If you like this site, I would appreciate a gift from my wishlist.

Shlomi Fish's Quotes as Fortunes Cookies

The shlomif Fortune Collection

The Fortunes Themselves

I don’t Believe in Fairies

Display

I don’t believe in fairies. Oops! A fairy died.
I don’t believe in fairies. Oops! Another fairy died.

Shlomi Fish

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

The prefix “God Said”

Display

The prefix “God Said” has the extraordinary logical property of converting any statement that follows it into a true one.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

A Jewish Deduction

Display

A Jewish Deduction

The Bible dictates that “Thou shalt not seethe [= cook] a kid [= young goat] in his mother’s milk”. To avoid any possibility of breaking that regulation, the Jewish tradition ruled that it also applies to female goats, to mature goats, and to the meat and milk of two completely unrelated goats. It is also forbidden to eat the meat with fresh milk, and it applies to beef and mutton as well (including mixing the milk and meat of two different beasts). Finally, chicken, which are incapable of milk production, may not be eaten along with any mammal’s milk either.

We are fortunate that most mathematicians were not Jewish. Otherwise, it would have been forbidden to divide by all numbers between -1 and 1.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

I Used to be Arrogant

Display

I used to be arrogant. Now I’m simply Perfect.

Author One of Shlomi Fish’s Relatives
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Murphy’s Law

Display

If the ancient Greeks had invented UNIX, Murphy’s Law would have been known as Aristotle’s Law.

Had they invented MS-Windows, Murphy’s Law would have been known as the Law of Socrates.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Microsoft’s Slogan

Display

Microsoft’s slogan used to be “Microsoft - making it all make sense.”

Today it should be: “Microsoft - making everything make sense. Ours.”

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Linux - Because Software Problems...

Display

Linux - Because Software Problems Should not Cost Money.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Linux Slogan and Banner

The American Lottery

Display

The American Lottery - all you need is a dollar and a dream. We will take the dollar, but you can keep the dream.

Shlomi Fish

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

“Shit Happens” - 1

Display

“Shit Happens” according to the religions of the world (Deltas by Shlomi Fish)

Judaism: God knows you will do shit, does nothing to prevent it, but makes you take the blame for it anyways.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Shit Happens - 2

Display

“Shit Happens” according to the religions of the world
(Deltas by Shlomi Fish)

Judaism: God is all the shit, all the non-shit and all the intermediate demi-shits in between.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Interpret the Past

Display

Let’s interpret the past according to the present and not the present according to the past.

Shlomi Fish

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Computer Science and C Programming

Display

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes

— Edsger W. Dijkstra

Programming Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about stars.

— Shlomi Fish

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Next Movie

Display

[Discussing the shortage of IT workers as of 1998 on E-mail]

Shlomi Fish to Omer Zak: “Even the NSA doesn’t have enough programmers. But it is not likely that they will have more and that’s because Summerschool at the NSA may might as well be the name of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s next movie.”

Omer Zak to Shlomi Fish: “And as opposed to I Know What You Did Last Summer it is going to be scary.”

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Objective Philosophy…

Display

Objective philosophy is like a pencil sharpener for one’s mind.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

“The Enemy and how I Helped to Fight It” - 1

Display

Oh! I wish you could see the look on his face! Actually, I would have also liked to see the look on his face, but just then I woke up from the dream.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The Enemy and How I Helped to Fight It

"The Enemy and how I Helped to Fight It" - 2

Display

Had I not been already insane, I would have long ago driven myself mad.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The Enemy and How I Helped to Fight It

"The Enemy and how I Helped to Fight It" - 3

Display

“Aside from all that, I planned a political simulator that forecast the two World Wars after I entered all the relevant data until the year 1000 AD.”

“Do you have a computer at home?”

“Oh, no! At present the program is written on a paper. Don’t ask how much time it took me to fully eliminate all bugs out of it. But it was great fun!”

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The Enemy and How I Helped to Fight It

"The Enemy and how I Helped to Fight It" - 4

Display

“Likewise.” Added the interviewer and said: “Your answers were also very… unusual.”

“Although this description cannot testify on their quality, I take it as a compliment.”

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The Enemy and How I Helped to Fight It

“The Enemy and how I Helped to Fight It” - 5

Display

The government of the Supporter will finance your travel, and you will be able to leave tomorrow morning. We would like to inform you of the following facts: we cannot assure your safety during this travel. Furthermore, despite your long service at the Organisation and your constructive proposal, we cannot say, wholeheartedly or halfheartedly, that we wish to protect your safety. Likewise, we cannot guarantee that we would not take actions that may harm you, indirectly or in a direct manner.

We hope to see you here very soon.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The Enemy and How I Helped to Fight It

"The Enemy and how I Helped to Fight It" - 6

Display

“Okay, I think that I can now return to my country and my village. By the way, how many forbidden books do you have?”

“Oh,”, one of them said to me, “their number is growing geometrically. When I checked two weeks ago, their number was 2,148,763. A week ago there were 4,278,109 forbidden writings. Now there must be about 8,600,000 ones.”

“You are wrong.”, I said to him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“There are now exactly 8,517,559 or 8,517,560 forbidden books.”

“Why is it so important?”

“Why, it means that, for the time being, you have 82,440 or 82,441 extra books which you can read at bedtime if you can’t fall asleep!”

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The Enemy and How I Helped to Fight It

"The Enemy and how I Helped to Fight It" - 7

Display

“And what is the nature of those activists: Socialists? Communists? Liberals?… ”

“Let’s say, for the sake of simplicity, that they are people of my intellect, only that as opposed to me they are sane.”

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The Enemy and How I Helped to Fight It

A more experienced programmer…

Display

A more experienced programmer does not make less bugs. He just realizes what went wrong more quickly.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Microsoft Notepad

Display

BTW, for an editor with no replace feature (at least not on Windows 95), no regular-expression search and replace, no indentation support, no syntax-highlighting and no macros and scriptability features: MS Notepad is one hell of an editor!

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Wonderous are the ways of Microsoft

WYSIWYT - Documentation Improvement

Display

Suggested Improvements to the Documentation:

The WYSIWYT project was for a long time fascinated by Microsoft’s tremendous desire to advance its Internet Explorer web-browser. We saw the fact that they switched the help systems of the upcoming Windows 98, as well as Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0, to HTML a major step in advancing our project.

As a complementary step, some of the chief heads of our project suggested that the Windows’ manuals themselves, as well as all of Microsoft’s ads, will be designed in HTML and printed after being rendered by IE4. While this project is in the preliminary and planning stages, we expect it to acquire a large momentum soon.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work IRPWUG Announces Project “What you see is what you think”

If A is A and A is not not-A…

Display

If: 1. A is A.
2. A is not not-A.
does it also imply that:
1. B is B.
2. B is not not-B.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

I know I’m blond…

Display

I know I’m blond, but I have to colour my hair brown, so people would not think I’m stupid. Because, like the title of the book says: "You’ve only got Three Seconds".

Actually, since Amazon sent us two books like that, you’ve only got six seconds.

Author One of Shlomi Fish’s Relatives
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

“Knuth is not God!” - 1

Display

Knuth is not God! It took him two days to build the Roman Empire.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s “Knuth is not God!” Facts

“Knuth is not God!” - 2

Display

Knuth is not God! God has already released TeX version 4.0.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s “Knuth is not God!” Facts

Taking a Turing Test

Display

>
> Shlomi,
>
> Have you ever considered taking a Turing test? ;-)
>

<sarcasm>
Sure I did. I sat at one point of an IRC channel, and someone
tested me. Eventually it was discovered that I am a computer, but it
turned out the other side was an Eliza program. Strangely enough, I could
not detect that the latter fact was true.
</sarcasm>

	Shlomi Fish in Hackers-IL message No. 2465
    
Author Shlomi Fish
Work Hackers-IL message No. 2465

IGLU Cabal and the Turing Test

Display

There is no IGLU Cabal! None of them could pass the Turing test. But strangely enough a computer program they coded, could.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Hackers-IL message No. 2465

“Knuth is not God!” - 3

Display

Knuth is not God! Google is not God! RMS is not God!

God himself said that was the case.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s “Knuth is not God!” Facts

“Knuth is not God!” - 4

Display

Knuth is not God! Typing “God” into Google and pressing “I’m Feeling Lucky” would not lead you to his homepage.

Shlomi Fish in Hackers-IL message No. 2084 ("The Great WWW-Wisdom Shootout")

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s “Knuth is not God!” Facts

“Knuth is not God!” - 5

Display

Knuth is not God! Unless you confuse him with Dijkstra.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s “Knuth is not God!” Facts

Patenting the TINIC

Display

(I am patenting issuing a TINIC with anything else but the phrase "There is no IGLU Cabal!". The patent number is kept secret to avoid violating the copyright of its text)

Shlomi Fish in Hackers-IL message No. 2021

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

C++ and Object-Oriented Programming

Display

C++ supports Object-Oriented Programming, roughly as much as COBOL supports Functional Programming.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

If it had not been clear…

Display

I hope that if it had not been clear before, it isn’t less clear now.

Author One of Shlomi Fish’s Technion Lecturers

Hi, Sophie!

Display

Jack: Hi, Sophie!

Sophie: Don’t “Hi, Sophie!” me.

Jack: Don’t “Don’t ‘Hi, Sophie!’ me” me!

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Crazy Opinions

Display

My opinions may seem crazy, but they all make sense. Insane sense, but sense nonetheless.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Corollary of Godwyn’s Law

Display

Shlomi, I’m considering naming a corollary of Godwyn’s law after you - any discussion of anything is over when you mention Freecell Solver.

— Muli Ben-Yeuhuda on #kernelnewbies (irc.kernelnewbiews.org)

Muli: BTW, I think that any discussion only begins to gain momentum when I mention Freecell Solver.

— Shlomi Fish on #offtopic (irc.kernelnewbies.org)

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Keeping an Idea to Yourself

Display

There’s no point in keeping an idea to yourself since there’s a 10 to 1 chance that somebody already has it and will share it before you.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

An Apple a Day

Display

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Two apples a day will keep two doctors away.

Author One of Shlomi Fish’s Relatives
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

You are banished!

Display

“You are banished! You are banished! You are banished! Hey! I’m just kidding!”

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Foreign Languages

Display

[Discussing Foreign Languages Knowledge in the U.S.A]

Ben Collins-Sussman: Tis’ true, unlike Europe, the language doesn’t change every 100 miles.

Shlomi Fish: And unlike England, the accent does not change every 10 miles.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

What happened to Christopher Michael Pilato?

Display

What happened to Christopher Michael Pilato?
Is he gone?
Is he gone for good?
Is he gone for better?
Is he gone for best?
Is he gone forever?
Will he return?
Who is Christopher Michael Pilato, anyway?

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Adapted from an IRC Monologue

Teaching a Computer to Laugh

Display

> Can anyone draw a plan as to how to teach a computer to laugh? Say we
> define laugh as print "LOL", and define smile as print ":)". How would a
> computer know when to print any of those, and when to operate an Eliza
> program?

Judging by IRC or AOL, randomly would do just fine ;-)

	Muli Ben-Yehuda in Hackers-IL message No. 3513
Author Muli Ben-Yehuda
Work Hackers-IL message No. 3,153

In Philosophy, as much as in software engineering

Display

In Philosophy, as much as in software engineering, you don’t get credit for originality. What matters is the final product, not who came up with the idea for each feature first.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

HURD is Lacking in Developers

Display

> Unfortunatly as other people have mentioned - the HURD is seriously
> lacking in developers, especially driver writers. Linux is to blame for
> most of that.

KImageShop is seriously lacking in developers, and the GIMP is to blame
for most of that.
Author Shlomi Fish
Work Post to the Linux-IL Mailing List

He has a high degree of…

Display

He has a high degree of idealism, a high degree of stubbornness, and an even higher degree of inability to distiniguish between the two.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

I expected that this patch won’t go in so easily

Display

> Thanks, applied as change #22936.

And thank you for applying this patch. But to be honest, I’m a little disappointed. I expected it won’t go in so easily and will trigger some discussion here. But there was none. No typo corrections (“you mis-spelled ‘floccinaucinihilipilification’”); no flames ("this patch is the worst thing since non-sliced bread"). Nothing.

