I don't know how many people use Module::Build for more than bundling of code for CPAN. In fact I've been using it for years to help organize and build up my base of custom modules.

Typically this involves subclassing Module::Build and then adding a number of new features using its API. The documentation isn't terrible (but it could be better), but I'd still recommend looking at the code in Module::Build::Base whenever you are stuck trying to figure something out.

By default Module::Build only knows about a few directories. If you need to have files installed in any other directories than you can either modify the Build.PL file or you can add that information to a subclass and use it across all of your code. I'd recommend the latter. One particularly nice trick is to associate certain directories with XS (or other compiled code) and have Module::Build build it automatically for you.

Another nice thing about using a subclass of Module::Build is that now you can have a central source of file policy. i.e. a central location that dictates that certain files go here and that other types of files go there. Taking this out of the hands of each module is desirable for any project larger than a few modules.

Of the similar modules I have looked at Module::Build is the best. If nothing else it is much better than Makefile.PL.

So I have been writing tests for years. I've written a number of modules that do (essentially) what Test::Most does. Yet in all this time I knew nothing of Test::Builder::Module. Argh! This module makes building test modules so easy. No more

  my $caller = caller();
  eval "package $caller; use Test::More";

Instead you can use Test::Builder::Module to do a lot of this. It appears to be an extremely useful module and it's high time I start using it.

I currently work in downtown Los Angeles. I sit at a desk on the 43rd floor of one of the taller buildings along Flower Street. I occasionally wonder just how resistant to collapse these buildings are. How big would an earthquake have to be to bring down the building I am in? It's not an entirely idle thought. I was at work when a smallish (4.5) earthquake struck. I could look out the window and see the sway of the building. It was not a pleasant experience.

When I first moved to Los Angeles four years ago I was overwhelmed with the different districts and neighborhoods in the city. Where the heck was Valley Village or Canoga Park? I realized fairly quickly that I needed to learn where all these places were located if I wanted to get anywhere. I found two invaluable sources. The first is a map put out by LA Almanac. They have the on-line version, but I bought a full color map that hangs on the wall of my office. The second is Wikipedia's list of districts and neighborhoods of Los Angeles. A pretty decent summary of nearly all these areas can be found starting with that page.

It took awhile, but several years after moving to Los Angeles I discovered the ArcLight. Yeah, they have a fantastic selection of popular movies and arthouse movies. But the real reason to love them is threefold: assigned seating, alcoholic beverages served before and after the film, actual age restrictions for some showings of movies. If only all theaters did this. I may have to start going to the theater again.

Probably the best hiking site for the Los Angeles area is This Hiking Trail. It's the site where I first discovered my favorite hike. I just recently discovered the trailhead to a hike very close to where I live. It's a moderate distance at 7.8 miles, but is fairly strenuous at over 2000 feet in elevation from start to highest point. The point of all this is to show the usefulness of the site. It lists several dozen area hikes, links to other hiking sites, and (actually useful) comments from other hikers.

I don't have any intention of turning this into a sports related blog. But I do pay a lot of attention to some popular American sports. I regularly visit ESPN and some other blogs to keep up with what's going on. And, so, I may occasionally mention sports on this blog. With that said I am predicting that the Saints win the Super Bowl (more because I'd like to see them win and less because I think they will actually win). I have no score prediction but it seems likely that the score will be pretty high.

So the final Apache 1.3 has been released. Perhaps this will finally prompt companies to move on. I have yet to work for a company that did not use Apache 1.3 for its primary web products. Granted I am using a small sample size, but it is astonishing to me that I have never been paid to work on a product that uses Apache 2.x. When I started my current job they were still using Apache 1.3. Instead of moving to Apache 2.x for the rewrite of the product we decided to write our own webserver. So far its turned out pretty well, but, once again, Apache 2.x was not an option.

I would not consider myself a perl advocate. I don't run around proselytizing about the wonderfulness of Perl. However, occasionally, someone will say something profoundly silly. Today, once again, I have heard the ridiculous claim that, "Perl is not a serious language." What the speaker typically means is that no real system could possibly be built using a toy language such as Perl. Since I have been building serious systems with Perl for the last 10 years I know that this claim is false. These days I simply laugh at the claim and go about my business.

