Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice..

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Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by atcroft (Abbot) on Jun 04, 2002 at 14:56 UTC
Perhaps you should look at the Cygwin project as a possible interim measure. The Cygwin project, from their own page, "is a UNIX environment, developed by Red Hat, for Windows. It consists of two parts: A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a UNIX emulation layer providing substantial UNIX API functionality (, and a ) collection of tools, ported from UNIX, which provide UNIX/Linux look and feel." Among other things, it includes the gcc compiler, and currently, perl 5.6.1. I have used it before, and it can be a fairly usable facility if you don't want (or can't, at the moment) to move to an nix system. Update:* My response was to, "Any suggestions on how I can make the most out of my present system, at least until I outfit with a nix OS?" I greatly appreciated Marza's comment about the platform being just a tool. Flames or no, everyone has an environment they work best in-if that is winows or *nix or whatever, the goal should be to make the individual as productive and the environment as usable for the individual as possible.	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by ybiC (Prior) on Jun 04, 2002 at 15:17 UTC
I currently run Debian almost exclusively, but still like Win(NT\|2k). But before moving from Win32 to Linux, I found that I could customize the Start menu heavily to speed things up by reducing use of mouse. Create a hiearchical structure of commonly used apps/tools to be accessible from left pinky hit on 'win' key. Careful naming of said shortcuts for unique first letter then allows you to launch any app/tool by hitting just ~~one~~ one more key, rather than navigating up/down with mouse or arrow keys. Another technique I used was forced learning of windows keyboard shortcuts. Disconnect your mouse for one week, and you'll likely find yourself doing the same tasks much more quickly. If you still find yourself pining for nix but don't want to hassle with dual-boot, many of the popular OpenSource tools/apps (Mozilla, gvim, etc) run on win32. For those that don't, there's always the wholesome goodness of Cygwin, which will even let you run X11. We all have our own personal preference for pointing devices. Mine happens to be IBM's trackpoint keyboard. I never* have to remove my hands from the touchtyping position, merely use index finger on the eraserhead tucked betwixt g,h,ib keys, and thumbs on "mouse" buttons just below spacebar. Doubtless not too good for graphic design or such, but for browsing, coding, desktop productivity, I've found nothing else even close for quickness. cheers, Don striving toward Perl Adept (it's pronounced "why-bick") Update: triggered by jeffa's node below I've found OpenOffice v1.0 to be pretty darn good with MS Office files. Reads and writes my existing Excel and Word files with no hitches, but butchers PowerPoint presentations pretty bad. Has played a significant factor in keeping my Win2k box cold and dark. Update B: the win box being a PI/166 while my primary Debian box is a gigahertz Athlon maybe plays a small part too. Heh.	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker?s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Jun 04, 2002 at 16:17 UTC
The only OSses I use are UNIX OSses. I don't do Windows. Never did, never will. My 3 year old nephew knows more about Windows than I do, and I like to keep it that way. My preference goes to Solaris, but at the moment I don't have much access to one. (Only when I'm giving Solaris training, but that doesn't leave much time for development.) I'm a consultant, so I don't have a fixed place to work, but at my current main gig, I mostly use Linux and HP-UX. At home, I use Linux (but for my next box, I'd like to try some BSD member of the UNIX family). I don't consider the question "which distribution of Linux?" to be very relevant. The only time I use a distribution is when initially installing the OS - for the rest it's just ftp, tar xfvz, ./configure, make, su, make install. I've used at least SLS, Slackware, RedHat, Debian, Suse and Rock over the years, and they all suck. Some more than others. As for tools, I use the X Window System as GUI, with fvwm2 as window manager. The look and feel of my desktops (whether it's on Solaris, Linux or HP-UX) hasn't changed much in many years. I've been using 'vile' as my preferred editor for over a decade - but since that isn't standard, I use 'vi' a lot as well. That's everywhere. Shells: bash if it's available, otherwise ksh or sh. Mail is viewed and send using mutt (or mail if necessary), while slrn deals with Usenet. And that's about it when it comes to essential tools (well, the content of /bin and /usr/bin is there as well of course). For document making, I use LaTeX. Presentations I do with magicpoint (with the help of m4, make and xfig). Drawings are made with xfig, plots and graphs with gnuplot. Assorted useful tools: C compiler, make, ImageMagic, netpbm. Except for magicpoint, I've been using these tools for years, many since the '80s and early '90s. Some of my vi-macros are almost 20 years old. I'm conservative. I don't easily change my toolset. Experience often beats new features. Abigail	[reply]
Re: Re: Perl hacker?s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by brianarn (Chaplain) on Jun 04, 2002 at 22:13 UTC
