Personally I doubt you'll learn Perl basics by looking at something as complex as a message boards. Grabbing a good tutorial did it for me, after I banged my head against the wall numerous times for not understanding complex scripts. Look at the Tutorials section and the Outside Links section for books & tuts.
Greetz
Beatnik
... Quidquid perl dictum sit, altum viditur. | [reply] |
Ultimate Bulletin Board is a very nice BBS to work with. I haven't checked under the hood (as I'm somewhat new to Perl as well) but from what it says for requirements on their site and it's robustness I'm going to assume it's competently coded.
You can download a demo of here.
The Liscense:
- Modifications of any kind to the UBB Demo Version code are strictly prohibited. You may not alter the program code in any manner, except to change Perl paths, if necessary, or to change absolute paths for required files. You may not add additional code to the UBB Demo.
- You may not distribute, sell, or reuse the program in any manner. In addition, you may not use any code snippets from the UBB Demo for any other purpose without the express written consent of Infopop Corporation. Each download is intended for one customer only.
License and UBB name © 2001 Infopop Corporation. All rights reserved.
A BBS can be a very complex system (I'm speaking as DBA who's done the other side of it) so I can definitely understand needing some reference material. My interprettation of their license is that, as long as you don't copy or modify any code, you can get a feel for how they do it. IANAL though, so it's up to you.
Update:
I haven't been in a project that used UBB in many years, well before the current company (whether they changed their name or bought it) was controlling it. The programmer at that time were okay with it and seemed competent enough, but I'd take grinder's concerns into serious consideration as potential security issues always bear scutiny.
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My memory is hazy on this one, so there is a slight chance
I could be wrong (as to whether I am thinking of UBBS or some other product)... but... I downloaded this code to look at a few years ago, and I really didn't like what I saw.
I wouldn't touch Ultimate BBS with a 10" barge pole. The
code is shrouded, so that even if you felt like modifying the
code in violation of the license agreement, the code is
incomprehensible. This means that as far as learning how
a BBS is put together in Perl, you could not find a worse
example than this.
In an valiant effort to avoid me putting my foot in my
mouth, I tried to download a copy, to see whether I was
thinking about the right package. I filled in the personal
details they requested with random garbage, before being
allowd to download the code. Turns out, they e-mail
instructions to the e-mail address you specify that
contains instructions on how to download the code. Looks to
me that they don't want people to inspect the code casually
before deciding whether you want to deploy it.
Given that the code is completely obfuscated, there is
no way of ruling out the possibility that the authors have
included back-doors into your BBS, whether it be maliciously or just careless neglect. I don't want that sort of code
running on my servers, thank-you very much.
--
g r i n d e r
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