reason why Dean spoke so vaguely: It's unclear how such a system would work in practice. Must Internet cafes include uniform ID card readers on public computers? Would existing computers have to be retrofitted? Would tourists be prohibited from bringing laptops unless they sported uniform ID readers? What about Unix shell accounts? How did a politician who is said to be Internet-savvy concoct this scheme?
Perhaps most importantly, does Dean still want to forcibly implant all of our computers with uniform ID readers?
Unfortunately, Dean's presidential campaign won't answer any of those questions. I've tried six times since Jan. 16 to get a response, and all the press office will say is they've "forwarded it on to our policy folks." And the policy shop isn't talking.
Then there are the privacy questions. To curry favor among the progressive types who form the backbone of his campaign, Dean has positioned himself as a left-of-center civil libertarian. He's guest-blogged for progressive doyen Larry Lessig, embraced the Brady Bill and affirmative action, told audiences on the campaign trail that the Bush administration has "compromised our freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism," and pledged to repeal parts of the USA Patriot Act.
It's difficult to reconcile Dean's current statements with his recent support--less than two years ago--for what amounts to a national ID card and a likely reduction in Americans' privacy. "Privacy is the new urban myth," Dean said in that March 2002 speech.
"I know of no other Demo
1) US acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war
2) US willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war
3) Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the US would be a demonstration of "moral strength"
4) Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5) Extension of long term loans to Russia and Soviet Satellites
6) Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination
7) Grant recognition of Red China, and admission of Red China to the UN.
8) Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the Germany question by free elections under supervision of the UN
9) Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the US has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress
10) Allow all Soviet Satellites individual representation in the UN
11) Promote the UN as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the UN as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo)
12) Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party
13) Do away with loyalty oaths
14) Continue giving Russia access to the US Patent Office
15) Capture one or both of the political parties in the US
16) Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions, by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17) Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Socialism, and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in text books.
18) Gain control of all student newspapers
19) Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20) Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
21) Gain control of key positions in radio, TV & motion pictures.
22) Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings", substitute shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms.
23) Control art critics and directors of art museums. " Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art".
24) Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25) Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography, and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.
26) Present Homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as "normal, natural, and healthy".
27) Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch"
28) Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state"
29) Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30) Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man".
31) Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of "the big picture:" Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32) Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture - - education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33) Eliminate all laws or procedures, which interfere with the
I bet these moderators are shocked and offended by a Jay Leno monologue.
How the hell did this comment get moderated troll?!
It's funny!
If it needs to be explained to you, maybe you shouldn't have mod points on slashdot.