Article

2004-08-07

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Posted by Fred 2004-08-07 9:10:28 AM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Fred has put a great deal of time and effort into solving the issues and tracking down problems and problem-makers of late. A fair amount of it has been at the expense of his sleep, not just lost free time. All RBers owe him a debt of gratitude for his dogged efforts. So hit the tip jar!

To minimize the impact upon Fred, should future problems arise, a convenient reference has been created. Save it. RB Issues Reference. Everything you need to know is clearly and concisely explained.

Posted by .com 2004-08-07 10:12:51 AM|| 2004-08-07 10:12:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Bless your heart, Fred!
No rest for the wicked, so we, the righteous, have to be busy, too.
RB gets The Message out and the evildoers don't like that!
All power to Fred and the Army of Steve!

Posted by GreatestJeneration 2004-08-07 10:24:02 AM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com] 2004-08-07 10:24:02 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Fred - It's not the best fit, since you're not transitioning from Perl to PHP, but I like attitude, and this image has oodles of attitude.

Posted by .com 2004-08-07 10:44:46 AM|| 2004-08-07 10:44:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 .com, I think that first image is one of the greatest I've ever seen - and I've seen a lot in my time!

Posted by The Doctor 2004-08-07 10:51:25 AM|| 2004-08-07 10:51:25 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Not a dog, Fred!

But it's always open season on moonbats.... ;-P

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2004-08-07 11:01:57 AM|| 2004-08-07 11:01:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 LOL I'm stealing the complaint one .com.

Posted by Shipman 2004-08-07 11:02:14 AM|| 2004-08-07 11:02:14 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 I'd offer to help Fred, but the last programing language I vaguely understood was Benton Harbor Basic.

How about that one sports fans? :)

Posted by Shipman 2004-08-07 11:03:34 AM|| 2004-08-07 11:03:34 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Fred,

Thanks and a good night's sleep to ya.

Posted by Mr. Davis 2004-08-07 11:15:38 AM|| 2004-08-07 11:15:38 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Shipman - I can beat that. In days of old, I wired boards with patch cords for external sorts. Our equipment was so obsolete when we got rid of it the Smithsonian didn't want it. Seriously.

Posted by Doc8404 2004-08-07 12:22:40 PM|| 2004-08-07 12:22:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Hey, .com - Sure .asp has plenty of problems, but what's wrong with Perl???
I like Perl!

Posted by Scooter McGruder 2004-08-07 12:28:08 PM|| 2004-08-07 12:28:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Thanks for all your efforts Fred.

Have you seen this error in the "Post a news link" page? I have tried to post a link several times in the last few days and have gotten this error:
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e14'

[MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver][mysqld-4.0.20a-nt]You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'Front: WoT','2004-8-7','0','http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/

/lPoster.asp, line 132

Is the lPoster.asp script truncating the link reference and thereby notice losing the closing apostrophe?

Posted by ed 2004-08-07 12:33:06 PM|| 2004-08-07 12:33:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Hey, .com - Sure .asp has plenty of problems, but what's wrong with Perl??? I like Perl!

Perl/PostgreSQL rocks my world.

Posted by badanov 2004-08-07 12:35:31 PM|| [http://www.rkka.org] 2004-08-07 12:35:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Well Doc, at least you had patch cords, we were forced to use kite string dipped in liquid silver salts. :)

Posted by Shipman 2004-08-07 1:06:10 PM|| 2004-08-07 1:06:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Many thanks for all the hard work, Fred. It's gotta be hard to pop the hood and inspect your own work. I can't proof-read my own writing; I keep missing what I actually wrote because I know what it's supposed to say. I can only imagine what it's like to try and proof-read code that you've been polishing for months and months.

To everyone else: Fred oughta be paid for the overtime. Long-suffering Ethel certainly ought to be paid for Fred's overtime. Hit the tip jar.

