[MPSIG] April 2nd, at 10:30am: $perl: how to have fun with perl, and make some $'s at the same time!

[John Ashmead <john.ashmead@ashmeadsoftware.com>]

I'm going to be doing "$perl:  how to have fun with perl, and make some 
$'s at the same time!"  this coming Saturday at the April MPSIG 
(Macintosh Programmers Special Interest Group) from 10:30am to 12:30 am 
at McMobile in Upper Darby (directions: 
www.macsensei.com/html/map_to_store.html).

I've been having a lot of fun with perl over the last few months,  
writing small scripts and larger ones to get various jobs done for my 
clients.

Perl is the Swiss Army Knife of programming languages.  It can do just 
about everything.  Even for jobs where you might not want to do the 
final version in perl, it can still be an excellent tool for getting a 
first take done (a bit like storyboarding a movie before shooting it!).

I've been having a lot of success with code generators in particular, 
using perl to write programs in other languages, like SQL or C#.  There 
are a lot of tricks for writing good code generators:  when to do this 
(& when not to!), what part of the work to let the code generator do, 
and what still has to be done by hand, and so on.

Once you've mastered this, it is an invaluable technique to have in 
your chest of tricks.  This last week I was able to build an entire 
reporting system for a client, with 21 reports & 6500 lines of code, in 
only ten hours, using a trio of code generators I had built earlier.  
Needless to say, they were pleased!

What I'm going to do is talk about how you can use perl to automate the 
boring parts of programming, leaving you free to focus on stuff that is 
important and/or fun:  how do you spot "boring parts", why is perl a 
good tool for doing this, how do you do this on the Mac, and so on.

Please bring your own stories of how to automate code as well: as 
interactive as possible is how we like it!

Best,

John

PS.  We meet the first Saturday of each month at McMobile, in Upper 
Darby.  Please park on the side, where the auto shop is, leaving the 
front for the regular McMobile customers.  Thanks!

MPSIG's web site is http://www.dicas.com/mpsig/index.html.  I've also 
got MPSIG information up at my own web site, at 
www.ashmeadsoftware.com/mpsig.htm.

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John Ashmead
Ashmead Software & Consulting, Inc.
139 Montrose Avenue
Rosemont, PA 19010-1508
(610) 527 9560
fax (610) 527 4640
john.ashmead@ashmeadsoftware.com
http://www.ashmeadsoftware.com/

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