LUV November 2013: Parsing/Perl and MMORPGs

Jacinta Richards: Don't repeat yourself. Fun with parsing

Lev Lafayette: MMORPGs and Linux

NOTE: Because of Cup day, we meet this month on Wednesday.

Jacinta Richardson: Don't repeat yourself. Fun with parsing

The problem: your client gives you a document covering the specification of some weird message format they want you to handle. It's tab delimited, and pure ASCII, but actually some fields are multi-part and include tabs, and nothing is quoted. Oh, and actually there's multiple different kinds of messages you will need to parse.

The solution: Using Perl 5.10+ and named capture groups we'll create a data definition. Over the rest of the talk we'll be taking advantage of a host of tactics (including re-parsing a regular expression) to see how we can take an interesting problem and make it fun again. Although Perl will be used in this talk, and code will be shown, hopefully you won't actually need to know any Perl at all to understand the ideas I run through.

Jacinta says: I speak for a living. I run Perl training courses,
I speak at Perl monger meetings, user groups and numerous
conferences across the world.

Lev Lafayette: MMORPGs and Linux

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) are perhaps the biggest phenomenon in video gaming history, with an estimated $1.4 billion USD spent on subscriptions to various games in 2008, and with popular games such as World of Warcraft boasting some 8 million subscribers in March this year. It is perhaps little surprise to discover that such games have a relationship, of sorts, with our operating system of choice. From small self-published books in a box entitled "Dungeons & Dragons" to the highly complex virtual worlds, this talk combines both a cultural history with aspects and examples of technical design to show how multiplayer computer mediated roleplaying games and Linux can be sensibly spoken of in the same sentence.

In 1980 Lev was introduced to an early Apple II and tried to hack Lemonade. Shortly afterwards he graduated to "The Keep on the Borderlands" and managed to keep his Elf alive through several editions. He continues to suggest that New Adventure Shell is a legitimate way to submit jobs to supercomputers. When he is not in a parallel reality, he works at the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing and does some stuff for Linux Users of Victoria.

The Buzzard Lecture Theatre, Evan Burge Building, Trinity College Main Campus Parkville Melways Map: 2B C5

Notes: Trinity College's Main Campus is located off Royal Parade. The Evan Burge Building is located near the Tennis Courts. See our Map of Trinity College. Additional maps of Trinity and the surrounding area (including its relation to the city) can be found at
http://www.trinity.unimelb.edu.au/about/location/map

Parking can be found along or near Royal Parade, Grattan Street,
Swanston Street and College Crescent. Parking within Trinity College is unfortunately only available to staff.

For those coming via Public Transport, the number 19 tram (North Coburg - City) passes by the main entrance of Trinity College (Get off at Morrah St, Stop 12). This tram departs from the Elizabeth Street tram terminus (Flinders Street end) and goes past Melbourne Central Timetables can be found on-line at:

http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/route/view/725

Before and/or after each meeting those who are interested are welcome to join other members for dinner. We are open to suggestions for a good place to eat near our venue. Maria's on Peel Street in North Melbourne is currently the most popular place to eat after meetings.

LUV would like to acknowledge Red Hat for their help in obtaining the Buzzard Lecture Theatre venue and VPAC for
hosting, and BENK Open Systems for their financial support of the Beginners Workshops

Linux Users of Victoria Inc., is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C.