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S P U G (Seattle Perl Users Group) |
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S P U G (Seattle Perl Users Group) |
Meetings for 2002: |Jan| Feb| Mar| Apr| May| Jun| Jul| Aug| Sep| Oct| Nov| Dec| 2003|
Perl is a powerful, portable, and mature programming language created by Larry Wall, with contributions from lots of other people. It is culturally derived from the UNIX C language, various UNIX shells, and the grep, sed, and AWK utilities of UNIX, among other influences. Although it was first embraced by UNIX programmers and Systems Administrators, in recent years, Perl has become the most popular choice of Web developers doing CGI applications. It runs under most modern computer operating systems, and is freely available and unencumbered by royalty or licensing restrictions
The Seattle PERL Users Group is dedicated to the development of a mutually supportive community of Perl programmers in the Seattle, WA USA area, and to the professional development of the individual members. Our primary focus is on helping each other learn more about the Perl programming language.
In pursuit of these goals, we strive to encourage the following types of activities:
We operate as a kind of "Educational Cooperative", by taking turns telling each other what we've learned about Perl.
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SPUG is widely recognized as one of the best Perl user groups; in fact, it's so good that its founder, Tim Maher, was awarded the coveted White Camel Award in part for forming and running it. (Click the picture for a larger view). |
Our meetings are open to the general public, and Perl programmers of all levels are welcome. There is no charge to attend.
In the early days of SPUGgery, we had lots of newbies, but as our members evolved and the topics became more advanced, abstract, and downright bizarre (thanks Damian! 8-}), we reached a stage where attendance by newbies began to diminish.
So our current policy is that every 3rd meeting or so will be dedicated to beginner's topics. The (3rd Tuesday) SPUG Newbie Meetings for 2003 will be held on 1/21, 4/15, 7/15, and 10/21.
by
Tim Maher,
Consultix
and
Yet Another Markup Language
by Brian Ingerson, formerly of ActiveState
Time & Place: 7-9pm, Safeco Building
Topics:
YAML is a generic data serialization language that is optimized for human readability. It can be used to express the data structures of most modern programming languages (including Perl!!!). More information can be found at http://www.yaml.org/.
Does your camel YAML?
Parsing Protein Domains with Perl
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2001/11/16/perlbio2.html
and general comments on
Perl for Bioinformatics
Eric Olson,
Neobase, Inc.
Creating XML-RPC Web Services
See TPJ Issue #22, Winter, 2001 at:
http://www.sysadminmag.com/tpj/
Joshua Lanza,
Vorsite Corp.
The Name Game,
from TPJ #15, Fall, 1999, p. 11
Tim Maher,
Consultix, Inc.
And Other Topics
Just Might be Covered by Additional Speakers
All interested parties are welcome!
Incidentally, he'll also be presenting a public offering of his popular "Database Programming with Perl" class from 4/22 - 4/25. Full details are available at teachmeperl.com
featuring
The SPUG Brain Trust
("Volunteers Requested")
The idea is that SPUGsters using his modules can describe them to us, show us how they're using them in their work, and give us a greater appreciation for what The Damian has made available and how we might increase our productivity by using his software. Alternatively, those who have merely been thinking about using a certain module might seize this opportunity to give a presentation on it, to encourage them to increase their knowledge. (There's nothing like committing to informing somebody about something to motivate you to increase your understanding!)
Not coincidentally, the timing of these April - June meetings will allow any questions that arise about "Damianiacal Modules" to be answered by The Damian himself, when he visits SPUG in July.
Those wishing to participate please post a short message to the SPUG-list indicating what module(s) you want to cover, how you are currently using it (if so), and for which meeting you'd like your presentation scheduled. Because April is one of our regularly scheduled "Beginners Nights", we'd like to emphasize modules that are relatively easy to use and comprehend. Tim Maher will serve as moderator, and get back to you with Module "Bindings".
Also not coincidentally, those attending this meeting will be told how they can help continue the flow of "Damianiacal Modules" by contributing to The Perl Foundation. Please bring your checkbooks along! 8-}
The following is a list of The Damian's currently released modules, some of which will be featured in the April and following meetings:
Acme-Bleach
Attribute-Handlers
Attribute-Handlers-Prospective
Attribute-Types
Class-Contract
Class-Delegation
Class-Multimethods
Coy
Filter-Simple
Getopt-Declare
Hook-LexWrap
Inline-Files
Lingua-EN-Inflect
Lingua-Romana-Perligata
Parse-RecDescent
Perl6-Variables
Quantum-Superpositions
Regexp-Common
Switch
Text-Autoformat
Text-Balanced
Text-Reform
Tie-SecureHash
Also, while he's in the Seattle area, The Damian will be presenting a series of seminars called the "Advanced Perl Workshop". Details are available at teachmeperl.com
featuring
The SPUG Brain Trust
("Volunteers Requested")
Not coincidentally, those attending this meeting will be told how they can help continue the flow of "Damianiacal Modules" by making a tax-deductible contribution to The Perl Foundation.
