Programming Utilities Dist. / News: Recent posts

PUD will work with CVS next. I'm currently working on a separate project called "libcvs" where we aim to create a CVS library in C and Perl. This will make it possible for me to do things like generate changelog entries from CVS diffs and all of that. I think those sorts of tools could save people a lot of time and make ChangeLogs a lot more popular to use. I know that I'm not very good at maintaining a ChangeLog myself. Anybody who wants to help, check out the project at http://libcvs.cvshome.org

Now that PUD version 0.4.1 is out and about, I need as much feedback from people as possible. I need to know what you like, what you don't like, what bugs you find, and what features you would like to see. Simply post a feature request or whatever. If you want, join the mailing list. Submit a message to the forum. It's not that difficult. I just need some feedback so I know what direction to take next in improving PUD into a more complete suite of tools to save time for developers. Afterall, our time is what we're paid for.

Okay, this has been a long time coming. I've got newpl and newpm done in C. I've got a little library, libpud.a, set up with all the core routines that PUD uses. This change actually doesn't change any of the .pudrc or template or style files. There is one addition. There is a new /etc/pud file. The installer doesn't put it there yet, but I'm not done with this yet. When I'm done with all of it and it's all nicely packaged up, all default configurations will be put in there for you. How nice of PUD, eh? Okay. Well, I'm not going to update the automatic updater for this release because it is incomplete. When PUD in C is finished, and I've tested it across a few more operating systems (currently only tested in Cygwin on WinXP 'cause my GNU/Linux system is down at the moment due to remodeling), then I will release it as PUD 0.4.0. If anybody is interested in doing some testing for me, I could really use the feedback. Thanks!

Pud version 0.3.0 is out! It's ready for general consumtion and all that.

It's got an automatic updater. Yay. Happy me. Happy me.

Version 0.3.0 is sitting in CVS as of about 3 minutes ago. I plan on running some final tests on Cygwin this evening. Once I've done that, I'm going to upload PUD, version 0.3.0.

The biggest change in version 0.3.0 is an auto-updater. This auto-updater actually updates the entire pud package without you doing a thing but issuing the command.

Just type "pud-config --update" and it will connect to the internet and update PUD for you. Since I wanted to make this thing work for Cygwin, I had to reinvent a wheel of sorts. I had to write my own HTTP client for this thing. LWP doesn't come with Perl inside of Cygwin, and compiling it requires some libs that require something like MSVC. A waste of time. HTTP clients are relatively simple to write. Just a bit of socket handling and then a bit of HTTP header generation. Nothing too special.... read more

Version 0.2.3 is out. It has a new program called pud-config. All quite simple really. This version allows you to check for a later version of PUD from your command line. Oh yummy.

I've created a new HTTP module to do this, but it's not actually in version 0.2.3. It's in CVS. Don't use it yet. I haven't had a chance to test it completely. Not unless you know Perl and you feel like dealing with problems that will inevidably occur :P

I've noticed that PUD is being downloaded a bit. I like this. I would also like some feedback from users, too. Feature request, bug reports, anything to help make the project better. Please do not hesitate to send me feedback.

Since PUD now is solid, I would like to now build up the project as far as gaining new project help. We're working on getting a packager, a document writer, and a web designer to help me out in this project. I don't NEED any developers right now, but if any want to join me, please let me know.

I think that this is what I need to do to grow the project. We've been getting our best numbers ever, but users still aren't reporting bugs. If you find a bug, please report it. Thank you.

As of version 0.2.2, PUD is in CVS on SourceForge. If you're looking to help me with the development, please talk to me, or just grab from anonymous CVS and send me patches. Whatever you want to do. All is well.

PUD 0.2.2 is out for your pleasure. Have fun.

There are four bugs that are rather serious that this release addresses. You can read more about them in the bug tracker. A couple of them had to do with installing the program. I've fixed them. If you notice any more bugs, PLEASE put them in the tracker! I will do my best to fix them. If you have features you would like to see, please describe them in the feature request. I need some help to drive this project forward.

