Over the past few months the Grants Committee has been working to improve our grants process. Our main problem is that we have a very low completion rate for grants. In the past couple of years only 25% of the grants awarded by the Grants Committee have been completed. Not surprisingly we feel that the current system should be changed. There are a number of different problems. We have been

The response to the call for paper for "YAPC::NA 2010":http://conferences.mongueurs.net/yn2010 has been excellent so far; however, it is quickly drawing to a close. You have one week left to "submit your talk":http://conferences.mongueurs.net/yn2010/newtalk for YAPC::NA 2010!

At our recent Board meeting Jim Brandt stepped down as President and Kurt DeMaagd stepped down as Treasurer. We would like to thank Jim and Kurt for all their hard work. Jim became President in July 2009 after holding the post of Vice-President and will continue to serve as a Director on the Board. Kurt has been Treasurer of TPF since it was created in September 2000. This is a

I am pleased to announce that Solomon Foster's Hague Grant application for "Numeric and Real Support":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2010/03/hague-grant-application-numeri.html#comments has been accepted. Jonathan Worthington has agreed to be the grant manager for this project. I would like to thank everyone who provided feedback on this proposal.

I am delighted to announce that TPF has been accepted as a mentoring organization for this year's "Google Summer of Code":http://socghop.appspot.com/. "Google Summer of Code":http://socghop.appspot.com/ is a program that offers stipends to student developers for writing code for open source software projects. Last year we had nine projects accepted and we would love to have more this year. "Jonathan Leto":http://leto.net/dukeleto.pl/ is our chief organizer and he is looking for "mentors":http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?gsoc_mentors

Ricardo began work on his grant at the beginning of the month and has made steady progress, completing the first two deliverables and has begun writing core tests, which should be done over the next few weeks. Has published status updates every few days so far and plans to continue doing so.

While TPF grant program has as its main goal the motivation of Perl users to perform new and challenging projects for the Perl Community, sometimes it fails. Fortunately it doesn't happen with all grantees and all the time. This time I am closing two grants from Vadim Konovalov: Tcl/Tk Access in Rakudo and Perl Cross-Compilation for WinCE and Linux We, at TPF, know that Vadim did some work on both

Curtis Jewell just sent TPF an update on his grant: The 5 main points of my grant, as far as releasing an improved Strawberry Perl, were: "Is compiled as a "merge module" file that can be included in other .msi files, as well as an independent .msi file." This was done as of the January 2010 release of Strawberry Perl, although I'm not publicizing it heavily until the April

Kieren is presently finalizing code for the new Perl Survey and plans to have the new system up and operating soon, when he will conduct a pilot program to shake out the kinks in the project. After that, all that remains is to react to the results of the pilot, run the survey proper, and analyze the final data gathered from it. The source code is currently visible on GitHub.

Earlier this year Renée Bäcker from "$foo":http://www.perl-magazin.de/ magazine interviewed Richard Dice and me to find out our thoughts on TPF in 2009 and our hopes going forward. An "English version":http://downloads.foo-magazin.de/InterviewTPF_III.pdf of the interview is available online.

I am pleased to announce that David Mitchell's "grant application":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2010/02/grant_proposal_fixing_perl5_co.html has been successful. I would like to thank all the community members who took time to provide feed-back on this proposal and "Booking.com":http://www.booking.com/ whose generous contribution to TPF has allowed us to fund this grant.

Alan Haggai's work on the Archive::Zip library is complete. Numerous onerous bugs have been corrected, and the library can now handle far more kinds of data. A developer release should reach the CPAN soon, hopefully to be followed in short order by a new complete release of the library.

We have received a Hague grant request, submitted by Solomon Foster. Before the Board votes on this proposal we would like to get feedback and endorsements from the Perl community. Please leave feedback in the comments or send email with your comments to karen at perlfoundation.org. Project Title: Numeric and Real Support Synopsis: This grant aims to refactor Rakudo's current numeric classes to support the Perl 6 specification's new Numeric

From "the YAPC::NA 2010 website":http://conferences.mongueurs.net/yn2010/: "YAPC::NA 2010 is actively searching for sponsorship, if you or your company would interested in being a sponsor please take a look at our "Executive Summary":http://conferences.mongueurs.net/yn2010/images/YAPC%20NA%20Executive%20Summary.pdf or "Sponsorship Prospectus":http://conferences.mongueurs.net/yn2010/images/YAPC%20NA%20Sponsorship%20Prospectus.pdf."

