Tuesday night was the monthly San Francisco Perl Mongers meeting. Invited to
speak that night was none other than Randal L. Schwartz, who spoke on Perl 6.
But there were a few last-minute surprise guests: Larry Wall and Chip
Salzenberg! What with these three participating alongside SF.pm’s usual suspects
(Vicki Brown, Rich, Morin, et al.), it was an evening of the heavyweights unlike
we’ve never seen at SF.pm. Randal invited Larry to come while they were on the
cruise last week, and it was great to have him there. I guess Randal never gave
a talk like this with Larry in the audience before, because he said he was
actually nervous, despite his years teaching!
A good time was had by all, I think, and we all learned a lot about Perl 6.
Having Larry there to chime in (and read his own quotes from Randal’s slides!)
really added to the content of the talk. I, for one, am incredibly excited about
Perl 6. It’ll go a long way toward making the big database applications I’ve
gotten into the habit of writing much easier to control. And the syntax Larry is
outlining in his Apocalypses is really coming along. I just wish I didn’t have
to wait for it until…when? There are 33 chapters in Camel trois, and we’re
only up to [Apocalypse 4!]
At any rate, it was a great meeting. The after-dinner talk in the bar was good,
too. Really a very entertaining buch. I’d publicly like to thank Quinn Weaver
<zenji at gmx dot net> and Karen Andelin <kaan at chevrontexaco to com> for
organizing a great event – and for getting other members to contribute en masse
to the Perl Foundation 2002 Grant fund. And thanks also to Randal (who
promised that Stonehenge Consulting Services would match the funds raised at
the meeting), Larry, and Chip for making it a very worthwhile event!
Originally published on use Perl;