Padre blogs

Padre, the Perl IDE has just hit version 0.96, only 1 more release before, numerically speaking, it hits 1.0.

Now this is interesting, as one of the big coders for Padre is Adam Kennedy ( Alias ), and he wanted to use the remaining release version numbers to get various bits and pieces of housekeeping in order before hitting the big 1.0.

However, it seems that Adam is moving (has moved by now) to the US, and to date, seems modus incommunicado, and lots of work has been done by Kevin Dawson (bowtie) and Ahmad Zawawi (azawawi) and as such I have been asked to roll out a new Padre 0.96 for the world to enjoy.

So given the last release was at the beginning of the year, and clearly from the Changes file for this release a lot has been done, it was well and truly time to don my Release Managers hat and get on with getting Padre out the door.

In saying that, I really should be sacked from the job, I've so far been distracted by pretty much anything else than get the new release done, I've even picked up my guitar for the first time in months and strummed a few chords while it was building and testing only to come back hours later with sore fingers and a tar ball waiting to be tested for installation.

Sheesh.... it's now midnight and I'm writing up the release announcement... must focus!

Software doesn't write itself, an IDE like Padre doesn't magically get an inbuilt debugger, you don't get the latest editor widget by just wishing for it, and all the internal guts and gory bits don't refactor themselves.

This happens because Kevin Dawson, Ahmad Zawawi and Adam Kennedy some how find time to do this.

Even though we haven't seen much of Adam of late, he committed a fair chuck of changes to Padre for 0.96:

    - The "Todo" or "To Do" or "To-do" or "TODO" list has always been a
      problem when it comes to naming. Renamed to "Task List" to align
      with Microsoft Visual Studio's solution to this problem (ADAMK)
    - Removed borders from the Outline tool elements (ADAMK)
    - Clicking a file in the Replace in Files output opens the file (ADAMK)
    - Added Padre::Wx::Role::Idle and moved all tree ctrl item activate
      events to use it to evade a item_activated event bug (ADAMK)
    - Added Padre::Wx::Role::Context and changed most panel tools to use
      it for generating context menus (ADAMK)
    - Added proper POD documentation for Padre::Cache (ADAMK)
    - Delay clearing the outline content so it doesn't flicker so heavily
      all of the time (ADAMK)
    - Added a dozen or so new file types to Padre::MIME, including
      several that we explicitly do not support (ADAMK)
    - Added Padre::Comment to hold a registry and abstraction for the
      different comment styles in supported documents (ADAMK)	
    - The Evaluate Expression dialog now has a "Watch" feature (ADAMK)
    - Added Padre::SLOC for calculating Source Lines of Code metrics (ADAMK)
    - Completed right click relocation of panels for the main tools (ADAMK)
    - Added Padre::Locale::Format for localising the display of numbers,
      and datetime values (ADAMK)
    - Inlined the small amount of code we use from Format::Human::Bytes and
      remove the dependency (ADAMK)	  
    - Migrating to new ORLite 2.0 API (ADAMK)
    - Added COCOMO modelling to the project statistics dialog (ADAMK)

Kevin Dawson pushed on with the Debugger:

    - Update Debug2 to use SQL parameter markers (tome, BOWTIE)
    - disable Debug2 tool-bar icons against unsaved files (tome, BOWTIE)
    - Debug2 now shows margin_marker breakpoints on file load (tome, BOWTIE)
    - tweaked on load to include reload and only once (BOWTIE)
    - Debug2 now checks for perl files more thoroughly (BOWTIE)
    - Added display variable data from click in debugger panel (BOWTIE)
    - Added BASH support to default.txt theme (BOWTIE)
    - Variable data now shown in corresponding colour (BOWTIE)
    - Padre::PluginHandel was only checking for error, 
      not handling return = 0, it is now (BOWTIE)
    - Re-enable outline panel to display MooseX::Declare Method modifiers
      (BOWTIE)
    - Convert p-p-xx-yy -> p-p-xx in P-Plugin making getting config easy 
      (BOWTIE)
    - Update Debugger, tests and dependencies to use Debug::Client 0.18 as this
      is now Perl 5.16.0 ready (BOWTIE)
    - Make show_local_variables default in Debug2 (BOWTIE) reverting
    - perl5db.pl needs to be given absolute filenames (BOWTIE)
    - Debug2 now shows display_value on selection (BOWTIE)
    - change Status-Bar 'R/W' to 'Read Write' (BOWTIE)
    - add +1 to Current Line so % is display correctly in Status-Bar (BOWTIE)
    - bumped Debug-Client requirement to 0.20 (BOWTIE)

Mark Dootson worked some Wx magic:

    - Switching to the thread-safe Wx::PostEvent when sending events from
      the background, which should dramatically reduce segfaults (DOOTSON)

Ahmad Zawawi, keeps the Scintilla widget tracking along with some of the latest versions from the Scintilla project, as well as a new project a Mojolicious plugin called Pedro. Like one editor isn't enough to work on! :)

    - Padre::Plugin::unload(@packages) now works (AZAWAWI)
    - Notify plugins when either a save-as (possible mime-type change) or new
      document event occurs (AZAWAWI)

Gabor Szabo, the marketing machine, trainer and producer of the fantastic Perl Weekly gets a mention:

    - Require 5.010 as an experiment. (SZABGAB)

A big thanks to the translators who both updated Padre's languages during development ( zeno - German ) and once branched ( zipf - Spanish ).

