# Perl Weekly Challenge 270: Special Positions

https://blogs.perl.org/users/laurent_r/2024/05/-perl-weekly-challenge-270-special-positions.html

Hi, I recently got an offer for Senior SWE (current title at my company now) for a company that heavily utilizes Perl. I was wondering if folks from this community could offer some insight on what it's like working with Perl and also what, if any, potential long-term career implications are of becoming a Perl developer? Particularly I'm worried of pigeon-holing myself since Perl is not as heavily used in todays age and this company does not make use of modern cloud tools and deployments.

I am a Java developer (5 YOE) at a enterprise software company that is deployed in GCP. We are pretty regularly adopting new technologies so I'm gaining some valuable and relevant industry experience here but I am looking for a change and more opportunity to lead projects and mentor junior engineers.

The company seems good, great WLB, I liked the manager, and with the bonus (base is roughly the same) it would be about a ~8% TC increase plus a lot more stock (monopoly money, private RSUs).

Does anyone have experience transitioning from a Perl based company to a cloud based company with a more modern tech stack? Is this a backwards direction for me, should I continue with my Java development and instead look for opportunities that will offer more marketable skills?

Any input is appreciated, thank you for reading.

submitted by /u/Roodiestue
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I've been trying to debug an issue for 3 days now, am getting nowhere, and am about to headbutt my laptop. If anyone's done any heavy lifting with Net:DBus then, for the sake of my laptop, I'd really appreciate the help!

Problem description: I have a hash table with a bunch of keys. The values relating to those keys are of different types (as in, I've cast them to dbus types). So:

my $testhash = {}; $testhash->{"xesam:albumArtist"} = [dbus_string("Tom Waits")]; $testhash->{"xesam:album"} = dbus_string("Mule Variations"); $testhash->{"xesam:trackNumber"} = dbus_int32(1); $testhash->{"xesam:artist"} = [dbus_string("Tom Waits")]; $testhash->{"xesam:title"} = dbus_string("Big in Japan"); $testhash->{"mpris:artUrl"} = dbus_string("file://mnt/storage/Music/mp3/Tom Waits/Mule Variations/folder.jpg"); $testhash->{"mpris:length"} = dbus_int64(64182857); $testhash->{"mpris:trackid"} = dbus_object_path("/0"); $testhash->{"xesam:url"} = dbus_string("file://mnt/storage/Music/mp3/Tom Waits/Mule Variations/01 - Big in Japan.mp3"); 

dbus_method("ReturnDynamicHash", [], [["dict", "string", ["variant"]]], $IFACE); sub ReturnDynamicHash { my $self = shift; print "Object: ReturnDynamicHash called.\n"; my $return = {}; my @keys = keys(%{$testhash}); my $count = scalar(@keys); if ($count) { foreach my $key (@keys) { $return->{$key} = $testhash->{$key}; } } return $return; } 

% dbus-send ....... .ReturnDynamicHash array [ dict entry( xesam:trackNumber variant int32 1 ) dict entry( mpris:trackid variant /0 ) dict entry( xesam:albumArtist variant array [ Tom Waits ] ) dict entry( xesam:album variant Mule Variations ) dict entry( mpris:length variant int64 64182857 ) dict entry( xesam:url variant file://mnt/storage/Music/mp3/Tom Waits/Mule Variations/01 - Big in Japan.mp3 ) dict entry( mpris:artUrl variant file://mnt/storage/Music/mp3/Tom Waits/Mule Variations/folder.jpg ) dict entry( xesam:artist variant array [ Tom Waits ] ) dict entry( xesam:title variant Big in Japan ) ] 

dbus_property("StaticHashProperty", [["dict", "string", ["variant"]]], "read", $IFACE); sub StaticHashProperty { print "Object: StaticHashProperty accessed.\n"; my $return = {}; my @keys = keys(%{$testhash}); my $count = scalar(@keys); if ($count) { foreach my $key (@keys) { $return->{$key} = $testhash->{$key}; } } return $return; } 

From the dbus-send client I get

Error org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Remote peer disconnected 

dbus[93409]: Array or variant type requires that type array be written, but object_path was written. The overall signature expected here was 'a{sas}' and we are on byte 4 of that signature. D-Bus not built with -rdynamic so unable to print a backtrace Aborted (core dumped) 

Since the Method works I know Net::DBus can handle these sorts of return values, but for some reason, as a property, it just isn't working. I also know that other applications do implement this interface, including this Property, successfully, so I know this isn't a limitation of DBus.

