Kirk's Perl Blog

Need to translate some text from english to LOLCAT speek? Well, all you need is this handy-dandy Perl module - available right now on CPAN - and you can have your entire application converted! Silly, but you never know when you might need a little LOLCAT in your life.

Acme::LOLCAT

Perl has a set of useful File Test Operators that can be used to quickly get information about the file system like the existence of a file, or the size. Lets take a quick look at how to get the file size in bytes using File Test Operators.

How to get the size of a file in Perl

Here's a nice list of some free and legal Perl books available on the web for your perusal. A few of these I've already pointed out, but they bear repeating. Especially in a nice and useful list format for your bookmarking pleasure:

• CGI Programming on the World Wide Web
• Perl 5 by Example
• Picking Up Perl
• Learning Perl the Hard Way
• Web Client Programming with Perl
• Extreme Perl
• Beginning Perl
• Perl for the Web
• Embedding Perl in HTML with Mason
• Practical mod_perl
• Perl 5 Internals
• Impatient Perl
• Perl Design Patterns

This site, though it doesn't seem to be updated too often, has some interesting Perl podcasts if you're into that sort of thing. So far, there are a few interesting Perl community interviews and a decent podcast about mod_perl.

Podcasting Perl

Here's a great series of book reviews for some of the most popular Perl books, and the best part is they are short and to the point! All in all, they're pretty accurate takes on the basic Perl library. Have a look and see what you think.

Perl book (mini) reviews

Object-Relational Mapping is a method of mapping a relational database to a class structure in an object-oriented programming language. In simpler terms, it takes your database structure and creates an interface that keeps you from having to write any SQL at all. Not only does it abstract the database, it abstracts the relational portion as well, making it simpler for you to work in an application. Learn more in the third part of this tutorial on Using Rose:DB in Your Application.

Adding Object-Relational Mapping to your Perl Application - Part Three

This is a clean and useful PDF of a presentation on clean and usable Perl! Seriously, this is a great look at busting some of the myths that Perl is hard to read or understand. Turns out, "There's More Than One Way To Do It", and several of those ways is just as clean and neat as looking at fresh Ruby or Python code. Have a look and tell me what you think!

Readable Perl

A recent LiveJournal entry from pozorvlak is a really great essay on several of the good points that Perl has to offer. It pretty much touches on all the reasons why Perl is flat out awesome and will stay awesome for a long time to come - not the least of which is CPAN. When you have such a comprehensive, and easy to access repository of so much code for your language, you save developers many many hours of coding time and add endless value.

Why I like Perl

Whatever language you choose to program in, here's an interesting and useful utility (written in Perl of course) that will count blank lines, comment lines, and physical lines of source code. Great for proving to the boss that you're working if they're the type that thinks greater quantities of code equals greater productivity! Seriously though, it's always interesting to see how compact you can get with any algorithm or bit of code, and this program works with literally almost every language you could possibly be using.

Count Lines of Code

Here's something interesting to look at - a new Perl widget library for web interfaces that works in the style of Gtk+. It incorporates the prototype JS library and has a pretty nice set of features. You can read a short article on the subject, or skip straight to the interfaces home page and live demonstrations!

IWL: A Perl widget library for the web
IWL Live Demo