DRAWING FOR FREE SEAT IN DAMIAN SEMINAR!
As an added bonus, if a sufficient number of attendees hand over checks
of $100 or more during the meeting, we'll have a drawing and award a seat
in one of Damian's
Advanced Perl Workshop
classes ($500 value) to the lucky winner.
So please bring your checkbooks along! 8-}
The following is a list of The Damian's currently released modules, showing which have been or will be covered in the April and following meetings:
Acme-Bleach
Attribute-Handlers
Attribute-Handlers-Prospective
Attribute-Types
Class-Contract
Class-Delegation
Class-Multimethods
Coy (handled by Jeremy Kahn in April)
Filter-Simple (handled by JP Montagne in April)
Getopt-Declare # to be covered by Tim Maher in May
Hook-LexWrap
Inline-Files
Lingua-EN-Inflect # to be covered by Tim Maher in May
Lingua-Romana-Perligata
Parse-RecDescent
Perl6-Variables
Quantum-Superpositions
Regexp-Common
Switch
Text-Autoformat
Text-Balanced
Text-Reform
Tie-SecureHash
Don't forget, while Damian's in the Seattle area, he'll be presenting a series of seminars called the "Advanced Perl Workshop". Details are available at teachmeperl.com
featuring
The SPUG Brain Trust
("Volunteers Requested")
Time & Place: 7-9pm, Safeco Building
Also, while he's in the Seattle area, The Damian will be presenting a series of seminars called the "Advanced Perl Workshop". Details are available at teachmeperl.com
Time & Place: 7-9pm, Safeco Building
In this talk, you will learn:
We will talk about unit testing, refactoring, and emergent architecture as they apply to Perl, and then we'll do some mob programming to experience how it works in practice.
About Asim Jalis
Asim is a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard where he is working on printing applications of web services using C#/.NET. He uses Perl to run an internal website and for various maintenance tasks. He has an M.S. in computer science and an M.A. in mathematics.
In this talk, you will hear:
About Creede Lambard
I'm a computer professional with over 20 years' experience in various platforms. I first learned Perl about five years ago and discovered that English really wasn't my native language after all. I'm a veteran of Microsoft, RealNetworks, The Cobalt Group and several lesser entities, and am currently looking for another position so I know definitively what kind of work I'm out of.
Time & Place: 7-9pm, Safeco Building
In this talk, you will learn about:
About the Speaker
Jonathan Gardner is working at Classmates.com as a Perl developer. He has been programming Perl since the summer of 2000, and has loved every minute of it. He has a degree in Physics from the University of Washington, and has lived in the Seattle almost his entire life.
Time & Place: 7-9pm, Safeco Building
This talk is geared for those new to Perl, and will cover topics such as the following:
About the Speaker
Tim Maher has been teaching software engineers how to program in various languages since 1980. His business, Consultix, specializes in beginner and intermediate Perl training. He likes teaching, and will even do it for free to get in front of an audience - lucky for you! 8-}
Time & Place: 7-9pm, Safeco Building
About the Talk
Parrot is the software engine that interprets the upcoming Perl 6 language. Dan will give a quick introduction to some of the concepts underlying interpreters in general, and Parrot in particular. He'll then cover Parrot's design goals and some of the reasons the Parrot project was undertaken for Perl 6. To get an idea of what's in store in this talk, you can experience a previous talk by Dan on Heavyweight Parts of Lightweight Languages, presented at MIT's 11/17/01 Lightweight Languages Workshop (LL1).
Dan will also give a brief overview of the changes that are coming in Perl 6, and those that aren't coming.
About the Speaker
Dan Sugalski is the designer of Parrot, the software being written to run Perl 6 (and other languages). He is deeply and tragically involved with the threading model introduced with Perl 5.005 and the author of more than a dozen Perl modules. Dan was also, for a while, the maintainer of the VMS Perl port. He's currently writing a book for O'Reilly ("Programming Cocoa Applications with Perl") and doing freelance consulting and training. When he's not hacking, he's also a pretty good pastry cook.
by Brian Ingerson, Freelance Perl Wizard
Time & Place: 7-9pm, Safeco Building
What I'll Talk About
October and November have been very busy months for me. I have released 3 new Perl modules (including a my own version control system), overhauled and released Inline.pm, and even attended the Ruby conference. This talk will be a whirlwind tour of my various modules, what they do, why I wrote them, where they are headed and how they are all interrelated. I'll also talk about my overarching vision for the Perl community, and why I do what I do.