Posted by Steve White 2004-08-07 1:09:30 PM|| 2004-08-07 1:09:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 You guys missed my intent - I'm not anti-Perl in the least: I don't use it because I don't work in the Unix world and never had a computer class in college... but I have been a programmer for over 30 years. I just liked the PHP pic's attitude. Personally, I love ASP and can make it do 95% of what I've ever needed to do. And I have no problems with IIS. I don't wear anybody's t-shirt, I use the best product for the problem for the price within the restrictions of the client. No big deal and not Anti-Anybody or Anti-Anything. Who cares? The "Anyone But _____" crowd puzzles me - cuz Who The Fuck Cares? Better question: Why? I've met many of these people and they're just people. Right place right time for some, dumb luck for others, brilliance and hard work for a few. No big deal. Use whatever floats your boat and pays the bills, but save the vitriol and missionary shit cuz you ain't gonna change anyone's mind.

Posted by .com 2004-08-07 1:18:23 PM|| 2004-08-07 1:18:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 All of these troubles that Fred has doggedly (heh) worked through has inspired me to get back into some real world programming, just so I do not feel like a moron any more. My experience is dated, like 34 years dated:

Fortran IV, algol, assembly language on a CDC 6400 computer, and basic. And punch cards and big assed tape reels, and late nights at the computer center. Those WEREN't the days......

Posted by Alaska Paul 2004-08-07 1:21:52 PM|| 2004-08-07 1:21:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 AP I did FSUs CDC 7200 & 7400.
I will admit the line printers were better then.

Posted by Shipman 2004-08-07 1:29:24 PM|| 2004-08-07 1:29:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 My programming experience? Applesoft BASIC. A little Pascal on the early Mac. Can I rebuild the transmission now, Fred?

Posted by Steve White 2004-08-07 1:53:01 PM|| 2004-08-07 1:53:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 Here's another RB image I'd like to distribute. Honor the day's most inane twit with it... as you fine folks see fit, heh.

RBFF Award...

Posted by .com 2004-08-07 2:21:49 PM|| 2004-08-07 2:21:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 Thanks for the pic .com - its brilliant. There are 3 or 4 people who contend for that prize on a daily basis here.
I thought I was an old fart until I saw some of the posts here, anyone care to share with a broken down old Cobol/Natural programmer what the html is to insert that pic into a post? I'm not familiar with any technology more recent than 1985. BTW I'm the dinosaur they come crawling to when some JCL needs to be written. I'd grow a pony tail to look the part if it wouldn't come in gray.

Posted by JerseyMike 2004-08-07 2:41:59 PM|| 2004-08-07 2:41:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 LOL JM! Sound like one of the original 2000 Cobol Cabal.

Posted by Shipman 2004-08-07 2:51:09 PM|| 2004-08-07 2:51:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 JM - Hey, bro - glad you liked it, thx!

Instead of posting in-line images, I've switched to just posting links in my comments (just highlight the text you want to make "hot" and click the "link" button, fill in the URL (you can just save the one above in your favs, for example) or paste into the box and click OK to have it work in your comment. This does NOT hit Fred's bandwidth - it goes from the image's server to the end user - where in-line images DO hurt RB bandwidth = $$$. I only use them for special effect when posting a story, nowadays. If I post the example HTML here, then the asshats will have it - to hurt RB with, so...

Posted by .com 2004-08-07 2:53:23 PM|| 2004-08-07 2:53:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 No Ship not the original but thanks for the compliment, If you would have told the kind of money there was in adding 2 bytes to date fields when I started I would have told you that you where spending far to much time in the disco boogeying to the BeeGee's.

Posted by JerseyMike 2004-08-07 3:04:05 PM|| 2004-08-07 3:04:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 Thanks .com, I forgot all about the retards that would abuse such a thing, and I will use just the link to the picture.
C'mon Anti, where are you?

Posted by JerseyMike 2004-08-07 3:10:23 PM|| 2004-08-07 3:10:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 You guys missed my intent - I'm not anti-Perl in the least: I don't use it because I don't work in the Unix world and never had a computer class in college...

Guess what? Neither have I. I am still a machinist parttime and running the computers for my family's business parttime. Not a single hour of college or any other class in Perl. I learned Unix/Linux/Perl by simple by guess and by golly.

but I have been a programmer for over 30 years. I just liked the PHP pic's attitude. Personally, I love ASP and can make it do 95% of what I've ever needed to do. And I have no problems with IIS.