Of course all of this is in the Changes file, but who reads them and how SEO are they???

I'd like to say a big thanks to the active contributors to Padre and those who pop in and do their small bit to the overall greatness that is Padre, the Perl IDE.

I had need to write a Perl script on the weekend, first time in ages, and it was just such a pleasure to use what was then the head revision, it's amazing how good Padre has become. I keep telling myself I need to get back to the code, but sadly, I have a camera and a desire to be outdoors capturing light.

It's a phase I'm sure will pass in time.

As always, #padre on irc.perl.org is a great place to drop in and say hi and thanks to the great people of Padre itself. If you have a question, or a suggestion, or even a bug fix, this is your place to be.

Until the next release, just that one step closer to 1.0, I remain your humble Padre Release Manager.

Ok. I am new to twitter (@nxadm) and I am not sure I completely grasp the concept. So what’s more promising than a title in the form of a hashtag? The back of the book reads: “#tweetsmart provides the answer [to what to do with twitter] with 25 creative projects to help your business, cause, or organization grow. But this isn’t just another social media marketing book—it’s the anti-marketing how-to community-engagement book”. Does the book deliver? Well, it all boils down to who you are.

The good

It’s certainly a good read. I enjoyed it. It’s short (100 pages), sometimes funny and always extremely to the point, something I appreciate. McDougall is really passionate about the subject and that shows: the author’s style is enthusiastic and upbeat. If you’re a business you’ll be using the oldest marketing tricks in a digital jacket in no time. You’ll reach a much bigger audience that you thought it was possible and it will cost you peanuts. Good.

The bad

So, what if you not own a business? No problem, the back says “business, cause, or organization”, you may think. Nope. Being an free and open source enthusiast involved in a few projects (e.g. Padre, the Perl IDE) it was specifically the “cause or organisation” part that made me curious. Of the 25 recipes, isn’t there at least one applicable to smaller (not commercial) open source projects? Sadly, no. It will help you to sell coffee or burritos, but not reach new users or developers. Did I learn something I didn’t know? Again, no (I repeat: I enjoyed the book).

So the “anti-marketing how-to community-engagement book” epithet may be a little euphemistic. Let’s stick with a “not-annoying and not insulting practical online marketing book for small business”. Sure, it sounds less “cool”, but take it from me, “not annoying and not insulting” part is worth *a lot* when talking about marketing.

Conclusion

Will I recommend it? Well, it depends on who you are. The 3 of 5 stars I give to this book is just an average: it ranges from totally irrelevant for some uses to a fantastic HOWTO to get the online marketing of your business started in no time. You Mileage -May- Will Vary.

When a virtual machine has limited use, you don’t want to loose too much space. Sometimes, however, you get the size wrong.

In my case, I have a minimal Windows VM on my Ubuntu laptop. Once in a while I test an upcoming Padre (The Perl IDE) release or update a crappy usb device with Windows-only support. Win-modems may be gone, but we still have GPS devices that run GNU/Linux but can only be connected to Windows. (I guess seeing your market-share shrink because of smart-phones is what they call bad karma, TomTom.)

Windows being Windows, adding disks is a terrible experience (what’s up with the alphabet as a mounting point?) and moving a Windows installation to a second disk is a nightmare. Luckily, free software gets the job done:

1. Make sure your guest machine is halted properly. This is specially important for a NTFS (virtual) partition of a Windows VM.

2. Download Ubuntu (It does not matter if you use the 32- or the 64-bit version, other GNU/Linux distribution will work as well). The screenshots are from a Ubuntu 11.10 setup.

3. In the specific VM-settings, add a new disk (to the same disk controller) and a new cdrom. Load the Ubuntu iso in the virtual cdrom drive.

4. Make sure the VM boots from the cdrom.

5. “Try” Ubuntu. Once Ubuntu is loaded, launch “gparted”.

6. Select the old disk (normally the first one, check the size).

7. Right on the disk representation and “copy” it.

8. Select the new disk from the combo-box on the upper right (check the size).

9. Go to “Device”, choose “Create Partition Table…”. Click “Apply” in the pop-up window.

10. Right on the disk representation and “paste” the original disk. Click “Apply” in the pop-up window.

11. Click on the green “Apply tick” on the icon menu to apply the changes. This will take some time. Get some coffee.

12. Right on the disk representation and select “Manage Flags”. Enable “boot”.

13. Shut down the Ubuntu Live cd.

14. Remove the original disk from the VM configuration (back it up first).

That’s it!