I've been looking at the code in Net::DBus that handles serialization, assuming there must be some difference between how Properties and Methods are handled, but can't see anything obvious.

Anyone? Any idea? Literally anything at all? Thank you!!!!!

submitted by /u/Flashy_Boot
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The following is a quick ramble before I get into client work, but might give you an idea of how AI is being used today in companies. If you have an questions about Generative AI, let me know!

The work to make the OpenAI API (built on Nelson Ferraz's OpenAPI::Client::OpenAI module) is going well. I now have working example of transcribing audio using OpenAI's whisper-1 model, thanks to the help of Rabbi Veesh.

Using a 7.7M file which is about 16 minutes long, the API call takes about 45 seconds to run and costs $0.10 USD to transcribe. The resulting output has 2,702 words and seems accurate.

Next step is using an "instruct" model to appropriately summarize the results ("appropriate" varies wildly across use cases). Fortunately, we already have working examples of this. Instruct models tend to be more correct in their output than chat models, assuming you have a well-written prompt. Anecdotally, they may have smaller context windows because they're not about remembering a long conversation, but I can't prove that.

Think about the ROI on this. The transcription and final output will cost about 11 cents and take a couple of minutes. You'll still need someone to review it. However, think of the relatively thankless task of taking meeting minutes and producing a BLUF email for the company. Hours of expensive human time become minutes of cheap AI time. Multiply this one task by the number of times per year you have to do it. Further, consider how many other "simple tasks" can be augmented via AI and you'll see why it's becoming so powerful. A number of studies show that removing many of these simple tasks from people's plates, allowing them to focus on the "big picture," is resulting in greater morale and productivity.

When building AI apps, OpenAPI::Client::OpenAI should be thought of as a "low-level" module, similar to DBIx::Class. It should not be used directly in your code, but hidden behind an abstraction layer. Do not use it directly.

I tell my clients that their initial work with AI should be a tactical "top-down mandate/bottom-up implementation." This gives them the ability to start learning how AI can be used in different parts of their organization, given that marketing, HR, IT, and other departments all have different needs.

Part of this tactical approach is learning how to build AI data pipelines. With OpenAI publishing their OpenAPI spec, and with Perl using that, we can bring much of the power of enterprise-level AI needs to companies using Perl. It's been far too long that Perl has languished in the AI space.

Next, I need to investigate doing this with Gemini and/or Claude, but not now.

Note, if you're not familiar with the BLUF format, it's a style of writing email that is well-suited for email in a company that is sent to many people. It's "bottom-line up front" so that people can see the main point and decide if the rest of the email is relevant to them. It makes for very effiicient email communication.

submitted by /u/OvidPerl
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BLUF: THE method for better and effective written communication

Communication in remote work is all about written communication. That’s the big shift that happened regarding how we communicate. The Economist and Information Week are two examples of many…

^{Gabriela De Luca (Medium)}

Hi all,

Nelson Ferraz has been working with generative AI for a while. I've started collaborating with him on his OpenAI modules. He wrote a module named OpenAI::API, but it required manually writing the code for all of the behavior. With the size of the OpenAI API, the rapid evolution, of said API, the birth of new models and the deprecation of old models, this approach turned out to be unmaintainable.

Thus, that module was deprecated in favor of Nelson's OpenAPI::Client::OpenAI module. Throw the 13K+ lines OpenAPI spec for OpenAI at it and it just works. Further, the module is pretty much a single Perl class rather than a bunch of hand-crafted code.

CPAN authors know it can be hard to keep modules up-to-date (mea culpa, mea culpa!) and this module is no exception. I need this module so I offered to collaborate and created a PR to update it to version 2.0.0 of the OpenAI spec. It now passes all the tests (for those wondering, you need an OpenAI key and it costs $0.04 USD to run the test suite).

In trying to build a Whisper pipeline for that, I found that I couldn't. There was a PR for Whisper support for the older module, but for the newer one, I can't figure out how to get it to issue a request with multipart/form-data support. I've noted the issue in the PR.

