User since: Dec 05, 2002 at 01:13 UTC (23 years ago) Last here: Jun 13, 2025 at 10:17 UTC (6 hours ago) Experience: 5236 Level: Priest (14) Writeups: 459 Location: Mount Bethel, PA Latitude: 40°51'16"N Longitude: 75°4'40"W CPAN: PFAUT Picture: My Band's CD Cover Home Page: https://mbpfaus.net/~pfau/ User's localtime: Jun 13, 2025 at 12:12 EDT Scratchpad: View For this user: Search nodes

[2025-05-05ϗ I thought I'd write up some of my history with perl and describe some of the larger projects I've delivered with it.

[2016-06-15] So, I haven't been around much in a while. That last temp job I mentioned became permanent in January, 2011. I'm still there and using perl for a number of things. They keep me busy so I don't get to spend much time here.

[2010-10-05] I'm now working as a consultant. My contract runs into January, 2011 but may be renewed. Somehow I managed to find another VMS job. If anyone is still using CMS on VMS I have a module you might be interested in.

[2009-03-31] A couple of weeks ago I was informed that I would be let go from my current job at the end of September. I am a programmer with C/C++, perl, java, and database experience on linux, OpenVMS and Windows. I live in New Jersey but will consider moving to a southern state (Tennessee, Georgia, Carolinas). If you know of available programmer jobs, please contact me. Thanks.

[2007-12-04] I just finished another CD project with a different group of musicians.

[2004-07-20] I just got my copies of the CD today. I would guess that the band's website should be updated soon to allow orders.

[2004-06-01] The CD is finally finished and has been sent off for printing. If you're interested, keep an eye on http://www.9feettall.com as I'm sure an announcement will be made there about how to purchase one.

[2003-08-29] My band has had a bit of a setback with our CD project. The new studio got the tapes from Kathy's nephew and converted them for use on the computerized recording system. Unfortunately, there are problems that probably can't be fixed like large amounts of bleed due to the way we put down the drum and bass tracks. We may have to start over but if we do, things will go a lot faster due to the studio being a lot closer and the computerized system being a lot easier to make corrections with. We have some decisions to make - we can use it anyway in which case there will be a big difference in quality and production between the old and new songs or we can do everything over and incur a big expense for additional studio time.

[2003-06-29] For those interested in my band's CD project: Kathy's nephew was doing the recording for us in his home studio. Unfortunately, he's been having some problems with his neighbors and won't be able to finish the project. We have found another local studio to finish the project but won't be able to schedule time there for a few weeks. The CD probably won't be ready until some time in August.

[2003-06-04] I started my new job on 5/27. I have to get up too early to be able to get online before I leave for work. The commute stinks thanks to New Jersey traffic. By the time I get home I'm fairly exausted and don't really feel like getting on line for more than catching up on my mail. And if I do have any energy left, there's a hockey game on! Hopefully it won't take me long to get used to the hours and the commute and be able to spend more time here again. If not, I'll just have to quit.... :-)

[2003-04-17] After having my resume on job boards for six months and actively sending out resumes for three, I have finally found a new job through a friend of a friend. So much for the job boards.

I wonder how many other monks have had a petitioner kiss their feet.

I think the following is obligatory.

-----BEGIN PERL GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 0.01
P+++c--P6-R+M++O+++MA++E++PU++BD+C++D+S
+++X+WP++MO?PP!n!CO--> PO--o+G
A--OLC+$OLCC++$OLJ++$OLCO---OLA*Ee
Ev-Eon-uL++w-$m!
------END PERL GEEK CODE BLOCK------
[download]

May 6, 2003 I became the 189th saint. I think the next level isn't going to be as easy. You gained 10 experience points! You have 1002850 points until level vroom

XP graph

Good Quotes

In specialized areas like graphics, databases, parsing, numerical analysis, and simulation, the ability to solve problmes depends critically on state-of-the-art algorithms and data structures. If you are developing programs in a field that's new to you, you must find out what is already known, lest you waste your time doing poorly what others have already done well.

Variations on a theme seen on the web:

Veni. Vidi. Visa. (I came. I saw. I shopped)

Veni. Vidi. Velcro. (I came. I saw. I stuck around)

Before asking questions here, be sure to read the Perl Infrequently Asked Questions list.

Ways to link on PerlMonks

1. include HTML (<a href="blah.html">blah</a> or [http://search.cpan.org/])
2. reference a node by name or title ([name])
3. reference a node by id ([id://123])
4. reference a user's scratchpad ([pad://username])
5. module search on CPAN ([cpan://XML::Parser])
6. access a user's scratch pad ([pad://user])
7. perldoc search ([perldoc://search terms])
8. google search ([google://search terms])
9. google first site match ([lucky://search terms])
10. books by isbn ([isbn://1234567890])
11. jargon file entries ([jargon://search terms])
12. dictionary lookup ([dict://word])

After the reference, add '|link text' to alter the text of the link.

Interesting Places in the Monastery

Interesting Things to Investigate

Interesting Places Outside the Monastery

Chatterbox History

These are various versions of cblast35 which shows the last 35 messages on the chatterbox. These are kept here for posterity since they all appear to be dead now.

http://209.15.115.34/cgi-bin/perlmonks/cblast35.cgi
http://crazyinsomniac.perlmonk.org/perl/cblast35/cblast35.cgi
http://www.greentechnologist.org/wiki/cblast35
http://unlocalhost.com/cblast35/cblast35/cgi

This one (see cbhistory) stores the messages in a database instead of in a DB file. It keeps the last hour's worth of messages.

http://nbpfaus.net/~pfau/cbhistory.cgi?site=PM

PerlMonks Tools at my website

The following tools are available from my system at home.