Someone should do something about it. This direction is not healthy for p5p. Seriously.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Post to perl5-porters

sleep-fu

Display

rindolf Right now, I think I’ll go to sleep.
mitch nite rindolf
mitch sleep-fu well
rindolf mitch: night.
rindolf Bye all!
rindolf mitch: there are no PDB entries for me sleeping.
rindolf mitch: nor do I want any.
mitch haha
mitch (rindolf-sleep INTERACTIVE|NONINTERACTIVE)
rindolf mitch: heh
rindolf mitch: (plug-in-rindolf-sleep ...
mitch :)
Kevin (plug-in-rindolf-sleep 8 HOURS)
Channel #gimp
Network GimpNet
Tagline Contemplating some potential procedural database functions

Contributing to #gimp

Display

yacoob a quickie: are ‘adjustments layers’ planned to be implemented in gimp?
nomis yacoob: at some point in the future, yes.
yacoob nomis: dare to estimate how far this future is?
nomis yacoob: no.
rindolf yacoob: faster if you contribute.
* nomis waits for the "oh, I cannot program at all".
rindolf nomis: faster if he learns how to program, and then contributes.
nomis :)
yacoob rindolf: you wouldn’t like me to contribute, believe me ;)
Channel #gimp
Network GimpNet
Tagline Faster, faster!

Girly Men

Display

[Commenting in Slashdot after Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to use open-source software in the California government:]

> This is obviously because Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are girly-men.

Yeah and what are the offerings of the open-source world? Let’s see:

1. Linus Torvalds - Looks like a dweeb, ergo is a dweeb. How girly is that? (plus his wife can kick ass better than him) 2. Richard M. Stallman - a hippy. How girly is that? 3. Eric S. Raymond - a nice looking man with a mustache. Baby faced, so he looks a bit girly to me. 4. Larry Wall - a cross between Linus and RMS (i.e: a hippy dweeb) that is even more girly.

So who do we have left? Alan Cox? OK, he’s manly. (huge man, huge facial hair, etc.) And all the others are so neglible people don’t even know how they look like.

Note: this comment may have been a bit cruel, so sorry. Don’t take it too seriously, especially if you’re one of the guys I laughed about. I hold you all with the greatest respect. Seriously.

Sincerily yours,
Shlomi Fish (who is a quite girly male himself).

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Slashdot Comment

If his programming…

Display

If his programming is anything like his philosophising, he would find ten imaginary bugs in the "Hello World" program.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Hacker Sees Bug

Display

Hacker sees bug. Hacker does not want bug. Hacker fixes bug.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Tcl is Lisp on Drugs…

Display

Tcl is Lisp on drugs. Using strings instead of S-expressions for closures is Evil with one of those gigantic E’s you can find at the beginning of chapters.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

95% of Programmers

Display

Linus Torvalds: "95% of Programmers consider themselves in the top 5%".

Shlomi Fish’s Corollary: "95% of Programmers consider 95% of the code they did not write, in the bottom 5%."

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Too Girly

Display

rindolf Linuxgrrl: well The Gilmore Girls is also a drama. Sort of a dramedie, but a serious one.
Linuxgrrl Meh.
Linuxgrrl Too girly for me.
rindolf Linuxgrrl: you are a girl.
rindolf Linuxgrrl: let me guess - you’re using Debian or Gentoo, right?
Linuxgrrl Gentoo.
rindolf Linuxgrrl: knew it.
rindolf Linuxgrrl: no self-respecting tomboy would use Mandrake.
Channel #linuxchics
Network OFTC
Tagline Too Girly

C++ is…

Display

C++ is complex, complexifying and complexified.

(With apologies to the Oxford English Dictionary).

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Blogging Memes

Display

rindolf I’m siicckk of blogging memes.
rindolf You are this file type.
rindolf You are that type of cloth.
jkauffman You are this member of the Friends show
rindolf jkauffman: LOL.
jkauffman "January 4th, 2005: Just took an online quiz and it turns out I’m a Joey type"
Channel #perlcafe
Network Freenode
Tagline Shlomi Fish (rindolf) and jkauffman

Becoming Crazy

Display

tyler- rindolf: you are seriously the craziest fucker I know
tyler- and I know some crazy ass people
mofino haha
rindolf tyler-: I am crazy. And proud of it.
tyler- rindolf: you should be
mofino haha
mofino Ahh man
rindolf tyler-: being crazy is hard work. I worked all my life to becrazy.
mofino Normal people aren’t fun.
rindolf tyler-: "Craziness is not an action. It’s a process."
mofino heh
tyler- rindolf: I see
rindolf You need to tend to your insanity.
rindolf tyler-: do you want to be crazy?
tyler- rindolf: that’s why I feed my leprechaun at least once aday.
rindolf tyler-: I can teach you everything I know.
Channel #perlcafe
Network Freenode
Tagline Becoming Crazy

Discussing living with one’s parents on IRC.

Display

rindolf mofino: I have some money, and am living and am supported by my parents.
rindolf mofino: there’s much less of a taboo against living withone parents after school in Israel, than there is in the States.
mofino It’s not taboo
mofino It’s pathetic.
mofino Although, sometimes life sucks, and you have no choice.
q[ender] you know, it depends
q[ender] if you’re not married and / or not getting any, it doesn’t much matter if you live with your folks
mofino ender, usually when you have self-respect, you try and you know, make it on your own
rindolf q[ender]: are you married and not getting any? You could live with your parents.
q[ender] hahaha
mofino haha
q[ender] awesome
q[ender] rindolf++ # good burn!
Channel #perlcafe
Network Freenode
Tagline Living with your parents

Moses-the-Smiley

Display

:)-<
 +--

-- Moses the Smiley by Shlomi Fish
                    
Author Shlomi Fish
Work Moses the Smiley

The First Phrase that needs to be Taught

Display

The first phrase that should be taught when teaching a new language is how to say “Do you speak English?”.

The first thing that needs to be taught when teaching a new computer tool is how to exit it.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Re-inventing the Wheel

Display

He who re-invents the wheel, will understand much better how a wheel works.

He who re-invents the wheel, may actually invent a much better wheel.

Shlomi Fish

He who re-invents the wheel will likely design a square wheel and spend a year trying to figure out why it doesn’t work properly.

Nadav Har’El

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Better Alternative

Display

Sometimes you don’t need to be familiar with a better alternative to know that something sucks. Take Microsoft Word for example.

Author Shlomi Fish’s Friend
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Good Student vs. Bad Student

Display

The difference between a good student and a bad student is that a bad student forgets the material five minutes before the test, while a good student five minutes afterwards.

Author One of Shlomi Fish’s Technion Lecturer
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Real Programmers Don’t Write

Display

Real programmers don’t write workarounds. They tell their users to upgrade their software.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Jewish Atheists

Display

Jewish Atheists are the only true Atheists. They beat the hell out of Goy Atheists.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Chuck Norris Perlsixifies at FreeNode’s #perl6 channel.

Display

rindolf ajs: perhaps Chuck Norris would be a useful addition to the Pugs and Parrot teams.
ajs rindolf: If Norris can write, give him a commit bit, and tie him to a keyboard ;)
FurnaceBoy I thought he already had commit
daxim Chuck Norris commits with a roundhouse kick into the SVN server’s head
* FurnaceBoy chuckles
ajs daxim: If you can get that to pass the test suite, then more power to you!
FurnaceBoy Chuck *is* the test suite
Kattana chuck norris does not code, when he sits at a computer, it just does whatever he wants.
rindolf Kattana: :-)
daxim ah, we’re easy to amuse
ajs Be the test suite, Chuck... BE the test suite.
FurnaceBoy you gotta pass ‘make chuck’
Channel #perl6
Network Freenode
Tagline Chuck Norris Perlsixifies at FreeNode’s #perl6 channel.

The ex-Member about Rashness

Display

“You know:”, the physicist said, “in my opinion since you left the Organisation you acted without thinking a lot before you did things. I would describe your behaviour as deriving from spontaneousness and fickle‐mindedness that border rashness. Do you also think so?”

“Of course!” I replied, “Except for arrogance, rashness is my only defect!”

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The Enemy and How I Helped to Fight It

Second Best Solution

Display

The current solution offered by Nvidia may be the second-best solution. But this is one case where the second best solution is not good enough.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Nvidia Petition

If it isn’t in my email…

Display

If it isn’t in my email, it doesn’t exist.

And if the whole world says one thing and my email says something different, email will conquer.

-- an Israeli Linuxer.

Author An Israeli Linuxer
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Buffy and Willow

Display

rindolf Hi CSWookie
rindolf CSWookie: aren’t you also on Freenode?
CSWookie rindolf: What’s up.
CSWookie rindolf: I am.
rindolf CSWookie: I’m fine.
rindolf CSWookie: you are a Buffy fan right?
CSWookie rindolf: I am. Although really, more a Willow fan. Nothing hotter than red-headed Jewesses that are scared of boys.
Channel #gimp
Network GimpNet
Tagline CSWookie on Willow

When Closed-source Bites

Display

rindolf Hi all! How can I tell Flash in FF to play using artsd? It keeps trying to invoke esd. I’m on Mandriva 2007.
vexati0n the REAL question is, wtf is taking adobe so long with flash 9 :@
vexati0n rindolf: you might have to set that with firefox’ settings.
vexati0n or, do what good people do and use opera.
vexati0n :P
* rindolf slaps vexati0n
rindolf vexati0n: I’m not using Opera. Period.
rindolf I don’t like it and it’s not FOSS.
vexati0n god, it’s like opera is anathema just cause people can’t look at it’s code or something.
vexati0n like YUO are going to tinker with your browser’s source code anyway
rindolf vexati0n: actually, I did that for Firefox.
rindolf vexati0n: I have a bug pending on bugzilla.mozilla.org.
rindolf vexati0n: nah, nah, nah, nah
vexati0n well, you wouldn’t have to do it with opera because it already works :P
rindolf vexati0n: I hate the fact that it resizes images.
rindolf vexati0n: it causes the images to be too large.
rindolf vexati0n: now tell me how do I fix that.
vexati0n opera resizes images? o.O
vexati0n do you have a page it screws up so i can look?
rindolf vexati0n: when I press Ctrl++ and Ctrl+-
vexati0n oh. you mean it doesn’t just increase the size of the text.
rindolf vexati0n: take http://www.shlomifish.org/art/ for example.
rindolf vexati0n: yes.
Channel ##linux
Network Freenode
Tagline When Closed-source bites

The Bad Thing about Hardware

Display

The bad thing about hardware is that it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. The good thing about software is that it’s consistent: it always does not work, and it always does not work in exactly the same way.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Welcome to Web 2.0

Display

rindolf Kev: thanks.
rindolf Kev: did you post it on the French page?
Kev not yet
rindolf Kev: you need to create an account first. But it’s easy.
rindolf It’s a MediaWiki based wiki.
Kev arghhhhhhhhhhhh
rindolf Kev: what’s wrong?
jagerman Maybe MediaWiki wronged him in some way!
Kev wiki
jagerman Just be thankful it isn’t a blog!
rindolf Kev: what’s wrong with wikis?
rindolf And be extra thankful it’s not MySpace.
jagerman Mt. Allison [University] is now paying 5 students to maintain a "life as a Mt. A student" blog
Channel #perlcafe
Network Freenode
Tagline Welcome to Web 2.0

Unflattering Nicknames

Display

mofino Well I’m confused and I’m going home
mofino Later guys
mofino And girl.
mofino Young tender girl ...
mofino sweet 16 year old girl ....
avar haha
rindolf mofino: heh.
* mofino puts away his lynching pedo personality
mofino ;)
mofino lates
* ChanServ gives channel operator status to jagerman
←jagerman has kicked mofino from #perlcafe (Leave already :P)
* jagerman removes channel operator status from jagerman
avar We have found pedobear and he is mofino
→mofino has joined #perlcafe
mofino can you like not do that as I’m picking up my keys?
mofino you fagerman
rindolf fagerman, homofino, what’s next?
rindolf I know - q[tyler-]
rindolf OTOH, I’ve been called Slimy Fish lately.
avar rindolf: The *real* Slimy Fish?
rindolf avar: the one and only 100% original real actual and unmatched Slimy Fish<tm>!
rindolf I’m the real Slimy, yes I’m the real Slimy, if you’re the real Slimy and not just a Slimy. So will the real Slimy please stand up, please stand up...
* jagerman is ashamed for actually knowing those lyrics
avar sing it jew boy:)
Channel #perlcafe
Network Freenode
Tagline Unflattering Nicknames

Linux for Christians

Display

rindolf CSWookie: tried Christian Ubuntu yet? ;-)
goldfish lol.
goldfish Oh dear, you weren’t joking.
rindolf goldfish: no, I was.
goldfish hah
goldfish "Ubuntu Christian Edition is a free, open source operating system geared towards Christians. It is based on the popular Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is a complete Linux-based operating system, freely available with both community and professional support."
moldy i might try it soon
moldy right now we are using plain dapper at my church
goldfish moldy: hah
moldy is this that funny? :p
goldfish :)
rindolf http://christianubuntu.blogspot.com/
moldy hehe
moldy For 40 days before Easter, Ubuntu Christian Edition works in text mode only.
moldy haha
goldfish That’s brilliant :)
rindolf There’s also a Jewbuntu blog, but it’s not as funny as this Christian Ubuntu blog.
moldy true
moldy That sounds about right -- Jesus might have preferred Jewbuntu since he was a Jew. Then again, Jesus was also a dedicated idealist, so he might have chosen Debian instead of Ubuntu. :-P
moldy hehehe
tpope why has ubuntu become the distro of puns?
moldy has it? there are puns for other distros, too
Strogg Jesus came from long long ago. I bet he runs debian stable. :)
Channel #vim
Network Freenode
Tagline Ubuntu for Christians

More Advanced than CVS

Display

On Sunday 01 April 2007, chromatic wrote:
> On Saturday 31 March 2007 15:26, Yuval Kogman wrote:
> > uses_version_control sounds more like lacks_manifest_skip_file which
> > should deduct kwalitee IMHO.
>
> Maybe so, but how else can CPANTS detect that you use the world’s most
> advanced version control system: CVS?
>

Are you kidding?

