Perl Weekly #655 - What's new in Perl and on CPAN? What's new in Italy?
Tags: perl, news, programming
Published: 2024-02-12 06:16:51

---
title: Perl Weekly #655 - What's new in Perl and on CPAN? What's new in Italy?
published: true
description: 
tags: perl, news, programming
canonical_url: https://perlweekly.com/archive/655.html
series: perl-weekly
---

Originally published at [Perl Weekly 655](https://perlweekly.com/archive/655.html)


Hi there!

After a hiatus of 4 years, it seems the "What's new on CPAN" series is back on <a href="https://www.perl.com/">perl.com</a>. Apparently there was already one published December 20 <a href="https://www.perl.com/article/what-s-new-on-cpan-november-2023/">What's new on CPAN - November 2023</a> and then one on January 9, 2023 <a href="https://www.perl.com/article/what-s-new-on-cpan-december-2023">What's new on CPAN - December 2023</a>. Thanks to Mathew Korica.

If you'd like to know what's going on with Perl, I'd suggest you watch the presentation of Paul Evans from the recent FOSDEM: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATbmoP34zRs">Updates from the PSC</a>

And a last minute notification I received from Michele Beltrame that made me quite happy: After some years of stagnant activity, we opened a <b>Telegram</b> group for the Italian Perl community. Link from the web site of the <a href="https://www.perl.it/">Italian Perl Mongers</a>.

Enjoy your week!

  --
  Your editor: Gabor Szabo.


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---

## Articles

  
### [Vulnerable Perl Spreadsheet Parsing modules](https://blogs.perl.org/users/timothy_legge/2024/02/vulnerable-perl-spreadsheet-parsing-modules.html)

Between Dec 2023 and Jan 2024, vulnerabilities in Spreadsheet::ParseExcel and Spreadsheet::ParseXLSX were reported to the CPAN Security Group (CPANSec).  This document describes the timeline and analysis of events.

  
### [Preload Data::Printer and avoid polluting your code with debug symbols ](https://dev.to/smonff/preload-dataprinter-and-avoid-polluting-your-code-with-debug-symbols-4h5a)

How to avoid 'use Data::Printer' and still use Data::Printer?

  
### [What's new on CPAN - November 2023](https://www.perl.com/article/what-s-new-on-cpan-november-2023/)



  
### [What's new on CPAN - December 2023](https://www.perl.com/article/what-s-new-on-cpan-december-2023/)



  
### [Module that returns the magic of the file](https://www.reddit.com/r/perl/comments/1ak7etg/module_that_returns_the_magic_of_the_file/)



  
### [Demand Data::Printer to dump politely if it doesn't want to](https://dev.to/smonff/demand-dataprinter-to-dump-politely-if-it-doesnt-want-to-5hdh)



  
### [Using peppers with Crypt::Passphrase](https://blogs.perl.org/users/leon_timmermans/2024/02/using-peppers-with-cryptpassphrase.html)

Crypt::Passphrase is a module for managing passwords. It allows you to separate policy and mechanism, meaning that the code that polices authorization doesn’t have to know anything about what algorithms are used behind the screen, and vice-versa; thus making for a cryptographically agile system.

  
### [Feature release 1.36 of the Date::Holidays Perl distribution](https://dev.to/jonasbn/feature-release-136-of-the-dateholidays-perl-distribution-79a)

Triggered by yet another contribution from Wesley Schwengle (waterkip) Jonas announces the release 1.36 of the Date::Holidays Perl distribution.

  

---

## The Weekly Challenge
<a href="https://theweeklychallenge.org">The Weekly Challenge</a> by <a href="http://www.manwar.org">Mohammad Anwar</a> will help you step out of your comfort-zone. We pick one champion at the end of the month from among all of the contributors during the month.
  
### [The Weekly Challenge - 256](https://theweeklychallenge.org/blog/perl-weekly-challenge-256)

Welcome to a new week with a couple of fun tasks "Maximum Pairs" and "Merge Strings". If you are new to the weekly challenge then why not join us and have fun every week. For more information, please read the <a href="https://theweeklychallenge.org/faq">FAQ</a>.

  
### [RECAP - The Weekly Challenge - 255](https://theweeklychallenge.org/blog/recap-challenge-255)

Enjoy a quick recap of last week's contributions by Team PWC dealing with the "Odd Character" and "Most Frequent Word" tasks in Perl and Raku. You will find plenty of solutions to keep you busy.

  
### [TWC255](https://deadmarshal.blogspot.com/2024/02/twc255.html)

Impressive use of map, good job done. Keep it up.

