Sharing Sourcecode
I got a request to share my sourcecode yesterday.
First off, I generally don’t do that because a lot of my stuff is derived from work found elsewhere anyway. Also, my code is crappy looking! I mean, I’m not a real programmer, so sometimes I do strange, circuitous things to make my code work and I’d be embrassed to let that out into the world.
Secondly, I don’t want to support that ugly code when it gets out into the world. Half the time, I can’t remember what I’ve done in the first place, much less why. And, frankly, I don’t have time to properly maintain my own website, so I certainly don’t have time to properly support someone else’s coding efforts.
Thirdly, all my stuff is coded specifically for the web. More precisely, for this website. So, certian “look-and-feel” things are done to force a match here. Also, some of my code contains things that I’d rather not make too publicly available. After all, it is what makes my site unique.
I tried to send this person a note with all that in it, but it bounced back. So, even if I’d wanted to send him my source, I couldn’t! For those of you who really, really want to make your own PERL-based language scripts, do what I did, go to Chris Pound’s Name Generator page and start with his code. That’s really all I’ve done is mangle his code for the web.
So just start with that and play around with PERL. And, of course, go read a couple of PERL books. (One good one, after you’ve gotten your feet wet, is the PERL Cookbook, but any of the O’Reilly books are great.)
Good luck!
