DeeKnow’s Grotto

Error Handling In PHP seems a little fiddly from early experiments with the config file.  DevShed have published an article recently which we must read before rolling out the next app.

5:23:34 PM  

'Flesh and Machines': The Future of Robotics. In 20 years, the scientist Rodney A. Brooks says, robots will have feelings and consciousness. [NY-Times Review]

12:53:04 PM  

Using XML and Relational Databases with Perl is the title of an article at O'Reilly's XML.com site that demos using DBIx::XML_RDB which "provides a simple interface for returning the results of an arbitrary SQL select statement as well-formed XML" and it really does look simple. The module also ships with a couple of command-line examples of getting data in/out of an RDMS.

There's another nice example of writing into a database using XML::XPath to load an XML file, query its contents and write into the database using SQL calls through a DBI connection.

The problem with the above examples is the need to hard-code field name/type/ordering details in the script.  The last example demos use of the XML-DBMS module which allows you to specify field-mapping info in an external file (XML of course)

Nice !!!... this is copy/paste heaven  :-)

11:58:04 AM  

Google SOAP API released last week.  It got the expected response from both ScriptingNews and SlashDot. I downloaded the developers kit (which includes samples for Java/Perl etc) and registered at Google to get a License key which you need to submit in the SOAP call.  There's a copy of the key here if you want to play with it and I'll bring in the Perl script I played with form home over the weekend ASAP.

11:43:20 AM  

Coup d'etat in Venezuela "With full responsibility before the nation and the Venezuelan people, I present this resignation'' Carmona told reporters after a turbulent day in which power slipped from his hands and troops loyal to Chavez seized control of the presidential palace.

According to Forbes, Venezuela is the only western nation among the 11 members of OPEC and is its only democracy.  It is also the only member without a Muslim majority.

11:08:09 AM  

UserTalk scripts calling PerlScript seems possible via the COM client that's built into Frontier.  There's an example here which is...

A Frontier UserTalk script calling (via Windows COM) a Perl function stored in the Frontier object database, which then calls a UserTalk script via the Perl Win32::OLE module

As Frontier itself is also a COM server you can make calls back into it as well as out. Some interesting possibilities there for interoperability to/from content managed in Frontier. Only problem is the DLL (ScriptControl.dll) isn't installed with Radio, I wonder if it'll work by copying it from Piquet's Frontier install?

10:09:09 AM