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I'm looking forward to seeing the new virtualmin support xen. I have been trying to make more interesting out of the apparently mundane; reimplementing the goo

I'm looking forward to seeing the new virtualmin support xen. I have been trying to make more interesting out of the apparently mundane; reimplementing the google charting api internally cause we needed to make charts, and even some good ol' csv exports (interestingly, csv export formats that are useful for biz people are not the formats i would prefer as a programmer.. the more you know..) further, I'm focusing on trying to learn the best tools for the job -- picking up vim finally, trying to grok sed/awk, bash scripting where appropriate.. even perl is sneaking into my head. make stuff that people want is a great mantra. i suppose i got into programming because it was a process of discovery and a process of invention. keeping it that way seems to require intention.

kirubakaran 18y ago
> trying to grok sed/awk, bash scripting where appropriate.. even perl is sneaking into my head May I suggest that you roll all that into one neat little endeavor of learning Python... :)
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  I've written system administration tools in both Perl and Python. Perl is the better tool for the job (Ruby might be better still, once Unicode and performance are straightened out). My Python code always ended up being significantly longer and slower than the same task written in Perl. Partly due to CPAN (if you can imagine it, there's at least three libraries for it in CPAN), and partly due to the nature of Perl. Perl is like a DSL built for system administration. Sometimes it gets a little clumsy on non-system administration related tasks, but when you're working in Perl's sweet spot of functionality, it's a very nice experience. That said, Perl can be intimidating, because it is such a wide ranging language, and some of its features aren't quite right (references, and the way lists and arrays behave, can be confusing, and they're still a source of confusion for me after years of working with Perl). Python has its own quirks, and though I spent a couple of years working almost exclusively in Python, I didn't find it at all painful to come back to Perl. Ruby, on the other hand, is a language that could probably steal my heart. Between deciding to shutdown my old company and starting up Virtualmin, I was undecided on what to do with myself. I learned some Ruby and tinkered with Ruby on Rails. Loved Ruby instantly. RoR, not as much.
  - kirubakaran 18y ago
    Great info. Thanks a lot.

kirubakaran 18y ago

> trying to grok sed/awk, bash scripting where appropriate.. even perl is sneaking into my head May I suggest that you roll all that into one neat little endeavor of learning Python... :)

SwellJoe 18y ago
I've written system administration tools in both Perl and Python. Perl is the better tool for the job (Ruby might be better still, once Unicode and performance are straightened out). My Python code always ended up being significantly longer and slower than the same task written in Perl. Partly due to CPAN (if you can imagine it, there's at least three libraries for it in CPAN), and partly due to the nature of Perl. Perl is like a DSL built for system administration. Sometimes it gets a little clumsy on non-system administration related tasks, but when you're working in Perl's sweet spot of functionality, it's a very nice experience. That said, Perl can be intimidating, because it is such a wide ranging language, and some of its features aren't quite right (references, and the way lists and arrays behave, can be confusing, and they're still a source of confusion for me after years of working with Perl). Python has its own quirks, and though I spent a couple of years working almost exclusively in Python, I didn't find it at all painful to come back to Perl. Ruby, on the other hand, is a language that could probably steal my heart. Between deciding to shutdown my old company and starting up Virtualmin, I was undecided on what to do with myself. I learned some Ruby and tinkered with Ruby on Rails. Loved Ruby instantly. RoR, not as much.
- kirubakaran 18y ago
  Great info. Thanks a lot.