Topics will include (not necessarily in this order):
About the Ingster
Brian "ingy" Ingerson has been a computer programmer for 20 years, and a Perl programmer for 5. In the past two years he has been very active in the Perl Community, speaking at most of the major Perl conferences, and several Perl Mongers meetings. He is responsible for starting the Inline series of modules which currently bind Perl seamlessly to over 15 other programming languages.
by
Steve Roberts,
of
Nomadic Research Labs
Time & Place: 7-9pm, Safeco Building
His first headline-grabbing project was his recumbent bicycle "Winnebiko," on which he spent 3.5 years covering 17,000 miles around America. A later 580-pound model with a 105 speed transmission and an on-board network that included an early SPARC was called BEHEMOTH (for Big Electronic Human-Energized Machine... Only Too Heavy). He then turned to shipbuilding, and has spent the past decade developing a pair of amphibian pedal/solar/sail micro-trimarans with extensive on-board embedded systems and communications capability. These "Microships" will be the basis of his next adventure, a 15,000-mile circumnavigation of the Eastern USA along with a whole flotilla of nomadlings (forming an ad hoc floating network of wireless boatlets).
Needless to say, all the equipment involved in these projects costs a lot of money, so Steve had to assemble a network of over 100 corporate donors for funding (which is a major accomplishment in itself)!
In this talk, Steve will tell us about his latest inventions, and how Open Source software, including Perl, is used in them.
He'll be joined by Ned Konz, lead software guru on the Microship project. Ned is the author of three CPAN modules, is part of the core Squeak community, and has extensive experience with embedded systems. He is working on the ad hoc network design for the Microship project as well as a variety of other projects, and will be there to provide a technically chewy counterpoint to Steve's hand-waving exuberance and bizarre road anecdotes.
The official meeting is on 3rd Tuesdays from 7-9pm, preceded and followed by optional social hours over adult beverages at a nearby facility.
Our meetings are held at the SAFECO building at the corner of Brooklyn St. and NE 45th St., near the University of Washington. The SAFECO Tower is the largest structure in the area, and as such is easy to spot once you get close. (To get a better idea of its location, look for the label "Safeco Plaza Tower" on this map in the center/top area.)
The auditorium has nearby restrooms and vending machines. Food and drink are permitted in the auditorium, but please help keep the room clean. Sorry, there are no cup holders in the seats, but they do include a writing surface.
Please don't wander too far from the auditorium, and remember that
we are guests. When you leave, sign out on the log book and return the
visitor badge.
To find the other SPUGsters whiling away the time until the meeting commences, you could try looking for the SPUG leader (who will typically be there), who bears a remarkable resemblance to this cartoon Perl Instructor.
Those wishing to dine with other SPUGsters are encouraged to assemble at the Cedars Restaurant, at 50th St. and Brooklyn, in the University District. (This is quite near the Safeco building where our meetings take place.) The phone number is 527-5247. If you're planning to be there, please post a message to the list indicating your expected arrival time, so others may attempt to rendezvous with you.
Would you like to be notified about upcoming meetings and participate in discussions with other local programmers, like the 400+ other Perl enthusiasts on our mailing list?
If so, join the SPUG Mailing List by sending a message body containing:
Or, if you prefer less frequent traffic, you can subscribe to the weekly digest instead using the name spug-list-digest.
Recruiters at Meetings:
Although we are happy to help recruiters and contract programmers find each other,
we recommend that recruiters
provide information about job openings via Email, rather than
by coming to meetings.
(Although we find the technical discussions fascinating,
some recruiters have found them to be unendurably dreary.)
Some of our members do contract Perl programming work, while others are looking for full-time jobs. Accordingly, we are always interested to hear about openings for Perl Programmers in the Seattle area!
We can help you communicate your job opening to the hundreds of Perl programmers on our mailing list. By providing you access to our members, we are providing you with a valuable service at no charge. In return, we ask that you provide the following details of your job opening, to prevent our members from individually having to ask the questions that would elicit the same answers.
© Tim
Maher 1998-2001
SPUG Contact Info
To comment on this WEB-page,
Many thanks to our
ISP sponsor,
Zipcon Internet Services,
and
meeting space sponsor,
SAFECO Corp.
Our Mascot, Thor:
(cuter than any camel; and unencumbered by legal restrictions too!)