  
### [Mostly Odd](https://raku-musings.com/mostly-odd.html)

Use of bag is ideal for this week task. Raku rocks !!!

  
### [PWC 255 Odd character cordoctahedra and the most most most frequent word word](https://dev.to/boblied/pwc-255-odd-character-cordoctahedra-and-the-most-most-most-frequent-word-word-22fl)

Enjoy more than one way to solve the challenge. Truly Perl TIMTOWTDI.

  
### [Preel Weeakly](https://jacoby.github.io/2024/02/05/preel-weeakly-weekly-challenge-255.html)

Remember 11111111 is binary of week 255 and is the largest integer which can be represented by one byte.

  
### [Perl Weekly Challenge: Week 255](https://www.braincells.com/perl/2024/02/perl_weekly_challenge_week_255.html)

Thorough and detailed discussion of Raku based solution, not to be missed. Keep it up great work.

  
### [Frequent Oddities](https://github.sommrey.de/blog/pwc/challenge-255)

Once again CPAN module List::UtilsBy makes the life fun as shown in this week solution. Thanks for sharing.

  
### [Perl Weekly Challenge 255: Odd Character](https://blogs.perl.org/users/laurent_r/2024/02/perl-weekly-challenge-255-odd-character.html)

Raku powerful features make the end result a cool one liner. You must check it out.

  
### [Perl Weekly Challenge 255: Most Frequent Word](https://blogs.perl.org/users/laurent_r/2024/02/perl-weekly-challenge-255-most-frequent-word.html)

Regex, every programmer's friend, once again helping to solve the task. Great work.

  
### [Banned Words and Exceeding Letters](https://fluca1978.github.io/2024/02/05/PerlWeeklyChallenge255.html)

BagHash? Never heard before but then I hardly scratch the surface. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

  
### [Perl Weekly Challenge 255](https://wlmb.github.io/2024/02/05/PWC255/)

For all Perl fans, here we have solutions in Perl full of magical features. Well done.

  
### [Odd Char Seems to be the Most Frequent Word](https://packy.dardan.com/2024/02/08/perl-weekly-challenge-4/)

I find the switch between Perl and Raku is fun to watch. What a great story teller is Packy !!

  
### [An odd character’s nearly best word](http://ccgi.campbellsmiths.force9.co.uk/challenge/255)

Perl one liner is showing off the power. Keep it up great work.

  
### [The Weekly Challenge #255](https://hatley-software.blogspot.com/2024/02/robbie-hatleys-solutions-to-weekly.html)

Sometimes, you don't need to look anywhere for the solution, just follow the straight path as discussed on the post.

  
### [Most Frequently Odd Character](https://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2024/02/The_Weekly_Challenge_255__Most_Frequently_Odd_Character.html)

My favourite is the Postscript solution this week and surprising not too hard to follow, thanks for sharing.

  
### [The most odd thing](https://dev.to/simongreennet/the-most-odd-thing-4cjo)

Really enjoy the method signature and return type on Python. I wish Perl had this too.

  
### [PWC 255](https://thiujiac.blogspot.com/2024/02/pwc-255.html)

Perl 4 and Python 1.4? I salute the patience to deal with them. Keep it up great work.

  

---

## Perl

  
### [This Week in PSC (135) | 2024-02-08](https://blogs.perl.org/users/psc/2024/02/this-week-in-psc-135-2024-02-08.html)



  
### [YouTube: Updates from the PSC (FOSDEM 2024)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATbmoP34zRs)



  

---

## Weekly collections

  
### [NICEPERL's lists](http://niceperl.blogspot.com/)

<a href="https://niceperl.blogspot.com/2024/02/cdlxxxii-9-great-cpan-modules-released.html">Great CPAN modules released last week</a>;<br><a href="">MetaCPAN weekly report</a>;<br><a href="">StackOverflow Perl report</a>.

  

---

## Static Site Generator

  
### [Create your own knowledge base](https://ssg.code-maven.com/)

You might know the <a href="https://perlmaven.com/">Perl Maven</a> site. On one hand it is a blog, on the other hand it is a collection of little pieces of examples I collected. I had quite a few cases when I had to repeat some task various times at various clients. I collected the solution on the Perl Maven site and that helped me find these solutions when I needed again. Making my knowledge base public also helped a few other people. Recently I started to rewrite it as a Static web site and the <a href="https://rust.code-maven.com/">Rust Maven</a> along with a few other sites already uses the Static Site Generator. A few days ago the first person who is not me started to use it. It might be time to invite you too to give it a try!

  

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(C) Copyright [Gabor Szabo](https://szabgab.com/)
The articles are copyright the respective authors.