This was the oldest grant running. Ingy dot net was working intermittently on it presenting some of the results that were promised in the proposal but not them all. TPF and Ingy agreed to close the grant with a half payment for the work done. Ingy wrote a report on the work done. It can be read at https://www.socialtext.net/yaml/index.cgi?requiem_for_a_grant

For this quarter TPF had 7 grant proposals, from which 5 were voted for rejection, one for acceptance, and the final one will be kept for new evaluation in the next round. The five rejected grants are: "Creating a ctypes-Like Interface for Perl to External Subroutines":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2009/08/2009q3_grant_proposal_creating.html by Shlomi Fish "Enhancing CPANHQ":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2009/08/2009q3_grant_proposal_enhancin.html by Shlomi Fish "perl core memory improvements":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2010/02/2010q1_grant_proposal_perl_cor.html by Jim Cromie "Enhancing Perl 6 Pattern Matching":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2010/02/2010_grant_proposal_enhancing.html by Morris M. Siegel

Jonathan Worthington has successfully completed his Hague Grant for "Rakudo Signature Improvements":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2009/09/hague_grant_application_rakudo.html. This is his final report: Introduction A while back, I filed an "application":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2009/09/hague_grant_application_rakudo.html for a grant to work on a wide range of improvements to Rakudo's signature, capture and binding implementation, in order to improve performance, bring us in line with the specification and implement a range of features that we did not have support for. I have

The call for papers for "YAPC::NA 2010":http://conferences.mongueurs.net/yn2010 has been officially announced. This year's theme will be "Modern Perl". With a planned four parallel tracks each day, there are ample open slots for talks, so be sure to "submit yours today":http://conferences.mongueurs.net/yn2010/newtalk.

The "YAPC::NA 2010":http://conferences.mongueurs.net/yn2010/ website has been up for a while, but it is now officially integrated with "Act":http://act.mongueurs.net/. Be sure to visit soon, create an account if you don't already have one, and start getting ready for the conference. Remember that the conference is June 21st through 23rd 2010 at Ohio State University. Registration will be $100 which day-passes available. #yapc-2010-conference

David Mitchell has submitted a grant proposal, which if accepted would make use of a portion of the funding generously provided to TPF by "Booking.com":http://www.booking.com/. Before the Board votes on this proposal we would like to get feedback and endorsements from the Perl community. Please leave feedback in the comments or send email with your comments to karen at perlfoundation.org. Grant Title: Fixing perl5 core bugs Name: David Mitchell **Amount

For this quarter TPF has three grant proposals that were not funded in 2009Q3 round and that will be discussed and voted again in this round, and four new grant proposals: "Creating a ctypes-Like Interface for Perl to External Subroutines":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2009/08/2009q3_grant_proposal_creating.html by Shlomi Fish "Enhancing CPANHQ":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2009/08/2009q3_grant_proposal_enhancin.html by Shlomi Fish "perl core memory improvements":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2010/02/2010q1_grant_proposal_perl_cor.html by Jim Cromie "Enhancing Perl 6 Pattern Matching":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2010/02/2010_grant_proposal_enhancing.html by Morris M. Siegel "Perl Compiler":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2010/02/2010_grant_proposal_perl_compi.html by Reini urban "CPAN

perl core memory improvements Name: Jim Cromie Email: Amount Requested: How much is your project worth? $3000 Synopsis Memory allocation enhancements in core Perl's variable namespace model is very flexible, users can: create vars, in any package, or in my scope, by naming them; give them complex values: my $foo share/assign/shallow-copy them: $main::bar $foo; crosslink or self ref them: $a $a other hairy stuff This

Enhancing Perl 6 Pattern Matching with Ideas from Snobol4 and Other Sources Name: Morris M. Siegel, Ph.D. Email: Amount Requested: $3000 The substance of my proposed alternative pattern-matching specification has already been essentially worked out as a self-funded research project, as it were. I felt this project was of such importance that it was worthwhile giving myself a sort of sabbatical to develop it. It has taken rather longer than

Improve Dist::Zilla's Tests, Documentation, and Structure Name: Ricardo Signes Email: Amount Requested: $2000 Synopsis Dist::Zilla is a tool that helps Perl programmers build distributions for the CPAN. It eliminates boilerplate, handles packaging, interfaces with changelogs and version control, improves prerequisite management, and generally makes it easier to be a CPAN author. This grant will fund work to make it easier for new users to adopt Dist::Zilla and for Dist::Zilla itself

CPAN reviews Name: Alexandr Ciornii Email: Amount Requested: $1200 Synopsis Many CPAN modules have good documentation, many have bad documentation. But there is no such thing as enough documentation. There are many good reviews, examples, descriptions outside CPAN. I propose to collect them and cataloguize. I want to make a site with links to reviews of CPAN modules. In general this site should be community-moderated, community-edited and allow users adding