I just wanted to add a thought here, after reading these comments. May be somewhat OT, but just some thoughts. First off, just so you know, my preferences are pretty much any nix (I'm better with RH Linux or Solaris 7/8), using a nice mix of Emacs/Vim depending on what I do. However, I also have a fairly extensive knowledge of Windows. More than I'd like, but enough to know how to get around and do the things I want to do to make it run (closely) to how I want it to run. As much as we have talked about the strengths of different languages in the past, I'm surprised that people lean so far from Windows. Yeah, to those of us who know what we're doing, nix systems are a wonderful way to go, and I'd die without my command line (which is much of why I disliked Macs pre-X). However, even as much as I disliked Macs and feel like I have little-to-no power in Windows, I took some time to learn each, in the instance that I have no choice but to use one of these machines, learning the subtleties like Macs click/hold versus left-click/right-click. It's the same reason that I took driving lessons when I was a kid in both an automatic and a manual. I never knew if I'd be stuck where I had to drive a manual in an emergency, and I actually knew someone who did get stuck with only a manual, a medical emergency, and no knowledge of a clutch. (Ironically, I like manuals more, could make a Unix analogy that Manual is the only way to go rimshot). I sincerely hope that this isn't seen as a rant - but it's good to know about various tools available, even if most flavors of Windows are more suited to playing around. ~Brian	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by gav^ (Curate) on Jun 04, 2002 at 17:08 UTC
I have a win2k box though most of my development is for linux. Stuff I wouldn't do without: GNU utilities for Win32 - win32 ports of many unix tools, wget, gzip, tar, less, uniq, sort, ls, etc. Wouldn't be able to survive without this. TweakUI - gets you tab completion NMAKE - for module installs Infozip - command line ZIP tools ActiveState - I use ActivePerl, Komodo and perlexe on a regular basis VIM - editor of choice on linux, I use Komodo mainly on win32 Outlook Express quote fixer very handy if you use OE HTTrack - very powerful website copying tool (works better than wget) Popcorn - tiny little POP3 client, great for testing Irfanview - nice little freeware imageview/batch converter Imagemagick Textpad - another good editor Mysqlfront - MySQL gui Leechftp - ftp client Phew! :) A bit off topic, but hopefully useful none the less... gav^	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by Dog and Pony (Priest) on Jun 04, 2002 at 15:30 UTC
I can tell right away that you are not using a "real" windows :) I'm using windows 2000 both at home and at work, and that is by far the most productive environment for me, although I use NIX quite a lot. I have Red Hat 7.2 as second computer both at work and at home, so I tend to switch a lot. Linux almost never crashes on me, of course, but it is still beaten by win2k, that has, that I can recall, never actually crashed on me in the last 2-3 years (on lots of different computers). So I assume you have 98 or Me or something? What I want to say with this is that if you can (and think it is worth it) get a copy of what I deem a real Windows, that might be good enough for you. Win2k has path completion (possible to put on tab like you are used to), and most all of the features one wants (cygwin adds the last few) - only faster. Yes, I mean it. Windows 2000 is lots faster than Gnome or KDE on the same computer, no matter what the application (I guess it is due to X being old, bloated and going via TCP/IP even locally or what it was...). And I don't really use the point and click interface in the way you seem to mean, just like I don't do point and click on linux, even though it is there. I use a few tools, like TextPad, Windows Commander and the command line, and that is about it. :) That said, if one is more comfortable with a NIX machine, then by all means go for it - it is still pure joy to work at those too. What works best for me is to do stuff, mainly programming and surfing for facts etc, on the windows machine, then use/run the stuff on the *NIX machine or both. Never had any luck with dual booting, the machine always seems to be stuck in one of the modes anyways, but it might be a good-enough solution for the time being. :) As for what distribution... well, I'm quite happy with Red Hat as such, but RPM blows goats. So next reinstall I'm thinking to try Debian to get apt-get-install and friends. :) You have moved into a dark place. It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.	[reply]
Re: Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jun 04, 2002 at 18:49 UTC
I guess it is due to X being old, bloated and going via TCP/IP even locally or what it was... I had dinner once with Jim Gettys, who pointed out that they developed X11 for machines with a handful of megahertz and two megabytes of RAM. He had it running on his iPaq. I've personally had more trouble with (what appears to be) one application holding the single GDI lock on Windows 2000 while waiting for network data than I have with X applications. I also miss virtual workspaces on Windows, though I have found a decent free pager with edge flipping.	[reply]
Re(3): Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by Dog and Pony (Priest) on Jun 04, 2002 at 20:57 UTC
