Request for fee....

[dorayme]

It is taking me absolutely ages to change a frames based website
to non frames. I do not want to charge the company concerned the
full fee for my time. Considering that most of the people at
alt.html are responsible for this action by constant harassment
about frames, I ask a simple question: may I please have all
your names and addresses so that I can send you my bill.
Remember, the more folk who pitch in on this, the less each of
the decently willing and ethical will have to fork up...

-- dorayme

 

[mbstevens]

It is taking me absolutely ages to change a frames based website
to non frames. I do not want to charge the company concerned the
full fee for my time. Considering that most of the people at
alt.html are responsible for this action by constant harassment
about frames, I ask a simple question: may I please have all
your names and addresses so that I can send you my bill.
Remember, the more folk who pitch in on this, the less each of
the decently willing and ethical will have to fork up...

-- dorayme

Well, this may help some...
http://www.mbstevens.com/preprocessor/
....although this is even more the perfect moment to switch the site over
to dynamic page generation through a server side program.

As for stripping off the unwanted sections from each page, Perl is the
weapon of choice. Thundering Zeus, don't try to do it by hand --
commitment and institutionalization will surely follow.

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, dorayme quothed:

It is taking me absolutely ages to change a frames based website
to non frames. I do not want to charge the company concerned the
full fee for my time. Considering that most of the people at
alt.html are responsible for this action by constant harassment
about frames, I ask a simple question: may I please have all
your names and addresses so that I can send you my bill.
Remember, the more folk who pitch in on this, the less each of
the decently willing and ethical will have to fork up...

-- dorayme

....And those of us who are not anti-frames fetishists should receive a
percentage of the proceeds for our efforts in consoling Ms. Ayme during
her time of loss.

Cheer up, dor.

 

[Travis Newbury]

It is taking me absolutely ages to change a frames based website
to non frames...

No doubt for some liberal socialist organization...

I do not want to charge the company concerned the
full fee for my time. Considering that most of the people at
alt.html are responsible for this action by constant harassment
about frames, I ask a simple question: may I please have all
your names and addresses so that I can send you my bill.

See just like a liberal... you want someone else to pay your way...

(sorry, but it had to be said. I'll go away now...)

 

[Greg N.]

As for stripping off the unwanted sections from each page, Perl is the
weapon of choice.

There is a small typo there, the correct spelling is P-H-P not P-E-R-L.

 

[mbstevens]

There is a small typo there, the correct spelling is P-H-P not P-E-R-L.

I can understand an argument for PHP as a good choice for server side
programming, at least when you don't need the whole power of Perl as in
the w3c validator or similar complex programs.

But I was talking about the basic off line changes to the framed pages
to strip off the unwanted frame code. Perl is _clearly_ more powerful
than PHP for that sort of script.

 

[Greg N.]

I can understand an argument for PHP as a good choice for server side programming,

I was not talking about server side programming.

But I was talking about the basic off line changes to the framed pages
to strip off the unwanted frame code. Perl is _clearly_ more powerful
than PHP for that sort of script.

Well, my favorite interpreter language for all kinds of client based
data manipulation is PHP. I have used APL, clist, basic, rexx, perl,
and php, and the latter is my current favorite.

Can you name an example of what perl can do so _clearly_ better than php?

 

[kchayka]

Can you name an example of what perl can do so _clearly_ better than php?

I think perl rocks for general, offline scripting tasks.

 

[Greg N.]

I think perl rocks for general, offline scripting tasks.

Not only clearly better, but it rocks, too! OK, you got me convinced

 

[mbstevens]

I was not talking about server side programming.



Well, my favorite interpreter language for all kinds of client based
data manipulation is PHP. I have used APL, clist, basic, rexx, perl,
and php, and the latter is my current favorite.

Can you name an example of what perl can do so _clearly_ better than php?

w3c validator,
bringing together the desperate Human Genome Project codes,
http://www.stanford.edu/class/gene211/handouts/How_Perl_HGP.html
....and consider these
http://perl.oreilly.com/news/success_stories.html

 

[Greg N.]

w3c validator,
bringing together the desperate Human Genome Project codes,
http://www.stanford.edu/class/gene211/handouts/How_Perl_HGP.html
...and consider these
http://perl.oreilly.com/news/success_stories.html

These arent't answers to my question "what is it that perl can do so
much better than PHP"?

- the w3c validator - well that's an app that happens to be written in
perl. So what?

- How Perl Saved the Human Genome Project - well, that was 1996, there
was no PHP at that time yet.

- the perl success sories on the oreilly web page - well, oreilly has
been making a ton of money with perl books for about 15 years now, while
their business in PHP books is less than a third of that. No wonder
they put together a web site advocating theitr strongest turnover item.
PHP is, despite its power, so easy to learn, and so well documented
on-line, that there istn't that much business there for a book publisher.

