in reply to Re: Re (tilly) 3: One-Line Web Counter
in thread One-Line Web Counter

My £0.02:

Personally I learnt a lot more from tilly's post than merlyn's, because I had not thought about using END{}. Obviously this example (of a counter) could not be used in a 'real' site (no file locking etc) but then again I'm sure it would be better to just parse the Apache logfile than use any sort of counter.

When I'm at work I always think it's better to show people the 'long-hand' way of doing things before using shortcuts, because there will be times when shortcuts/modules are not available. (This is on AXE switches, not Perl, but you get the idea). If you teach someone a procedure and later they write their own script to automate it, then you know that they've really understood it.

Basically if people are only shown how to use the shortcuts, then after a while there will be no-one left who actually knows how to write the shortcuts in the first place.

JJ

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On posting for comment
by merlyn (Sage) on Sep 11, 2001 at 01:34 UTC
    The head of this thread is presented as a reusable solution, not as a "here's what I wrote while I was learning, but don't use it for anything".

    So, I said "no, don't use this as a reusable solution, use this CPAN module instead". If that's seems condescending or curt, then so be it. But that's not the intention.

    If the original poster had clearly labled it as "don't use this", then I won't post any CPAN-one-liners in reply. If it's posted as "this is what I have so far, are there any better ways", I would have offered advice, and probably gotten around to a CPAN solution as well.

    But when I see a posting that takes 20 lines to do what 3 can, and poorly at that, and presented as a "please reuse this solution", I will speak up. You can count on that. Many people count on me to do that, in fact.

    -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

[reply]
      Actually, this was not presented as a reusable solution in any way. It was presented as novelty code for entertainment purposes. No one would initiate a real web counter from the shell. Web counters run through CGI. The thought of a web counter which must be run from the shell is preposterous at best, thus I am amazed that everyone seems to have taken me so seriously. Perhaps I chose the wrong location to post my one-liner. I asked the advice of those in the chatterbox of where it should be posted, and they directed me to Snippets.

      I respect each and every one of you as my teachers, my peers, and my colleagues; but you've taken what was meant to be a humorous bit and turned it into a ridiculous thread.

      -Jerry
      http://www.digilliance.net
      http://www.jerryfowler.net

[reply]

In Section Cool Uses for Perl