Ok, scratch bloated then. :) Actually, I do not have any facts backing me up on that one either, just a very unqualified guess. The fact I do have, and withstand, is that the x based window managers, for whatever reason, seems (which is what counts to the user) much slower and worse than MS windows (this case being w2k) at doing the approximate tasks, both simple moving around windows/redrawing and the apps themselves. I'd hate to break that into a contest though, because I do not want to scare anyone off from using linux, which has a lot of other advantages, and is steadily becoming better (faster computers also helps, just as it does for windows). I tried running a linux-only environment for a month or so, but I pretty soon reverted back to a mixed set. Best of both worlds... :) I haven't had the same problem (that I am aware of) that you mention, but I suppose it might depend on what you work with, etc. And virtual workspaces++ every day of the week - I don't really use them enough to be really effective, but that is one of the better things since sliced bread. And I do try. :) You have moved into a dark place. It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.	[reply]
Re^2: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Jun 05, 2002 at 10:15 UTC
NT up to 3.51 was slower. Then they moved the GUI code into the kernel space and it picked up pace dramatically. I think I still prefer the GUI code in userland though and I can't say the speed bothers me. Window redraw on my X, particularly if I'm moving a widow in front of another, is visible (on Windows it's not), but not to any extent that I would consider it a hinderance or even slightly annoying. Besides, KDE and Gnome are just bloat IMO. I use just WindowMaker with no desktop environment and run just fine (and blazing fast). GUIs are overrated. `:-) ____________` Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]
(ichi) Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by ichimunki (Priest) on Jun 04, 2002 at 15:36 UTC
Many of the tools you think you are missing are available on Windows without installing Cygwin (which I've never used simply because I've never felt the need). Emacs has been ported to Windows. No idea if vi has been ported. Perldoc works from my Windows command line, although scrolling relies on a scrollbar and not keyboard commands. You can write your own cp, mv, etc in Perl... short of that there is Cygnus, but I've also got something else (used to be at http://virtunix.itribe.net/ but I can't seem to get to that now-- I have the .exe files, maybe I could upload them to my website). I've been using this for a while, it gives me the basic disk commands and a bunch of other stuff.CVS for Windows? That said, getting Windows to be as comfortable as Unix (or vice versa, depending on the person) is possible, it just takes work. I find that I'm equally effective doing Perl in emacs on either Windows or Linux. But then I don't rely on the debugger. I don't even know how to use it. I don't think I've ever used it, not even to try it out. But that's a whole separate discussion. ;) Of course, your idea to buy a small HD and dual-boot is the best one. Nothing beats Linux for emulating Unix. :)	[reply]
Re: (ichi) Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by krujos (Curate) on Jun 04, 2002 at 19:28 UTC
There is a vi port at www.vim.org	[reply]
(jeffa) Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by jeffa (Bishop) on Jun 04, 2002 at 17:52 UTC
I exclusively use UNIX or Linux for programming - right now i am using RedHat. I have tried Slackware, SuSE, Mandrake, and Debian, but i really like RedHat the best. One day i will brave BSD :). I use the Gnome desktop with the Enlightenment window manager. My editor is gvim. I also dual boot - Win2K - but ONLY to play games or use those blasted Office Tools (Word, Excel, etc.). I just don't consider Windows to be viable programming tool for myself - others like it and make it spin very nicely, but i personally don't. jeffa L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L-- -R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B-- H---H---H---H---H---H--- (the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)	[reply]
Re: (jeffa) Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by brianarn (Chaplain) on Jun 04, 2002 at 22:16 UTC
This post is incredibly off-topic, but I just had to share with a fellow gamer, and figured others might want to read. I feel bad posting a response without a link like this, but I just can't find the mail right now. I've read that in tests, WineX running Quake III native mode actually ran faster than native Windows. This was read in a daily newsletter from /., if you're brave enough to tread into the site and search for WineX, I'm sure you'll find some good info about it. ~Brian	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by FoxtrotUniform (Prior) on Jun 04, 2002 at 15:40 UTC
My home "workstation" system is a crufty old RedHat install, which I'm going to clobber and replace with FreeBSD once I've archived all the ~~porn~~ important data. My work box is a crufty old NT4 install, which I'd love to clobber and replace with FreeBSD, but that would make it difficult to develop for NT4. The servers I deal with are all FreeBSD (this includes shub-niggurath, the box under my desk at home, but excludes my friend's OpenBSD box, which sits on my pipe). I'm really quite taken with FreeBSD (having approached it as a committed Linux bigot, I think this has something to do with the zeal of the recently converted). I don't have any jarringly good reasons; I just seem to fit better with the BSD tools, layout, and general philosophy than with the SysV/GNU way of doing things. `-- The hell with paco, vote for Erudil! /msg me if you downvote this node, please. :wq`	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by George_Sherston (Vicar) on Jun 04, 2002 at 16:47 UTC
