http://www.shlomifish.org/me/blogs/ http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2013/04/heroic-people-make-any-job-awesome.html First of all, I have written my recent hacktivity log over on my new dreamwidth.org blog, and I am not posting it here, because it involves a lot of non-code hacktivity, which I expect to do quite a lot... Shlomi Fish employment hacktivity log jobs work http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2013/04/heroic-people-make-any-job-awesome.html Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:04:24 -0000 2013-04-14T19:06:57Z http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2013/03/screenplay-text-alternative.html A short time after I posted a message about XML-Grammar-Screenplay to a Perl forum, a Perl enthusiast sent me a message reading like that: I would think that a proper screenplay grammar would be useful (I've thought of writing... Shlomi Fish hacking hollywood perl screenplays scripts http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2013/03/screenplay-text-alternative.html Sun, 24 Mar 2013 04:45:09 -0000 2013-03-24T04:47:02Z http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2013/03/ann-my-transition-from-software-developer-to-writerentertaineramateur-philosopherinternet-celebrity.html I'd like to make an announcement: after some serious thought, I decided that from now on, being a software developer (which I am not too bad at) will only be the means (but the absolutely necessary ones) to me... Shlomi Fish cpan hacking humor humour perl philosophy http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2013/03/ann-my-transition-from-software-developer-to-writerentertaineramateur-philosopherinternet-celebrity.html Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:34:16 -0000 2013-03-09T15:35:21Z http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2013/02/essay-just-write-the-god-damn-tests-motherfucker.html (I originally wrote this in a post to qa@perl.org, and I apologise for the profanity in the title, but I felt it is needed in this case.) So why am I writing this? I used to feel guilty about... Shlomi Fish essay philosophy tdd tests http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2013/02/essay-just-write-the-god-damn-tests-motherfucker.html Sun, 03 Feb 2013 18:02:18 -0000 2013-02-03T18:03:13Z http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/65955.html <h2>Israeli Perl Workshop 2013 - 25 February 2013</h2> <p> (The Hebrew text will be followed by an English one). </p> <div align="right" dir="rtl"> <p> <a href="http://act.perl.org.il/ilpw2013/" rel="nofollow">סדנת הפרל הישראלית לשנת 2013</a> תתקיים ב-25 בפברואר, 2013. זהו כנס יומי שיתקיים <a href="http://act.perl.org.il/ilpw2013/location.html" rel="nofollow">במכללת שנקר ברמת-גן</a>. לעיונכם נתונה <a href="http://act.perl.org.il/ilpw2013/talks" rel="nofollow">רשימת המצגות</a> שתינתנה בסדנה, בה יהיו שני מסלולים. </p> <p> הפעם יידרש תשלום עבור הכנס, כדי לכסות את ההוצאות, ויש צורך להירשם (בקישור), אז הקדימו להירשם היום. בנוסף, אם אתם, או חברה מסחרית אחרת שאתם מכירים מעוניינים לתת חסות לסדנה, אנא פנו למארגניה. </p> <p> הפעם סימן הכנס הוא "פרל מעשית" (Perl in Practice) ואנו מקווים שרוב ההרצאות בכנס תהיינה על יישומים מעשיים שנכתבו או יכתבו בשפת פרל. </p> <p> פרל הינה שפת תכנות דינמית וחזקה שנמצאת תחת פיתוח פעיל, ושיש לה מאגר הרחבות פעיל ופורה בשם <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPAN" rel="nofollow">CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network)</a>. <a href="http://perl.org.il/" rel="nofollow">דף הבית של שוחרי הפרל הישראליים</a> מכיל מידע נוסף וקישורים נוספים לגבי הפעילות של חובבי השפה בישראל. </p> <p> הפעם יתארחו בסדנה מספר אורחים מחו"ל וביניהם <a href="http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%99_%D7%95%D7%95%D7%9C" rel="nofollow">לארי וול</a>, הידוע כיוצר שפת פרל (ומספר מיזמים חשובים מוקדמים וביניהם הגרסה הראשונה של תוכנת ההטלאה <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_%28Unix%29" rel="nofollow">patch</a>) שגם יציג בכנס; אליו תתלווה רעייתו גלוריה. בהמשך נעדכן את שמותיהם של האורחים הנוספים. </p> </div> <h3>English Version</h3> <p> The <a href="http://act.perl.org.il/ilpw2013/" rel="nofollow">Israeli Perl Workshop of 2013</a> will take place on 25 February, 2013. It will be a daily conference which will take place <a href="http://act.perl.org.il/ilpw2013/location.html" rel="nofollow">in Shenkar College in Ramat Gan</a>. One can view the <a href="http://act.perl.org.il/ilpw2013/talks" rel="nofollow">list of talks</a> that will be given in the conference, where there are going to be two tracks. </p> <p> ‎This time the conference will cost some money in order to cover the costs and, so there is a need to register (just follow the link). Therefore, please register as soon as possible. In addition, if you, or a different company that you know, are willing to sponsor the workshop, please contact the organisers. </p> <p> Perl is a dynamic and powerful programming language which is under active development, and which has an active and comprehensive extension repository called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPAN" rel="nofollow">CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network)</a>. <a href="http://perl.org.il/" rel="nofollow">The home page of the Israeli Perl Mongers</a> contains other information and more links about the activity of Perl's Israeli enthusiasts. </p> <p> This year's conference will sport some guests from abroad, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall" rel="nofollow">Larry Wall</a>, who is known as the creator of the Perl programming language (and some earlier software projects such as the original <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_%28Unix%29" rel="nofollow">patch program for UNIX</a>), and who will give a talk at the conference; he will be accompanied by his wife, Gloria. We will publish the names of the other guest speakers as we learn about them. </p> <p> Everyone is welcome to attend. </p> Shlomi Fish ( shlomif@iglu.org.il ) events perl israeli foss http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/65955.html http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/65955.html Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:47:03 