Where I work we recently completed a large and lengthy project to re-architect our core technology. The entire project was written in Perl. The webserver on the frontend? Written in Perl. The servers making the business decisions? Written in Perl. The backend that serves up the data? Written in perl. This is a web service that receives millions of hits per day. Nearly every hit requires a fairly complex and unique set of rules to be followed. The whole thing was written in Perl.

To say that Perl is a toy is simply wrong.

I actually wrote my first Perl program when I was working for a company owned and operated by Texas Instruments. That was in 1997. However my job hardly revolved around Perl and I mostly wrote code in Tcl/Tk, C and a small amount of C++. It was in 2000 that I moved to San Mateo, California to work for a startup company named Zack Networks (deceased) that I began writing Perl code for a living. Over the last ten years I have written PHP, C, Python, and (a very small amount of) Java code. However the lion's share of what I have written has been in Perl.

I wonder how long my 'relationship' with Perl can last. Some say that Perl is losing its edge or losing its mindshare. Others think that Perl 6 will revolutionize and reinvigorate what they see as a community stuck in a rut. Maybe. Maybe not. Frankly I'm impressed that it has lasted this long. I'm not impressed because I think Perl is a poor product, but because I think the pace of technological change can be so swift that once mighty technologies are suddenly obsolete (I will concede that this tends to happen more slowly to programming languages). I don't know if my next 10 years will include Perl as much as this past 10 years, but I certainly hope that it does.

It looks like Joe McMahon has discovered that Hudson can build perl projects. I shouldn't be quite so flip since he has yet to reveal everything he wants to talk about. And, to be sure, I am interested in seeing where he goes with his blog posts. However, just for the record, the company I work for has been using Hudson to build its largeish perl project for quite some time. Hey, we even use makefiles to manage the dependencies of the build. This doesn't strike me as novel...but I'll be patient and wait to see what else he has to say.

Went to the 94th Aero Squadron restaurant in Van Nuys tonight. I did not know what to expect, but it was really very good.

I realized today that I have been a Linux user for a little over 15 years. I was first introduced to the Linux operating system in 1994 during the first semester of my junior year at Texas A&M. At that time I was running two other operating systems: MS-DOS 5.0 and OS/2 Warp. After seeing a friend use some programs on his Linux box to connect to the campus modem pool and surf the net (using a program called lynx!) I decided I had to try it. This was amazing to me because, at that time, A&M didn't even offer PPP or SLIP accounts (it was several months later that A&M started to offer such accounts to students). So I borrowed another friend's set of several dozen 1.44MB floppy disks, containing Slackware Linux, and installed Linux as a third operating system.

Since 1997 I have been using Linux exclusively. The last Microsoft operating system I used was Windows 95. OS/2 was around for awhile but I stopped using it before I even graduated from college. I know a number of people who use and love Apple's OS X. It looks very nice but I've never been tempted to use it.

I will be doing some initial work on a computer I bought for my parents. My goal is to install only the software that they need and that that software be as unintrusive as possible.

I bought them a Dell computer with some pretty decent specs. At work I have been soliciting recommendations for essential software that meets the criteria I mentioned above.

SUPPORT: I may be purchasing a subscription to gotomypc. My intention is to use this subscription to provide technical support should they need it. Beyond that I got them the three year warranty that comes with Dell technical support.

ANTI-VIRUS: I was told that Microsoft Security Essentials was a very good, free product. It updates itself automatically and doesn't cripple the performance of the computer (which I gather some other anti-virus software does).

DEFRAGMENTATION: Apparently Windows 7 still runs on a filesystem that can easily become fragmented. I will be placing DeFraggler on the computer. Once again this is software that runs in the background and will do what is needed without bothering the user.

BACKUP: For backup I am still deciding between Mozy and carbonite.

PHOTO ORGANIZATION: I was running a Gallery2 installation on my VPS and used it to host my pictures and pictures my parents took. Initially I had wanted my entire extended family to use it, but that never really worked out. I finally realized that running this server was ridiculous considering all of the high quality (and free!) image hosting sites. I decided on Google's Picasa Web which is an on-line service that integrates well with their Picasa image organization software. It also supports Linux along with Windows.

So I was out and about in Santa Monica the other night and had my first cigar. I have never been a smoker, be it cigarettes, pipes, or anything else, so I had to ask quite a few questions to make certain I did it properly. It was a more pleasant experience than I assumed it would be. I don't plan on smoking cigars often, but when I am around others that do I will light up and enjoy a smoke.