Perl blog post #22 + Happy Holidays (again)

Primarily this week I will refer to you my ongoing series on why I program in Perl, over in my Other Blog.

However, it’s also Christmas-time again—my fourth since starting this blog—so I will also take a brief moment to wish you happy holidays and merry christmahannukwanzaakah.^*  You may recall my “happy holidays” rant from two years ago (and, if you don’t, I highly recommend you check it out, for the awesome Christmas mix I provide if for no other reason).  I mentioned then (as I did the year before as well) Fox News’ “War on Christmas” meme that they trot out every year in the hopes it will get some traction.  This year it’s gotten very silly indeed.  Gretchen Carlson bitches about a Festivus pole.  Megyn Kelly informs us that Santa just is white, children.^**

But my favorite clip was Bill O’Reilly pointing out that, since Hannukah came in November this year, saying “happy holidays” didn’t make any sense because Christmas was now the only holiday left.  I suppose if you celebrate Kwanzaa, Yule, or Pancha Ganapati, Bill considers you beneath notice.  Somehow I can’t help but feel that’s contrary to what is generally considered to be the Christmas spirit.

This year we introduced our kids to A Charlie Brown Christmas for the first time.  Aside from having awesome music (interesting side note: I heard “Linus and Lucy” on a radio station playing Christmas music the other day—is that really a Christmas song?), it has a really sweet message.  Here’s a show which has been airing since before I was born,^*** and they were already railing against the commercialization of Christmas.  How would they react to the situation today?  There were several places around where I live that actually trotted out the Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving this year.  But the special makes some cutting remarks about commercialism (we had to explain to our kids that aluminum Christmas trees were a real thing), folds in the religious message with a moving monologue by Linus, and ends with a touching scene of unity, as all the kids who have been verbally abusing Charlie Brown the entire episode now gather together and sing around his little-engine-that-could Christmas tree.  Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, he may be the Charlie Browniest, but he still deserves love and respect and fellowship, especially at this time of the year.  Perhaps Mr. O’Reilly has forgotten that.  Or perhaps he never learned it.

In any event, I wish you all the very best holiday you could possibly have, no matter what it may be, no mater whether it’s come and gone or is yet to come.  And, if you celebrate Christmas as I do, I hope you really enjoy the Mystery Days this year.

__________

* ™ Jon Sime

** If you click on that Daily Show link, be sure and watch the second video that pops up as well, for maximum cognitive dissonance.

*** Okay, not very long before I was born, but a bit.

Perl blog post #21

Continuing my series on why I use Perl (as opposed to some other language), today on my Other Blog I talk about object-oriented programming and what’s nifty about it, with some shout-outs to some of my previous blog posts here along the way.  Wander over and check it out if any of that sounds intriguing.

Perl blog post #20

Today I’ve done another technical blog, although it’s not very technical.  It’s the story of why I’m a Perl programmer (as opposed to a C programmer, or a Java programmer, or any other sort of programmer), and it’s part 1 of a long series I’ve been wanted to do for a while now.  If you’re interested in those sorts of personal history details (or comparative language studies for computer code), hop on over and check it out.

Perl blog post #19

This week I saw a cool Perl blog post that I just had to respond to, so I did, over on the Other Blog.  If you’re into Perl, hop on over and check it out.  If not, go amuse yourself for another week and check back in then.

Perl blog post #18

Had an interesting conversation at $new_work that I parlayed into a new tech blog post.  If you dig Perl (especially modern Perl), hop on over and check it out.  If not, then you can try back next week, if you’re so inclined to be that persistent.

Perl blog post #17

Well, it’s been about 2 months since I’ve done a technical post, so I decided to put one together for my Perl homies.  This one is on strong vs weak typing, so pop on over if that sounds like something that might excite you.  If it doesn’t, just take the week off.  Perhaps next week will thrill you more.

Perl blog post #16

I had hoped the fact that the family was gone this week (camping) would allow me to get ahead on blog posts again, but, alas, it didn’t work out that way.  So I’m cheating a bit, by revisiting the same topic I essayed last week, since it seemed to stir up some strong emotions.  Toddle off to my Other Blog if you’re interested in seeing my rantings for this week.  This one doesn’t require any Perl knowledge at all, really; it’s more of a reflection of the nature of these sorts of debates on the Internet (such as they are).

Perl blog post #15

Still recovering from a bit of a cold this week—I’m in that lovely phase where you mostly feel fine, except every once in a while you start hacking and coughing until you hock up a big ol’ glob of phlegm—which was my second week at my new job.  Not the most awesome time to get sick.  Here I am trying to impress folks with how intelligent and savvy I am and instead I’m wandering around with virus-induced zombie-brain.  Ah, well.  I’ll have plenty more shots at it.

Anyway, I did I a quick tech blog post this week.  Just a response to some other blog posts I read recently.  Head on over there and check it out if you’re into Perl.  This one doesn’t require any technical knowledge, but a bit of understanding of programming languages in general and their evolution wouldn’t hurt.

Perl blog posts #13 and #14

For only the fifth time ever, I missed a blog post last week.  I lost my driver’s license—actually, my entire money clip—and I was scrambling around, trying to replace everything before I had to get on a plane last Sunday.  So I have a reasonable excuse, I suppose.  Except for the fact that I had several posts all ready to go; all I had to do was get one of them up.  Ah, well.  My mind was fried.

