Dreamhost and SVN Perl bindings
Dreamhost already has Python bindings installed for SVN, but not the Perl ones. So it took some fitzing around to make git-svn work on my DH account. git-svn was giving an error that SSL wasn't supported, and after I tried installing subversion-1.4.3, it was saying that there was an SVN library mismatch. So, I just decided to installed the subversion version that was installed on the DH machine already (version 1.4.2).
The first thing I did was compile and install some dependencies: autoconf, curl, and libtool. I installed all of these under my home directory. After that, I downloaded neon-0.25.5, since that specific version is required by subversion. I compiled neon like so:

./configure --prefix=$HOME --with-ssl --with-libs=/usr --enable-shared

./configure --prefix=$HOME 

./configure --prefix=$HOME --with-swig=$HOME --with-neon=$HOME

cd $(SWIG_PL_DIR)/native; $(PERL) Makefile.PL PREFIX=$(HOME) SITELIBEXP=$(HOME)/share/perl/5.8.4 SITEARCHEXP=$(HOME)/lib/perl5

/tmp/subversion-1.4.2/subversion/libsvn_ra_dav/.libs/libsvn_ra_dav-1.so.0:
undefined symbol: SSL_load_error_strings at /usr/lib/perl/5.8/DynaLoader.pm
line 225.

subversion/libsvn_ra_dav/.libs/libsvn_ra_dav-1.so.0

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conversational maxims

I first came across the Grice's conversational maxims in LIGN 130: Semantics about a year and a half ago. I have to say that they've (and the semantics class has) helped me in thinking more about what I say and how I say it.( "give credit where credit is due", scroll down to History). Maybe I don't have a good perspective of the maxims (in which case this post will be an ignorant rant), but I don't always like practicing them to the tee, nor do I always like when they are practiced by others to the tee. I believe the reason being that they suck when applied to friendship, or to any other kind of good relationship. I can see the conversational maxims being good when talking about a "weighty" matter (e.g., a doctor explaining what needs to be done in order to save a person's life whose waist has been ripped to shreds in an accident), but for everyday life they seem to stifle language inventiveness and wit.

The reason why I even thought of writing about them is because I've been re-reading Learning Perl over the last few days, and it made me realize how much I like writings which don't follow Grice's maxims (if you haven't read the book, I suggest you do). In the book you'll find footnotes that don't need to be in there at all, but their addition makes the reading much more enjoyable (if you've ever read technical books, I'm sure you're not always sitting on the edge of your seat in excitement). The two pages of the book exemplify what I mean (and explain why the authors use footnotes). Since it's the weekend, I decided to be generous and copy the first two pages of the book (quite short, actually) so you can see what I mean. After reading these couple of pages along with their footnotes, hopefully you'll agree (with me). :)

Welcome to the Llama book!

This is the fourth edition of a book that has been enjoyed by half a million readers since 1993. At least ,we hope they've enjoyed it. It's a sure thing that we've enjoyed writing it.*

Questions and Answers

You probably have some questions about Perl, and maybe some about this book, especially if you've already flipped through the book to see what's coming. So, we'll use this chapter to answer them.

Is This the Right Book for You?

If you're anything like us, you're probably standing in a bookstore right now,* wondering whether you should get this Llama book and learn Perl or maybe that book over there and learn some language named after a snake, or a beverage, or a letter of the alphabet.* You've got about two minutes before the bookstore manager comes over to tell you that this isn't a library,* and you need to buy something or get out. Maybe you want to use these two minutes to see a quick Perl program, so you'll know something about how powerful Perl is and what it can do. In that case, you should check out the whirlwind tour of Perl later in this chapter.

Why Are There So Many Footnotes?

Thank you for noticing. There are a lot of footnotes in this book. Ignore them. They're needed because Perl is full of exceptions to its rules. This is a good thing, as real life is full of exceptions to rules.

But it means we can't honestly write, "The fizzbin operatore frobnicates the hoozistatic variables" without a footnote giving the exceptions.* We're pretty honest, so we have to write the footnotes. But you can be honest without reading them. (It's funny how that works out.)

Many of the exceptions have to do with portability. Perl began on Unix systems, and it still has deep roots in Unix. But wherever possible, we've tried to show when something may behave unexpectedly whether the cause is running on a non-Unix system, or some other reason. We hope that readers who know nothing about Unix will find this book a good introduction to Perl. (And they'll learn a little about Unix along the way at no extra charge.)

And many of the other exceptions have to do with the old "80/20" rule. By that, we mean that 80% of the behavior of Perl can be described in 20% of the documentation, and the other 20% of the behavior takes up the other 80% of documentation. To keep this book small, we'll talk about the most common, easy-to-talk-about behavior in the main text and hint in the direction of the other stuff in the footnotes (which are in a smaller font, so we can say more in the same space).* Once you've read the book all the way through without reading the footnotes, you'll probably want to look back at some sections for reference. At that point, or if you become unbearably curious along the way, go ahead and read the notes. A lot of them are just computer jokes anyway.

What About the Exercises and Their Answers?

The exercises are at the end of each chapter because, between the three of us, we've presented this same course material to serveral thousand students. * We have carefully crafted these exercises to give you the chance to make mistakes as well.

1. To be sure, the first edition was written by Randal L. Schwartz, the second by Randal and Tom Christiansen, the third by Randal and Tom Phoenix, and now the fourth by Randal, Tom Phoenix, and brian do foy. So, whenever we say "we" in this edition, we mean the last group. Now, if you're wondering how we can say that we've enjoyed writing it (in the past tense) when we're still on the first page, that's easy: we started at the end, and worked our way backward. It sounds like a strange way to do it, we know. But, honestly, once we finished writing the index, the rest was easy. [return] 2. Actually, if you're like us, you're standing in a library, not a bookstore. But we're tightwads. [return] 3. Before you write to tell us that it's a comedy troupe, not a snake, we should really explain that we're dyslexically thinking of CORBA. [return] 4. Unless it is. [return] 5. Except on Tuesdays, during a power outage, when you hold your elbow at a funny angle during the equinox, or when use integer is in effect inside a loop block being called by a prototyped subroutine prior to Perl Version 5.6. [return] 6. We even discussed doing the entire book as a footnote to save the page-count, but footnotes on footnotes started to get a bit crazy. [return] 7. Not all at once. [return]

After reading these pages, and you want some other reasons why I don't always prefer Grice's maxims, look at this excellent speech and this great article by Larry Wall.

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