2011.07.25 in #1Moose is Perl: A Guide to the New Revolution
Ricardo Signes (RJBS) has posted the slides of his 3 hour long Moose tutorial. I have not seen his talk but his slides are really good.
2011.08.23 in #5promoting little gifts
If you ever wanted to express your gratitude to an open source developer, Ricardo Signes (RJBS) describes a simple and very nice way to do that. You got a nice present in the form of a CPAN module? Now you can return the favor even if your employer does not let you release open source code.
2011.08.25 in #5First impressions of ActiveState Stackato
Ricardo Signes (RJBS) describes his experience with Stackato the cloud system of ActiveState. He shows how he deployed Rubric, a web application he wrote 7 years ago. If I understand it correctly, he is using Rubric for his blog.
2011.10.31 in #15Ricardo Signes becomes the new Perl 5 Pumpkin
Let's thank Jesse Vincent for his excellent work on leading the Perl 5 porters improving Perl in a direction we did not believe could happen. Then let's thank Ricardo Signes (RJBS) for taking this hard job.
2011.12.08 in #20rjbs versus Encode
It's always fascinating to see a fight between man and machine. This time it is Ricardo Signes (RJBS) who had to deal with Encode, folding and Tibetian e-mail messages.
2011.12.19 in #218 days of Perl during Hanukkah (חנוכה)
Just as the Advent calendars near their end, Hanukkah starts on 21st December. RJBS (aka Ricardo Signes) is trying to repeat the miracle and use his oil candle to write about Perl for 8 days.
2011.12.22 in #22one more reason to dislike mutability
Usually we see examples on how things should be written so it is very educational that Ricardo Signes (RJBS) shows us an example of a failure. Based on the comments it seems that this particular issue has biten many good programmers.
2012.04. in #37how I spent my Perl QA Hackathon
Ricardo Signes got a bit sick during the hackathon but still, he managed to lots of things around CPAN and PAUSE.
2012.04.28 in #40Perl 5.16.0 is coming soon!
If Perl is an important tool in your toolbox then follow what Ricardo SIGNES is asking you and test it. Before the release!
2012.05.20 in #43Perl 5.16.0 is now available!
Ricardo Signes has announced the release of Perl 5.16. I would warmly recommend to download the source code version, compile it and send a thank you note to the Perl 5 porters who have been working hard to produce this release. Then test your source code with it and report any issues caused by the new release.
2012.05.21 in #44the perl 5.16.0 epigraph
A few days after releasing the latest version of Perl, Ricardo Signes (rjbs) goes on explaining the quote he used in the release announcement. A quote from a poem by W.H. Auden.
2012.06.17 in #47our Campaign Secrets rules from YAPC 2006
This is basically only interesting to people who attended YAPC::NA and how received the cards in the welcome bag. RJBS shows an improved set of rules for the game.
2012.09.11 in #60setting global expectations with Test::Routine
An interesting look into the billing system of (I think) Pobox. What do you do when at mid-term - as it is always the case - a client wants to change her subscription. Do you reduce the left over paid period? Do you charge the extra for the left over period? Do yo charge for a full period taking in account the money still left from the other subscription? And how do you test it? Without sending bills?
2012.09.24 in #61Perl 5 Porters Weekly: September 10-September 16, 2012
Ricardo Signes is looking for a volunteer to described how to dual-life modules. The discussion on named prototypes (aka subroutine signatures) goes on and there were talks about performance as well.
2012.11.16 in #69Perl Advent Calendar
A couple of days ago, Ricardo Signes sent out a call for help on the Perl Advent mailing list. I cannot link to that message, but you can check out the web site of the Perl Advent Calendar and see how you can write an article.
2013.01.22 in #79the speed of Perl file finders
Want to find files on your system? Lots of files? Ricardo Signes offers a review of the hunter-killer modules out there, and how do they perform in function of the size of the haystack they have to wade through.
2013.02.07 in #81The great new Email::Sender
RJBS released a new release of the module after converting it from Moose to Moo and saving 80% of the run-time for the test suite. The post comes with explanation how can you configure it to make it super easy to test your e-mail sending application, without actually sending the e-mails.
2013.04.09 in #90DKIM, Email::Simple, and heartache
DKIM is one of the tools available for legitimate e-mail senders to fight being falsely marked as spammer. Hence it is important to to know how to use it.