Part of this was the moronity encountered when I was trying to replace my photo ID (which, you know, is sort of important for flying these days).  (If you were at YAPC with me, you probably want to skip this paragraph and the next, because I’ve already subjected you to this rant.)  Let’s start with the California DMV: the new driver’s licenses are all fancy and holographic, presumably to cut down on fake IDs.  But it means that, when you go to get a new license, they hand you a piece of paper off their printer.  Like a dot-matrix printer, even.  The fancy license gets mailed to you later.  Try convincing a TSA guy in Texas that the piece of paper printed off on 1980’s technology is your official state-issued ID.  But here’s the stupid part: there were 17 windows at the DMV, and, at every single one, there’s a thumbprint scanner.  Which scans your thumbprint and identifies you in real time.  Nice that I don’t really have to have much ID to get my ID, once I got my thumbprint in there in the first place, but the point is, you can afford 17 real-time biometric scanners, but you can’t afford one lousy holographic printer? really?

And then there’s Costco.  Your Costco card has your picture on it, and I actually read online that people had successfully used that with the TSA in a pinch.  So I went to get a replacement Costco card, just in case it might be useful.  They asked me for a photo ID.  I was tring to get a photo ID, I pointed out.  They said they couldn’t issue me a Costco card without a photo ID.  I pointed out that they already had my picture online: just bring it up on your computer and then look at me.  The lady looks at me and says: “But the picture is stored at the corporate headquarters.  It could take a few days to bring up.”  Seriously???  Have you people never heard of this little thing called the Internet?  I can get pictures from China in seconds, but you think it’s going to take you a few days?

And, after all that, the only person who really gave me any crap over not having a license with a picture on it was the dork at the cheap hotel I stayed at.  I even managed to get a rental car with my dot-matrix ID.  So that was nice.

Interesting side note: our best guess as to where the money clip went was that my youngest threw it away.  That’s her new thing: taking whatever she can lay hands on and thoughtfully putting it into the trash can, or recycling bins.  So helpful.

Anyhow, to make up for missing last week, I’ve posted not one, but two tech posts on my Other Blog.  So, if you’re into Perl, check out my post on notes in Vroom.  And you can also read about my experiences at YAPC 2013 if you like, and that one doesn’t require you to speak Perl at all.

I should be back on track starting next week.

Perl blog post #12

I’ve done another technical post on my other blog this week; it’s on the augment feature of Moose.  That’s Perl-speak, so pop on over there if you speak Perl.  If not, just relax and perhaps I’ll get something a bit more exciting next week.

Then again, my parents are visiting all this coming week, so perhaps not.  Who can say?

Perl blog post #11

Yet another CPAN catch-up week.  I was pleased this week to put the finishing touches on another one of my sabbatical projects, and it allowed me to make a new release for Debuggit, which was the first module I ever released to CPAN.  So, again, if you’re a Perl geek, check it out, and, if not, find something else to amuse yourself this week.

Perl blog post #10

This week I’ve been catching up on a lot of Perl & CPAN stuff that I’ve been neglecting because of work.  The resulting work was very interesting, and inspired a technical post on my other blog.  Hop on over if you’re a Perl geek.  If not, you’ll just have to wait until next week for something interesting to come around.

If you’re lucky.

Perl blog post #9

Still trying to get caught up on everything around here, and work is not helping.  I’ve got someone lined up to help take some of the burden off me for work issues, but it takes time to make that transition, and, in the meantime, I’m still working way too hard to get all the info transferred.  (Interestingly enough, I’m in the same situation for the hobby forum where I’m a sysadmin.)  It’s hard to keep up with blogging in the midst of all that.

Still, I managed to bang out a new technical post this week.  I got an email earlier in the week from one of the Perl luminaries wanting to discuss a new feature for one of the CPAN modules that I co-maintain.  Always cool to have an online discussion with someone whom you’ve previously only known from watching him give presentations at conferences (and damn good ones, at that).  So I was inspired to turn that design discussion into a blog post, so I did.

In other news, my middle child (also sometimes known as “the smaller animal”) just got his first laptop today—a little Acer netbook.  Now he can do things like “play monkey bloons” without needing to steal our computers.  We’re so proud!  Also, having your own computer is an excellent way to force you to learn to read.

Anyways, hopefully by next week things will have settled down back into some semblance of normal.  Not that you should care, of course, but just in case you do.

Perl blog post #8

Today’s post is another technical one, that deals with fear of change and how a particular development practice can help with that.  I’ve no doubt that, even if you’re not too technical yourself, you could get something out of it if you were willing to give it a shot.  Or, just refer back up to the masthead if you prefer.

Perl blog post #7

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to everyone.  I’m doing another tech blog this week, although it isn’t quite done yet.  It’ll be up soon and then I’ll come back here and edit this post to have a link to it.  Probably in such a way that you thought the link was there all along.  It’ll be like magic.  Wooo.

Perl blog post #6

Been trying to get back into the swing of things at work, so I’ve been doing a bit of Perl coding this week, and I decided to write about it.  Check out the other blog if you like such things.

Next week perhaps I’ll get back to this blog.  Or not.

Perl blog post #5

Another uber-technology post this week, and, since it involved Perl this time, I decided to post it on my Perl blog.  Continuing in the vein of This vs That, it’s Perl vs Shell Scripts.  Hop on over if you’re so inclined.

Next week, I’ll be recovering from some (minor) surgery, so we’ll see if I have enough gumption to post something.  Wish me luck!

Perl blog post #4

This week I decided to write about my trials and tribulations getting a new version of Test::File out, so hop on over to my perl blog and read all about it.  Probably more so if you’re into the whole technogeek thing, but there is a reference to my eldest in there for anyone who knows me and is willing to suffer through the technobabble.

Perl Blog Post #3

It's a Perl week again this week.  Check out the other blog should you be so inclined.

Perl blog post #2

I've done another Perl blog post this week, so you non-techies will just have to deal with it.  You techies can just hop on over and read it.