If anyone would like to see OpenAI support for Perl, we would dearly love to collaborate with you to make this happen.

submitted by /u/OvidPerl
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Nelson Ferraz

CPAN Author

^metacpan.org

MariaDB 10 and SQL::Translator::Parser

https://blogs.perl.org/users/usna78/2024/05/mariadb-10-and-sqltranslatorparser.html

This week in PSC (148) | 2024-05-16

https://blogs.perl.org/users/psc/2024/05/this-week-in-psc-148-2024-05-16.html

Confirming The LPW 2024 Venue & Date

https://blogs.perl.org/users/lpw/2024/05/confirming-the-lpw-2024-venue-date.html

Perl Weekly Challenge 269: Distribute Elements

https://blogs.perl.org/users/laurent_r/2024/05/perl-weekly-challenge-269-distribute-elements.html

PTS 2024 - Day 4 - here comes the sun... it's all right!

https://blogs.perl.org/users/leo_lapworth/2024/04/pts-2024---day-4---here-comes-the-sun-its-all-right.html

PTS 2024 - day 2 and 3... the bad days

https://blogs.perl.org/users/leo_lapworth/2024/04/pts-2024---day-2-and-3-the-bad-days.html

Although Benchmark::DKbench is a good overall indicator for generic CPU performance for comparing different systems (especially when it comes to Perl software), the best benchmark is always your own code. Hence, the module now lets you incorporate your own custom benchmarks. You can either have them run together with the default benchmarks, or run only your own set, just taking advantage of the framework (reports, multi-threading, monotonic precision timing, configurable repeats with averages/stdev, calculation of thread scaling etc). Here's an example where I run a couple of custom benchmarks on their own with Benchmark::DKbench:

``` use Benchmark::DKbench;

A simplistic benchmark sub:

sub str_bench { for (1..1000) { my $str = join("", map { chr(97 + rand(26)) } 1..rand(15000)); $str =~ s/a/bd/g; $str =~ tr/b/c/; } }

my %stats = suiterun({ include => 'custom', # Run only my custom benchmarks iter => 5, # Iterations to get an average extra_bench => { custom_bench1 => [&str_bench], # Add one more, just inline this time: custom_bench2 => [sub {my @a=split(//, 'x'x$) for 1..5000}], } }); ``` This will produce a report in STDOUT and also return the results in a hash for a single-thread run. You can also run the benchmarks multi-treaded and then calculate & print the multi/single-thread scalability:

```

If you want to get a count of logical cores:

my $cores = system_identity(1);

my %statsmulti = suite_run({ include => 'custom', threads => $cores, iter => 5, extra_bench => { custom_bench1 => [&str_bench], custom_bench2 => [sub {my @a=split(//, 'x'x$) for 1..5000}], } });

