Perl Hacks

Chapter 2. User Interaction

Hacks 12-18

Without users, there'd be few reasons to write programs. Without users—and this includes you—there'd be few bugs reported for weird error messages, strange behaviors, and classic "What were you thinking and why did it do that?" moments.

Your programs don't have to be that way. You can make your users happy, make your code work where it has to work, and even make pretty graphics with Perl, all by mastering a few tricks and tips. When your program has to interact with a real person somewhere, do it with style. People may not notice when your code just stays out of their way, but you'll know by their happy glows of productivity.

Hack #12. Use $EDITOR As Your UI

Nothing beats your favorite editor for editing text.

If you live on the command line and have a reputation for turning your favorite beverage^[1] into code, you're likely pretty handy on the keyboard. If you're a relentless automator, you probably have dozens of little programs and aliases to make your life easier.

Sometimes they need arguments. Yet beyond a certain point, prompting for arguments every time or inventing more and more command-line options just doesn't work anymore. Before you resign yourself to the fate of writing a little GUI or a web frontend, consider using a more comfortable user interface instead—your preferred text editor.

The Hack

Suppose you have a series of little programs for updating your web site. Your workflow is to create a small YAML file with a new ...