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Re: Perl Hacking
by thelenm (Vicar) on Jul 18, 2002 at 15:14 UTC
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The first thing you should know is that hacker != h4x0r. For a brief synopsis of what it means to be a hacker, see How to Become a Hacker by Eric Raymond.
When I hear "Perl hacking", I think of writing programs in Perl, not necessarily hacking perl itself. (In that sentence, 'Perl' refers to the programming language, and 'perl' refers to the interpreter that runs Perl programs.)
Why be Just another Perl hacker,? For me, it's mostly laziness. Perl makes the easy jobs easy and the hard jobs possible (as it was designed to, according to St. Larry). It's also fun. I learn new things about Perl all the time, especially reading this site.
So if you'd like to be a Perl hacker, keep reading PerlMonks, write your own programs, post your code for others to review, and you'll be well on your way. Have fun!
-- Mike
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Re: Perl Hacking
by kodo (Hermit) on Jul 18, 2002 at 15:22 UTC
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Well for me it means to discover new ways of using perl, new algorithms, a new way to do something or just to have reached a defined level of Perl-Knowledge.
In generell a Hacker is someone who, according to this Jargon
- 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
- 4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
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Re: Perl Hacking
by japhy (Canon) on Jul 18, 2002 at 16:03 UTC
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Hacking means programming, but at a certain level of ease and style and flair. Hackers know their medium well. I hack Perl (meaning I program in Perl), regexes (meaning I come up with bizarre ones), and perl (meaning I modify the perl core source code).
_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan:
Perl,
regex,
and perl
hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area)
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??; | [reply] |
Re: Perl Hacking
by vladb (Vicar) on Jul 18, 2002 at 15:25 UTC
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Certainly 'hacking' doesn't refer or imply any unlawful 'cracking' or breaking into a system as one might suggest or think. I often see the word being misused by the mainstream media, mostly by those who are not intimately aware of the computing culture or it's jargon.
At my work we do commonly speak of 'perl hacking' in reference to building a script quick bypassing common software development cycles such as design, analysis, testing and so forth. Clearly, this is not a preferred mode of operation for a professional developer, especially for those fortunate ones who happen to render their IT consulting services to various firms, where stability and maintainability is of outmost value.
_____________________
# Under Construction
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Re: Perl Hacking
by grinder (Bishop) on Jul 18, 2002 at 18:06 UTC
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Interesting set of responses so far (insofar that none of them matched my thought of what Perl hacking is).
I always thought that Perl hacking meant that you were fiddling with Perl's C source, and compiling your own really esoteric Perl versions. (I did that but once, to make Perl die nicely under VMS when you asked it to spawn an external program and it exceeded VMS's relatively puny command line length limit (Charles Bailey of course rewrote it and made it much nicer)).
But I digress. Hacking is independent of language "I hacked up a kluge to connect the payroll database to the coffee machine". In this case, it really doesn't matter what language you use. True hacks are language-independent. (Although extra credibility points are earnt for doing it in Snobol or APL).
print@_{sort keys %_},$/if%_=split//,'= & *a?b:e\f/h^h!j+n,o@o;r$s-t%t#u' | [reply] |
Re: Perl Hacking
by CodeHound (Beadle) on Jul 18, 2002 at 15:53 UTC
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The concept is now clear. Many thanks.
And for the advice given... I'll try and follow it.
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Re: Perl Hacking
by Marza (Vicar) on Jul 19, 2002 at 04:45 UTC
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Well Hacker is a bit over used these days. There was the more tradition meaning for people trying to break into systems.
But it started getting overused when the movie wargames came out.
To me the term perl hacker is somebody playing with the language. Seeing what it can do and what it can't. In the process improving his skills....
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Wasn't Matthew Broderick a Cracker in wargames? I was told (back in the 80's) that a Cracker was someone that broke into other computer systems illegally; and a Hacker was someone who had the ability to 'program'.
Consequently, a Hacker could be a Cracker, but that didn't mean that a Cracker could be a Hacker
Hacker, cracker, smacker, wacker, jacker, lacker, tracker, bracker...more tangent....kristofer
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By todays definition, yes. However, remember that back then there were no firewalls. You could access a mainframe directly. As it was once explained to me by an old Assembler/Systems guy. Hacker came from hacking the OS which was usually looking for holes to exploit. But it has changed since then. There is an effort to label such people as crackers. So the "real" definition doesnt matter anymore.
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Re: Perl Hacking
by dada (Chaplain) on Jul 19, 2002 at 14:01 UTC
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just to shed some light...
*as the name suggests, the original title could have been 'so you want to be a Perl hacker?'
cheers,
Aldo
__END__
$_=q,just perl,,s, , another ,,s,$, hacker,,print;
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