CVS is not advanced as:

1. Microsoft Visual SourceSafe - the only sane choice for good data integrity
and portability.

2. tarballs/zip-files and patches. This one excels in convenience, and
robustness.

CVS is a very advanced version control system, however. I do wish that
Subversion (which is a VCS that I have to use against my will) was as good as
it is.

    -- Shlomi Fish answering to chromatic on 01-April-2007
    
Author Shlomi Fish
Work "Re: New CPANTS metrics"

Larry Wall Facts

Display

  • Larry Wall can understand the Perl code he wrote last year.
  • Larry Wall gets the colon.
  • There are at least 137 Larry Walls in the U.S. but only one that matters.
  • Larry Wall applies a patch manually quicker than GNU patch.
  • Larry Wall dreams in Perl.
  • Larry Wall can program in his sleep.
  • Larry Wall is lazy, impatient and full of hubris.
  • Larry Wall has more dollars in the bank than in his Perl code.

-- Larry Wall facts by Shlomi Fish

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s "Larry Wall Facts"

Electrical Engineering Studies in the Technion

Display

Electrical Engineering studies. In the Technion. Been there. Done that. Forgot a lot. Remember too much.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

"I am Without Faults"

Display

Well, for the record, *I* am without faults, but i’ll mention them here anyways:

  1. i really hate scriptaculous
  2. i kicked a dog the other day
  3. i pushed an old lady aside, on my way to get a cup of free coffee
  4. i secretly program in Python
  5. i like to interject and make lists
Author Jeff Anderson
Work Post to London Perl Mongers

“I’m not an actor”

Display

I’m not an actor - I just play one on T.V.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Discussing vapourware on Freenode’s ##freebsd

Display

anonuser You know for when they finally decide to release that programatic abortion they call perl 6
rindolf anonuser: on Christmas.
rindolf anonuser: don’t know which one.
rindolf anonuser: you can download pugs and play with it.
anonuser rindolf, The running joke I have with friends is that Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) is being written in Perl6
rindolf anonuser: it’s an old joke.
anonuser rindolf, DNF and Perl6 together is an old joke?
rindolf anonuser: yeah.
rindolf anonuser: “Perl 6 is the language Duke Nukem Forever will be written in.”
rindolf Well, it’s not too old, but it’s a meme.
Aji-Dahaka rindolf: I’m the guy who’s going to port DNF from GNU/Hurd to FreeBSD
Channel ##freebsd
Network Freenode
Tagline Discussing Vapourware

Trying to Block Pornography…

Display

Trying to block Internet pornography is like climbing a waterfall and trying to stay dry.

— Drew Dexter

Author Drew Dexter
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

I’m not Straight

Display

I’m not straight - I’m Israeli.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Almost Worthy

Display

Hi Omer! Mazal Tov on Chen and yours marriage. It reminds me of a quote from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre:

"At this period she married, removed with her husband (a clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy of such a wife) to a distant county, and consequently was lost to me."

Well, in your case I can say that both of you are almost worthy of each other. Congrats again!

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Comment on Omer Shapira’s Blog

It doesn’t Mean What You Think it Means

Display

> You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it
> means.

It does not mean what I think it means, but it means what *you* think it
means.

<evil-laugh>Muahahahah…</evil-laugh>
Author Shlomi Fish
Work Post to Linux-elitists

Tower of Babel and God the Dwarf

Display

A few weeks ago, I’ve been to Freenode’s #perl, talking to merlyn and other guys, when we got to discuss the Biblical "Tower of Babel Myth". As it turned out, the commonly perceived interpretation was not the one most scholars find as more sensible, which is the one we ended up being taught at Junior High School.

What most people think is something like that:

The people spoke to each other in the same language, concentrated in one place, and decided to build a tower high enough so they can reach God. God, a small dwarf who lived in the sky, was afraid of the efforts of these people, because he feared they’ll reach him. So he casted an 8th level Spell of Language Fragmentation, caused these people to speak in different tongues, and without being able to understand each other, they ended up spreading across the Earth. God was relieved and returned to his dwarfish deeds, as dwarfs do.

Shlomi Fish in (Based on what his Bible teacher said)

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Blog Post

One GEGL Per Child on GIMPNet’s #gimp channel

Display

CIA-1 shlomif * r1712 gegl/ (ChangeLog docs/index-static.html.in):
CIA-1 * docs/index-static.html.in: fixed "GEGLs" into "GEGL’s" and "GIMPs"
CIA-1 into "GIMP’s" in the homepage.
mitch why is breaking the correct writing a fix?
mitch rindolf: ?
mitch rindolf: oh i misread :)
* rindolf gives some GEGLs and GIMPs to the mitches.
mitch haha :)
rindolf One GEGL each!
rindolf There’s not enough for everybody.
mitch GEGLS FOR THE MASSES
rindolf We should have an assembly line of GEGLs.
rindolf Mass-produce them for the ever-growing demand.
Channel #gimp
Network GimpNet
Tagline One GEGL Per Child on GIMPNet’s #gimp channel

Dream Language in Freenode’s #lisp-il

Display

adeht rindolf: my brother had AIMA in hard-cover.. and maybe I can get a hold of PAIP
adeht s/had/has/;
* adeht yays for perl
rindolf adeht: what did perl do?
adeht <adeht> s/had/has/;
rindolf adeht: it’s actually from sed and ed before that.
adeht I know, but I’m using perl syntax :)
rindolf adeht: now write it in Lisp.
adeht heh.
adeht in Lisp you wouldn’t use a regex for this kind of dumb substitution.. though you could
adeht rindolf: a nice way of writing CL code is to imagine your dream language for expressing that particular problem, and then realizing it :)
rindolf You probably wouldn’t use a regex in Python either.
rindolf adeht: I see.
rindolf adeht: I’m not going to implement Perl in Common Lisp. :-D
adeht heh
Channel #lisp-il
Network Freenode
Tagline Dream Language in Freenode’s #lisp-il

Why Shlomi Fish Dislikes Lisp

Display

> This reminds me of Paul Graham’s articles, in which he claims that LISP
> programmers are better. But why is it so (whether or not you agree to
> the conclusion)? There are at least two opposite reasons: 1. Because
> programmers that learned LISP become better 2. Because good programmers
> prefer LISP when they come to know it.

No. 1 is true, naturally. No. 2 is not true - I know LISP but I prefer Perl.
Other like Python, etc. The reasons I don’t prefer LISP are:

1. The standards of Common LISP and Scheme don’t define anything practical.
2. LISP is at the moment incredibly verbose.
3. As Larry Wall noted, all LISP code comes in parenthesis and so it all looks
the same. (Perl is the exact opposite in this regard).
4. I cannot make heads nor tails of serious LISP code. Many LISPers create so
many macros and use them along with regular LISP code, so you keep having to
refer to the previous definitions, and make a lot of research to get you
started.

SICP Scheme is easy and fun. But serious LISP code can take too much time to
understand. OTOH, recently I had little problem reading the source code of
other Perl programmers, and extending it or fixing bugs. (likewise for
Python).
Author Shlomi Fish
Work Post to Linux-IL

We don’t Know His Cellphone

Display

We don’t know his cellphone number, and even if we did, we would tell you that we didn’t know it.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Engrew Sentence #1

Display

plis tak mi auot from yuor mail list.

-- This Engrew sentence contains very few errors.

Author Anonymous Israeli
Work Message sent to Shlomi Fish

What do you mean?

Display

What do you mean by "WDYM"?

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Windows-minus-minus

Display

Chen Shapira: spent 5 hours yesterday trying to get Windows to print on my new wireless printer. It still doesn’t work. On Ubuntu it worked after few minutes.

Shlomi Fish: Heh. Linux++ .

Chen Shapira: I’d do Windows-- , but this may result in an integer underflow.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

"Use qmail Instead" Excerpt #1

Display

A few days ago I joined #mandriva on Freenode trying to get to the bottom of a problem I have with KMail at work, where I cannot start KAddressBook from inside it. I asked my question and soon afterwards received:

  • One Thunderbird recommendation.
  • Two Evolution recommendations.
  • One Sylpheed Claws recommendation.
  • One GMail recommendation.

The problem is that I wasn’t interested to learn about alternative E-mail clients, and just wanted to get my problem solved. And in GMail’s case it was completely out of the question due to my work’s constraints.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The "Use qmail instead" Syndrome

RTFM vs. JATFM

Display

I recently had to figure out how to do something with wget: get everything below a directory on the web-server, without following links to outside it. So I logged in to FreeNode’s to ask it. The first answer I got was "RTFM". So, I read the wget man page, but could not find it there. Eventually, after telling people that it would be faster to give an answer, I got a reply ( add the -np -r flags). But this has been the last straw.

I composed my own acronym. Just like RTFM is "Read the Fabulous Manual" and STFW is "Search the Fabulous Web", then JATFM is "Just Answer the Fabulous Man". It means that it’s usually faster to answer someone’s question than to ask him to RTFM, which is just going to annoy him. I think the RTFM mantra has done a lot of damage in the UNIX/Linux world, and I hope JATFMing would prove to be a more healthy ideology.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Advogato.org Journal Post

I have to do TWAIN…

Display

A: I’m busy right now - I have to do TWAIN.

B: Do Shania Twain?

C: Oh, I’d love to do Shania Twain.

—Adapted from a conversation on Freenode’s #perl

Author Freenode #perl Participants
Work Adaptation of an IRC conversation

Fight for Perl

Display

→spx2 has joined #soc-help
spx2 I want to FIGHT FOR PERL IN GSOC !
spx2 I feel the power of metal in my veins
spx2 perl is flowing in my blood !
spx2 What perl Armies can I join this YEAR ?
ambs spx2: a lot :)
spx2 ambs: Hail BRETHREN !
spx2 where are the armies ???
spx2 I want to ENGAGE and start preparing my weapons !
spx2 ambs: what projects are this year ?
ambs spx2: ideas at http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?gsoc2008_projects
spx2 I will fight this year in the PERL battle !
rindolf spx2: Python is for the WEAK and TIMID!
spx2 rindolf: TOTALLY !
* spx2 examines the war grounds
Channel #soc-help
Network MAGNet
Tagline Fight for Perl

Perl Saints as an Alternative to Perl Heroes

Display

> So, yeah… there are no gods, only heroes.  And anyone can become
> a hero.  And even heroes are just regular people.
>

I don’t suppose we should propose that as an alternative to Perl Gods, there
should at least be Perl Saints:

http://www.stallman.org/saint.html

Of course, I’m not sure what being a Perl saint would imply. Using nothing but
Perl? (Including not C in which perl 5 is written?)

Oh well.

Not that I mind the Perl Gods stereotype stuff.

Regards,

        Shlomi Fish (a Perl saint^W hero wannabe, but definitely
        not a Perl God)
Author Shlomi Fish
Work Post to to San-Fransisco Perl Mongers Mailing List

What being a Perl Saint Implies

Display

> > > Of course, I’m not sure what being a Perl saint would imply.
> >
> >  It would imply having been killed for your faith in Perl.
>
> Does that make Randal the Spanish Inquisition?

