[TAG] 2-cent tip: De-Microsofting text files

[Ben Okopnik]

On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 02:38:03AM +0700, Mulyadi Santosa wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 01:21, Ben Okopnik <ben at linuxgazette.net> wrote:
> > Then, I got hit by an idea. After I got up, rubbed the bruise, and took
> > an aspirin, I wrote the following:
> 
> Whenever I saw Ben wrote Perl scripts, I always wonder where the hell
> those ideas come up? :) Ben is doing this like I chew some gums.....

It's a mix of things. Between client work, trying to get things done for
myself, and simple intellectual curiosity[1], I often come up against
challenges that push the limits of the available tools. At that point, I
have to create my own - and a lot of times, this involves non-linear
thinking, which I enjoy. It's like writing recursive functions: if you
don't understand the basic principle, there's a whole class of problems
that'll cause you to struggle for days or weeks or even give up because
the task is "impossible". If you do understand it, those problems get
solved in just a few moments.

```
# Fibonacci sequence
sub fib { $_[0] <= 1 ? $_[0] : fib($_[0]-1) + fib($_[0]-2) }
print fib($_) for 0..10;
'''

Love that stuff. :) Although you do have to be careful about that O[n^2]
(or worse) run time...
 
> Pretty scary to imagine if Ben was Cobb in "Inception" :)

Hadn't heard of it, just looked it up. Yeah, I could dream up some
interesting tools and methods. :)


[1] *That's* the bugger that gets me in more trouble than everything
else combined. I truly believe that the world is going to end not
because of some power-mad dictator pushing The Big Red Button but
because some chemistry/physics/bio/genetics/whatever geek says, "gosh, I
wonder what'll happen if I do *this?*" [shrug] Life would be boring
otherwise, I guess.


-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *