Date: 23 Mar 2001 21:56:57 -0000
Message-ID: <20010323215657.5555.qmail@plover.com>
From: mjd@plover.com
To: mjd-book@plover.com
Subject: Back after a long absence

Hi, folks.  It's been about nine months since I made an announcement.  
If you forgot what this list is about, or you don't know why you're
getting this message, please see

        http://perl.plover.com/book/

To unsubscribe, send a blank message to mjd-book-unsubscribe@plover.com.

Since the last announcement, I haven't made any substantive progress
on the book.  I have a big chunk of chapter 3 done (that's the chapter
on caching and memoization) and a smaller chunk of chapter ? done.
Chapter ? doesn't have a number, because it wasn't in the original
outline.  But it's going to be excellent.  It's about converstion of
recursive functions to iterative functions, which turns out to be
fascinating, and ties together several major threads of computer
science.  I don't want to give away too much, but here's a teaser:
After years of saying that linked lists are not useful in Perl
(because arrays are more convenient) I have finally found a useful use
for them.  

I've also done a lot more research and reading; I've read 'On Lisp' by
Paul Graham, and a lot of papers.

But the big news is more abstract.  One of the biggest causes of delay
was my old job, as the managing editor of www.perl.com.  Every time I
wanted to work on the book, there would be a www.perl.com deadline
hanging over me, and I never got anything done.

This might have continued indefinitely, except that at the end of
December I got an offer to go to Hong Kong and Tokyo for five weeks to
do Perl training for Morgan Stanley.  This was a dilemma.  On the one
hand, it would pay a lot of money, and I had always wanted to visit
Hong Kong and Tokyo.  But on the other hand, I would not be able to
work on the book, and I also would not be able to work on
www.perl.com.

The solution to the dilemma was clear: Quit www.perl.com, go on the
trip, and work on the book when I got back.  I did this right away.

I got back six days ago.  Now the only work I have for the rest of the
year is a few conference appearances and a one-week teaching gig in
Boulder.  The rest of the time I will be writing. 

Thank you all for your patience.  I will probably be in touch again in
a week or two.