http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=168975
rattusillegitimus's user image
User since: May 24, 2002 at 04:45 UTC (22 years ago)
Last here: Oct 30, 2002 at 18:16 UTC (21 years ago)
Experience: 1200
Level:Friar (9)
Writeups: 71
Location:OKC, OK, US
Web Site:djlodge.perlmonk.org
User's localtime: Mar 28, 2024 at 08:31 CDT
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Tales of the Plush Cthulhu

UserFriendly LOTD for 21 August 2002

Who is this Rat?
I've worked and played as a programmer for pretty much as long as I can remember, dating back to Logo and BASIC on the first TI 99/4A Dad brought home. Until about a year ago, I worked for a company building a potentially powerful content-management/e-commerce system, until the bottom dropped out of the economy and the bosses, may they spend eternity in the Hell of Being Cut to Pieces1, decided laying me off might solve the company's problems.2 Now I work on a contract with the state where the paychecks don't bounce but the technology is primitive (Win95, MS-only environment) and I don't get to use Perl professionally. Thus I was overjoyed to find a place where I could continue to play in Perl as an avocation while I dream of programming as a vocation someday.

1I love BTLC

2The important thing is I'm not bitter ;)

Links to Remember

Since my homenode was growing rather large, I decided to move most of the links here.

Modules I use

Modules to Learn About

Current Projects

Resurrecting My AuthorWeb
As introduced in this node I am doing a from-scratch rewrite of an old website in perl using CGI::Application, DBI, XML::LibXML, and XML::LibXSLT. The basic idea is to have a dynamic website of author and book information based on a MySQL back-end database. Thus far, it is exceeding my wildest expectations, and I've only barely begun to code it.
Online Real Estate Appraisal Testing
This is still in the research stages. I'm looking into building a web application for a family member which will allow his real estate appraisal students to take tests over the web.
Genealogy Site
Also still in the research stages. After a recent family reunion, many people expressed interest in having a family genealogy site set up. As the professional web developer in the family, I've been tapped as the rodent to talk to. ;)
Bookmark Manager
Yes, I know, I'm probably reinventing the wheel here. But none of the wheels I've found so far are quite the right shape for me. And it's been an excellent learning experience in writing CGI applications.
Resume Format Modules
I'm working on a set of modules to convert an XML resume to a variety of file formats, such as (X)HTML, Text, PDF, etc. It's going rather well, and I plan to add RTF to the list soon. Once I've got something a little cleaner and more complete, I'll be putting it out there somewhere for review. So far, the code seems to work for XML, (X)HTML, Text, and PDF outputs, but the PDF version has too much formatting hard-coded into the module. I'll be moving to a template-driven system for that before too long.
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCS d s: a C++$ UL+>$ P++>$ L++>$ E W++$ N o K++++ w---$ !O !M- !V-- PS?
PE Y+ PGP+ t+ 5+++ X+ R tv+ b+++ DI++ D+ G e++ h r+++ y?
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------