Just a quick update about the grant applications for May, 2006. Regrettably, no applications were approved. We generally don't publish the rejected applications because we don't want to make the applicants feel awkward, but I do have the unenviable task of informing the applicants not only that their grants were not approved, but also giving them a rough summary of why the grants were not approved. For this round, it

Between Parrot and Pugs Perl 6 is slowly but surely getting to a state where it's actually usable. We created the first mailing list for "Perl6 users". Eventually most of the regular perl mailing lists will be for both Perl 5 and Perl 6 users, but for now it makes sense to have a list specifically for users of Perl 6 Subscribe by sending a mail to perl6-users-subscribe@perl.org

Jeremy Fluhmann responded to my Call for Venue post saying he'd be interested to see the other bids when they get posted. This brings up a good point: when should the bids be made public? My thought was that they would be made public after the Conferences Committee has selected the host group. This allows people to see what we voted on and it's a good reference for next year.

Can't figure out how you're going to get to Chicago for YAPC::NA this year and wish it was in your city? Want to meet Perl luminaries, but aren't sure how? Want to contribute to Perl without writing a new MVC framework? If you answer yes to at least two of these questions, you might be just the person we want to host YAPC next year. But you can't host if

Josh McAdams and Pete Krawczyk have just released the YAPC::NA 2006 schedule on the conference website. This year there will be four rooms of talks going on for the three days of the conference. We are lucky enough to have both Larry Wall and Damian Conway giving keynote addresses. Of course, there will be a lot of Perl 6, Pugs, and Parrot talks, was well as the usual barrage of

"Allison":http://www.theperlreview.com/Interviews/allison-randal-20060412.html posted the "Artistic License 2.0 public review":http://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/20/2042256 announcement to use.perl.org today. bq.. Part of the Perl 6 RFC process in 2000 identified the need to update the Artistic License 211 and 346 From 2000-2001, a group of interested Perl users on the perl6-licenses mailing list worked on a first draft of an updated Artistic License. In 2003, The Perl Foundation started an extensive review process with independent legal counsel

Something I think we can all do in the Perl community is help spread the knowledge of how to use this marvelous tool. There are so many layers to the onion, and some people may only know about the outermost layer. The other day I saw an entry in Erica Sadun's blog where she'd hacked together a quick Perl program for some user interaction that then generates URLs and fires

Here's the latest status update for Nicholas Clark's Improve Perl 5 grant. As usual, he's gotten quite a bit done. Completed "Reblessing references interacts badly with overloading" For blead I've moved the flag for "overloading" from the reference to the referent, which logically is where it should always have been. This isn't binary compatible, so isn't a viable solution for 5.8.x. For that, the flag stays in the same place,

The Pittsburgh Perl Mongers are pleased to announce The PITTSBURGH PERL WORKSHOP a one-day, low-cost conference on Saturday, September 23, 2006. This year's theme is "Perl at Work." The Pittsburgh Perl Workshop is modeled after the highly successful Perl workshops held in Europe over the last several years. The day is designed to provide you with a comfortable, exciting, and enjoyable learning experience. The Workshop

A recent thread in the London.pm mailing list got people saying that they wanted to donate some time to The Perl Foundation, but didn't know where their efforts could be used. Here are two places to start: Jim Brandt, who organized YAPC::NA 2004 in Buffalo, is looking for volunteers to help with a Perl-based conference system. See his TPF blog post for details I'm looking for someone to write up

Every year the group of past recipients gives out three new "White Camel Awards":http://www.perl.org/advocacy/white_camel/ to recognize a few of the many people who give their time and energy to help the Perl community. Since we don't know nearly as many of the contributors and contributions as we'd like, we are looking for input on who should be considered. Keywords: Community service Unsung heroes better than well known ones

As TPF Conferences Chair, I try to help eager, excited organizers put together a YAPC. Ever since I ran YAPC in Buffalo in 2004 I've wanted to put together something called Conference::Toolkit that would solve all of the YAPC web-site needs. Well, given my TPF duties, I honestly don't have the time to do this right. And I want it done right. I want to put together the best conference

I've been remiss in noting that YAPC::Asia::2006 is right around the corner. But if you're in Tokyo and want to go, it appears you're a bit too late. They've sold out! They have a great line-up of talks and speakers If you're already registered, have fun!

This year YAPC::Brasil will be held April 19-22, 2006 in Porto Alegre/RS, Brazil in conjunction with the 7th International Free Software Forum From what I've heard, FISL

I have just received the first report for Nicholas Clark's grant. So far, things are going rather well. Read on to see what Nicholas has done. I've completed the planned typeglob structure shrinking. This turned out to be somewhat more complex than I expected. Specifically: Discovered that PVGVs use magic to perform stringification. Removed this need for magic, saving 24 bytes. Discovered that pads use PVGVs for storing C variable

One of the grants the grant committee approved last year was to extend PPI towards a refactoring editor. At that time, we didn't have procedures in place to take the grant reports and post them to a common spot. Now that we have this blog, our intention is to post these reports regularly so you can see the bang you're getting for your buck. What follows is Adam Kennedy's report

In Toronto last year, there was a pre-YAPC hack-a-thon that brought together many of the Perl 6 coders in person, which can be very productive. TPF provided $600 US to cover costs, and as you can tell by the amount, the group worked as low-budget as possible. Right now, the week before OSDC Israel they are

Only one grant was approved this quarter, but it's fantastic. Nicholas Clark, the current 5.8 Pumpking has applied for an $11,000 grant to improve Perl 5. Some of what he intends to do: Fix bugs affecting Unicode handling, Class::DBI, Tk and PAR. Allow relocatable Perl installations, which permits developers to distribute applications complete with a bundled Perl. Support source filters as part of code references in @INC

From time to time people decide to leave the grant committee and new members join. Recently, Nicholas Clark, a long-time grant committee member, decided to step down. He'll be missed as his knowledge of both Perl and the community are extensive. However, we wound up electing two new grant committee members, Thomas Klausner and Ben Tilly. On the off chance you don't know who they are, I suppose I should

Sometimes people might question the tangible value of going to a conference. You're out of the office for a few days, so you lose that work time. You attend a ton of sessions and you're drinking from a fire hose, so after about half a day you feel totally overwhelmed. Does any of it stick? I can tell you for sure that it does. The other day someone in my