No one expects the Randal Schwartz condition ;)

    -- Shlomi Fish, frosty, Duane Obrien and David Fetter in:
    --http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/sanfrancisco-pm/2008-April/001650.html
Author Shlomi Fish, frosty, Duane Obrien and David Fetter
Work San-Fransisco Perl Mongers Thread

San-Fransisco Perl Mongers: Randal Schwartz Noise Band

Display

>  > > > Of course, I’m not sure what being a Perl saint would imply.
>  > >
>  > >  It would imply having been killed for your faith in Perl.
>  >
>  > Does that make Randal the Spanish Inquisition?
>
>  No one expects the Randal Schwartz condition ;)

I almost feel honor bound now to start a noise band called The Randal
Schwartz Condition.  I could shout his rants into a microphone while
the rest of the band flogged a newbie live on stage.

    -- Duane Obrien in:
    -- http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/sanfrancisco-pm/2008-April/001651.html
Author Duane Obrien
Work San-Fransisco Perl Mongers Thread

San-Fransisco Perl Mongers: Randal Schwartz Condition

Display

>>>>> "Duane" == Duane Obrien <duane.obrien at gmail.com> writes:

Duane> Alternately, The Randal Schwartz Condition is now accepting bookings
Duane> for birthdays, weddings, religious ceremonies of any kind, or occasions
Duane> where your consulting company throws a big party at some conference.
Duane> Email me off-list for details on how to get advance copies of our demo
Duane> "I’m The Real Tim Toady"

I’m already thinking of words to the "tune" of "I’m the real Slim Shady".

Damn you. :)

    -- Duane Obrien and Randal L. Schwartz
    -- http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/sanfrancisco-pm/2008-April/001655.html
Author Duane Obrien and Randal L. Schwartz
Work San-Fransisco Perl Mongers Thread

Godwin’s Law

Display

> > In that case, lacking good links or a definitive reference text, I’ll have
> > to ignore your comment earlier.
> >
> > I hope it’s not much of a flamewar so far, but it sure seems to have
> > escalated into a minor one. "You are a Nazi!"
> > ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin’s_law ) - oops!
>
> Please.  The Nazi’s were socialists.  I’m a little to the right of
> Attila the Hun.
>

And I thought Attila was a Humanitarian.

    -- Shlomi Fish, Guy Hulbert and Shlomi Fish in:
    -- http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.module-authors/2008/04/msg6432.html
    
Author Shlomi Fish and Guy Hulbert
Work Post to the Perl module-authors mailing list

Pedantic People

Display

I often wonder why I hang out with so many people who are so pedantic. And then I remember - because they are so pedantic.

— an Israeli Perl Monger

Author Israeli Perl Monger
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Variable Naming on #not-##freebsd

Display

rindolf p13: do you write scripts?
p13 rindolf, init scripts and sys maintenance scripts in csh sh and bash
p13 but i suck
p13 haha
p13 i made them SO unreadable on purpose too
p13 my var names for example
p13 i would use random quotes from coworkers
p13 like "wereoutofcoffee"
p13 or "ihatemyjob"
p13 etc etc
trashguy i hate people lik eyou p13
p13 trashguy, hahaha
trashguy atleast the variabls are obvious and not mistaken for functions and shit
elgrande i stringly recommend to call variables only: var1, var2, var3 ... var999
elgrande but for purpose of clarity, after var999 continue with varB1, varB2,...
rindolf elgrande: <elgrande> i stringly recommend to call variables only: var1, var2, var3 ... var999 - excellent advice.
rindolf elgrande: LOL.
elgrande rindolf: and of course: cls1, func1, meth1, if1
elgrande so if var3 > var2 then var1 = cls3->meth2 endif
rindolf elgrande: heh.
rindolf obj997
elgrande everyone is understand this!
rindolf elgrande: I'll probably make a fortune cookie out of it.
elgrande obj997 bevahes like this, because it implements if371
elgrande ^^
rindolf elgrande: you're still going.
Channel #not-##freebsd
Network Freenode
Tagline Variable Naming

Monty Python on Computer Interfaces

Display

<monty-python>

A: You Linux kids are so lucky. When we were using Windows 95 and Windows 3.11 it kept getting stuck and we lost all our data. We had to reboot it.

B: You used Windows 95! Lucky Bastard! When I was your age, we used DOS on CGA screens, and we were lucky if we had 4 colors, much less a true windowing environment.

C: You had DOS with graphics? Lucky bastard! When I was your age, I used VT-100 terminals connected to a VAX. 128 characters should be enough for everybody?

D: Visual Terminals? When I was your age, we used teletypes on a PDP-11: the computer printed on paper - very slowly. Can you imagine cat’ing a really long document?

E: Teletypes were heaven compared to the punch cards that I was using. Imagine going over to the computer with a large amount of punch cards and then dropping them all.

F: Punch cards! What is this talk about punch cards? We inputted machine code direclty using buttons and LEDs.

G: And all we had were NAND gates!

</monty-python>

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Email Message

#python on Incrementing

Display

rindolf Hi all.
scorchsaber <all> Hi rindolf
rindolf scorchsaber: heh.
rindolf scorchsaber++
rindolf Or in Python:
rindolf scorchsaber+=1
rillo ??
rindolf rillo: Python does not have a ++ operator.
scorchsaber rindolf: Oh, but it does have a + operator.
rillo ah. i'm new to python so i diddnt know
scorchsaber A few days ago, it was suggested that I implement ++ using the + operator.
scorchsaber And I did so. :)
scorchsaber So, really, a++; is valid in Python, and it may even increment a by one. If somebody was crazy, anyhow, and if a was mutable.
rillo shall i move back to perl to get the ++
rillo ?
rindolf rillo: no, use COBOL instead.
rindolf ADD 1 TO COBOL GIVING COBOL
verte :(
verte eww, magic numbers!
rindolf "COBOL is the old Java"
verte ADD ONE TO COBOL GIVING COBOL
rindolf verte: heh.
rindolf verte: 1 is not a magic number.
rindolf ASSIGN 1 to ONE
rindolf 0, 1, infinity.
rindolf verte: LOL.
rindolf verte++
\amethyst COMPUTE COBOL = COBOL + 1
Channel #python
Network Freenode
Tagline On Incrementing

I Met a Guy in the Bar

Display

I met a guy in the bar, talked to her and she gave me her phone number.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

BASIC, Pugs and After Death

Display

rindolf TimToady: so BASIC was your first language?
TimToady no, English was my first language. :)
rindolf TimToady: I started with XT ROM BASIC, but I suppose it was something like Perl 5 was to Perl 4 for your BASIC.
rindolf BASIC has greatly evolved since Dartmouth BASIC.
rindolf TimToady: ah.
rindolf TimToady: not Chomsky's Universal language?
TimToady feh
diakopter rindolf: what's the name of the Parrot implementation of Intercal?
Juerd 21:04 <@TimToady> we have a test suite right now because of pugs
Juerd Very, very important.
rindolf diakopter: I don't know.
rindolf Juerd: yes, very.
rindolf Juerd: anyway, I expect that at every given time all tests will pass.
Juerd Well, there are probably bad tests too :)
Juerd Given the volume of the suite, and that pugs has never been able to even parse everything :0
Juerd :)
TimToady testrot accounts for many of those :)
rindolf TimToady: testrot...
rindolf TimToady++
rindolf How long does it take Pugs to run the entire Pugs test suite?
TimToady but a number of them were misunderstandings at the time
rindolf Because Pugs is kinda slow.
diakopter defudge should be renamed Passover...
TimToady used to run on my old laptop in about 25 minutes
rindolf TimToady: or cute bugs.
rindolf I mean implementation details.
rindolf TimToady: kinda long.
TimToady audreyt's dual core used to run them in 10 minutes
TimToady I haven't tried on my new laptop, since I haven't installed the lates ghc yet
TimToady first make it run, then make it run right, then make it run fast
rindolf TimToady: another problem with Pugs is that it kept requiring the latest ghc.
Juerd Did pugs drive GHC development perhaps? :D
TimToady shrug, you shouldn't pick on a software project when it's down
TimToady Juerd: yes, I believe some of that happened too
rindolf TimToady: "After Death - say holy."
rindolf TimToady: it's a Hebrew phrase.
TimToady Actually, I'm just about out of After Death--I've got a bottle of Mega Death now too.
TimToady just had some on my potatoes, yum.
spinclad sounds hot
TimToady of the first six ingredients, five of them are hot. Red habanero pods, cayenne chilies, white vinegar, natural pepper flavor, ancho chilies, chipotle chilies, molasses, guava nectar, fresh ginger, salt, spices.
TimToady 'bout 550,000 scovilles
TimToady After Death is only about 500k
TimToady Tabasco is only about 35k
spinclad tabasco i'm calibrated on -- now i can (only) imagine
TimToady so roughly 15 times hotter
spinclad 'add 1/15 drop per 100 potatoes'
TimToady I generally only use it about one "plop" at a time
TimToady unless I really want a large endorphin kick
rindolf TimToady: LOL.
spinclad enjoy yr clear sinuses
rindolf TimToady+=5
rindolf "After Death"
rindolf Reminds me of that screensaver.
rindolf "After Hours"
vixey After Dark
vixey with the flying toasters?
rindolf vixey: yes, that's the one.
rindolf Also had a nice Looney Tunes one.
rindolf "I now proclaim this computer in the name of Mars!"
rindolf (Marvin the Martian)++
vixey they were cool
rindolf I recall something about wine being able to run Windows screensavers.
spinclad "where's the kaboom? there was meant to be a case-shattering kaboom."
rindolf XScreenSaver is a pre-Autoconf hell from what I understood.
Channel #perl6
Network Freenode
Tagline BASIC, Pugs and "After Death"

On the Internet

Display

Two female dogs talking about modern-life:

Jasmine: It’s so cool! On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog!

Daisy: Yeah, but everyone can tell right away that you’re a bitch!

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

#perl6 about Lisp Mentality and Usability

Display

pmurias rindolf: what is Park/Spark?
rindolf pmurias: http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/projects/Park-Lisp/
rindolf pmurias: it's still incomplete.
rindolf And I haven't updated it.
pmurias rindolf: if you like lisp/perl6 projects you might consider helping with a common lisp elf backend
rindolf pmurias: Common Lisp.
rindolf pmurias: thing is I think both CL and Scheme suck.
rindolf I like Lisp as a concept.
rindolf Arc is nice, but has too many implementation problems.
rindolf And missing features.
vixey Arc is not nice
rindolf I want to give a presentation to the Perl Mongers about "Foreign Languages: Lisp"
rindolf vixey: I like it.
rindolf Though I hate that "(not)" has become "(no)"
rindolf it's so non-English.
vixey it's just TCL with horrible syntax
rindolf vixey: but it's missing a lot of exciting features.
rindolf Which PG deemed as unnecessary.
rindolf Doesn't look like the 100-years language to me.
rindolf Which is why - Spark!
pmurias why not just write an s-expression p6 dialect?
rindolf pmurias: could be.
rindolf pmurias: it's another approach.
rindolf But some things make sense in Lisp and not in p6.
rindolf For example, Perl does not like to use + for string or list concat.
rindolf While Python does and it seems to be OK in Arc too.
rindolf And in CL you have (concatenate) (yuck!).
pbuetow (((hehe)))
pmurias + for strings sucks
Auzon seconded.
vixey rindolf: If you don't like CONCATENATE you can just rename it
rindolf vixey: yeah.
rindolf vixey: but I'd rather not rename concatenate because then people won't understand my code.
rindolf vixey: as TimToady said people hate abstractions.
vixey yes they will rindolf
rindolf They want things to work out of the box.
vixey A program is many many totally newly defined procedures
vixey just renaming one thing is nothing in the context of a big program
rindolf vixey: "let's spend 3 days creating a new language, and 1 day implementing the solution with it."
TimToady if it would take 10 days without the new language, it's worth it
rindolf TimToady: yeah.
rindolf TimToady: but this is the CL mentality.
vixey no it's not
rindolf Sometimes you can take 1 day to write an API.
vixey CL is too diverse you cannot generalize like that
rindolf vixey: I meant a common idiom there.
rindolf I think I'll /quit and do something productive.
rindolf Like work on Spark.
vixey another quote:
vixey how to write any computer program in two easy stages:
vixey Design and implement the programming language which would be best for solving the problem.
vixey Write the program in the language you’ve just implemented.
rindolf vixey: or just use Perl which is the best for everything.
vixey heh
TimToady the second step is obvious--the best language for the job is one that does the job on a null input
* pmichaud notes that vixey's algorithm is somewhat recursive
TimToady "All rules of thumb are false, including this one."
pmurias rindolf: when you feel like writing Common Lisp backends, contact me or mncharity ;)
Channel #perl6
Network Freenode
Tagline Lisp Dialects (Scheme, Common Lisp, Arc, Spark) Mentality and Usability

kilmo about the NSA

Display

[Discussing the shortage of IT workers as of 1998 on E-mail]

Shlomi Fish to Omer Zak: "Even the NSA doesn’t have enough programmers. But it is not likely that they will have more and that’s because ‘Summerschool at the NSA’ may might as well be the name of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s next movie."

