[plug] Perth.pm && Mandurah.pm

[Matthew Robinson]

From: Bernard Blackham <bernard at blackham.com.au> on Wednesday, March 13,
2002 10:43 PM


> On Wed, Mar 13, 2002 at 12:48:29PM +0800, Matthew Robinson wrote:
> > Having talked to a few people last night at the meeting I found that
quite a
> > few people in Perth are using perl but I get the impression that support
(in
> > the form of a local user group) seems to be lacking :(
>
> Perhaps it could be another SIG (Special Interest Group) branch of
> PLUG? A couple of SIGs were recently established for Professional
> App Development and the like, IIRC. Instead of forming a whole new
> user group, I think it'd be more suited to a SIG with it's own
> discussion list and lil' get togethers.
>
> Opinions?

I was thinking that the formation of a SIG might be the way to go.  Even if
we were to form a perl SIG I would still consider calling it Perth.pm
(assuming that Perth.pm really has died) because there is an existing
international support structure for perl user groups (ie Perl Mongers) that
would be useful.

I would like to state upfront that perl is being used on platforms other
than Linux (ie Windows) and that any perl SIG formed within PLUG would have
to accept perl users coming from all platforms ;)

> I'm not a perl fanatic. I know enough to get by with - most of my
> quick hacks that bash isnt good enough for, I resort to Perl. I'd be
> interested in seeing how more serious people use the thing though :)

The impression I got talking to people at the meeting yesterday and reading
the mailing list is that there are a number of people like yourself who are
quite capable using perl but would be interested to learn more.

A lot of people come to perl because they know that it is the tool that they
can use to get their problem solved.  However, it can be difficult to move
past the point of simply using perl and obtaining a fuller understanding of
the language.

I'll also say right now that the really interesting stuff being done with
perl is not at all serious ;) and this is one of the reasons that I like
using perl.  It is such an adaptable and extensible language that you can
write your scripts in Latin (if you're so inclined) [1].

I realise that the majority of people using perl are trying to get real
world work done and for this a support network would be useful, eg mailing
lists, informal gatherings and technical lectures etc.  However, I believe
that one of the best ways to learn how to use a language like perl is to
look at the ways you can do really funky stuff and technical lectures on how
modules such as Symbol::Approx::Sub [2] work are an informative learning
tool as they give an insight into the internal workings of the language.

I would be interested to know how many people would be interested in a perl
SIG should it be formed.  I realise that I am the new boy in town and I
don't want to tread on anybody else's toes but I would be interested in
forming/being a part of any SIG for perl.

Matt

[1] Damian Conway's Lingua::Romana::Perligata, available from your local
CPAN mirror.

[2] Symbol::Approx::Sub is a module which allows perl to work out which
subroutine you intended to call even though you misspelled it :)

--
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&&s&$&#!uojsq&&s&(.)&chr(ord($1)-1)&ge&s&(.*)&reverse $1&see