I do EVERYTHING (work and home) on a 233 Mhz laptop running Win98. BUT I have a cable modem and a leased server, and that's where I do my perl development - which (unless I'm writing a HUGE file, which might be a clue I was not re-factoring enough) works out about the same as having whatever mongo super-computer my server-provider has, on my desk. § George Sherston	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by ignatz (Vicar) on Jun 04, 2002 at 16:37 UTC
I've been developing at home on windows machines to remote unixesque servers for about 10 years now and I must confess that I'm sick of it. Sure cygwin is great in comparision, but it's still a clunky backwards hack. UPDATE: The things that give me the most headaches and make me ~~won't~~ want to give up on windows: XML libraries and modules, GD, apache w/mod_perl. ()-() \"/ `	[reply]
Re: Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by helgi (Hermit) on Jun 05, 2002 at 11:55 UTC
XML libraries and modules, GD, apache w/mod_perl What on earth are you talking about? All those things work perfectly on Windows. My Win2K box has run perfectly for three years. I have shut it down twice for moving. It has never crashed and never frozen. I have installed and uninstalled hundreds of applications without a reboot. I access and work on dozens of Linux and Solaris machines remotely through Reflection X and like it, but I wouldn't trade them for my Windows box ever. Regards, Helgi Briem	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by ignatz (Vicar) on Jun 05, 2002 at 14:40 UTC
If these things are easy for you to work with, than you are a better/smarter/wiser person than me. Personally, getting Xerces.pm, LibXML and up-to-date binaries of GD and Apache/mod_perl configured the way I want them has been beyond my threshold for pain. Yes, there is Cygin, but on my ancient (1 & 1/2 years old) machine it is very slow. The fact that Visual C++ 6 is the tool of choice for working with open source code on Windows is enough for me to say feh and move on. On my linux server compiling things from source, just the way I need them, while, granted, is a chore, is within my lazy, diehard win3.1/norton desktop using grasp. Four years ago I was at a crossroads: I could either go down that path that I was most familiar with, namely IIS and ASP, or I could follow my heart and commit to working with Open Source tools such as FreeBSD, Apache and Perl. I chose the later. While my job has been focused with developing on these platforms, my development desktop for some reason (Photoshop) has remained Windows and Mac. Enough is enough. Time to grow up. I can always dual boot back to MS when I need to. Maybe when I got 10 grand to burn I'll go to OS X, but in the mean time... ()-() \"/ `	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by helgi (Hermit) on Jun 06, 2002 at 13:31 UTC
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by Steve_p (Priest) on Jun 04, 2002 at 16:42 UTC
At home, its the iMac (OS X that is). At work its Windows, but I'm usually using X-Windows on it to work on UNIX. I still have my old Windows box (for Masters of Orion II), but I usually am booting into RedHat on it. Even when I was using Windows, I was running mainly XEmacs, Apache, Tomcat, and Perl on it, so the switch back and forth was quick.	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by demerphq (Chancellor) on Jun 06, 2002 at 10:32 UTC
Well, first the majority of your problems will most likely be due to using Windows ME. That OS should never have been released. It is even more b0rked than the W9x line. Frankly for stable MS development machines you basically have to go NT. Which means nowadays NT5 (aka W2k) or XP . Also in addition to the excellent unix tools from cygwin there are also a variety of power toys available from Microsoft itself (Tweak-UI). Other third party producers (ask Strat) Sysinternals. This is a rich source of extremely useful development and power tools. Some of them will be immediately familiar to a *nix user (PSTools) some of which are of uniquely MS'ish flavour (Reg Mon ) and some are just generally useful (Process Explorer). Either way if you are stuck or frustrated about something MS related there is a _really_ good chance that the excellent people at SysInternals will have the tool you need. HTH Yves / DeMerphq --- Writing a good benchmark isnt as easy as it might look.	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by penguinfuz (Pilgrim) on Jun 04, 2002 at 19:58 UTC
vladb wrote: I would also appreciate it immensely if you could describe the system you use for work or at home. Which works best for you? Red Hat Linux both at home and work. No real experience with wint or other UNIX to comment on usability, but as you mentioned, I too "*...find navigating in nix shell prompt much faster than clicking my way through never ending pile of clumsy windows**". Having said that, a great window manager is WindowMaker, and as many before me have pointed out Emacs is a great editor for Perl, but I find myself using pico more often than not.	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by elwarren (Priest) on Jun 05, 2002 at 21:05 UTC
