Path::Dispatcher: a dispatcher that can work just about anywhere. It works (roughly) analogously to the way mod_perl works when matching URIs and dispatching to URI handlers. This code can work in any context including the command line.

These really aren't that recent, but I just discovered them. They also aren't 'talks' (well, they were talks, but the talk itself was not recorded), but, instead, slideshows. Nevertheless I found them all interesting.

I've been using DBIx::Class recently. It's the first ORM I've ever used and it seems seemless. Here is a slideshow introducing DBIx::Class. Another detailing the much newer DBIx::Class::DeploymentHandler.

Plack is another interesting platform I've been unable to use as of yet. But here is a slideshow that has some very impressive example code.

I've read a number of Richard Price books. Namely Clockers and Lush Life. Bloodbrothers is Price's second book and I found it very different from those other books. This book seemed more personal and less like the highly detailed, well-researched novels that his other books are.

The book is primarily about a recent high school graduate with the nickname of Stony. He has a brother, a father, and a, possibly crazy, mother. His dad is distant but very much wants his eldest son to follow in his footsteps as an electrician. Stony is drifting and is non-committal to the good union job.

The characters are well developed, but (I may be spoiled by endless movies with similar characters) they seem derivative. Of course this book was written in 1976, but I'm not reading it then, I am reading it now. Anyway, if you've seen any movies about working class Italians in New York you will recognize these characters. A decent book but I'd rather read Clockers again.

A double bill, by author Jerry Pournelle, Fires of Freedom has two of his stories that deal with individuals and their fights against oppressive governments.

The first story deals with a young American who is shipped off to Mars as part of a deal to keep him out of prison on Earth. On Mars he joins a movement for an independent Mars. This story read so much like any number of Robert Heinlein novels that I thought he had come back from the grave. It's a decent read but I think the best was saved for last.

The second story takes place in the same universe as The Moat In God's Eye. It details a small colonial planet's attempt to gain some respect within the empire. I loved this story and it makes me want to read much more of the books that are in this universe.

I recommend this book primarily on the strength of the second (and longer) story. Both stories together make for an excellent read.

About 6 or 7 months ago I noticed I was being indexed by a search engine named Duck Duck Go. I went to the main page and it seemed interesting, but I never went back. Today I read that Duck Duck Go is written in Perl. I still don't know that I'll start using Duck Duck Go, but I find it very interesting that what is likely a very large project is using Perl. People who talk about the lack of scalability of Perl or the poor performance of Perl should take notice.

I agree with this post very much.

My blogging rate has been down quite a bit of late. This is partially due to demands from work and demands from my personal life colliding and providing less time for reading other blogs and commenting on them here. Plus, in the beginning, it was quite easy to blog about interesting perl modules that I had found. After all I had never blogged before so there was no track record, no history. Oh, I still review all the recently uploaded modules to CPAN. I see this as part of my job. I simply haven't noticed anything so interesting that I thought it worthy of mentioning on this blog. I also still read several dozen Perl and programming related blogs (almost) every day. Due to time constraints I often skim instead of fully groking the content. I often make mental notes to go back and reread articles and comments that look interesting. A funny thing about mental notes is they tend to get lost.

I went ahead and purchased the Nexus One that I talked about earlier. I've had it for a little over a week and I'm using it a fair amount (beyond the normal phone type things). This doesn't really mean a whole lot. After all when I first started blogging I was composing entries every day, often multiple entries, and it seemed to be easy. After a month it became more difficult. So let's see how much I am using this phone 30 days from now.

So a co-worker is selling a brand new Nexus One. This particular Nexus One is the one that works with AT&T's GSM. I'm still evaluating it, but am likely to purchase it. It seems like a good deal since I am already with AT&T and the price I am paying is significantly less than the retail price for the phone. So I 'miss out' on a number of bad things such as a contract with AT&T and the ridiculous ETF that Google has placed on the phone (although it may be less these days).

My current phone is one I purchased over 5 years ago. When I purchased it I think it was already obsolete. It's been a perfectly good phone and it still works. Why would I want to replace it? I'm still mulling this question over. Ubiquitous internet access is somewhat appealing but I can see a downside. Either way I'll keep my old phone and if I end up not using or not liking this new phone I can probably sell it at little or no loss (after adding in the cost of data service with AT&T).

Nemesis was published in 1989, just three years before Isaac Asimov died. Of his later novels that I have read this is one of the better ones. This isn't to say that I liked it that much. It contains some ideas (Gaia, intelligent planets) that don't particularly appeal to me, but were prevalent in many of Asimov's works of this period. A decent, and short, summary is available from the link so I won't bother with one here.

Worth reading but not one of Asimov's better works.

The Director of Engineering at ActiveState attempts to make the case that Perl Isn't Going Away Soon (Or Ever). Certainly he has some stake in such a prediction being that he's at a company that makes its money from dyanamic languages such as Perl. Does he make the case?

My current employer is hiring Perl developers. Now, I have no illusions that hundreds, or even dozens, of people read this blog, but, should you stumble upon this blog posting, please contact OpenX and we'll get back to you.

Is there a contradiction between employers complaining about the quality of Perl job applicants and Perl programmers complaining about the quality of Perl jobs available?

I don't know anything about the book so this is not an endorsement. However, be aware, that Addison-Wesley has released a free chapter for the upcoming Perl book Effective Perl Programming.

It may be worth a look.

I was unaware of the effort (and, besides, I don't have an Android phone), but apparently the effort to have Perl running on the Android OS is progressing.