my %scal = calc_scalability(\%stats, \%stats_multi); ```

The report prints results per iteration and also aggregates:

``` Aggregates (5 iterations): Benchmark Avg Time (sec) Min Time (sec) Max Time (sec) custom_bench1: 1.092 1.079 1.107 custom_bench2: 0.972 0.961 0.983 Overall Avg Time (sec): 2.065 2.048 2.080

Aggregates (5 iterations, 10 threads): Benchmark Avg Time (sec) Min Time (sec) Max Time (sec) custom_bench1: 1.534 1.464 1.651 custom_bench2: 1.278 1.225 1.345 Overall Avg Time (sec): 2.812 2.689 2.965 The scalability report summarizes as well: Multi thread Scalability: Benchmark Multi perf xSingle Multi scalability % custom_bench1: 7.12 71

custom_bench2: 7.61 76

DKbench summary (2 benchmarks, 5 iterations, 10 threads): Single: 2.065s Multi: 2.812s Multi/Single perf: 7.36x (7.12 - 7.61) Multi scalability: 73.6% (71% - 76%) ```

The suite normally uses a scoring system which works better than times, so you can set that up by adding reference times to each benchmark, and you can also make the benchmarks return something (checksum etc) to verify results etc, see POD for more.

submitted by /u/dkech
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From the tprc-general Slack channel, Todd Rinaldo wrote yesterday that "Talk Accept, Decline, Waitlist emails have been sent out." See tprc.us for more information about this year's Perl and Raku Conference in Las Vegas, NV.

submitted by /u/talexbatreddit
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Mo utilities for email.

Changes for 0.02 - 2024-04-26T23:02:53+02:00

• Add tests for error parameters.
• Rewrite the tests so that the functional tests are first and then the errors.

PTS 2024 - day 1

https://blogs.perl.org/users/leo_lapworth/2024/04/pts-2024---day-1.html

Perl CPU Benchmark

Changes for 2.6 - 2024-04-25

• Custom benchmark improvements.
• Fix BSD tar xattr.

Code coverage metrics for Perl

Changes for 1.41

• Spelling, linting and formatting changes

load Data::Dumper output, including self-references

Changes for 0.01 - 2024-04-25

Experimental features made easy

Changes for 0.032 - 2024-04-25T22:30:41+01:00

• Add the newly-stable features to stable.pm - extra_paired_delimiters, const_attr, for_list

An I3 workspace loader

Changes for 0.003 - 2024-04-25T17:57:03Z

• Support shutdown events
• Add more supported actions with on_workspace
• Only switch workspaces when they exist This prevents starting up multiple layouts on non-existing workspaces

A Perl implementation of the OpenTelemetry standard

Changes for 0.020 - 2024-04-25T18:54:56+01:00

• Switch LWP::UserAgent integration to wrap around that module's 'simple_request' method instead of its 'request' method. This should catch some more cases, and fix GH #13.
• Added a minimal example application. See the `examples` directory in the distribution files.

An object to manage running things in parallel processes.

Changes for 0.014 - 2024-04-25T16:08:40+01:00

• Move to Dist::Zilla
• Switch to Test2::V0

This week in PSC (145)

https://blogs.perl.org/users/psc/2024/04/this-week-in-psc-145.html

Hi! Asking for a wisdom here...

We have a module that modifies signal handler $SIG{__DIE__} to log information and to die afterwards. Hundreds of scripts relied on this module which worked fine in perl 5.10.1.

Recently we had the opportunity to install several Perl versions but unfortunately a large number of scripts that used to work with Perl 5.10.1 now behave differently:

• Failed in 5.14.4: /home/dev/perl-5.14.4/bin/perl -wc test.pl RECEIVED SIGNAL - S_IFFIFO is not a valid Fcntl macro at /home/dev/perl-5.14.4/lib/5.14.4/File/stat.pm line 41
• Worked without changes in 5.26.3: /home/dev/perl-5.26.3/bin/perl -wc test.pl test.pl syntax OK
• Worked without changes in 5.38.2: /home/dev/perl-5.38.2/bin/perl -wc test.pl test.pl syntax OK

Many of the scripts can only be updated to 5.14.4 due to the huge jumps between 5.10 and 3.58; But we are stuck on that failures.

Was there an internal Perl change in 5.14 which cause the failures but works on other recent versions without any update on the scripts?

Cheerio!

submitted by /u/Longjumping_Army_525
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Perl Weekly Challenge 266: X Matrix

https://blogs.perl.org/users/laurent_r/2024/04/perl-weekly-challenge-266-x-matrix.html

Sanity-check calling context

Changes for 0.04

• (no code changes)
• Switched to MIT license.
• Switched README from POD to Markdown.
• Removed Travis CI.

Sort lines of text by a SortKey module

Changes for 0.001 - 2024-03-07

• First release.

Sort lines of text by a Comparer module

Changes for 0.002 - 2024-03-07

• No functional changes.
• [doc] Mention some related links.

An assortment of date-/time-related CLI utilities

Changes for 0.128 - 2024-03-07

• [clis strftime, strftimeq] Use localtime() instead of gmtime(). We can still show UTC using "TZ=UTC strftime ...".

Perl Weekly Challenge 266: Uncommon Words

https://blogs.perl.org/users/laurent_r/2024/04/perl-weekly-challenge-266-uncommon-words.html

Read Perl’s symbol table programmatically

Changes for 0.11

• (No code changes.)
• Remove Travis CI.
• Change README to Markdown.
• Re-license under the MIT License.

Perl implementation for the Prague Markup Language (PML).

Changes for 2.25 - 2024-04-23T15:11:42Z

• Fix saving relative paths to resource files.

Create a DateTime object from a Genealogy Date

Changes for 0.06 - 2024-04-23T08:28:40Z

• Handle entries which have the French 'Mai' instead of the English 'May' Some messages were printed even in quiet mode Handle '1517-05-04' as '04/05/1517'

Show context around syntax errors and exceptions

Changes for v0.4.0 - 2024-04-23

• fixes
• new features
• improvements
• other

I understand that many disagree with this statement, but it really makes it easier to build distributions for people who not monks. Wish the documentation was more detailed

submitted by /u/ReplacementSlight413
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