Oops! I just noticed while trying to install this at work that this package for version 0.2.0 is missing a core module. As soon as I get home tonight I'm going to fix the package and rerelease it. I appologize for my oversight.

I've just finished up the final touches in the code for Pud 0.2.0. I still have alot of changes to make for the project in the area of template and style files. If anyone would like to have their personal style in PUD, please email it to me. I will be more than happy to incorperate it! mstemle1024@msn.com

I'm having a bump in the road with scope and Exporter. If there are any Perl people out there who have a moment to look at this, **PLEASE** email me at mstemle1024@msn.com!!!!

PUD version 0.2.0 is going to really whoop bootay. I can't TELL you how much time PUD has saved me. I'm SOOO glad I wrote it.

I'm completely redoing the install process. Making it so that it'll work on Win32 and POSIX operating systems. The install process is now all one simple perl script. Cygwin rocks.

This new version is going to have the ability to actually use templates for all languages, instead of having one template for each language. I came up with this idea since I use PUD at work and at home, so that I can have a home template and a work template.... read more

We've got a release! This release is still all in Perl. I've kinda given up on rewriting this in C. I've got this, and the Kash Money Manager that I've been working on, so I think that that's enough for now. I've got this release in both a tar.bz2 and a tar.gz. I hope you like it!

Due to the infamous death of Northpoint, the DSL connection that the Gnurd enjoyed for the last three months is down. Hopefully Telocity will have the Gnurd back up and running shortly. I don't know when everything will be ready to go, but I thought that I would let you all know what's going on.

I've recently been asked if we could move PUD in a direction that would make it easier to integrate into programs like gIDE. In order to do this, I think that we should start moving the PUD project toward the C programming language, as opposed to it's original Perl programming language. In order to do this better, I've been working on "libpud" which will be the core set of routines and objects (typedef'ed structs) that resemble those found in our beloved base.pm.... read more

Pud has come a long way since I first started it. Let me tell you where pud came from.

Throughout my entire life, I have (and many people agree) thought myself quite lazy. Pud is a product of my laziness. When I started Gnurds Nurds in May of 2000, I wanted to build a really nice website (http://www.gnurds.org). I did not, however, fancy the thought of writing all that HTML. Later on, down the line, I started in more development. I started putting those big GPL notices in the comments of my code. I REALLY didn't like having to copy the templates each time I wanted to make a new file.
Due to this desire for quick and simple source templates, I created newhtml, newpl, newpm, and newc. Later on down the line, I wanted to distribute these utilities. That's when 0.0.1 came out. Then I got the idea that people may not like to have to have the same copyright notice in the source files for each user, and they may not want to edit the copyright notices all the time either. Perhaps they were as lazy as I am (that's pretty hard).
At this point, I added in configuration functionality. That's when 0.0.2 came out. I noticed some huge bugs in my configuration functionality. I fixed the bugs, and that was release 0.0.3. Then I thought that all these people may not want to have to edit the ~/.pudrc files themselves either. I know I didn't like doing that.
With that thought in mind, I made it so that the utilities ask the user for the config values when they need them. The utilities then save those values into the user's ~/.pudrc. That was release 0.0.4.
With all of these changes and releases, I thought that a ChangeLog was in order. But once again, my laziness took over. So did my absentmindedness. I often forget the date. I also know that consistancy is important in a useful ChangeLog. That's when I created the chgloged utility. After I'd tested chgloged pretty well, I released pud, version 0.0.5.... read more

At this point, PUD is ready for public use on UNIX-like operating systems only. Win32 support is coming in due time. Anyone is welcome to work on it with me. Just let me know what you're doing. I've got ActivePerl for Win2000, so that's the only thing that I can test against.

The 0.0.4 release of pud contains three utilities, plus the documentation (man files) for those utilities.

These utilities include:
newpm
newpl
newpod... read more