basic ruby script

I have been playing with Ruby, thought id post a basic hello world style script....


/code

#!/usr/bin/ruby


print "what do you want to print on screen:  "
str = gets
exit if str.nil? or str.empty?
str.chomp!

print "\n"
print str


/end code


-Nexus6

Damn good Perl artical

http://perlbuzz.com/2008/05/perl-decentralize-diversify-colonize.html

Here is a pretty damn good Perl, article over at perlbuzz. he makes some very good points about things Perl at large
can do to increase mind share. I have blogged about the many scripting languages and the amount of job postings, of which
Perl is king. so; Perl is not dying anytime so. and in fact there are major places building new stuff with Perl, like amazon.

Nex6

programming language data mining and tracking

way back in January I posted this:
http://nex6.blogspot.com/2008/01/perlpythonphp.html

which details all thw job posting form monster about alot of different computer related jobs.  here a few months later is anther one:

Perl  4326
Ruby 647
C# 5000+
Java 5000+
Python 1257
Ruby on rails 258
Asp.net 4437
Vbscript 883
Powershell 81
C++ 5000+
Flash 3634
Sliverlight 2
Bash 360
Zsh 0
Ksh 235
Php 2586
Javascript 5000+
Applescript 19
Osx  164
Linux 5000+
Windows 5000+
Freebsd 115
Xml 5000+
Cobol 745

if you notice, some stayed excatly the same others, change a bit the only one to dramaitcly change is c++, which i dont have answer for, other then
one of the querry maybe wrong.  will have the moniter, and look into the C++ thing. 


enjoy.


-Nex6

mac OSX HIG and keyboard short list

http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/API_Fundamentals/UserExperience-fund-date.html

two very good pdf's for mac users and the HIG PDF at the end has a complete listing of every OSX keybaord shortcut.

very cool...



-nex6

Mac thoughts ( Random blithering)

ok, (longish)  :)

I have had my new mac for a little while now. in the order of 3 months or so, Mac for sure has a different work flow and user flow.
They are not necessarily bad or wrong just different. Mac has its own way of doing things. like many things tend to by mousy like drag and drop to install software, drag and drop to remove. though, there is a fair number of keyboard jocky stuff also like real UNIX and iterm/shell (am a zsh user). one of the first things i did was switch the shell to zsh, and load my dot files for zsh.

the 'feel' of the laptop (MBP aka macbook pro) is pretty good, tho there is a bug in the sleep when shutting the lid. this is a known
issue and on the apple forums there is tons and tons of posts about it. work around is the use the menu to put to sleep. tho, once of the theory's
is having external USB devices plugged in while closing the lid. which for me is true (external USB mouse). so now i just use the menu. when i get arround to it, I think i will figure out how to make shortcut/alais or script something and have it on the dock and just click there to send it to sleep.

noticed, on the right click menu there is no "rename" for most things. though I can use the shell. i wonder what the reason for this is?

I really like the user switching in OSX, where one user is logged one and you "switch" to another user leaving the other user logged on. this is really
first class. one click enter password and your in. in fact this is really cool for dev stuff. i can have test users set up and flip to them very fast.

the photo stuff is way better period, its not even close.  and know with the new Microsoft RDP client, connecting to work machines is a breeze and works just like a native client. (tho, Linux has an RDP client also I think the Mac client is a little better)

The touchpad, is anther thing that's way better, the touchpad once you setup the non default options like tap to click, it way way better then any other touchpad period. two finger scrolling two finger tap for right clicking etc very nice.

I am waiting for my copy from work of vmware fusion so i can load all my Windows, Linux and FreeBSD vm's.


Vim is there so life is good on that front, and macports and fink allow installing in a more BSD/Linux way of some someware. tho, i wish mc(midnight commader) had a mac version. though i may still install the source version.


hmmmmm thats good for now...




-Nex6

OOXML and the ISO vote

well, looks like OOXML is approved:

 

slashdots linkage:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/04/01/2229207

 

and groklaws linkage:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080402003610230

 

 

When you read through those threads you'll notice allot of comments about how Microsoft must have cheated somehow.  and that OOXML is flawed, and

should have been rejected. my take is this;

 

maybe OOXML is not perfect, but neather is PDF or ODF.  hell the only really clean standard is probley HTML.  Microsoft has the disadvantage of having tons and tons of functionality

that must be supported. where as ODF did not. also, pdf is also pretty ugly. ever try to create a PDF based app? good luck in having it not break from adobe reader version to version and from the different broswer versions. and if we accepted PDF? why not OOXML? and one thing Miguel de Icaza has commented alot about OOXML both on his blog and in slashdot threads about OOXML.

 

and he and some of his team had been invloved during some of the early stages. Now remember Miguel and his team wrote Gnumeric and worked alot with the Microsoft formats. and they thought more documentation was better, and would help in the long run. so many of the 6000 pages are samples etc see the below links for a run down.

 

I for one think OOXML in the long run is a good thing.

 

here are some of Miguel de Icaza's posts: (about OOXML)

 

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/Mar-26.html

 

and a really good post about ODF and OOXML in general:

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Jan-30.html

 

 

 

-Nex6

 

 

 

PERL/Python/php

thought I'd touch on the PERL is dead long live python debate...


on monster.com, The following stats (not very scientific the tho very telling)

job postings for:

PERL: 4443
Python: 1185
PHP: 2471
c#: 5000+
vb.net: 3181
Ruby: 649
Ruby on rails: 248
asp.net: 4868
lisp: 45
Cobol: 46
XML: 5000+
C++: 387
fortran: 225
haskell: 8
vbscript: 51
powershell: 66
bash: 353
zsh: 0
ksh: 193
tcsh: 3
Java: 5000+
javascript: 5000+
applescript: 12
sed: 119
awk: 137
Linux: 5000+
Windows: 5000+
FreeBSD: 117
OSX: 165
flash: 3626
sliverlight: 0

 you can look through the list and see for your self where the current trends are, at least for current job postings.



-Nex6

MacBook Air

There are lots of posts and threads everywhere on the NET about the new Macbook AIR.  Here are some:

http://www.osnews.com/story/19168/MacBook_Anorexic:_Where_Apple_Went_Wrong

http://www.osnews.com/story/19166/Apple_Launches_MacBook_Air

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/15/1842211

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/01/15/high_quality_macbook_air_superdrive_photos_notes_on_remote_disc.html



Ok, that done;

I have seen,  posts  about how this will fail or its to expensive etc. First to the detractors, these types of devices eg ultra-notebooks, are aimed
at people who want a super light bare bones notebook for traveling, and other on the go needs. The big goals are:

light
battery life
looks good
usable

That said,  I know lots of people who would like one. Most people don't need all the features a typical laptop comes with anyways. And, some people who carry there laptops with them everywhere, would like one of these. Especially if there a mac user.

-Nex6