Perl Compiler Name: Reini urban Email: Duration: Until March 2011 Amount Requested: $1000 Synopsis Fix most of the remaining perl compiler, i.e. B::C, B::CC, B::Bytecode bugs. Improve documentation a bit. Maintain the planned compiler.perl.org site. Benefits to the Perl Community A working compiler. Faster startup time. Optionally faster run-time if the B::CC optimizations work out as expected. parrot? I've worked with them. I gave up. Better a half-ass perl5 compiler

NOTE: **perl.org Request Tracker was down for about a week As this happened in the last days of the call for grants period we are extending it till the end of the week The Perl Foundation is looking at giving some grants ranging from $500 to $3000 in February/March 2010. In the past, we've supported Adam Kennedy's PPI, Strawberry Perl and Perl on a Stick, Nicholas Clark's work on Perl

The dates for "YAPC::NA 2010":http://yapc2010.com/ were announced recently. The conference will be the week of June 20th 2010 at Knowlton Hall on the Campus of the Ohio State University. The primary conference days will be June 21st, 22nd, 23rd, but if history tells us anything, there will be events, classes, and hackathons spread out for days before and after the official conference. #perl-conference-yapc

I am pleased to announce that TPF will be represented for the first time this year at "CeBIT":http://www.cebit.de/homepage_e. The conference is taking place between the 2nd and 6th of March in Hannover, Germany. The events team is still looking for more volunteers to staff the booth. If you want to help out you'll find information on the "events mailing list":http://www.mail-archive.com/events@lists.perlfoundation.org/ and the "events wiki":http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?events.

Over the past few weeks discussions have been taking place on our Marketing list regarding different ways to promote Perl. One idea we are running with is promoting Perl at technical conferences where the main focus isn't Perl. Gabor has "announced":http://szabgab.com/blog/2009/12/1260171050.html that there will be a Perl booth at "FOSDEM":http://www.fosdem.org/2010/ in February next year. This is, hopefully, the first of many conferences that are targeted. To help co-ordinate our efforts

Eric Wilhelm has finished his grant "improving learn.perl.org":http://news.perlfoundation.org/mt/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=18&tag=learn.perl.org&limit=20". He has written six tutorials from "Getting Started with Perl" to "Your First GUI Desktop Application". The six tutorials are "Getting Started with Perl":http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com/tutorials/getting_started/ "Control, Structures, Scoping, and Subroutines":http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com/tutorials/csss/ "Using and Creating Modules":http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com/tutorials/modules/ "An Introduction to Objects":http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com/tutorials/objects/ "Perl/CPAN Configuration Howto":http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com/tutorials/configuration/ "Your First GUI Desktop Application":http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com/tutorials/wxperl/ The tutorials are currently hosted "http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com":http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com, but if Eric finds a better permanent home for them, he

Follows the update from Vadim on his grant: I've implemented 'call' method for interpreter object, which takes already parsed parameters and passes them to tcl/tk interpreter. It is similar to 'eval' method, but it should be faster, and also safer to use, because there will be no need to protect/escape special characters before calls. Also, widget calls to tcl/tk library are based on this method. Also, 'tk' widgets could be

Eric Roode sent the following update: bq. The status is basically that the writing is taking much, much longer than I had expected. I had thought I'd be able to document a couple classes per hour; instead, it's taking me a few hours per class. I don't really know what to do to speed up the process, so I am just continuing to plug along. At the rate I'm going,

Given my high amount of work at the moment and the big number of grants not finished I decided to skip the fourth call for grants for 2009. I am sorry for any inconvenience.

As you might have seen already, www.perl.org got a new look thanks to Foxtons and Leo Lapworth, Stephen Morgan and Cameron Richmond.

Over the last two weeks, Eric has done a lot of things... bq. I've added the "CPAN and Perl Configuration Howto" to the site. Feedback so far has been good. I'm waiting to hear if there are stumbling points or if it leaves any important questions unanswered. bq. "http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com/tutorials/configuration/":http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com/tutorials/configuration/ bq. The "Control, Structures, Scoping and Subroutines" tutorial is now complete. bq. "http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com/tutorials/csss/":http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com/tutorials/csss/ bq. I've finished writing the tutorials and am

The "Frozen Perl 2010":http://www.frozen-perl.org/mpw2010/ workshop is scheduled for Saturday, February 6th at the University of Minnesota's McNamara Alumni Center in Minneapolis, MN. The organizers just put out their "call for speakers":http://www.frozen-perl.org/mpw2010/cfs.html a day or so ago. If you have no fear of freezing temperatures and want to attend or speak at a great Perl workshop, check it out. Also, the are still "looking for sponsors":http://www.frozen-perl.org/mpw2010/sponsorship.html if you'd like to help

