[Mpls-pm] De-lurking...

James Smith josjr69 at gmail.com
Tue Feb 16 18:23:27 PST 2010


Hi all...

Well, after 10-years of lurking on the Mpls-Perl Mongers email list,
I'm finally de-lurking. For the past eight years I have been
clandestinely developing a home-grown MVC Perl framework (that I
affectionately refer to as the BWDT MVC framework [Bailing Wire and
Duct Tape]) for the College of Biological Sciences at the University
of Minnesota, much to the ire of an associate dean whose husband once
worked for Microsoft (I think you can get the picture), so it was
definitely an in-the-closet experience. In spite of this, there are
hundreds of transactions taking place within the college and around
the University within this framework. But with the economic crises and
the need for the University to cut its budget by 30% I have been given
permission to "come out" as a Perl programmer and check out the brave
new world of "modern" Perl and I am quite frankly delighted to see
that the Perl faeries have been busy. Meanwhile I will be in the
process of transferring the responsibility for this two-million line
behemoth to those remaining (who may be asked to take 75%
appointments).

I was wondering if anyone here has any experience developing web
applications with the Catalyst Framework? I am impressed with what I
have been reading about this technology and (like many geezer
programmers) wish that it was there a few years before. Anyway, I was
wondering when the next meeting was going to be and also curious if
anyone wanted to talk about their experiences with Catalyst. Since my
appointment at the U will end in July, I have a few months to re-tool
as I plan my future and I have (at least for now) decided to focus on
this framework as my "modernizing" task.

Any thoughts on what would be a good personal project to become
acquainted with the Perl of today in preparation for the jobs of
today?

Also, is it my imagination, or is there a surge in Perl energy now in
the computing world at large (excluding the Twin Cities, of course
since there just doesn't seem to be all that much going on here?).
After twenty eight years here in the Twin Cities (twenty using Perl)
it seems like relocation is a distinct possibility.

Looking forward to seeing faces and linking them up with names I have
been watching over the years (except for Dave Rolsky who was working
at Digital River when I was there about ten years ago).

Jim
josjr69 at gmail.com

-- 
James Oliver Smith, Jr
josjr69 at gmail.com
www.cyberpoet.com


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