Hi,
Is anyone from this group attending LISA in
San Diego next week? If so, shall we get together?
Will
Tim Maher/CONSULTIX <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> FYI Trainers,
>
> > Tim Maher, your "Minimal Perl for the Impatient" BOF has
> > been scheduled for:
>
> > Date: Wednesday, July 25
> > Time: 9-10 pm
> > Location: Grande Ballroom A (East)
> > Topic: Minimal Perl for the Impatient
> > Moderator: Tim Maher, Consultix
>
> > Summary:
> > Many beginners don't want "More Than One Way to Do
> > It", just the "Easiest Way". Tim's "Minimal Perl"
> > dialect, based on AWK's "Pattern/Action" model,
> > covers the necessary skills for writing File
> > Conversion, Data Validation, and Report Generation
> > programs. He'll describe the current dialect, and
> > then lead a brainstorming session about possible
> > improvements to make Perl even more accessible to
> > newbies.
>
> <More Background>
>
> I was surprised at the large turnout for my SPUG talk
> earlier this week, in which I introduced my "Minimal
> Perl" dialect for beginners. It was unusually large
> (nearly 40) for a "standard speaker" (me) during great
> Seattle summer weather (not unusual; I MEAN, it always
> rains, don't move here!). I thought at first they might
> have been expecting some wacky Aussie bloke instead
> (that's next month), but there was no mistake, they
> were "minimalists" with strong Perl cravings!
>
> This confirmed my notion that there are many people out
> there who would like to learn some Perl, but feel put
> off by the complexity and "eccentricity", shall I say,
> of the language. So I'm working on a distillation
> of the most powerful but easy to understand and use
> features, to define a new "dialect", in the hope of
> making things easier for many newbies. (Guess what!
> So far, it looks a lot like AWK -- but with better
> regexes!)
>
> Just wanted to let you all know that I've scheduled a
> BOF on this subject for TPC on Wednesday night, 9-10,
> and I'd be very grateful to hear the ideas of other
> Perl trainers on this subject. (I know that clashes
> with Nat's JAM BOF, but I had no choice, sorry!)
>
> Somewhat along these lines, but with different goals,
> I'm also interested in talking about having the
> compiler enforce 2 or 3 dialects of Perl (e.g., Basic,
> Intermediate, Advanced) in part to make MIS managers
> more comfortable about the possibility of having one
> programmer maintain code written by another. The other
> reason is to make newbie mistakes like the following
> compile-time errors;
>
> @A={ 'a', 'b' } ; # Warning: odd number of initializers!
>
> I know the idea of "graded" language levels has also occurred
> to Nat, and probably to other trainers who work in the corporate
> world, so I'd like to discuss this too at the BOF.
>
> (By the way, one recent breakthrough in the area of
> "MIS Manager consolation" is that we've got a
> good beautifier now, "Perltidy", so programmers can
> at least apprehend the basic structure of each other's
> programs.)
>
> I've also attached a description of my YAPC::Europe
> talk on Minimal Perl, which offers more details.
>
> Hope to see many of you at the BOF!
>
> -Tim
> ========================================================
> | Tim Maher, Ph.D. Tel: (206) 781-UNIX |
> | SPUG Founder & Leader Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
> | Seattle Perl Users Group HTTP: seattleperl.com |
> ========================================================
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