Omer Zak to Shlomi Fish: "And as opposed to ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ it is going to be scary."

Kilmo: why would you like to make fun about the crypto world ? ;) The NSA does know what you did last summer. And by putting this on the web, they know that you know.

Which may lead to interesting philosophical issues. BTW, in a conference I was attending we were given a sticker saying: "NSA - free email backup".

They still have some issue with the retrieval procedures, but besides of that - they are quite a trusted service.

Shlomi Fish: In my case, I think every random joe can learn a lot about me. Even if he’s not in Google or the NSA or whatever.

Kilmo: Yep. but this is a world-wide service that they offer. (Along with several cooperations, like MI5/6).

Author Shlomi Fish and Kilmo
Work Aphorisms Collection

What are you Working on?

Display

Ran Eilam To Shlomi Fish: so what are you working on? Working on a new wiki about unit testing fortunes in freecell?

Author Ran Eilam
Work Jabber Conversation

My blog post got chromatic’d

Display

Well, despite the fact that I hardly publicised my last essay about the "Closed Books", it has been chromatic’d. Rumours are that all the bloggers whose blog posts/essays were deprecated on chromatic’s blog are now rich, famous and the object of the affection of many attractive members of the appropriate sex. Memo to self: prepare a limited edition T-shirt: "My blog post was chromatic’d. I pwn you as a blogger."

Author Shlomi Fish
Work "Dealing with Approval Addiction (and Implied Stress Periods)

Birth of an Editor

Display

Richard M. Stallman (RMS) decides to release his brand-new editor, "Emacs" on the CPAN with its first version 29.999.99. In order to package it, he invokes the trusty ol’ module-starter (see http://search.cpan.org/dist/Module-Starter/) which creates a skeleton of a CPAN distribution for him.

He fills in the skeleton with the actual code of Emacs, types "perl Build.PL", and "./Build test" and makes sure all the tests pass. Then he types "./Build config --gui" and gets a nice GUI to configure the various parameters of the Module meta-data.[M-B-Data]

In the GUI, Richard goes to the Trove categorisation tab, and selects categories. This is done in a similar way to Freshmeat’s project categorisation dialog (a list of options to the left, with selected options to the right and arrows to move them left or right, while allowing multiple select options.). He chooses such categories as "Programming Language :: Lisp", and "Intended Audience :: Emacs Users", "Operating System :: GNU", and "Topic :: Editors". (Note: I believe the category list should be fetched using a public web-service to keep them up-to-date.)

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Functional Spec for the CPAN Classification Proposal

Second Birth of an Editor

Display

After several weeks of having the editor on CPAN, Richard has received many patches, and wrote a lot of code on his own. Now Emacs is not only an editor but a calendar tool, an Eliza program, a web browser, a mail user agent and many other things.

So in order to release version 30.000.00 he needs to update the categorisation. He runs ./Build config --gui again, and adds more categories. However, he enters too many categories (because Emacs now does them all), and the GUI refuses to save the file because it will overflow the limit that the web-service specified the CPAN classification services allow to handle. So Richard keeps only the important categories, adds more tags, and saves it.

He then tests the distribution again, and uploads the new distribution to the CPAN.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Functional Spec for the CPAN Classification Proposal

Microsoft Editing Macros

Display

Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft decides to use Richard Stallman’s Emacs as the basis of his company’s state-of-the-art product Microsoft Editing Macros™ Enterprise Edition XP .NET Professional. However since MS Editing Macros™ is a commercial, proprietary program which he intends to sell at computer stores, Bill is not going to upload it to the CPAN. He builds upon Emacs, sends patches to Richard and learns a lot about it.

When he’s finished building Microsoft Editing Macros™ he surfs to the Emacs homepage on CPAN, and adds some categories and tags of his own.

Eventually, enough people like Bill tag and categorise Emacs, and it gains more classification.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Functional Spec for the CPAN Classification Proposal

Looking Back at Your Old Habits

Display

rindolf "Who's the idiot that wrote this code?"
rindolf That's what many people say when looking at their old code.
jkauffman "I can't believe I used to listen to this crap"
jkauffman that's what people say when they look back at their old music collection
rindolf jkauffman: I don't usually.
rindolf jkauffman: I am however, a bit ashamed of some of the shows I liked when I was younger.
rindolf jkauffman: they seem a bit cheesy now.
jkauffman yes, you're onto such better things now that you can fully appreciate the gilmore girls
rindolf jkauffman: you can never really appreciate The Gilmore Girls until you've watched it in the original Klingon.
Channel #perlcafe
Network Freenode
Tagline Looking Back at Your Old Habits

Really Extreme Programming

Display

rindolf cl0ud: what's up?
cl0ud rindolf: just getting ready for work on this drizzly day
cl0ud rindolf: and feeling great
cl0ud rindolf: you?
rindolf cl0ud: sending an email to the Extreme Programming mailing list.
ik xtreme
ik rindolf: tell them that in order to be truly extreme, they need to ditch their pair-programming buddy system and start programming with spent ammunition and unexploded shells
rindolf ik: heh.
rindolf Extremist Programming
ik haha
rindolf Ik-stremist Programming.
ik :o
ispy_ What about Psycho Coding?
ispy_ :)
ispy_ PSYCoder <--- cool name for an editor :)
cl0ud Psychaudit <- memory tester
rindolf Neuraudit
ispy_ Hahah
Channel #perlcafe
Network Freenode
Tagline Really Extreme Programming

"You should shoot me"

Display

Larry: final exams are on Tuesday and through Friday, so you won’t see me for a while, or if you do - then you should shoot me.

Shlomi: I Will shoot you with my cross-intertubes-laser-gun.

Larry: HAHAHA.

Shlomi: Which I don’t have.

Larry: Which network topology will you implement, for better accuracy ?

Shlomi: I’ll just depend on the standard TCP/IP routing. Overlay the laser on top of the TCP packets.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work IM Chat with Larry

God gave us…

Display

God gave us two eyes and ten fingers so we will type five times as much as we read.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

Only wimps complain about bad code

Display

Only wimps complain about bad code. Real men clean it up.

Shlomi Fish

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

Wikipedia has…

Display

Wikipedia has a page about everything including the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_sink .

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

Hack, hack, hack…

Display

shlomif: hack, hack, hack ; save ; make ; make test; commit. And start over.

mrjink:hack, hack, hack; save; make; swear; fix typos; save; make; make test; swear some more; hack some more; save; make; make test; cheer; commit.

meep: hack, make, test, segfault, oh noes, revert to previous revision

Author Shlomi Fish and Others
Work On Plurk.

Threat vs. Warning

Display

Well, it’s not a threat - it’s a warning, and he won’t be harmed much by acting against my advice. A threat is something like "Stop posting political posts or I will burn your house, rape your wife and daughters, banish you to the middle of Antarctica, convert all your Perl code to PHP, and then post it on thedailywtf.com."

Regarding what you say that "no one cares if you unsubscribe", then this reminds me of what Fred Brooks says in "The Mythical Man-Month": "How does a project becomes late? One day at a time.". If you’re not careful, you might lose a large percent of your blog’s readership, one subscriber at a time.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work use.perl.org comment

Take that to a different channel

Display

metaperl_work thank you
metaperl_work nothingmuch, i want to chat with you on kiokudb
rindolf Hi metaperl_work
confound you should chat with him on #kiokudb then
mst metaperl_work: you mean "about kiokudb"
metaperl_work rindolf, hi! long time no see
rindolf metaperl_work: yes.
metaperl_work we are talking in #kiokudb confound
rindolf metaperl_work: what have you been up to?
confound no, this is #moose!
metaperl_work confound, "we" = me and yuval
metaperl_work rindolf, well.... keeping Seamstress up to date
rindolf metaperl_work: yuval and I.
jhannah In related news: i'm chatting on my mobile phone
metaperl_work Moose is saving my life... SUPER handy
metaperl_work jhannah, what type of mobile phone?
rindolf metaperl_work: what is Seamstress?
purl Seamstress is really nothing anyway
confound it's on cpan
jhannah metaperl_work: please take that question to #jhannah_phones
mst jhannah++
stevan jhannah: which network, there doesnt seem to be anyone there
nothingmuch i think buffy might be a closet lesbian
* stevan HAS TO KNOW!!!!
stevan nothingmuch: duh
nothingmuch stevan: i think you kinda missed the joke =P
stevan take that to #closet-lesbian-vampire-slayers
jhannah i get jokes
rindolf stevan: LOL. stevan++
dhoss jhannah++
jhannah stevan: i have hundreds of invisible groupies in dozens of #jhannah_* channels. they are well trained to be quiet when interlopers lope in
Channel #moose
Network MAGNet
Tagline Take that to a different channel

Do you speak French?

Display

rindolf uwd: what's up?
rindolf BTW, how has English become the official language of Singapore?
Altreus Viral marketing
uwd singapore has four official languages.
uwd one national one.
uwd also, politics.
uwd also, see wikipedia.
Altreus it knows all
Altreus [citation needed]
ik rindolf: it's a byproduct of the Richard Nixon / Henry Ford's campaign for chief taxonomist of western Nepal
rindolf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Singapore
ik (a coveted position)
Altreus taxonomist!
rindolf Wikpedia has an article about everything including the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_sink
Altreus They are in charge of taxis!
Altreus disambiguation pages make me sad :(
ik I like the disambiguity!
rindolf ik: heh
uwd i like disambiguation pages. they say "this thing you seek... it is not only one thing, you see? no, no, mon ami, this world, she is too big to contain only one of everything, eh?"
Altreus :D you talk like dee
uwd what.
Altreus wat
Altreus That message you said in French could have been typed by dee!
Altreus except it was you.
Altreus you doubleyou dee
uwd it was in English, actually.
Altreus okay
Altreus But it had some French in it
Altreus !
ik Two words! Four, if you count "no". Twice.
rindolf Yes, it sounded French to me too.
Altreus no is not french
rindolf non is.
Altreus oui!
Altreus elle n'a pas dit non
rindolf In any case saying "She" of the world is also a Frenchism.
rindolf Je ne sais pas.
ik But it's not french
rindolf Parlez vous anglais?
uwd it is also a generic Euroism.
Altreus oui
Altreus England is Europe too :(
uwd so not that French.
pkrumins Je m'appelle Pierre
rindolf pkrumins: heh.
pkrumins Je suis 24 ans!
Altreus Gods, the number of times I got contradicted at school for knowing that England was in Europe
pkrumins Je h'abite Riga
uwd Altreus: dude, given that was mostly English, i don't see why the sadface.
rindolf Tu s'appelle Peteris
Altreus it's no wonder stupid people make me violent
pkrumins Je'abite
rindolf pkrumins: not en Riga?
pkrumins maybe
rindolf or de Riga?
Altreus uwd: hmm
rindolf J'abite, non?
Altreus I seem to sadface a lot more than is necessary due to how I'm never actually sad
pkrumins Oui.
Altreus rindolf: habite
pkrumins Je monger a macdo.
Altreus il y a un h
pkrumins Je travailler on ordinator
pkrumins a programmator.
pkrumins Oui.
Altreus en!
Altreus probably au tbh
Altreus but a l' because vowel
uwd l'ordinator?
Altreus And travaille is the first-person present participle
Altreus And -eur
Altreus But mostly right!
uwd why -eur?
* Altreus pats pkrumins on the back
Altreus ordinateur
pkrumins tehe.
pkrumins jadone chats
Altreus I wonder if a pink one is an ordinateuse
pkrumins (or was it chiens)
uwd it's so much easier to say she and mon ami and have people think it's french than actually speak french...
pkrumins i think chats
pkrumins j'adore chats
pkrumins jaim a perl chat
Shiyiya jain n'est pas un mot
Shiyiya *jaim
Altreus j'aime
Shiyiya aussi jadone n'est pas un mot
pkrumins hmm
pkrumins pawings
pkrumins all i can say
rindolf pkrumins: chien is a dog.
rindolf I think.
Shiyiya Ues, chien is dog
Shiyiya *Yes
rindolf chat
rindolf chatte for feminine
rindolf http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cat
Channel #perl-cats
Network Freenode
Tagline How good is your French?