I have programmed as a hobby for close to 20 years, starting w/BASIC on an Atari (remember the little basic cartridge). In fact I never considered going into computer as a field until I had experience with Linux/Unix. I learned Perl from the ground up, sitting in a Linux enviroment command line and by reading books on the subject. That's all.

I have never used ASP but I can tell you Perl does have a Win32 implementation as well. And I can tell you that I use Perl now for servers at work and at home for practially everything I do that maintains the server, not just for CGI stuffies, but for everything that will automate a routine task on a Linux/Unix server.

Disclaimer: I am still learning, too, and recently got into learning FreeBSD.

I had a family whom I wanted to look after my family' computer servers while I went to Fla. to attend my daughter's graduation, so as a safety guard against any potential errors I wrote a tiny four-line perl script that backed up critical invoicing files on an hourly basis just in case. In one of our test runs to see if he could recover from a severe user error, he wound up deleteing ALL of that day's invoiving. But there on the Linux servers were the invoicing files waiting to be recovered and there was the perl script chugging along in the background on the Linux serevre as well, minding its own business doing what I told it to do.

I seriously doubt that could have been done with any MS server since MS doesn't have a shell scripting language.

And I have no problems with IIS. I don't wear anybody's t-shirt, I use the best product for the problem for the price within the restrictions of the client. No big deal and not Anti-Anybody or Anti-Anything. Who cares? The "Anyone But _____" crowd puzzles me - cuz Who The Fuck Cares? Better question: Why? I've met many of these people and they're just people. Right place right time for some, dumb luck for others, brilliance and hard work for a few. No big deal. Use whatever floats your boat and pays the bills, but save the vitriol and missionary shit cuz you ain't gonna change anyone's mind.

Well I freely admit that by using Linux/Unix I am standing on the shoulders of the giants at Bell Labs and at Berkely. MS is standing on those same shoulders as well since some of BSD's code is in Windows and likely other products as well. The difference between me and MS is about $50 billion in cash and an abject refusal to admit they stand on the same shoulders as I.

And I wasn't posting vitriol about anything. Where appropriate, I do recommend Perl/Unix/APache since in truth it really is the best tool for the job.

But since other who agree with you have seen fit to call those folks who do advoate for Unix asshats, I will make a little deal with you:

The day I can go a week without an attempt to invade my home servers by a MS propogated worm, the day I can go a week without a MS propogated virus in an email, is the day I will stop advocating for Unix.

Posted by badanov 2004-08-07 3:31:39 PM|| [http://www.rkka.org] 2004-08-07 3:31:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 JM - this should make you smile - Not too long ago I was brought as a hired gun 'cause the house staff couldn't figure out the problem. I looked over the JCL and quickly pointed out the DISP=(OLD,DELETE,DELETE) parm was the reason they were repeatedly trashing their PROCLIB. They had gone through all the backups except one. That'll be $1000 and expenses - thanks boys. . .

Posted by Doc8404 2004-08-07 3:33:35 PM|| 2004-08-07 3:33:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Bad - Chill, bro - I didn't indicate you, in particular, and if I had a beef with you I wouldn't be shy either. Look at all that typing... obviously you're rather sensitive - and you needn't be. I have a simple belief: that which deserves to survive in the marketplace does so. BTW, the only bashing here on RB I have ever seen has been from the ABM crowd. I have no issues with Unix or any other platform - I thought I made that clear enough. As I said, whatever floats your boat. C'mon, save the missionary stuff - this isn't your site.

Posted by .com 2004-08-07 3:44:45 PM|| 2004-08-07 3:44:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 Fred, you might want to check your DCOM permissions ( Start/Run/dcomcnfg ) to disallow anybody non-local perms on the system.

And OS, I was at defcon - keepin' an eye on the kiddiez, don'cha know...

That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

Posted by mojo 2004-08-07 4:16:00 PM|| 2004-08-07 4:16:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 Circuit Boards?
Are these water powered?
Or perhaps the use of hydruluical fluids?

