Perl - The language of the future.

This is the second article based upon my that I presented this year and is part of a series of articles on the Terrible Things We All Must Do. One of the points I made in my Daisy Chain article last week was the need to link to each other in our blogs and social media locales. So I have resolved myself to lead by example and to try and do that as much as I can. To this end I will be attempting to blog to Ironman twice a week from now on (when necessary) so that I can link to and discuss other peoples blogs and the groovy things I r[...]

This is the first article based upon my that I presented this year and is part of a series of articles on the Terrible Things We All Must Do. While I was writing this article I was also checking the web and eagerly awaiting the keynote from Apple and their possible latest release, I know I am such a fracking fanboi or something, or maybe I just like cool devices, slinky sci-fi-esque toys - look I am a child of the 70s, this is all futuristic to me man. Also, Bubble Wrap is 50 years old today, so much fun from something so simple as[...]

Last Saturday was the Perl Oasis conference in Orlando Florida arranged, orchestrated and conducted by the Orlando Perl Mongers in the fleshy guise of Chris and Jamie (notice how those two names could be used by either of them?).

The Organisers looking busy The conference is a relatively small affair attracting a core group of presenters and attendees numbering approximately 30 people, and one might think that this lessens the importance in the face of larger workshops and the continental YAPCs, but I say 'nay' a[...]

SO it is just a few short days, nerve-bitingly it is less than 3 days, to the wonderful held in the - hopefully - sunny city of Orlando in Florida. I am biting my nails because I rather foolishly jumped into the fray and declared, "yes, I shall do a for you muhahahaha," what a plonker. So what is my on? Well you might well ask and I might well answer. Actually I am sort of going to answer, maybe... I have decided to talk a little about some of the 'Horrible Things' that we in the community must do, and the terrible word that links[...]

Last week I spoke about the rather magnificent [1] and in the continuation of a theme[2] this week I am going to talk about some of the magnificent chaps and chapesses of North West England Perl Mongers and their associated brethren[3]. It has been a year since Ian Norton () and I (, , ) formed the group[4], and one of our aims in starting the group was to "do good things for Perl and the community". Of course our very first task was to get some regular members. The "good things" we wanted to do were to promote Perl in the local re[...]

Last week the very well-known and indominable force of nature that is Dave Cross was kind enough to mention Matt and I in a list of people in his article who had done good work in 2009 for the Perl community. Specifically he mentioned the work we did on the . I found this strangely humbling as I have a great deal of respect for Dave Cross and so in return I will try to capture a little of the impact of this man. Dave is the founder of the and has been a principal force in both the bringing into being of the conferences and the. He[...]

This week I am blogging from a line at Paris, Disney. Actually right now I am back in my room and typing this to you but I was in a line when I made notes about this. Why am I in Paris and why Disney? Well the Paris is easy, it is an exotic and beautiful city and visiting it at this time of year is wonderful, it was the first foreign location I went to alone with my wife when we were first dating and therefore holds a special place in my heart. Why Disney, well my wife, like her mother, is a Disneyphillic, she adores the place and he[...]

Saturday 12th December was the 6th Technical meeting of the year and for this month we decided to have a happy Hackathon. So we gathered in the office of who were sponsoring the event with snacks, pizza and beer (as well as a temperamental net connection from a crappy ISP).

[The collection of snacks]

Our goal was to make decent inroads into a new archive for the ironman challenge in Perl that will become a much grander project as time goes on. To do this we would be taking ther current Plagger install and[...]

So the hustings are over and the bunting has been pulled down and we close the books, looks and sack the cooks as we say farewell to another London Perl Workshop for another year. But what a great year it has been. So as the organiser and I am privileged (and not just duty bound) to once again offer the thanks and express the gratitude to all the people who made the London Perl Workshop the great event it was once again this year.

(Some of the paraphernalia that is created for the conference) Firstly to all the speakers for [...]

But its not perls fault.... its mine, I suppose. No scratch that, its PHP's fault. Damn it too hell indeed! So let me fill you in on some back story. Once upon a time, about a year back, I was all unemployed and that, and wanted to do some kind of career change, from nothing (previously call centre/builder/bar staff) to something that paid pretty well, so I figured web developers get a lot of money, and theres a lot of room for promotion etc. Now, already possesing all the programming skillz known to man, I figured this would be e[...]