What does IDK stand for?

Display

What does "IDK" stand for? I don’t know.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

PHP Error Debug List

Display

PHP error debug list:

1) did you use the correct argument order? if you’re a good programmer, use the *reverse* from what you think it is. see if it works. no? you’re not a good programmer, or you learned php’s braindeadness and can go on to step 2).

2) did you think about your code? if so, don’t. php will do it for you so you can do mindbogglingly stupid stuff, such as not escape the data that goes into your sql queries.

Author Dazjorz
Work MSN Conversation between Dazjorz and Shlomi Fish

More Geek Facts about Chuck Norris

Display

Su-Shee rindolf: yes, I played with Squeak a little and yes I'd like a vim clone written in perl.
Makoryu Why isn't there one already, then?
Makoryu (A vim clone in Perl)
Su-Shee good question. there's one in javascript :)
rindolf Su-Shee: actually , it's a vi clone.
rindolf Writing a vi clone is much easier than writing a vim clone.
rindolf Just like writing a Scheme clone is much easier than writing a Perl 6 implementation.
rindolf Unless you're Chuck Norris.
Su-Shee rindolf: darn.. he already wrote a vim in perl6?
moritz_ no, he scared K&R into writing it ;-)
rindolf Su-Shee: Chuck Norris is the ghost author of the entire Debian GNU/Linux distribution.
rindolf Su-Shee: and he wrote it in 24 hours, while taking snack breaks.
Su-Shee rindolf: yes, I know - he published slackware under the pseudonym patrick volkerding...
rindolf Chuck Norris read the entire Wikipedia. Twice.
araujo the second time includes fixing all its errors
moritz_ but he didn't commmit his changes, it seems
rindolf moritz_: heh.
rindolf LOL.
araujo Chuck Norris doesn't commit changes, the changes commit for him
araujo :)
rindolf Code is too scared of Chuck to be wrong.
rindolf It is generated right in the first time.
rindolf Bugs are too afraid to reproduce on Chuck Norris' computer.
Su-Shee .o(I see a chuck norris release on the horizon... ;)
rindolf Su-Shee: :-)
Su-Shee we could ask chuck norris if he's willing to promote the star release.. ;)) (which probably kill the entire internet due to laughter.. :)
araujo Perl 6 - A Chuck Norris like language
dukeleto Chuck Norris has actually been using Perl 6 since 1987, and has been waiting for Larry to play catch-up. :)
rindolf dukeleto: LOL.
rindolf Perl 6 - Kicks ass like Chuck.
Su-Shee rakudo - chuck's choice ;)
Su-Shee well, camelia and chuck norris go well together. ;)
rindolf OK.
rindolf Of course everybody know Chuck Norris is a real programmer.
rindolf He designs machines by combining individual atoms.
rindolf Using his thought.
rindolf Atoms obey Chuck Norris.
Su-Shee rindolf: you obviously have been starved and deprived of super hero comics in your childhood :)
Channel #perl6
Network Freenode
Tagline What you could assume was true about Chuck Norris

Give me ASCII

Display

Give me ASCII or give me deaþ!

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

Technion Ways

Display

In the Technion, there are many ways to get from one place to the other, but they are all the same length.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

Sjors the Awayer

Display

shlomif Hi Sjors the Awayer!
sjors Hi Shlomi the, uh
sjors Onliner! :P
shlomif I am not an Awayer!
shlomif I am a free man.
shlomif Onlinerer, heh.
shlomif Touche.
sjors ;)
sjors or is Awayer some kind of Hebrew word?
shlomif No, it's not.
shlomif It's pig-English for someone who is Away.
shlomif We don't have a "w" sound in modern Hebrew (replaced by "v" a-la-German) but most Israelis have no problems pronouncing it.
shlomif I have problems pronouncing th (maths) and dh (there).
shlomif Even though they did exist in Ancient Hebrew.
sjors many Dutch people have problems saying th too
sjors earth
sjors they say it eart
shlomif Ah.
sjors I tink
shlomif I say it ers
shlomif Heh.
shlomif You seem to be in a funny mood too.
sjors I tink you are dere
sjors hehe
shlomif How's school?
sjors I've been feeling great lately :)
shlomif But OTOH you're a funny guy, anyway.
shlomif I think Zuu from ##programming is the comedian king of Denmark.
sjors haha
shlomif J/K.
shlomif I know many Israelis who are funnier than me IRL.
shlomif Or maybe also online.
sjors I know many Dutch people funnier than me
shlomif Ah.
shlomif IRL?
sjors And online, I think
sjors Meh
sjors I've been playing openttd
sjors but those damn trains
sjors are SO STUBBORN
shlomif Well, no offence, but you're not the funniest person online.
sjors it's annoying me
shlomif I've known.
shlomif Sometimes trolls can be funny.
shlomif Larry Wall seems a bit less funny on IRC than on Usenet or E-mail.
shlomif But he's not always funny.
shlomif IRL, he's really funny.
shlomif He gives funny presentations.
sjors I don't have the place in ottd to *force* them to do the right thing, but they do stuff like making 90 degree corners, stopping three other trains in their tracks, just because it's like a millisecond shorter than the other route
shlomif Though I think they always get more serious towards the end.
sjors hm :)
shlomif Is it a commercial game?
sjors OpenTTD?
shlomif I once gave a lightning talk about Template Toolkit and people laughed at the same slide twice , because I gave it twice due to a presentation equipment.
shlomif Ah.
shlomif The Open says everything.
sjors yep :)
shlomif I once gave a lightning talk about Template Toolkit and people laughed at the same slide twice , because I gave it twice due to a presentation equipment SNAFU*.
shlomif Gotta love Ctrl+Up.
shlomif Gotta love Ctrl+Up.
shlomif I think we've been there, though.
sjors hehe
shlomif Old joke.
sjors Didn't know it
shlomif I told you about it a long time ago.
shlomif It was you I think.
shlomif And then we did a session of two messages in a row.
shlomif ETOOMUCHINFORMATION
shlomif ETOOLITTLEKNOWLEDGE
shlomif ETOOHARDTOREADACRONYMS
sjors ah
sjors :P
shlomif EPLEASEUSESOMESPACES
shlomif EIWISHWEWEREUSINGSEXPRS
sjors ENOSPACEBARDETECTED?
shlomif You know what S-exprsessions are, right?
shlomif Indeed. No space bar.
shlomif Gotta press alt+032
shlomif Or something.
sjors hmm
sjors I don't have a numeric keypad
shlomif Ah.
shlomif Mac O Sucks.
shlomif Mac O Sucky Computers.
shlomif No offence, I hope.
sjors MUCH OFFENSE TAKEN!
sjors Hands off my Mac! ;)
shlomif It's mine! All mine!
shlomif My precioussssssssssss.
shlomif I'll make a fortune out of this conversation, I think.
Channel #sjors-and-rindolf
Network MSN Messnenger
Tagline Sjors the Awayer

Reflections on Trusting Documentation

Display

whoppix Quick git question, perhaps someone knows the answer: I have a file in my git tree (locally and in the repository), but I want git to ignore the file completely, i.e. git is not to touch the file on the filesystem by updating it or merging local changes into the repostiroy
rindolf whoppix: you can use .gitignore
rindolf I think
whoppix rindolf, hmm, good idea, thanks.
whoppix that was slow.
whoppix rindolf, hm, I think git update-index --assume-unchanged is what I need.
whoppix .gitignore is only for untracked files
rindolf whoppix: OK, have no clue what that is.
rindolf Git is so complicated.
rindolf And so opaque
whoppix rindolf, me neither, but the doc tells me to use that.
rindolf whoppix: can you believe the docs?
rindolf The docs may be lying.
rindolf Don't trust the docs.
rindolf Don't trust anything.
rindolf You're all alone.
rindolf It's you against the machine.
rindolf When in doubt, use the source code.
rindolf Not some sissy documentation.
whoppix right
whoppix I'll have some of what you've been smoking
rindolf whoppix: I'm 100% clean.
Channel #perlcafe
Network Freenode
Tagline Reflections on trusting documentation

Emulating cats on #jquery

Display

→ruby_on_tails has joined #jquery
* rindolf removes ruby_on_tails off his tail and meows.
* ruby_on_tails throws his paws at rindolf and scratches his face
rindolf Fight!
* rindolf hisses at ruby_on_tails
* rindolf curves his back.
* rindolf is not a cat, he thinks, so why does he says that?
rindolf On the Internet, no one knows you're a cat.
* ruby_on_tails deep-scratches rindolf's ass
rindolf Is there a word for a female cat.
rindolf ruby_on_tails: truce?
ruby_on_tails tiger b-)
ruby_on_tails B-)
rindolf ruby_on_tails: all felines are friends.
rindolf We must be united against our common enemy.
rindolf Dogs or whatever.
* ruby_on_tails unites all breeds of cats against rindolf
rindolf ruby_on_tails: I am not the cats' no. 1 enemy.
ruby_on_tails you are :P
rindolf ruby_on_tails: heh.
ruby_on_tails lol
rindolf ruby_on_tails: :-)
rindolf "Cats of the world - unite!"
ruby_on_tails they are already united
ruby_on_tails Andy-: ajax form submission
rindolf ruby_on_tails++ # Despite being a cat god in an awfully bad mood.
ruby_on_tails :P
rindolf "Ceiling cat is watching you."
rindolf ruby_on_tails: I totally dig the lolcat web-cartoons.
rindolf I derive a sick pleasure from them.
ruby_on_tails I just watch tom n jerry
rindolf Well, not really sick.
rindolf ruby_on_tails: tom is kinda stupid.
rindolf He's the cat, right?
ruby_on_tails yea
ruby_on_tails but he's got determination till the end :>
rindolf There's also Rita and Runt (sp?) in Animaniacs.
rindolf Rita is a smart cat.
Channel #jquery
Network Freenode
Tagline Felines of the world - unite!

English Spelling

Display

English spelling aims to be consistent. Publicly and methodically.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

Virtual Money

Display

shlomif BTW, have you read my stories yet?
Sjors I haven’t
shlomif Ah.
shlomif "If you read my stories, I’ll give you 1,000,000 virtual dollars."
Sjors Causing me to have a lot of extra virtual time!
shlomif And be virtually rich.
shlomif And then you can virtually bribe virtual politicians.
shlomif And buy a lot of virtual goods.
shlomif LOL.
Sjors Then, I’d be virtually happy
Sjors Too bad... :P
shlomif It’s a virtual win-win situation.
shlomif You can hire many virtual programmers to write a lot of virtual code for KMess.
shlomif "My old virtual dad used to say to me: ‘virtual money does not bring you virtual happiness, my virtual son.’"
Channel Shlomi Fish and Sjors
Network MSN
Tagline Virtual money.

Top vs. Bottom Posting

Display

TDDPirate Shlomi_Fish and me engaged in a religious argument - top posting vs. bottom posting.
TDDPirate What is your side (Pepy)?
Pepy hmm
Pepy bottom posting
Pepy i guess
Pepy well,guess bottom posting is winning then
Shlomi_Fish Heh.
TDDPirate Pepy: may you be damned, filthy heretic! TOP POSTING IS THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE WAY ! ! ! !
Shlomi_Fish TDDPirate: you are past redemption, you archangel of evil!
TDDPirate Shlomi_Fish: not to speak of your vile and wicked bottom posting ways!
Pepy so
Pepy go go bottom posting
Shlomi_Fish Pepy: that’s the way to go.
TDDPirate The way to go - if you want to be DOOMED! TO! ETERNAL! FIRES! OF! HELL!
Shlomi_Fish Top posting is for the weak and timid! I will challenge all top-posters to a Batelath contest for undermining the HONOUR of the entire Klingon race!
TDDPirate Don’t dare to defile the honor of the honorable Klingon Race by dragging them into this argument!
Pepy Sujatlh ‘e’ yImev TodSaH!
Shlomi_Fish Pepy: nice klingon.
Pepy thanks shlomi
TDDPirate Is this Klingon? And if yes, what does this mean?
Pepy yes it is
Pepy and it means “shut up geeks”
Shlomi_Fish Pepy: I may be a geek, but I’m a true klingon geek-warrior!
TDDPirate Nice use of the language, Pepy.
Shlomi_Fish And a true Klingon geek warrior ALWAYS bottom-posts.
Pepy no no,true Klingons have power to change quoted tops
TDDPirate Pepy: do you mean that Klingons have the power to defile and make filthy of sacred E-mail messages?
Pepy no,but they’re used to “edit” history
Pepy ah, when they ask me how the hell I managed to write so good band propositions
Pepy I’ll tell em,the secret is to chat with geeks about top vs bottom posting
Channel Shlomi Fish, TDDPirate and Pepy
Network MSN
Tagline Bottom vs. Top Posting.

