SUMMARY: first meeting

[Joel Cohen]

Walter Pienciak wrote:

> The meeting lasted from about 6 to 8 at Casa Alvarez.
> The food was pretty good, but the consensus seemed to be
> that variety was nice, and so we'll be trying somewhere
> else next time.
>
> We came in serendipitously during happy hour -- there were
> 2-for-1 specials -- the result being that the two of us who
> ordered pints of Fat Tire each got two mugs.  Efficient, but
> visually jarring (a two-fisted drinker, I am).  The waiters
> were also kept busy refilling water and iced-tea glasses while
> we downed the chips/salsa.
>
> Eight people showed up.  The conversations were wide-ranging,
> and included some basic "who are you" stuff.  A "How did you
> learn Perl?" thread got started but then morphed into a
> discussion of meteorology.  (The general pattern, as I recall,
> was self-learning via Randal Schwartz's "Learning Perl".)
> Not everyone there already knows Perl, so I guess the above-
> referenced book is a resource recommendation.  (That, and this
> list -- questions are good -- and the meetings.)
>
> Hmmm.  There was a fair amount of Java bashing (fairly informed,
> not wild-eyed), a discussion on the merits of object-oriented Perl,
> a question about and then some experiences with DBI, reminiscing
> about other languages and their common points with Perl.  There
> was an ongoing "life along the Front Range" thread.  Lots of
> talk about Linux, the various distributions, and stories about
> companies moving significant resources onto that platform.
>
> Someone asked about recreational versus professional use of Perl.
> I don't use it much recreationally, but on the other hand, I
> learned it recreationally -- and the stuff I used to do for
> "fun" I now get paid for.  So is that recreational or professional?
>
> I dunno.  I'm sure I forgot a bunch of stuff, and I have to go be
> productive now.  Someone else send more details, if you can remember
> them.
>
> Walter
>
> __
> "We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could
>  produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the
>  Internet, we know this is not true."
> -- Robert Wilensky, University of California

It ' simply not true that a million monkeys could reproduce the works of
Shakespeare. The fact is, they probably couldn't do better than a
made-for-tv movie.