Re: [MacPerl] Perl in the workplace

[Vicki Brown <vlb@cfcl.com>]

In my previous job they gave me a Solaris Sparc 5 and my choice of a mac or
an NT box for a "desktop productivity machine" (which meant, to them,
Meeting Maker and email. Although, oddly, both are available on the Solaris
box).

I gave them back the monitor and keyboard of the Solaris system in trade
for a second 1152x870 Sony monitor for the Mac, and shoved the Solaris CPU
into a corner. (They said I'd ask for the monitor back in two weeks; I
never did).

I write my Perl scripts under BBEdit on my Mac, taking full advantage of
the syntax coloring, the ease of use, drag&drop editing, all the nice
tools, and the Perl palette (formerly third-party; now integrated) which
lets me syntax check and run scripts from BBEdit.

When the scripts are ready to deploy on the Unix box, I FTP them (from
within BBEdit) to the Unix system; BBEdit saves the bookmarks; it's as
simple as "Save to FTP server".  et Voila! an instant backup copy on the
Mac at the same time.

I run things over telnet (I also prefer Better Telnet) on the Unix boxes.
Nice windows, drag and drop, standard Mac copy/paste semantics. I even
color code my windows so the different machines have different colors (at
one time I was telnetting into a half a dozen different Unix boxes!).

My email (Eudora), web browser, meeting program, text editor, MacPerl...
everything is on one machine. I can copy and paste (drag/drop) text between
programs (I used to watch folks open their email on the Mac or NT box and
then retype something into a vi editor session on the Sun box :/

At my current job, we're behind a firewall at work. HOWEVER, I have a
dedicated IP address through our ISP at home (if this doesn't work for you,
see if you can get your job to buy you a dedicated IP address, or ISDN
connection, or secure dialback telnet).  I can telnet to the Unix boxes
behind the firewall _because I have programmed the firewall box to accept
telnet connections from my IP address_. (Even if you knew the IP number of
my work Solaris system, you wouldn't get so much as a login prompt).

At home, as at work, I have a multi-monitored (2 at work, 3 at home :-) G3
Mac with plenty of memory. I have FTP, Web browser, a terrific editor. I
have Unix "on the desktop" (OK, it's telnet, but it feels transparent). I
open files, edit them, syntax check, save, and run. When I need the Unix
command line, it's there. It's just another window after all. All the Mac
toys (er, tools :-) are there too. I have the best of both worlds.

About 5 years ago I convinced my spouse to do likewise (his mac had 3
monitors before mine did!). The Unix servers are in the basement.

Especially if you don't want to learn Unix SysAdmin, get the Mac, get the
secure telnet connection to work, get a mac for work, get a mac for home.
And you'll be the one grinning at the people trying to make X windows work
and hunting for a word processor that runs under Solaris.

- Vicki
-- --
       |\      _,,,---,,_       Vicki Brown <vlb@cfcl.com>
 ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   Journeyman Sourceror: Scripts & Philtres
      |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'  P.O. Box 1269  San Bruno  CA  94066
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