Hash Crash Course
When I teach about hashes, I do what most Perl tutors and tutorials do: I introduce the hash as a “dictionary”: a mapping between one thing and another. The classic example, for instance, is to have a set of…
Rapid Website Development with CGI::Application
This article provides an update on the popular and mature CGI::Application framework for web applications. It assumes a basic understanding of the system, so reviewing the previous Perl.com article about CGI::Application may be helpful background reading. CGI::Application and Catalyst…
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The State of the Onion 10
Welcome to the tenth State of the Perl Onion. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my methods, this is the annual speech wherein I ramble on about various things that are only marginally related to the state…
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Generating UML and Sequence Diagrams
Imagine yourself in a meeting with management. You’re about to begin your third attempt to explain how to process online credit card payments. After a couple of sentences, you see some eyes glazing over. Someone says, “Perhaps you could…
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Still More Perl Lightning Articles
Using Module::Build, using Swing from Perl, turning modules into scripts, adding mocks to test fixtures-it’s time for more Perl lightning articles!
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FEAR-less Site Scraping
Imagine that you have an assignment that you need to fetch all of the web pages of a given website, scrape data from them, and transfer the data to another place, such as a database or plain files. This…
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Charting Data at the Bottom of the World
I have an odd job: I’m the only programmer for about 500 miles. I look after experiments on a remote Antarctic research station and look after the data they produce. As well as the scientific stuff knocking about, we…
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Unraveling Code with the Debugger
Many people who work with Perl code never touch the debugger. My goal in this article is to provide reasoned argument for adding the Perl debugger to your set of tools, as well as pointers on how to do…
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Using Ajax from Perl
If you’re even remotely connected to web development, you can’t have failed to have heard of Ajax at some point in the last year. It probably sounded like the latest buzzword and was one of those things you stuck…
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Advanced Subroutine Techniques
In “Making Sense of Subroutines,” I wrote about what subroutines are and why you want to use them. This article expands on that topic, discussing some of the more common techniques for subroutines to make them even more useful….
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Managing Rich Data Structures
As a Perl beginner, I wrote many scripts that created text files to store snippets of data. Eventually I had hundreds of little text files in a data directory, each one holding one piece of information in the form…
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Debugging and Profiling mod_perl Applications
Because of the added complexity of being inside of the Apache web server, debugging mod_perl applications is often not as straightforward as it is with regular Perl programs or CGIs. Is the problem with your code, Apache, a CPAN…
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Test-Driving X11 GUIs
Driving X11 GUIs using X11::GUITest Introduction Interfaces to GUI applications like DCOP or D-BUS allow you to interact with GUI applications in order to get at their internal states or set some arbitrary states. Sometimes GUIs don’t allow for…
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More Advancements in Perl Programming
Around Easter last year, I finished writing the second edition of Advanced Perl Programming, a task that had been four years in the making. The aim of this new edition was to reflect the way that Perl programming had…
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Analyzing HTML with Perl
Routine work is all around us every day, no matter if you like it or not. For a teacher on computing subjects, grading assignments can be such work. Certain computing assignments aim at practicing operating skills rather than creativity,…
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What Is Perl 6
In the sixth year of Perl 6’s multi-year reinvention, some of its developers reflected on why it was taking so long.
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Lexing Your Data
s/(?<!SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE )FOOT/HEAD/g Most of us have tried at one time or another to use regular expressions to do things we shouldn’t: parsing HTML, obfuscating code, washing dishes, etc. This is what the technical term “showing off”…
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A Timely Start
This article is a follow-up to the lightning talk I delivered at the recent YAPC::Europe 2005 that took place in Braga, Portugal: “Perl Vs. Korn Shell: 1-1.” I presented two case studies taken from my experience as Perl expert…
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Logic Programming with Perl and Prolog
Computing languages can be addictive; developers sometimes blame themselves for perceived inadequacies, making apologies for them. That is the case, at least, when one defends his or her language of choice against the criticism of another language’s devotee. Regardless,…
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Testing Files and Test Modules
For the last several years, there has been more and more emphasis on automated testing. No self-respecting CPAN author can post a distribution without tests. Yet some things are hard to test. This article explains how writing Test::Files gave…