FOSS Versioning

Display

d3x btw, you can do mplayer -dumpaudio -dumpfile file.mp3
d3x no need to reencode
rindolf This -dumpfile is a nice trick.
rindolf Is it new?
rindolf I wonder when mplayer will hit 1.0 already.
rindolf Ah.
rindolf All the stuff I saw told me to use WAV and then encode.
d3x mplayer and 1.0? i'm not really sure it's their goal
rindolf They will stay at 1.0RC-foo forever?
d3x although i would be glad if they had some sensible versioning
rindolf Yes.
rindolf At the moment perl-Mojolicious is at 0.999924.
rindolf At least perl-Moose hit 1.00
d3x lol
rindolf Without any substantial changes from 0.99.
rindolf But you've got to upgrade somehow.
rindolf perl-Moose is MDV/RH notation, but I like it.
d3x imo it's just stupid not to release 1.0
rindolf I dislike libmoose-perl
rindolf Yes.
d3x wine did so and now they have normal versioning
rindolf Though most of my CPAN modules are sub-1.0.
rindolf http://search.cpan.org/~shlomif/
rindolf I think except for one module (where I used 0.2.0 0.4.0 and eventually hit 0.8.0 and had to go to 1.000) all my 1.0 and above modules are adopted.
d3x they are sub-1.0, but they are not 0.9.999.2010.03.11-rc5
d3x :)
rindolf One of them used the CVS revisions as versions.
rindolf d3x : LOL.
rindolf Yes.
rindolf d3x: can I quote you on that?
d3x i say it's stupid to make releases up to 0.9.something and then not to release 1.0
rindolf I collect quotes on my homepage.
d3x sure you can
rindolf At the moment I have freecell-solver-2.42.0
rindolf But I hope the new release will be 3.0.0
d3x the one that was bought by freecell enterprise? :D
rindolf I've left GNOME and gtk+/glib behind.
rindolf d3x yes.
rindolf Freecell Solver Enterprises™ Inc.
rindolf Ah, so you've seen that.
d3x yes, you posted a link on #debian
rindolf Yes.
rindolf You should add a digest to the version.
rindolf 0.9.999.2010.03.11-rc5-adc83b19e793491b1c6ea0fd8b46cd9f32e592fc
d3x lol
rindolf In case you're using git or hg.
Channel private conversation
Network Freenode
Tagline d3x and Shlomi Fish (rindolf) about FOSS Versioning

Not a bug on #offtopic on OFTC

Display

rindolf sarnold: you go to OGI?
sarnold rindolf: no; but my boss and a co-worker are professors there, and other co-workers earned degrees there..
rindolf sarnold: OK.
muli sarnold, have you got one of those pesky things?
sarnold muli: just Bachelor of Arts .. no Masters or Ph.D...
rindolf sarnold: B.Sc or B.A.?
muli rindolf, Bachelor of Arts is B.A.
rindolf muli: I know. But I was just checking.
sarnold rindolf: ah, you’re right, B.Sc.. I chickened out on the language requirements :)
rindolf muli: see?? LOL.
muli rindolf, sometimes, two bugs cancel each other.
rindolf muli: wisely spoken.
rindolf But mine wasn’t a bug - it was a sanity check.
Channel #offtopic
Network OFTC
Tagline Not a bug

#ruby-lang and #ruby

Display

rindolf Hi all.
rindolf Why are there both #ruby and #ruby-lang ?
erikh mmm
erikh some questions
erikh you know
erikh they're best not asked :)
rindolf erikh: "The first rule of the fight club is you don't talk about the fight club."
erikh pretty much.
raggi no, you punch them in the face until they get the message
erikh raggi: haha. hi man.
Judofyr The first rule of #ruby-lang is you don't talk about #ruby.
Channel #ruby-lang
Network Freenode
Tagline #ruby-lang and #ruby

How to market your Rails Book?

Display

Radar and on a completely unrelated note
Radar http://ryanbigg.com/2011/04/rails-3-1-in-action
rindolf Radar: I know it's rehearsed, but I prefer reading dark on bright rather than the opposite.
rindolf Radar: let me see if there's an alternate stylesheet.
Radar rindolf: Command+Option+Control+8
workmad3 heh
rindolf Radar: I'm not on a Mac.
Radar rindolf: then whatever the shortcut is for you to invert your screen.
rindolf Radar: Firefox 4.0 on Mandriva Linux Cooker on an old P4-2.4GHz.
rindolf Radar: yeah....
rindolf Radar: that way XChat and Pidgin will be in technicolour.
workmad3 Radar: so, once you've gotten Rails 3.1 in Action out, are you going to be going for Rails 3.2 in Action on Windows?
rindolf Well, I applied a no-stylesheet.
Radar workmad3: Rails 3.2 in Action on Windows(r) 7(tm) actually.
workmad3 Radar: I'll reserve my copy now :D
rindolf Radar: good luck with that.
rindolf Radar: will the book be available online for free view/download?
workmad3 rindolf: a windows book? for free?
workmad3 are you crazy???
rindolf workmad3: Windows?
rindolf workmad3: it's about Rails.
Radar rindolf: no it will cost money
rindolf Radar: ah, OK. :-(
workmad3 Rails 3.2 In Action on Windows(r) 7(tm)
workmad3 it'll cost big bucks!!
rindolf workmad3: heh.
rindolf Ultimate Premium.
Radar Yes, I'm going to spend a year of my life writing a book and then release it for free, yay
Radar how about no?
workmad3 Radar: don't forget the Enterprise Rails 3.2 on Windows In Action 7(tw)
workmad3 you can charge double for that one... it has enterprise in the title!
Radar workmad3: how did you know about the third installment of the trilogy?! only Yehuda and I know of that
workmad3 Radar: I'm really yehuda in disguise
workmad3 dammit... I should have waited 25 mins to reveal that...
rindolf Radar: well, I'm now working on an EPUB of http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/TheEnemy/ but DocBook/XML is giving me some grief in generating a valid EPUB.
rindolf I think I'll fix the EPUB manually.
rindolf I'll have to study the EPUB format.
rindolf Radar: it's a story - not a technical book.
rindolf Radar: http://perl-begin.org/ - this took me several years to work on (well not 100% of the time) and it's mostly CC-by.
workmad3 rindolf: who'd pay for stuff on perl though? :P
rindolf workmad3: you'd be surprised.
workmad3 rindolf: I doubt it
rindolf workmad3: I think chromatic's latest "Modern Perl" book was a smashing success.
workmad3 my sense of surprise has been surgically removed
rindolf workmad3: even though it was available online the whole time.
rindolf workmad3: but Perl is a bit passé and established.
rindolf Radar: people will torrent your book/etc.
workmad3 also, I think I need to colour my sarcastic text differently
rindolf workmad3: ah, OK.
workmad3 or maybe just my non-sarcastic text
rindolf chromatic did an awesome job.
workmad3 would probably be easier
rindolf Use <sarcasm> ... </sarcasm>
workmad3 too much typing
rindolf Human XML.
rindolf Write an IRC client macro for that.
workmad3 I'll just put <nonsarcasm> when I'm not being sarcastic
rindolf Heh.
workmad3 assume that previous one was escaped
rindolf XSS!
rindolf 1+1 = 2. [citation needed]
rindolf I like this channel.
rindolf But I admit I'm not big into rails.
workmad3 it doesn't like you
workmad3 it's looking at you funny
workmad3 muttering under it's breath
workmad3 :P
rindolf Most of my sites are hosted on something which I don't care what it runs or alternatively static HTML sites.
rindolf workmad3: :-)
rindolf I'm so making a fortune out of this conversation.
rindolf workmad3: have you ever considered being a stand-up comedian?
workmad3 rindolf: nah... I'm too lazy
rindolf workmad3: ah.
workmad3 rindolf: if I could sit down while doing it, I'd be a millionaire :P
rindolf workmad3: heh.
rindolf workmad3: more like a milliardaire.
Channel #rubyonrails
Network Freenode
Tagline workmad3 drives Radar and rindolf mad.

Aleena’s Little Perl Boys

Display

Diablo-D3 Feminists
Diablo-D3 So anti-womans rights douchebags.
rindolf Diablo-D3: well, I don't know too much about how feminism relates to the global women-lib movement.
rindolf I do know I kinda hate feminazis, which I consider a subset of feminists.
Diablo-D3 It's a bunch of women who are pissed than other women are getting dicked more often than them.
rindolf Diablo-D3: heh.
Diablo-D3 So they "hate" men, but secretly want to be tied to a bed and boned repeatedly.
Lady_Aleena Diablo-D3, please don't lump me in that group.
Diablo-D3 Lady_Aleena: thats up to you, not me
Diablo-D3 I do not create feminists, I only laugh at them
rindolf Lady_Aleena: I don't think you're a feminazi.
rindolf Lady_Aleena: you're really cool.
rindolf Lady_Aleena: at least on IRC.
Lady_Aleena Thanks... :)
Lady_Aleena Though I still want to break a guy's fingers.
rindolf Lady_Aleena: and don't take what Diablo-D3 says seriously.
Lady_Aleena I try to keep an open mind.
Diablo-D3 rindolf: hey now
rindolf Lady_Aleena: well, you or I can want to kill some people and it's OK as long as we don't actually do it.
Lady_Aleena rindolf, NOT kill, maim.
Diablo-D3 any woman who tries to take away the rights of other women should be flogged in the town square.
Lady_Aleena One can not change the mind of the dead.
Lady_Aleena However, one can change the minds of the maimed.
rindolf Lady_Aleena: in one of my stories (still work in progress), the protagonist wants to punch her boyfriend, but she knows better than that and so just goes away frustrated.
rindolf Lady_Aleena: let me translate that part to English.
Diablo-D3 rindolf: thats boring!
rindolf Diablo-D3: :-)
Lady_Aleena She should have kneed him in the nuts.
rindolf Diablo-D3: maybe she should shoot him with a bazooka.
Diablo-D3 Clearly the chick should hit the guy, the guy should hit back, and then they should have wild sex.
rindolf Diablo-D3: it's in public.
Lady_Aleena UH! S&M!
Lady_Aleena rindolf, the best place.
rindolf Diablo-D3: it's actually an anti-thesis to a lot of Hollywoodian stuff.
rindolf Lady_Aleena: to have wild sex?
Lady_Aleena rindolf, sure, why not?
Lady_Aleena A dom makes her sub perform sexual acts on demand, no matter the place. If insufficient the sub is flogged.
Lady_Aleena s/A dom/A dom, with no inhibitions,/;
* Lady_Aleena giggles.
Lady_Aleena I think I just sent 2 men running for their mommies.
Diablo-D3 no, we're too busy fapping.
Lady_Aleena Good.
Lady_Aleena Good little perl boy…
Diablo-D3 lol
Diablo-D3 evil Lady_Aleena
Lady_Aleena Bad perl boy, no cookies...
* Lady_Aleena is now known as Mistress_Aleena
rindolf Mistress_Aleena: heh.
* Mistress_Aleena laughs.
rindolf Well, that scene continues.
rindolf In the balcony.
rindolf They end up making out.
rindolf I can translate more I guess.
Mistress_Aleena No need.
rindolf Mistress_Aleena: maybe you should be Madame_Aleena
* Mistress_Aleena is now known as Madame_Aleena
rindolf I wonder if I should make a fortune out of this conversation.
rindolf It's a bit Rish instead of PG-13ish.
Madame_Aleena little rindolf, go for the X.
rindolf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America_film_rating_system
rindolf Madame_Aleena: X!
rindolf X marks the spot.
rindolf X-Windows.
Madame_Aleena Yes it does, little rindolf.
rindolf Maybe you should be Hotbabe_Aleena
rindolf Madame_Aleena: BTW, did you register Mistress_Aleena and Madame_Aleena ?
Madame_Aleena Yes.
Channel #perlcafe
Network Freenode
Tagline Go for the X.