2013.04.15 in #91The 2013 Perl QA Hackathon in Lancaster
Ricardo Signes, the current pumpking mentioned Meetings, PAUSE (where the CPAN modules are uploaded), Plain (Pod Old Documentation), and other Stuff.
2013.06.27 in #101print-ing to UDP sockets: not so good
Ricardo Signes is having loads of fun with StatsD. He also had a pretty puzzling problem with mangled UDP streams. After some troubleshooting, he found the culprit, and shares his findings with us.
2013.07.01 in #102Notes from YAPC in Austin
Better late than never. Ricardo Signes posted his experience at YAPC::NA that was held in Austin, TX a month ago.
2013.07.25 in #105I get points for blogging this!
There are two constants about hackers: we always have a heap of things we wanna do, and we never have enough tuits to do them all. Ricardo Signes, like all of us, strives for that holy grail of maximal personal productivity. In that optic, he's sharing how he uses the 'Daily Practice' web tool to help him, and how a few well-placed Perl scripts can automate some of its updates.
2013.09.06 in #111managing GitHub Issues labels
Ricardo Signes is migrating to the GitHub bug tracking system. He has... let's say a few repositories, and wants to synchronize the ticket labels across all of them. That would mean some very long typing sessions, if it wasn't for Github's comprehensive API, and a little bit of scripting.
2013.09.25 in #114Lexical subroutines in perl 5
Lexical subroutines is a new feature introduced in Perl 5.18.0. Ricardo Signes tells us what they are, and what use they have.
2013.09.26 in #114I went to Tokyo!
It is only poetic justice that the creator of Dist::Zilla got to go to Tokyo for YAPC::Asia . Ricardo Signes narrates for us here his YAPC::Asia 2013 experience.
2013.10.02 in #115The perl 5.10 lexical topic
Ricardo Signes, the current Pumpking of Perl 5 shows what problems does a 'my $_' solve and what new problems does it create. He explain why did this feature became experimental, roughly 6 years after it was introduced in perl 5.10.
2013.10.14 in #117writing OAuthy code
OAuth. Not the easiest thing to grok, but if one wants to work with web services nowadays, it's pretty hard to ignore. Ricardo Signes shares with us small scripts that perform the authentication dance with with Instapaper's and Withings's APIs.
2013.11.09 in #120The Advent Season is Coming Fast
The Time of Eggnog draws nigh... Want to contribute to the tradition of the Perl Advent calendar? Then join the mailing list, and report to the master elf, Ricardo Signes.
2014.01.10 in #129making my daemon share more memory
Sharing is caring (about your memory footprint and the ones of your forked children). Ricardo Signes cares, and here shares his tricks to ensure the maximal amount of memory is shared between a daemon and its children.
2014.03.08 in #137today's timezone rant
Ricardo Signes celebrates the rolling in of daylight saving time in an appropriate manner: by ranting about the madness that is time-based calculation.
2014.04.18 in #143I still hate email
Not exactly Perl, but if you are into sending e-mails, then you might want to read this from Ricardo Signes.
2014.07.02 in #154YAPC::NA is on YouTube
Ricardo Signes went to YAPC::NA, and in this first installment of his impressions of the event, he lauds the way the conference presentations where uploaded to YouTube (to wit: all talks -- yes, all of them -- where streamed in pretty darn close to real-time, which is awesome).
2014.10.21 in #170Uni - find or display Unicode characters
Rik Signes has (re)written a handy little tool for finding unicode characters, called uni. Fork it on github or get App::Uni from CPAN. It was a rewrite of a tool of the same name written by Audrey Tang.
2015.02.20 in #187Syntax highlighting as RTF
Rik has released a module (RTF::VimColor) and associated script (synrtf which will take some code and produce an RTF file which has syntax highlighting on the code.
2015.04.08 in #194Q&A with Larry Wall
There will be a Q&A session with Larry Wall at YAPC::NA 2015. Have a burning question you'd like to see him answer? Ricardo tells you how to submit it.
2015.05.08 in #198use disposable ramdisks!
Building a case-sensitive disk in the memory of an OSX machine and using that to extract and analyze CPAN distributions. Cool.