The question remains, what is it that perl can do so much better than PHP?

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

These arent't answers to my question "what is it that perl can do so
much better than PHP"?

- the w3c validator - well that's an app that happens to be written in
perl. So what?

- How Perl Saved the Human Genome Project - well, that was 1996, there
was no PHP at that time yet.

- the perl success sories on the oreilly web page - well, oreilly has
been making a ton of money with perl books for about 15 years now, while
their business in PHP books is less than a third of that. No wonder
they put together a web site advocating theitr strongest turnover item.
PHP is, despite its power, so easy to learn, and so well documented
on-line, that there istn't that much business there for a book publisher.

The question remains, what is it that perl can do so much better than PHP?

Not having a gazillion core functions to remember would be nice! ;-)
Seems the designers of PHP never heard of function arguments, what's it
like 8 separate functions just to sort arrays! I like Perl's sort. The
Perl=>PHP transition been a bit frustrating having to keep PHP function
index open at all times.

With respect to CGI, Perl is more abstract but compact with the CGI.pm
than PHP. But I must say that PHP's ability to intersperse bits of code
thought static HTML with the common namespace has made it a better
choice for dynamic page creation. I still prefer Perl for for the
'behind the scenes' management functions...

 

[mbstevens]

With respect to CGI, Perl is more abstract but compact with the CGI.pm
than PHP. But I must say that PHP's ability to intersperse bits of code
thought static HTML with the common namespace has made it a better
choice for dynamic page creation. I still prefer Perl for for the
'behind the scenes' management functions...

Actually that's one of the things that bother me about PHP.
The w3c goes through all the trouble to separate markup from display
with CSS, and along comes PHP, and starts mixing programming code with
markup.
Handling pages through Perl templates is much cleaner. HTML::Template
Mason and the Template Toolkit are really nice.

The lack of a facility like CPAN is also a hindrance to PHP. Perl can
be used to write anything from neural networks to higher math and
controlling the Gimp with little more than a use statement.

 

[mbstevens]

Handling pages through Perl templates is much cleaner. HTML::Template
Mason and the Template Toolkit are really nice.

....although Mason suffers from some of PHP's problems in regard to
mixing code and markup.

 

[Benjamin Niemann]

Actually that's one of the things that bother me about PHP.
The w3c goes through all the trouble to separate markup from display
with CSS, and along comes PHP, and starts mixing programming code with
markup.

That was the reason that drove me away from PHP. PHP is nice to quickly hack
some 'dynamism' into a HTML document. But this 'mix html & php' approach
leads to a total mess for more complex applications. Of course you can use
templates and strict code/html separation in PHP, too. But experience shows
that one is too often faced with projects that started small (where the
'PHP approach' is acceptable) but evolved in pretty complex applications.

Handling pages through Perl templates is much cleaner. HTML::Template
Mason and the Template Toolkit are really nice.

The lack of a facility like CPAN is also a hindrance to PHP. Perl can
be used to write anything from neural networks to higher math and
controlling the Gimp with little more than a use statement.

I would argue for Python though But pleeease don't get me involved into
another language war....

 

[dorayme]

No doubt for some liberal socialist organization...

Not at all (though the management is decent and enlightened)

See just like a liberal... you want someone else to pay your way...

(sorry, but it had to be said. I'll go away now...)

Actually I consulted a Republican lawyer (he said he was angling
for a chance at the Supreme Court as a Bushman). He used phrases
like "alt.html folk have clearly incited you and are obliged to
share the consequences" and more casually, "they owe you big
time" and even more casually at the end, phrases like "if they
cough up, I want 23.5% ..."

 

[dorayme]

I can understand an argument for PHP as a good choice for server side
programming, at least when you don't need the whole power of Perl as in
the w3c validator or similar complex programs.

But I was talking about the basic off line changes to the framed pages
to strip off the unwanted frame code. Perl is _clearly_ more powerful
than PHP for that sort of script.

I knew what you were saying, mb, and it made good sense to me. I
use a text editor called BBEdit which has grep search and
replace functions (I understand that there are connections
between it and Perl). As it happens, I enjoy making the patterns
needed and watching them work - no matter that sometimes I spend
more time tooling up for things I could do donkey (Salieri)
fashion!

(In case anyone thinks this admission reduces their liability to
pay me for the work, let me assure them that enjoying one's work
is not generally a ground to discount fees...)

 

[mbstevens]

I would argue for Python though But pleeease don't get me involved into
another language war....

I would have to agree that Python is a better general language than
Perl. But Perl is definitely the tool for the kind of text diving and
spear fishing I was talking about, and will be at least until Python
catches up with available modules. Of course if Common Lisp ever gets a
lispy version of CPAN I'll jump on board in a minute. It all comes down
to what's available for quick use without your having to reinvent the wheel.