[kw-pm] Damian Conway talks in Toronto, July 3, 4 and 5!

[Richard Dice]

Hi everyone,

By random fortune (and a flurry of last minute, behind-the-scenes emails),
I have something special to announce.  Damian Conway will be back in
Toronto again this summer... in only 2 weeks!

Damian has visited Toronto in the summers of each of 2001, 2002 and 2004, 
and they're always high points in Perl culture in the city.  His talks are
highly informative and highly entertaining.  (Wednesday's talk will be 
especially weighted to entertaining.)  This summer we have 3 events planned.

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What:   Perl 6 Update
When:   Monday July 3 (Canada Day stat holiday)
        1:00 - 5:00 pm
Where:  2 Bloor Street West (CIBC Tower, our usual TPM meeting spot),
        which is at the corner of Yonge & Bloor in downtown Toronto
        Room # and Floor # as yet to be determined.  More details later.
        Note that building access could be tightly controlled, as will
        elevator access, so we'll have to work according to a system of 
        pre-planned pick-up times as well as phone calls up via cellphone
        to get the ferryman to pick you up.
Other:  Dinner & beer follows, 5:30 pm - ??
        Location:  as yet unknown... we'll just pick a place in the
        neighbourhood to go following the talk.

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What:   Toronto BarCamp DemoCamp
        Damian will give a 15 minute demonstration of the Perl 6 language
        (That's right -- Perl 6, now!)  (4 other presenters each have a 
        chunk of time there too)
When:   Tuesday July 4
        6:30 - 8:00 pm
Where:  see more/full details at: http://barcamp.org/TorCampDemoCamp7

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What:   "Fun With Dead Languages"
         http://damian.conway.org/Seminars//DeadLanguages.html
When:   Wednesday July 5
        6:30 - 9:00 pm
Where:  Not yet fully determined, likely somewhere at U. of Toronto
        Bahen Centre... but details to follow as they are finalized.

    Watch in mesmerized terror as Damian hacks code in five unrelated
    languages (none of them Perl). Along the way, you'll also learn
    about modern archaeological techniques, bidirectional cross-
    dressing, Ancient Greeks hackers, improbable romances, the real Club
    Med, why programmers shouldn't frequent casinos, the language of
    moisture vaporators, C++ mysticism, conversational Latin, state
    machines on steroids, feeding the dog the old-fashioned way, the
    shocking truth about anime, programming without variables or
    subroutines, the Four Voids of the Apocalypse, Microsoft's new
    advertising campaign, what the Romans used instead of braces,
    drunken stonemasons, the ancient probabilistic wisdom of bodkins,
    how to kill a language with a single byte, and the price of fish.

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Fundraising
-----------
There are some costs associated with his trip here.  (E.g. hotel, 
potentially a venue for Wed. night if a free one can't be secured.)
I am taking up a collection to cover the costs.  Any additional
money raised will be given to Damian as an honorarium, in support
of such an active Perl community member who has supported us so much
whenever we use Perl.  In fact, I aim for there to be such a surplus
so that we can help Damian out while he tours North America this
summer.  If you can and would like to donate please email me.

Please note that all of Damian's public talks are free and that he's
committed to all of them, regardless of funds raised.  All are 
encouraged to attend -- the more, the merrier!

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About Damian
----------------
For those who don't know Damian, he's from Melbourne, Australian, a 
professor of Computer Science at Monash University who has taken a
more-or-less indefinite leave of absence so that he can work on the
Perl 6 effort.  (He's Larry Wall's #2 man in the design of the Perl
6 language.)  He's also an active contributor to Perl 5, authoring
more CPAN modules than you can comfortably shake a stick at, some
being ridiculous (Coy, Acme::Bleach) while others are profound
(Parse::RecDescent, Regexp::Common, Text::Balanced).

He's a regular speaker at Perl and other IT conferences around the
world, and a crowd favourite.

His Perl books:

   "Perl Best Practices"   http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlbp/
   "Object Oriented Perl"  http://www.manning.com/conway/

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Any questions, comments, etc. -- just email me!

Cheers,
Richard