Recap: May 9th Meeting

by admin on May 10th, 2007

First of all, a big thanks to everyone who came out to the first meeting of the new Vancouver.pm. There were just under 20 people present, including visitors from out of town. After eating some pizza (thanks, ActiveState!) and washing it down with some beverages (thanks, Sophos!), we got started.

Luke Closs began with an excerpt of his upcoming YAPC::NA talk, Hacktastic Wiki Tricks. Luke gave an overview of several of the tools that he’s written for accessing the Socialtext wiki software, all of which are made possible by using an innovative REST API. Be sure to check out Luke’s pages on Hacktastic Wiki Tricks, as well as his wikrad screencast.

Kirsten Jones was up next, briefly showing off how The Perl Foundation’s website will soon be powered by a wiki while maintaining its current styling. After this, she talked about OpenID, with examples of usage and a short discussion on how to implement OpenID in Perl.

Next was an impromptu (but much appreciated) talk by Ingy döt Net, discussing his well-used module YAML, his work on YAML2, and a discussion of various community efforts related to YAML, such as libyaml, YAML::Syck, and JSON::Syck.

After a brief intermission (with much socializing and pizza), we sat back down to listen to the final speaker, Bill Odom, president of The Perl Foundation (TPF). Bill started off with a bit of an overview of TPF, discussing its mission, grant system, and other interesting tidbits. Bill then opened up the floor to questions, and gave in-depth answers to queries about everything from TPF financials to Perl 6.

Thanks again to all of our presenters and attendees. I haven’t decided if meetings will be monthly or bi-monthly over the summer, but either way you can either check out this website or the mailing list for details.

May 9th Meeting

by admin on April 17th, 2007

Updated: May 04

I’d like to organize a meeting for Wednesday, May 9th, at the Sophos offices (580 Granville Street, downtown Vancouver). I’m thinking 7pm for a start time, and I’ll try to organize some sponsorship for pizza or some other edible. I’ve already got one or two ideas for presentations, but anyone who would like to present something, from a 5 minute lightning talk to a 30 minute in-depth talk, please let me know.

The current presentation roster is as follows (this will be updated as news becomes available). Email the Mailing List if you’d like to present!

Matthew O’Connor - REST::Application
Kirsten Jones - OpenID in Socialtext
Chris Dent, Matt Liggett, Matthew O’Connor, Kirsten Jones, Zac Bir - Amo

And finally, Bill Odom, president of The Perl Foundation, will be on hand to answer any questions about the state of the Perl community.

Of course, if anyone has any ideas for a short talk about anything perl related, we’ll likely have time for some other presentations.

ActiveState has offered to pick up the tab for some pizza, and Sophos will be providing drinks and other snacks. To get an idea as to how much food I should order, could you please either leave a comment or email me directly at “vancouverpm AT chrissimmons DOT ca” if you are attending. I hope to see you all there!

Vancouver Hackathon

by admin on April 17th, 2007

There’s going to be a hackathon at the Bryght offices (in Gastown) on Friday, May 11th, from 1pm to 1am. There are already quite
a few people signed up, and it promises to be a great opportunity to
hack and meet other Perl hackers. You can RSVP on the Socialtext open source wiki.

(Socialtext is a Palo Alto based Wiki company that employs a lot of
talented perl programmers, and they’re helping plan the hackathon as part of a week long company excursion in Vancouver.)