My newest nodes interface.
PerlMonks Node Lister

My history with perl

I got my first PC in June, 1992. It came with Windows 3.11. At that time I was a VMS system programmer. I was used to working on multi-user timesharing systems. I was maintaining a program that used asynchronous I/O to support hundreds of terminals. The single-tasking nature of Windows had me frustrated within a few months.

I had been hearing a lot about this thing called linux at that time. I downloaded some stuff and tried it out. It looked very interesting so I found a way to carve 10MB off my 100MB hard disk and installed it. This was about November 1992, the linux 0.92 timeframe.

I figured if I was going to be running linux I had better figure out how to write s‎crip‎ts. I was about to head into learning bash but I kept seeing references to perl in linux discussions. I don't remember what I used to start learning perl but I quickly became hooked on it. It reminded me of my first programming language, BASIC, but much more powerful. I bought Programming Perl, first edition, and started reading it. This was perl 4.

In 1994 I created a static web page to track the Stanley Cup Playoffs. As the playoffs went on it got tedious updating this large HTML file. I wrote some perl s‎crip‎ts to create the HTML page from several data files that contained the final standings, matchups, and schedule. Over the years I rewrote this to use a more modern perl style. I wrote a simple CGI s‎crip‎t in perl that allows me to update the scores in the schedule. I have been maintaining this every year since. Each section is created by the perl s‎crip‎ts from data files and it's all pulled together by an m4 s‎crip‎t.

Some of the old pages didn't look too good due to the HTML style I used back then. A few years ago I modified the programs to be able to process any of the various playoff seeding arrangements that the NHL has used since 1994 and regenerated all of the old pages. If you want to see this it's available at https://mbpfaus.net/~pfau/nhl/.

In the late 90's I was working for a stevedoring company that had contracted to have its web site created. Originally it was just static pages with company information but eventually they wanted their customers to be able to lookup live status information. They moved from VMS indexed files to an Oracle database. I was given the task of making the website interactive. I rewrote the existing pages converting from Cold Fusion to perl and added new pages allowing customers to log in and lookup the status of their containers.

By the time I left this job I had bought the second and third editions of Programming Perl.

When I left that job I went to work for a previous coworker who was involved with a startup company. They needed someone to write the configuration application for their product so they set me to writing Java code. There were many software parts to their system. Another developer had written several Windows s‎crip‎ts to drive their nightly builds. This was a horrible monstrosity that was impossible to maintain so after he left I ended up rewriting it in perl.

With some spare time on my hands as the startup was failing I started hanging out at PerlMonks. I would end up out of work for about six months. During this time a friend of mine paid me to help him develop web sites. He used Visual Basic. I wrote business logic and routines to interface to the database for an internet sales website he was developing for a client. Somehow I managed to talk him into letting me write some database export routines in perl. I thought it would be much easier to create XML with perl than with VB.

At my next job I was maintaining the system that managed the automated warehouse. I wrote an XS interface to the VMS Code Management System (CMS, sort of like RCS) and wrote several perl s‎crip‎ts to help me manage the code base. They wanted to display the open orders on a large monitor in the warehouse so that the fork lift drivers could see the status. I managed to convince them to let me write it in perl. They would have preferred a Microsoft-based solution but the system ran on VMS and the data wasn't accessible remotely.

From there I went to a company that managed currency trading between large international banks. In my first assignment I wrote code to handle new messages between the systems. I wasn't familiar with the whole system yet so I didn't know how to get support for these new messages into the log file reader so I wrote my own log file reader in perl. Eventually that company was bought by my present company resulting in the retirement of those systems. By that time the s‎crip‎t had grown to between 1500 and 2000 lines of perl code followed by about 8000 lines of message structure definitions and could parse any message in the log file. The message definitions included definitions of base types named for the C typedefs and structure layout definitions that could be referenced in other data structures. The code would recursively follow the data structures and read the fields out of the binary data using unpack. The s‎crip‎t could search by message type, timestamp or serial number or by field content.

This system originally ran on VMS. The company was looking to move to newer systems but HP decided not to support VMS on the newer hardware. At this time we started porting the system to linux. We used the VMS Message utility to define error and status codes. We still needed to be able to generate some source files from the message definition sources so I wrote a perl s‎crip‎t to parse them. I kind of recall using Parse::RecDescent for this.

I have had many jobs where VMS was the predominant operating system. I have used perl at most of these jobs. I have written several VMS related XS modules that are available on CPAN.

There have also been several web apps I've written for personal use. Today my weather station reports readings to a perl s‎crip‎t on my home server. That s‎crip‎t saves the data to a database. I have a web page on my server that displays graphs from that data. I wrote a Tk application that displays current readings with highs and lows for current and previous day. Most of the readings are color coded to indicate if they are increasing or decreasing.

I wrote a Sudoku program that uses a puzzle generator I found on PerlMonks.

I wrote a perl s‎crip‎t that visits several blogs I follow, downloads their RSS data and stores it in a database. I use another perl s‎crip‎t to access this and see all of the new posts from these sites in one place.