Late last night (actually early this morning), we launched our wee web magazine. For me, this project coming to fruition is a concrete example of the success of the Monastery.

None of you have heard of this Perl effort, on account every time I found myself stuck with a progging problem and thinking about posting a question, I found that the answer was already available, in the library or archives or a current node or being chattered about. Strange synchronicity abounding, it was frequently the case that, on the very day that I found myself wondering about Thing X, some other monk had already asked about it, and folks had already come forward with a wide range of answers, giving both a concise and deep understanding of the previously mysterious function, command, system, module, etc. This web magazine would not have been possible if I hadn't had the Monastery as a resource, but also couldn't have happened if I hadn't had the opportunity to lurk in the Monastery, picking up countless tips and factoids and details of his-or-that to be filled away for future use. I'm still shocked at how much greater my depth of understanding of the language is now. At the risk of sounding sappy, I really appreciate how each and every one of you has contributed to the Monastery, and thus my overall knowledge of Perl (not to mention this project.) I'm indebted to you-all, and hope that my monkly flapjabber can help the rest of you as much as you've helped me (although, let's be real, there ain't much that a weekend coder like me is going to say that'll amount to a whole hill of beans to the luminaries of our community.)

The primary Perly thing on the site (there's actually a lot of Perl involved in the workaday operation of the magazine, as you probably would suspect, but most of it is fairly trivial content management stuff.) is a Conversion Engine that turns HTML or TXT files into palmDocs-- it's basically just lynx, some CGI crapola, txt2pdbdoc and some reg exs held together with bailing wire and goofy glue, but I love it as if it were my first born, and find it to be handy as all get-out. I know that there are a healthy number of PerlMonks who are also PDA-people, so I offer this to you as a token of my appreciation-- there's a little bit of all of us (or rather, there's a little code stolen from each of us) in this Engine, so Enjoy.

(for folks concerned about my posting the above with personal profit in mind, please note that we don't-- and never will-- run any banners or ads on our site, nor are we commercially affiliated with anyone. Poor Mojo's Almanac(k) is a literary magazine, and a labor of love, and totally free now and forever. I sincerely mean every word that I typed above, and figured that the Conversion Engine could be handy to some of y'all, and so just ask that you use it in good health-- and, of course, report any problems you run across <grin>)

The Autonomic Pilot; it's FunkyTown, babe.