Yet another reason why it is important to be nice to newbies

In order to encourage people - especially newbies - to join our conversation on the #padre IRC channel we offer links through the our site to the Mibbit web based IRC client.

Today, while I was still asleep azawawi, one of the key Padre developers had an interesting encounter with a newbie joining the channel through Mibbit. I shorten the conversation a bit and add some comments.

 04:22:12 * user_6029 (7352fabd@widget.mibbit.com) has joined #padre 
 04:24:47 * user_6029 had the exquisite pleasure of New->Perl6 and crashing Padre...

Yeah, we know that the most recent released package for Windows still has this bug.

 04:25:22 <azawawi> interesting
 04:25:24 <azawawi> 0.41? 
 04:25:27 <user_6029> ...then I notepad'ed up a "z.p6" with "say 'Hello'",
          opened it in Padre, ensuring that it's Viewed As Perl6, and pressed F5...
 04:25:44 <user_6029> ...and it said something like "The execution mode of
          this document had not defined"...
 04:26:04 <azawawi> i see
 04:26:09 <user_6029> ...and then I  pressed ctrl-F5, typing in "1+1"; again it said
          "failed to start running the program"...
 04:26:30 <user_6029> Yes, 0.41 combined +6 installer, WinXP
 04:26:30 <azawawi> Six?
 04:26:38 <user_6029> aye.
 

OK so azawawi can already know that this is the bug we already know about. You see the "Almost Six" package has Padre 0.41 which is 3-4 weeks old. Ancient in terms of Padre release frequency.

 04:26:52 <user_6029> this is my first time ever tried padre or joining 
          the #padre channel...
 04:26:59 <azawawi> hmmm we should release a new 0.44 soon that solves most problems
 04:27:09 <azawawi> 0.41 was alpha (first release of everything)
 04:27:17 <user_6029> Hah, actually!
 04:27:24 <user_6029> Start Padre, New... -> Perl 5 SCript
 04:27:24 <user_6029> also crashed Padre.
 04:27:29 <azawawi> i know
 04:27:32 <user_6029> so it's not like anything p6 specific :)
 04:28:08 <azawawi> in 0.41 we switched to new mimetypes module that screwed 
          a couple of things :)
 04:28:17 <user_6029> I'd say! ;)
 
 04:30:46 <user_6029> Uhm, the topic says latest is 0.43
 04:30:49 <user_6029> but http://padre.perlide.org/download.html
          and trac shows 0.41?
 04:31:11 <user_6029> are we midway during the 0.43 release and if so, 
          url to a 0.43 installer or build instructions?
 04:31:30 <azawawi> user_6029: cpan Padre

 04:32:17 <user_6029> aha, Ctrl-F5 runs a "shell" comand! That isn't very
          much well-translated
 04:32:32 * user_6029 had the exquisite pleasure of typing "print 1" in Ctrl-F5
          and then, get:
 04:32:34 <user_6029> �L�k�Ұ� PRN �˸m 
 04:32:39 <user_6029> which is hilarious :)
 04:33:22 <user_6029> ok, so New...->whataever crashes, P6 execution mode 
          generally doesn't work, but P5 looks solid. got it.
 04:33:28 <user_6029> thanks for the quick feedback!
 04:33:41 <azawawi> no problem i just woke up :)
 04:33:53 <azawawi> user_6029: try upgrading your Padre
 04:34:17 <user_6029> embarrasingly, I thought 0.41 was newest. how do I upgrade?
 04:34:39 <user_6029> (using the combined installer .msi)
 04:34:43 <azawawi> user_6029: 'cpan Padre' on the command line should do it
 04:35:18 <user_6029> ah. well it'd help if, like other projects, the Help menu 
          contains a "check for updates"

...

 04:38:58 <azawawi> user_6029: 
          http://padre.perlide.org/trac/browser/trunk/Padre/Changes
 04:39:22 <azawawi> user_6029: as you can see a lot has been fixed/added
 04:39:24 <azawawi> user_6029: :)
 04:39:39 <user_6029> - Temporarily remove PAR support (ADAMK) 
 04:39:56 <azawawi> or removed :)
 04:39:59 <user_6029> aww :-/ I wonder why. Perhaps I can help...

Well, it is nice to see newbies want to help though PAR is a particulary hard subject.

 04:42:43 <user_6029> ok, padre upgraded herself (wow, nice splash screen!)
 04:42:59 <azawawi> user_6029: cpan Padre::Plugin::Perl6 
 04:43:37 <azawawi> that's Padre :: Plugin :: Perl6 in case of mibbit's emiticons
 04:45:16 * audreyt (~audreyt@64.79.205.230) has joined #padre
 04:45:24 <audreyt> there. much better than anonymous web irc :)
 04:45:39 <azawawi> wow :)

If you don't know, audreyt is Audrey Tang. She is the author of PAR and about a hundred other CPAN module and that of Pugs, the first implementation of Perl 6 that was actually usable.

Full log can be found here and here.

You can join the Padre channel via Mibbit using links throught the our site or if you have an IRC client that is #padre on irc.perl.org

We welcome experienced programmers, experienced programmer posing as newbies, and authentic newbies.