[Mpls-pm] Hi, everyone.

[James Smith]

I'm still around, but not working anymore, since I am on disability due to
vision loss due to pigmentary glaucoma ... However, I am still using Perl
as my primary script language on my cloud servers whenever I need some kind
of enhanced functionality ... I can still do it, but it is difficult, slow
and unreliable since it is difficult for me to differentiate between
similarly shaped characters: '=' looks like '-' ; and '1', '|', ,':', ';',
'l','I' look the same, depending on font type, size, color, weight ... ...
I am currently focused on my writing and learning how to navigate the world
with decreasing visual capacity, including the use of various technologies
as assistive tools for impaired vision ... I do want to stay involved in
Perl in some capacity ... I just don't know how all of the pieces of this
new existence are all going to fit together ... When I was still looking
for work, I recognized that I needed to seriously update my skills in the
direction of the so-called "Modern Perl" (Catalyst, Moose, DBIx, etc) so I
set up a Virtual Private Server on 1and1.com and bought the
perlcatalyst.comdomain with the intent of setting up a free tutorial
site for anyone
wanting to scale the steep grade of the Perl Catalyst mountain, in addition
to giving me a platform for developing my own skills. My eyesight has made
the process far too difficult alone ... I do feel that there is still a
real need for tools to help people new to "Modern Perl" to develop related
skill sets, but (for now at least) it will have to wait until I mitigate
some of the difficulties that come with vision loss ... I am currently
learning braille and using braille overlays on my keyboard keys. I'm also
learning Dragon voice-to-text, NVDA (Non-Visual Display Access, an Open
Source screen reader for the visually impaired), in addition to cursive
writing transcription ... I'm also using new tablet technologies to
facilitate writing, reading and ebook design and publication ... Amazon's
Kindle Direct Publishing provides a nice command line tool called
'kindlegen' that works very well with Perl to prepare books for publication
... I think there are many opportunities for Perl to move into assistive
technologies and ebook publishing ... Plus, after developing a lot of
software in Perl over two decades (1990 to 2010), often clandestinely,
without support, I want to at least have a ringside seat as Perl moves into
this new era ... I get calls and email inquiries weekly from recruiters
looking for Perl developers and it is painful to have to inform them of my
status ... Anyway, I would love to see some activity on the list and
face-to-face encounters ... the old Perl Geezer ...

Jim Smith
josjr69 at gmail.com
josjr.com



On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 5:36 PM, Nicholas Melnick <nick-list at dytara.com>wrote:

> Hello, everyone in Mpls.pm. Any of you left out there? Still writing Perl?
>
> We should have coffee/beer some time. I feel like there's no one left out
> here.
>
>  - Nick
> _______________________________________________
> Mpls-pm mailing list
> Mpls-pm at pm.org
> http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/mpls-pm
>



-- 
James Oliver Smith, Jr
Writer, Blogger, Ebook Designer, Digital Publisher, Student of Italian
josjr69 at gmail.com
www.josjr.com
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