Posted by C Babbage Esq 2004-08-07 5:05:16 PM|| 2004-08-07 5:05:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 goddamit .com! where are you find all these pichures. ima cant stop laff some of these pichures you come up with. :)

Posted by muck4doo 2004-08-07 7:41:02 PM|| [http://meatismurder.blogspot.com/] 2004-08-07 7:41:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#31 Mucky - Hey bro! Thx. :)

Try this "master list" from eBaums world:
eBaum's Top 50

That'll keep you busy for years, bro, lol!

Posted by .com 2004-08-07 7:50:04 PM|| 2004-08-07 7:50:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#32 Doc8404, you're were right on that, got a big smile. I occasionally (but rarely) feel bad about taking easy money....

Posted by JerseyMike 2004-08-07 8:07:02 PM|| 2004-08-07 8:07:02 PM|| Front Page Top

#33 oh boy. thanks .com! thisn kep me buzy a long time. :)

Posted by muck4doo 2004-08-07 8:27:07 PM|| [http://meatismurder.blogspot.com/] 2004-08-07 8:27:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#34 Doc - sounds like you were working Dept of Defense if you have gear that bad. ...grin...

As for Perl - its just so handy than atnyone doing any sort of sysadmin or web coding should know it (and yes, it works quite wel on Win platforms - check out ActiveState Perl for that).

I've almost completely replaced all usage of sed and awk with perl in my unix work - ony if its a quickie like grabbing a param or doing some simple translation on the faly do I use those 2 crusty but trusty tools in shell scripting.

As for Perl "apps" - if its less than 10 lines, I tend to use a shell script, less than 500 I use perl, more than that I use python, and more than 1500 lines, it needs C or to be broken into smaller pipeline apps.

Posted by Oldspook 2004-08-07 8:36:36 PM|| 2004-08-07 8:36:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#35 Anybody remember APL, and Fortan I on punchcards? The latter got me so frustrated that I gave up on the idea of a B.A., and ended up with an MRS and corporate wifehood in Europe *grin*. I do not volunteer to help, Fred -- by the time I got done you'd probably have to blow up the server to clean up the mess!

Posted by trailing wife 2004-08-07 9:44:17 PM|| 2004-08-07 9:44:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#36 I decided to be related to programmers instead: little sister heading for a PhD, baby brother professing. They smile gently when they talk to me ;-)

Posted by trailing wife 2004-08-07 9:46:45 PM|| 2004-08-07 9:46:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#37 Perl is fine for over 1500 *if* you modularize. We have a base of custom-writen modules of about 5000 lines of perl upon which we code just about all of our toolset (each tool then takes a lot less effort due to reuse). Part of the reason for this is that the platform is Tandem Guardian and there aint no python, shell-script, just a non-standard C, and a couple of propritary languages - oh and COBOL and FORTRAN....

Trailing Wife, I remember Fortran (IV H), never did use APL (studied it for about a week). Used to code in PL/1 on a 360/50 on card punch up at western washington U. At one time they had an old IBM 7090. I'm sue others can remember some old iron.

Now of course if you are interested there is a IBM 370 emulator for the PC (Windows and Linux) available with a bonified MVS OS (I think it MVS 3.8J - quite old). And does not include any licensed code.

Posted by CrazyFool 2004-08-07 10:14:16 PM|| 2004-08-07 10:14:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#38 Crazy Fool, that's a sweet offer, but I think the world is safer if I remain the ultimate end user.

After I gave up on computer languages, I took up human languages, which worked out much better -- the debugging is built in to the process ;-D It is a little frustrating now that we seem to be settled back in the States, as I haven't anyone to practice my 1st year Flemish on (Mama is thrilled to talk to me in German, but she speaks "real" Dutch, and refuses to have anything to do with the hillbilly version)....and we moved back just before I was to add French to the list, darn it!

Posted by trailing wife 2004-08-08 1:29:12 AM|| 2004-08-08 1:29:12 AM|| Front Page Top

09:45 Anonymous6013
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