A huge number of Perl users can trace their initial coding efforts back to O'Reilly's Learning Perl, now available in its 7th edition. The easy introduction and smooth tour of basic features through more powerful ones made it easy to get started, all with a focus on getting things done. brian d foy, well known in the Perl community and one of the authors of Learning Perl, has launched a

As Mark Keating reported earlier this month, Karen Pauley has stepped down as TPF president after a very successful tenure. Karen served for an amazing 6+ years and did a fantastic job. I'd like to join Mark and many other people in the Perl Community in thanking Karen for all of her work. She has truly set a high bar for the president role. As some might recall, Karen took

I'm happy to announce that Heath Bair is our new Conferences Committee Chair. Heath was the organizer for YAPC::NA in Columbus in 2010 and he has remained passionate about YAPCs ever since. I'm looking forward to him bringing that passion to one of the most active committees in TPF. Please join me in congratulating Heath on his new role!

Josh McAdams is stepping down as conferences chair, so TPF is now accepting self-nominations for this role. This is a great opportunity to help the Perl community and is one of the key roles that can have a huge impact without writing code. You can take a look at the expectations for the role on the "conference roles page":http://www.perlfoundation.org/conferences_committee_roles. If you're interested, answer the questions at the bottom of the

I'm happy to announce that YAPC::NA in 2013 will be in Austin. We had two great locations to choose from, especially from the perspective of other interesting things to do outside the conference. Details and dates will be coming shortly. Congratulations to the Austin group!

Posting the bid submitted by Erica Baum for Austin to host YAPC::NA::2013. Austin YAPC Proposal.pdf

Posting the bid submitted by Mark Prather for Orlando to host YAPC::NA::2013. yapc2013 proposal.pdf

Going to be at OSCON this year? The Perl track will have the traditional lightning talk session along with Larry's State of the Onion. If you've got something to share, you've got 2 days left to "submit your lightning talk":http://bit.ly/NhdLEs to give everyone your 5 minutes of wisdom on Thursday evening. TPF will also have a booth at the expo, so stop by and say hi.

To give a few interested groups more time to prepare and submit their bids for this year, we're extending the deadline to July 1. You can see details on how to submit in "previous posts":http://news.perlfoundation.org/2012/04/yapcna-2013-call-for-venue.html. If you're at "YAPC::NA":http://yapcna.org right now and you're interested, you should attend Dan Wright's talk "So, you want to run a Perl event?":http://act.yapcna.org/2012/talk/107 and attend the "YAPC BOF":http://act.yapcna.org/2012/wiki?node=YAPC%20BOF.

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