Jay Kuri: July 2009 Archives

Every so often I see a blog post or a comment that is along the lines of "Don't use X, it has too many dependencies, use Y instead, it doesn't depend on anything." I've touched on this subject before, but in different ways. I've seen this subject crop up again recently and think it warrants another look.

This time it was oriented towards Rails and Catalyst, but I've seen it on other projects as well. The question behind the above statement is somewhat deceiving. It seems to be: 'Do I choose a system that has lots of dependencies, or one that has only a few (or none)?' Well, when you put it like that, it seems like a no brainer... but it is, in reality, a trick question.

So, I've decided to work on a book for those looking to learn programming. It will focus on learning how to program, using Perl as the example language. This, in my opinion, is an area that is sorely lacking in recent years. I am in discussions with a publisher and it is looking quite likely that it will become a nice hard-copy book. Regardless, though, I will be placing it on the Catalyzed wiki.

What I've realized in starting this process is that it is actually very difficult to figure out what to cover. Once you have been programming for awhile, it tends to infect your brain. It actually modifies your thought processes and you forget what you didn't know when you started.

I'm hoping to accomplish a lot of things with this book, but there are two main items which I think are most important. First, I want to introduce the subject of programming and Perl clearly to those coming to either subject for the first time. Second, I want to teach all the little things that make Perl programming an enjoyable experience, the little things that let you really be productive in Perl.

I've got quite a bit of the book's contents worked out... but I have a question for all you Perl programmers out there... What, beyond the basics of all programming, should I be sure to cover?

What do you think every Perl programmer should know? What things help you on a daily basis and keep you working in Perl over other languages? What aspects of working in Perl do you think are most important and/or most different from other languages? What bit of Perl did you learn late and wish you knew much earlier in your Perl programming career?

Here's your chance to share your knowledge with the next generation of Perl programmers (I am ambitious, what can I say?) .. Share your thoughts in the comments!

The big buzz nowadays in the web-application hosting world is cloud servers. Cloud servers are virtual machines that can be deployed quickly and easily by the customer without intervention by the hosting company. They tend to live in very large data centers on clusters of hardware with specialized software designed to automatically manage the allocation, de-allocation and scaling of virtual machines.

The big player in the Cloud computing space is Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2. I've done a lot of work with hosting web applications on EC2 cloud servers and I find them to be extremely convenient and functional, especially compared to physical machines. They are, however, on the whole more expensive and require some specialized knowledge to manage effectively.

There is a relative newcomer to the cloud serving space, Mosso from Rackspace. Mosso's offering is quite similar to EC2, though the prices tend to be slightly cheaper.

There is very little in the way of direct comparison between EC2 and Mosso's Cloud servers and while the information about each is available, it takes some digging to get the real scoop.

In todays article, we will dig into both Amazon's EC2 and Mosso's Cloud-Servers with an eye toward the differences that will really matter to you as you try to decide which virtual server cluster upon which to deploy your Perl or Catalyst application.