Executive summary: Windows2000 is a good workstation and unix is a great server. I run Win2000 on my workstation but work against AIX, Linux, Solaris, and Irix all day. I spent most of my time working against Oracle using tools like java, perl, sqlplus, telnet, ssh, vim, and a browser. All of those things run on nearly every platform, so everything I do is pretty much platform independant. Windows wasn't very reliable until 2000 came along. Now that I'm running 2000 I never have to reboot my machine besides updates and it's faster than running kde or gnome on the same hardware. I tried XP for a month and came back to 2000. XP was also slower on the same hardware and didn't give me anything I didn't already have except an ugly red X button (that was obviously meant for users) and a nifty start menu. The start menu was an improvement, but I've already put shortcuts to everything I use on a quicklink bar on my start bar. Everything is one click away. Learn your shortcut keys for windows and you will increase your speed 10 fold. Alt-Tab, Alt-Space, and Ctrl-Esc are your friends. I only touch the mouse when surfing the web! The most recent release of the PuTTY ssh/telnet client now supports fullscreen mode. This is great when you're working on a server and want to have the entire screen available for your session. From a perl perspective PPM sucks, why hasn't CPAN integrated binary packages yet? Sometimes PPM will tell me that a package is available and then deny me when I attempt to install it, oh man that pisses me off to no end... Update: PuTTY is available here.	[reply]
Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by Anonymous Monk on Jun 04, 2002 at 18:22 UTC
One thing I have notice over the years. When it comes to Unix vs Windows type 'holy wars' I find that people that use both OSes regularly prefer Unix. and it is only those timid Windows OS only types that prefer the Microsoft OSs.	[reply]
Re: Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by Marza (Vicar) on Jun 04, 2002 at 20:40 UTC
If that was the case then why post Anon? Sorry don't buy it. Usually the people who prefer Unix probably started on it. Same as the PC types and the Mac types. My last job was a unix primary shop and I had a Solaris box on my desk. This job is a PC primary shop and I have two PCs on my desk . I really don't have a preference as they are just tools too me. I can do both sides well and I can say that both OS' can actaully do certain things better than the other. But that is just my .02	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by rattusillegitimus (Friar) on Jun 05, 2002 at 14:25 UTC
Marza wrote: Usually the people who prefer Unix probably started on it. Same as the PC types and the Mac types. I have to disagree here, at least for myself. Perhaps I'm the exception that proves the rule, but I'm one who started in the DOS/Windows world but immediately prefered Unix once I got a taste of it. I spent several years as a religious zealot once I got Linux installed stopped using Windows entirely. More recently (and slightly more on-topic), I've come to the realization that more than one of you have mentioned, that the OS is just a tool, and different tools are better for different tasks. This is especially true now that I am severely limited in the development software I have at work (currently Win95). I keep both a Win2K box and a Linux box at home so I can try to keep up with the technology I need to do my job (the Windows side) and the technology I enjoy more (the Unix side). My preferred tools overall, if I were making the decisions, would be Linux as the OS, with vi and emacs sharing editing duties (I do swing both ways there), MySQL for databases, Perl for coding, Apache for serving web, Lynx and Opera for browsing it, etc. But because I have to live in the real world, I try to be equally proficient in similar tools on the Windows side. ;) As soon as I can hack a few more hours in the day, I'll have to try out Cygwin and the various GNU utilities for Windows... -rattus, $.02 from the rat's nest of a brain	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Perl hacker’s tools of trade or hardware of choice.. by MadraghRua (Vicar) on Jun 05, 2002 at 16:47 UTC
Sorry, I'll have to disagree on the Unix statement. I started on PCs/DOS back in the early eighties (Commodores and Sinclair zx 80s) moved to Vax, moved back to PCs and DOS, found Macs and finally came back to Unix. My own preferences are Unix for development - Solaris, Debian, Suse and Red Hat in that order. I just find earlier Mac OSs and Windows cludgey, probably due to my own lack of skills on these OSs. My home systems - Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows 2000 on various old lap tops. I keep three sets of drives for Solaris, Suse and Red Hat, popping them in and out as I need to. At work, its mainly Solaris, Tru Unix 64, SGI, various Linuxes and Windows 2000/Max OS X. I like to use Hummingbird as the windows emulator for Unix, MacX for Macintosh. Tools - I use the various Unix tool ports to Windows mentioned earlier. I do find Visual Studio useful for cobbling together C/C++ projects or trying to port code to Windows. MadraghRua yet another biologist hacking perl....	[reply]


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