2015.05.22 in #200perl has built-in temp files
A feature almost no one has ever heard of, that a simple call to 'open' can create a temporary file. It will even unlink the filename immediately which means an attacker cannot find the temporary file.
2015.08.14 in #212Trust no one
In the software world, it's not because it's obvious that it should be taken for granted. Ricardo is using a cute app to control his mouse from wherever he is. Obviously, something manipulating such a crucial function would use an encrypted connection, right?
2015.08.31 in #215YAPC::Asia, day -2
Ricardo narrates his YAPC::Asia experience. But before enjoying the conference itself, he had to get there...
2015.09.01 in #215YAPC::Asia, day 0
As the timezones blur the lines between days, Ricardo makes it to Tokyo. It's the day before the conference, so what's a stranger to do in a strange land. Try the food and shop for neat stuff, of course!
2015.09.04 in #215YAPC::Asia, day 1
It's day 1 of YAPC::Asia, and Ricardo is ready to enter the fray.
2015.09.06 in #215YAPC::Asia, day 2
In which Ricardo trust somebody from Pittsburgh, and pay the price.
2015.10.01 in #219A big ol' Catalyst upgrade
So Ricardo went ahead and upgraded a project stuck with a Catalyst of 2007 vintage. It is a shining badge of honor for the Catalyst crew that this fast-forwarding through 8 years of development went admirably smoothly.
2016.02.12 in #238the "credit the last uploader" problem
When you look at a module or dist on MetaCPAN or search.cpan.org, they both show the last person who released it. Rik points out that this isn't always the most appropriate person to show, and suggests that the owner of the distribution should be displayed. He also opened a github issue for MetaCPAN, specifically about highlighting when a module has ADOPTME, HANDOFF, or NEEDHELP.
2016.04.14 in #247Rik Signes to step down as Pumpking
Rik, who has been the Pumpking of Perl 5 for 4.5 years, has now decided to move on. Apparently, not everyone was happy with the job Rik did, but I think it is more than unfortunate that some people decide to attack him now in some comments on Reddit.
2018.01.01 in #3372017 in review, the 2018 plan
A personal retrospective by RJBS and his adjusted plans. If you fail short of your annual plans, this might be a good read for you. At least you'll know that other people, people you respect encounter similar problems.
2018.04.27 in #353 I went to the Perl Toolchain Summit in Oslo!
They're small events with about thirty people, all of whom are there by invitation. The idea is that the invitees are people who do important work on "the toolchain," which basically means "the code used to distribute, install, and test Perl software modules."
2021.02.26 in #501rt.cpan.org has a new home
I personally got along with RT, but I think it is great that rt.cpan.org continues living. As a side-effect it was also upgraded from v4.0.18 to v5.0.
2021.07.01 in #519adding the perl-support section to my CPAN modules
P5P has been working on new features for Perl and the CPAN authors had to refrain from using those as they were expected to 'support' old versions of Perl for organizations that don't support the Perl ecosystem and have no intention to upgrade the Perl they use. (In which case, IMHO they should also stick to the old versions of the modules that ran on their version of Perl.) Ricardo now takes the leap and makes it explicit that he is not going to waste his free time doing so.
2022.12.31 in #599so many CPAN uploads! (code review mark iii)
Ricardo has 114 distributions on CPAN, give or take a few. (MetaCPAN shows 265). He wanted to do some housekeeping that was almost fun. I think one of these cleanup uploads caught my eye thinking that the distribution is actively maintained and I sent him PR adding GitHub Actions probably making him regret a bit the new uploads.
2023.01.08 in #599leaving perl v5.8 behind
For a long time I felt that it is not a good idea to want to support people who have not upgraded their version of perl for 5-10-15(!) years, but want the latest modules from CPAN. I am glad RJBS also thinks so. He also writes about it a lot more nicely than I could ever do and gives several ways to handle the situation when a new version of a module starts requiring a version of Perl that is only 10 years old...
2023.11.19 in #643Horror Movie Month 2023
I guess there is nothing to do with Perl in this, and I personally don't like horror movies, but I love to see the passion of Ricardo and that he makes all this public.
2024.04.15 in #665I can still count browser tabs
Ricardo switched from Chrome to Firefox and thus had to write some Perl code to count his tabs.
2024.05.03 in #667PTS 2024: Lisbon
Apparently Ricardo was also into upgrading servers.