GMT http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2013/01/count-up-to-100-cpan-distributions-quality-as-well-as-quantity.html Going over the previous count-ups to 100 CPAN distributions in this blog, I feel I have been carried away: I tried to release a lot of new distributions to the CPAN, while neglecting all the existing distributions I have,... Shlomi Fish 100 cpan hacktivity hacktivity log perl sdlx xml http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2013/01/count-up-to-100-cpan-distributions-quality-as-well-as-quantity.html Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:53:26 -0000 2013-01-07T20:54:43Z http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2012/12/count-up-to-100-cpan-distributions-test-xml-ordered-sdlx-betweener-and-more.html Well, it's no longer a secret that I'm craving to join the "100 CPAN Distributions Club" by releasing some code that is hopefully not too useless. Here I would like to blog about the two new additions to my... Shlomi Fish 100 cpan hacktivity hacktivity log perl sdlx xml http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2012/12/count-up-to-100-cpan-distributions-test-xml-ordered-sdlx-betweener-and-more.html Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:49:23 -0000 2012-12-06T17:57:51Z http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2012/11/three-command-line-utilities.html So, November is NaNoWriMo ("National Novel Writing Month"), and I was hoping to get some serious writing done (instead of coding), but I kept being distracted with coding and random writing in various Internet forums. Well, hopefully this blog... Shlomi Fish bash cli command cpan gnu line parallel perl sleep http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2012/11/three-command-line-utilities.html Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:30:40 -0000 2012-11-14T13:41:02Z http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2012/10/please-publish-perl-events-on-the-lwnnet-calendar.html As I read last week's LWN.net's Announcement Page (LWN.net is a news site for open-source-related news, formerly standing for "Linux Weekly News"), I noticed that there were few if any Perl events featured in its upcoming events calendar. However,... Shlomi Fish conferences events lwn lwn.net perl yapc http://blogs.perl.org/users/shlomi_fish/2012/10/please-publish-perl-events-on-the-lwnnet-calendar.html Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:07:00 -0000 2012-10-18T11:28:47Z http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/64318.html <p> A lot of computer programs, and especially many open-source applications like to boast that they are “simple”. But what does it mean? Given the various applications and misapplications of this word, I can think of several meanings: </p> <ol> <li> <p> Easy to use. </p> </li> <li> <p> Lacks complexity (whatever that means and implies). </p> </li> <li> <p> Simplistic. </p> </li> <li> <p> Minimalistic. </p> </li> <li> <p> Lacks extraneous features. </p> </li> </ol> <p> Very often, these meanings are at conflict with one another. For example, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME" rel="nofollow">GNOME</a> developers have been keen on making the feature set as minimalistic (in accordance to meaning #4) as possible, which has taken the project to spiraling depths of unusability (opposing meaning #1). Furthermore, <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/" rel="nofollow">Arch Linux</a> taglines itself as “a lightweight and flexible Linux® distribution that tries to Keep It <b>Simple</b>”. However, during one day, I spent three incredibly vexing hours in trying to install it on a Virtual Box virtual machine, due to the installer's lack of usability, and if I had to do it on live hardware, it would have taken me much longer. You call that simple? I joked that it would take an engineering degree from a prestigious university to figure it out. I have that, but it did not help me much. </p> <p> As a result, I have become incredibly suspicious and weary of any software that prides itself on its “simplicity”, even though “simplicity” should be a good thing. </p> <p> Bjarne Stroustrup (the creator of C++) has this to say about Java on <a href="http://www.stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html" rel="nofollow">his FAQ</a>: </p> <blockquote> <p> Much of the relative simplicity of Java is - like for most new languages - partly an illusion and partly a function of its incompleteness. As time passes, Java will grow significantly in size and complexity. It will double or triple in size and grow implementation-dependent extensions or libraries. That is the way every commercially successful language has developed. Just look at any language you consider successful on a large scale. I know of no exceptions, and there are good reasons for this phenomenon. [I wrote this before 2000; now (2012), the language part of the Java 7 specification is slightly longer in terms of number of pages than the ISO C++11 language specification.] </p> </blockquote> <p> So simplicity is often a function of immaturity and incompleteness. </p> <p> Of course, some things that call themselves “simple” are not simple in any of the meanings, for example <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP" rel="nofollow">SOAP</a>, the so-called “Simple Object Access Protocol” (see <a href="http://wanderingbarque.com/nonintersecting/2006/11/15/the-s-stands-for-simple/" rel="nofollow">the S stands for Simple</a>), is not simple in any of the meanings I have given, but it is still called like that. </p> <p> I feel that like <a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/politics/define-zionism/" rel="nofollow">the word “Zionism”</a> no one is no longer sure what “simplicity” means, and as a result, some people no longer consider it a good quality to have. It’s a shame, but that’s life. </p> Shlomi Fish ( shlomif@iglu.org.il ) linux perl open source http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/64318.html http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/64318.html Mon, 08 Oct 2012 15:08:52 GMT