Re: 8 long years

In my case it was 10 years. I just came back yesterday, and I cannot begin to tell you (because I fear some would misunderstand it as sarcasm, too), how much I loved it. I took PTO (paid time off) to follow the Olympics and the Mars Science Lab missions, and when I started to write a little script to download raw images by sol number yesterday, googling after some long-forgotten syntax stuff real quick, I came across a link to PM.

And that's when "real quick" was over. The script took second place to me being on here for a couple of hours straight, just loving to go through some of my old writeups, reading those old replies, and remembering some stuff I've done back then, and what I worked on.

Of course it was a shock finding out that I am not Friar anymore! How dare you guys degrade me in my absence!? ;) I was pretty proud when I became friar -- good thing is I am only 3 XP down of becoming .oO(what's it called now?) Pilgrim, so, oh well, my votes for today should do.

I was amazed that my account still existed, though, to begin with, and that it was unaltered, otherwise. The interface looked like in the olden days, when Perl was my business still. And I am 100% honest, when I say, oh my Larry, I love that it is! In a way... all those years I trusted that it was. It was minimalistic, and practical and "Home" then, and it still is today. It's like coming back from a long pilgrimage and finding out your brothers kept everying in working order and the same for you. Thank you very much for that, brothers and sisters.

That said, although I know it's probably off-topic here: Sometimes I really miss Perl, and especially using it professionally (read: being allowed to use it, nowadays). I've been off to Java for a decade now, and while I did get to like it, and things have much improved since then, and I know it as well as I used to know Perl, it's just ... something else. Java, in a way, is the most boring language out there.

So it's not surprizing, maybe, that I never came across anything even getting close to PerlMonks, which, if I had to name three things where Perl rocks in comparison with Java, it always was: regular expressions as an integral element of the language (as opposed to a library/API), nothing like CPAN existing for it, and nothing like PerlMonks existing for it.

So thank you for still being here, and I have a feeling that the next time I come here will be in less than 10 years. At least until I am back to work in a couple of weeks -- even if it's only due to another rover mission being on Mars, which always has me write some Perl, it seems ;) (Go NASA JPL & Partners, BTW!).

See you,
Flexx

Comment on Re: 8 long years

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: 8 long years by jdporter (Paladin) on Aug 07, 2012 at 17:28 UTC
It's like coming back from a long pilgrimage... Welcome home, pilgrim! One thing that didn't exist 10 years ago was Tidings (linked as "What's New" in the upper right menu). Here you can see a concise summary of what has been changed in the last six and a half years ... though I'm sure some things got missed. I reckon we are the only monastery ever to have a dungeon stuffed with 16,000 zombies.	[reply]
Re^3: 8 long years by Flexx (Pilgrim) on Aug 08, 2012 at 06:03 UTC
Thanks for the warm welcome, it's funny how this promotion really fit the circumstances, no? And thanks for the pointer, too. Seems there was quite a bit going on, which makes it ever more impressive, that it still looks and feels like the good old monastery. And yeah, I sure am 10 years closer to zombieness, lookin' at it... Cheers, Flexx	[reply]
Re^2: 8 long years by sedusedan (Monk) on Aug 08, 2012 at 15:21 UTC
PM surely looks like it is frozen in time, being roughly the same since 13 years ago when I stumbled upon it. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. Anyway, thankfully not everything in Perl stands still. Things have been happening especially in the last 2-3 years. Check back often :)	[reply]
Re^3: 8 long years by rgiskard (Hermit) on Aug 12, 2012 at 04:49 UTC
Is anyone using greasemonkey to prettify PM? Links?	[reply]
Re^4: 8 long years by Argel (Prior) on Aug 14, 2012 at 21:27 UTC
Easiest way to prettify PM is to use the Perl-Blue Theme (via your Display Settings). I have also taken advantage of CSS code some Monks have posted: `/* Override inline-list CSS / li.inline, .inline-list li { display: inline; margin-left: 0pt; + } li.inline:before, .inline-list li:before { content: "" } li.inline:after, .inline-list li:after { content: "," } ul.inline-list { display: inline; margin: 0; padding: 0; list-style: n +one; } / Increase size of text input areas. */ textarea { width: 100%; height: 25em; } table.user-settings, .user-settings textarea { width: 100%; }` [download] And ditto for Javascript via my Free Nodelet Settings: `<script type="text/javascript"> // Move nodelets to the left side. function move_nodelets_to_left() { var td = document.getElementById('nodelet_container').parentNode; var tr = td.parentNode; tr.insertBefore(td, tr.firstChild); } // Execute our snippets after the page is parsed. var old_onload = window.onload; window.onload = function() { if (old_onload != null) old_onload(); move_nodelets_to_left(); }; </script>` [download] With these, PM looks pretty good (not necessarily great or modern, but having a more classic look is fine by me). Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks My deviantART gallery	[reply] [d/l] [select]


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