Star Trek: We, the Living Dead - Katie Meets Moses

Display

Shlomo: Mosheh, remember I told you about Katie?

Mosheh: oh yeah! She looks cute when she’s angry.

Katie: Moses, right?

Mosheh: that’s right.

Katie: well, in case you have any interest in me, I should note that I have a policy against getting involved with people who are 4 times my senior or more.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Star Trek: “We, the Living Dead”

The One with the Fountainhead: Dinosaur

Display

Ross: I can’t believe he could not tell the other guy wasn’t really a dinosaur.

Chandler: Well, cartoon characters usually have a difficulty seeing through disguises.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The One with the Fountainhead (Part 1)

The One with the Fountainhead: Joey Reading the Fountainhead

Display

Ross: You’ve already read it (= the Fountainhead)?

Joey: Yeah [puts the book down]. I was in acting school, and the guys decided to throw a discussion on it. So, I decided that I’ll read the book so I can make a good impression on the ladies if y’know what I mean…

Rachel: Yep, we know what you mean.

Monica: So, did you get laid that night?

Joey: No. I spent the entire night discussing The Fountainhead. [pause] Interesting book.

Chandler: Must have been one of the most stimulating nights of your life.

Joey: Not quite as much as the next night.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The One with the Fountainhead (Part 1)

The One with the Fountainhead: Would you write the Fountainhead today the same way?

Display

Joey: Hey, know what we can do, so I can get prepared for the audition? Let’s role-play our own version of "The Fountainhead".

Rachel: Our own version? Why would we want to write our own version of it! This book is great.

The others: "Yes." "One of the best books I ever read." "Can’t get better than this"

Joey: Come on, if you wanted to write it today, would you write the same book?

[Silence.]

Phoebe: Well, for one thing: didn’t it bother you that Dominique Francon, the main female character, didn’t do anything in the best years of her life, except like… sleeping with people?

Ross: yeah. All the characters in fact do nothing in the 20’s and 30’s, except maybe build a couple of buildings.

Joey: If you ask me: the book is too slow-paced for the 90’s. I mean, in the 60’s it may have worked but we’re in the information age now.

Ross: Joey, "The Fountainhead" was written in 1943.

Joey: Yeah, but it was still good enough in the 60’s right? OK: our own version of "The Fountainhead" - here’s what I think it should look like

Author Shlomi Fish
Work The One with the Fountainhead (Part 1)

Humanity: Civilization

Display

Voice: Earth - the initial frontier. Somewhere in the depths of space, on a remote planet you know as Earth, came up a relatively uncommon phenomenon: Civilization. What it means is that intelligent,

[A text on the screen with a beep - (?)]

Voice: conscious

[A text on the screen with the same beep - (?)]

Voice: Stop it!

[A text on the screen with a different beep - (!)]

Voice: Like I said, intelligent, conscious, people formed cities and countries, with a technology that became more and more advanced in time.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Humanity - The Movie

Rap to the Spam

Display

Mike “The Mouse” House (a.k.a “D.J. Sallinger”) was a minor rap artist, and a computer geek when he decided to start selling CDs of open-source software. He turned to spamming to publicise his business, but found out that the spam he sent was trapped by most spam traps. He decided to use the notorious obscured image spam, but since he had a few blind friends, decided to also include an audio recording of a rap song with the spam message.

House received a few offers from his spam campaign, but his real break came when a few enthusiasts of the spam song shared it on the Internet, where it became an instant hit. The song eventually hit the charts and MTV, and made D.J. Sallinger famous, who quickly released his first successful album called Rap to the spam, Ma’am!, with such highly acclaimed hits as “Rap to not get trapped” and “He ain’t Nigerian. He’s a Spammer!”.

As a millionaire, House decided to donate some of his money back to sponsoring open-source projects, and has donated 100,000’s of U.S. Dollars to such causes as the Free Software Foundation, Linux International and SpamAssassin. “If it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t have made it big”, he said, and said he’s now working on a second album with a similar theme.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work “Spam for Everyone” - The Internationl Campaign for Accessible Spam

I promised, I forgot…

Display

I promised, I forgot, I did not keep my promise — just shoot me, and get on with it!

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Original Philosopher

Display

An original philosopher knows the right combination of ideas to steal.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

To err is human

Display

  • To err is human - to apologise - divine.
  • To have bugs is human - to fix them - divine.
  • To have bugs is human - to find them - divine.
Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

I might be mad

Display

I might be mad. But I’m a mad genius.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

If God exists…

Display

If God exists and is the ego-maniacal, sadistic and helpless creature that is described in the Old Testament, then we’re in deep trouble.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Mathematical Riddle

Display

Sophie: Let’s suppose you have a table with 2^n cups…
Jack: Wait a second - is ‘n’ a natural number?

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Significance of Being 18

Display

A kid always wishes they were older until they are 18. Afterwards, they always wish they were younger.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Sorting the Dishes

Display

Shlomi’s Father: If you don’t sort the dishwasher, the dishwasher won’t be sorted.

Shlomi: No, it won’t be sorted by me.

Shlomi’s Father: No, it won’t be sorted at all. We will throw away the dishwasher.

Together: Along with all the dishes.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Shlomi Fish’s Aphorisms Collection

Your Programming Language Must Suck

Display

All languages of the world suck. If you require people to declare variables (like in Pascal, C, Scheme or Perl 5 with strict), then people will tell you they like variables to spring up upon first use. Without variable declarations, then you get various weird side-effects of the implicit scoping. If you use curly braces for scoping, then you’ll have to type more and there’s more clutter. With indentation-based scoping (like in Python), you’ll find it hard to introduce multiple-expression lambdas.

Rob Pike and Paul Graham hated object oriented programming (OOP) and so they didn’t introduce it in their “Go” and “Arc“ languages, well after OOP has become mainstream. And guess what? Many people, including me, think that OOP is still a good thing (and no, in my opinion, C++ did not do OOP very well) and so gave up on Arc quickly and did not look closely at Go.

Dynamically typed languages (like Perl 5, Python, Ruby, or Lisp) possibly suffer from many subtle errors ; Statically typed languages (like Haskell) are less expressive and it seems that about one third of the language design papers published on Lambda the Ultimate are about various funky extensions to the Haskell type system to allow for better expressiveness.

Purely functional languages have no assignment and most people find them harder, in part because the world around us has a lot of state, and they also need to do funky compiler tricks to make you feel like you don’t need assignment. Non-functional languages have side-effects and so are prone to many errors.

If you have goto or goto-like statements (such as exceptions or Perl 5’s “last LABEL;” (more like “break” in C) or “next LABEL;”), then you encourage code to not be factored correctly. If you don’t have such stuff, then programmers will hate you for having to go through many hoops to write quick-and-dirty code.

Perl 5 has a dedicated regular expression syntax which is treated magically by the parser. PHP and Java use strings for them, and require weird escaping and backslashing rules to interpolate the sub-regexes inside them. And if you incorporate a first-order syntax for regular expressions, then people will want similar first-order syntaxes for XPath, for XML (like some recent versions of Visual Basic .NET have), and for all other grammars you may need to embed.

Finally, many people absolutely hate all the clutter created by the leading sigils of Perl 5 (the "$", "@", etc.), and similar languages, but they allow for much better backward compatibility, facilitate the so-called “interpolation” (= embedding inside strings), and also give some important visual cues when skimming code (even without syntax highlighting).

You are damned either way, whatever you do.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Your Programming Language Must Suck

How many Wikipeders Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?

Display

  • 1 User to start a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_a_Light_Bulb article.
  • 1 editor to tag it with the “No original research” template. (Without giving a reason)
  • 3 users to find citations for the article.
  • 1 editor to claim it violates the wikipedia “Neutral Point of View policy”. (without giving a reason).
  • The original user to ask why he thinks this way on the talk page.
  • 5 users to find occurences of changing a light bulb in popular culture.
  • 1 anonymous user to correct an “it’s” to “its”.
  • 1 editor to revert it.
  • 1 editor to revert the revert because it was a real typo.
  • 10 users to rant in the talk page that Changing a lightbulb is not notable enough.
  • 10 Wikipeders to start similar articles in French, German, Spanish, Catalan, Esperanto, Ido, Hebrew, Klingon, Mandarin Chinese, and other languages.
  • 10 more people to periodically keep the articles in sync with the English version.
  • Starting the cycle again on the localised wikipedias.
  • 1 Person to argue that the article should be merged into the main article about the inventor of the lightbulb.
  • 5 People to argue on the talk-page who the inventor of the lightbulb was.
  • 1 Person to start a wikiquote page about changing lightbulbs.
  • 1 Person to add it to wikibook.
  • 4 persons to gradually delete content the section about “choosing a good chair” until it only reads “choose a good chair.”
  • 1 person to write it again.
  • 1 deletionist to remove the article due to all of its perceived problems.
  • 3 months from now:
  • 1 different user to feel the absense of the Changing_a_Light_Bulb article, create it and start the cycle all over again.
Author Shlomi Fish
Work How many Wikipeders does it take to Change a Light Bulb?

Shlomi Fish on 13 May 2009

Display

As expected from the latest trend in the Perl blogosphere this post will be about Roles. And Moose! And Roles in Moose! And Moose in Roles! And Roles outside Moose…

Seriously now, this is a post about a completely non-Moosey and non-Roley script I wrote to filter the use.perl.org master journals' feed.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Meta: Script to Filter the Master use.perl.org Blogs' Feed

Russian Cuisine

Display

rindolf Hi all.
Leuthihi O HAI rindolf
rindolf Leuthihi: HAI HAI.
rindolf Leuthihi: what's up?
Leuthihi rindolf: I'm hungry!
rindolf Leuthihi: there's one antidote for it.
rindolf Leuthihi: it's called Food.
rindolf Leuthihi: </bolt>
Leuthihi well, but what food?
Leuthihi and I need coffee
Leuthihi oh, I think I know what I'll have.
benwbrum_chez_so Chili. A big bowl of red, with crackers and onions on the side.
rindolf Leuthihi: does it matter?
Volis If it has to be some cuisine.
Volis Did I spell correctly?
rindolf Volis: spell what?
Volis oh yes.
Volis cuisine.
rindolf "cuisine" is spelt this way.
rindolf Yes.
rindolf It's a French word I think.
rindolf .ety cuisine
la_fen "1786, from Fr. cuisine 'style of cooking,' originally 'kitchen, cooking, cooked food' (12c.), from L.L. cocina, earlier coquina 'kitchen,' from L. coquere 'to cook' (see cook (n.))." - http://etymonline.com/?term=cuisine
rindolf OK, originally from Latin.
Volis nevermind. Which cuisine is the best?
Volis In general
rindolf Volis: I like many cuisines.
Gvidon Russian, of course
rindolf Volis: though most of the ethnic food is actually poor men's food.
rindolf Gvidon: Russian cuisine?
Gvidon rindolf: Yes
Leuthihi well, yes, because I need something to eat to be able to eat it.
rindolf Gvidon: what does it feature?
Volis Russian cuisine lacks flavour.
Gvidon rindolf: Vodka
rindolf Gvidon: ah.
Leuthihi In Soviet Russia, food tastes YOU!
rindolf Gvidon: I didn't know Vodka is nutritious
rindolf Leuthihi: :-)
Volis In Soviet Russia, They no longer use this meme. :P
Leuthihi Vodka has plenty of calories at least.
rindolf Gvidon: and I don't consume Alcoholic beverages in any quantity.
rindolf Volis: :-)
Leuthihi Volis: because: In Soviet Russia, meme uses You!
rindolf «In Soviet Russia, cats own you. Oh wait! They own you everywhere.»
Volis Considering the fact, i'm still underage. Please change the topic.
rindolf Volis: underage?
rindolf Volis: ah, you cannot drink?
Volis In Soviet Russia, left keeps you. Always.
Volis "Dear fellow driver, let left be for communist crap only"
Volis rindolf, Rules of the world.
Channel ##English
Network Freenode
Tagline Russian cuisine

E-mail, web feeds…

Display

E-mail, web feeds and doing something productive — choose two.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work LiveJournal.com Post

Wasting Time

Display

The worst way to waste your time is to never waste it.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Unarmed but Still Dangerous Post

I’m Hungry Today

Display

Sophie: I’m hungry today.
Jack: well wait until tomorrow - maybe this feeling will pass.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

We agree…

Display

We agree. But do we agree to agree?

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection

sed and awk…

Display

sed and awk make me sad and awkward.

Author Shlomi Fish
Work Aphorisms Collection