It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce, on behalf of Ricardo Signes, that the TPF-funded work on Pod::Elemental and Pod::Weaver is complete! Here's his final report: Just a few days after predicting that the months-old grant was half done, it became quite clear that the first half was much, much more difficult than the second. The initial grant proposal listed the following targets: clearly defined and

Eric sent me this update: bq. I've sent a handful of changes to Robert and have been asked not to change the page style as apparently there's some other initiative going on. bq. The perl-org-patches list has generated some conflicting changes for the new /tutorials/ page as well as the index.html and I'm trying to resolve that content. The "learnperl.scratchcomputing.com":http://learnperl.scratchcomputing.com front page has a sketch of where I'm wanting the

After a strong start, work on Pod::Elemental and Pod::Weaver was quickly derailed by conference season, and then by a few non-technical distractions. I've gotten back to work, though, and quite a lot of progress has been made. The second major goal, "extensive tests for Pod::Elemental," is basically complete. Pod::Elemental is fairly well defined, documented, and tested, and can now be used to perform significant document mangling. The "PodPurler" for Dist::Zilla

Now that I've joined the Board of Directors for the Perl Foundation, my first action was to propose a marketing committee be set up and the board approved the proposal. It's an ambitious goal, but a useful one. In the past, we've merely had a single PR person such as Andy Lester or Joshua McAdams. The problem with this approach is that there is simply too much for them to

Kieren Diment reports that the Perl Survey is ready for deployment. He's been hardening the application against abuse by bots, simplifying the original set of demographic questions, and writing new survey questions. Kieren hopes to be freer from distraction as work continues through the end of the year.

This year's Google Summer of Code has ended. We would like to thank "Jonathan Leto":http://leto.net/dukeleto.pl/, the mentors, and the students for all their hard work. Jonathan has written an excellent summary of the project, "Perls of Wisdom: The Perl Foundation Parrot's Google Summer of Code":http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/10/perls-of-wisdom-perl-foundation-parrots.html, and the code is also "available":http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code-2009-tpf/downloads/list. We hope to participate in this project again next year and if you are interested in working with us

Eric sent this update: bq. I've written Combust::Spontaneously to make it possible for anyone to get a local apache-less server running perl.org's templating system in under 5 minutes. It is now on the CPAN. bq. With that, I've been doing some work on the stylesheet and navigation on the combust templates from learn.perl.org and starting to port some of my content into it. bq. --Eric More info about this

As part of a renewed effort to expand the membership of the "Board":http://www.perlfoundation.org/who_s_who we are pleased to announce the addition of Curtis "Ovid" Poe as our newest Director. Ovid is not new to The Perl Foundation, having been involved with the grants committee since 2003, and we are delighted that he is willing to take on this role. His first task will be to work with Dan Magnuszewski to expand

Every year during conference season, we assess positions in TPF that we need to fill and take advantage of in-person meetings at conferences to try to find candidates. Now that we've worked through that cycle, I'm happy to announce some volunteers in new positions. Josh McAdams is moving from PR to Conference Chair and anyone who enjoyed the 2 YAPC::NAs in Chicago knows he's a natural for this position. Long-time

Jonathan Worthington writes: Introduction bq. If it weren't for the fact that you said you were going to do it, I would've doubted it could be done at all in current Parrot. pmichaud In many senses, this "Hague Grant":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2009/04/hague_perl_6_grant_request_tra.html was rather more challenging than my "last one":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2008/11/hague_grant_request_rakudo_dis.html. In the course of it, I've been dealing with major changes to some of the things most fundamental to any Perl

Below is the latest Hague grant request, submitted by Jonathan Worthington. Please feel free to comment below. h2. Project Title Rakudo Signature Improvements h2. Synopsis This grant aims to increase correctness, completeness, stability and performance of Rakudo's implementation of signatures and signature binding. h2. Benefits to Perl 6 Development Rakudo has continued to make impressive progress in recent months, and recently the Rakudo team, of which I am a part,

Dear all, sorry for the delay. August was a complicated month. It is the Conference month and the Vacation month. But I think it was worth waiting for. This quarter TPF will fund three grants: "Corporate, Embedded, and Multi-user Perl on Windows":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2009/08/2009q3_grant_proposal_corporat.html by Curtis Jewell. This grant will be co-funded by TPF and Adam Kennedy. "wxPerl documentation":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2009/08/wxperl_documentation.html by Eric J. Roode. "Changing the Perl 5 optree build process into a

This is the last post presenting a report for all grants at once. Future reports will be posted by respective grant managers whenever they have relevant news. TPF expects grantees to report at least once each month. If you are a grantee, please, easy the task of your grant manager sharing news with him. If you are a grant manager and your grantee does not report for a long time,