[HRPM] PM Meeting notes...

[chicks at chicks.net]

On Thu, 28 Sep 2000, Lyman Byrd wrote:

> Where do you want to go today? Well personally I would love to go back
> to bed but my boss thinks that is not such a good idea so I thought I
> would write some observations from last nights Perl Mongers meeting at
> Jefferson Labs.

Sleep is for wimps.
Happy, healthy, well-rested wimps.  
But wimps nonetheless.

:-)

> Chris did a nice talk on the DBI module. Showing us not only how to
> use the commands but little tricks that can only be learned from
> experience. If you have any questions about how to use DBI or where
> might it be useful then this was the one - but you missed it! I am
> sure that it will come back around again.

The DBI talk has been given a couple of itmes, and I'm sure we'll have it
again in the spring.

> Following the talk we had time for discussion of various topics
> including what we would like to cover. During the discussion it became
> obvious to even the casual of observers that this meeting is the only
> group that covers programing by itself.

HRPM is without local competition.  Film at 11.

> This made it possible then to even think about covering other
> topics/languages other than Perl! Things like python, php zope and
> such things. Chris made the statement that it is always good to know
> the weaknesses of the other languages to show how good Perl is
> really...

I think it's worthwhile to learn the strenghts of various languages to
improve your perspective.  The more ways you have available to /think/
about something the more likely you are to be able to implement something
cleanly.  For example, it is easier to think of certain perl problems as
if you were writing a finite state machine in awk.

> It was pretty much decided that next month we would be privileged to
> enjoy a talk on TKPerl.  This from a person who had figured it all out
> and is using it for a project.

I will try to get an announcement out earlier this month to let everbody
know that formally.  If anyone is interested in helping out with HRPM
promotion, please get in touch with me.

> Some seem to think we got the horse before the cart - no wait that's
> correct isn't it - whatever - we had introductions at the end of the
> meeting.

An agenda would be helpful so I don't forget such things.  :-)  The more I
think about it, the more I like doing the intros to transition from the
formal part of the meeting to the informal part of the meeting.  I'd like
to hear other opinions on the preferred order.

> I don't know about the remainder of the group but I learned
> some interesting things from the intros.

Everyone I talked to seemed to appreciate the intros.  As I alluded above,
I think it leads well into the free discussion.

> The first thing was that everyone was so nice (course anyone who
> speaks Perl is nice by default in some circles).

When you have fun programming all the time you just end up exuding it.
:-)

> E-Mail: Lyman Byrd <lbyrd at memach.com>   Tel: 757.543.6801x253

Thanks for the kind words.

-- 
</chris>

What if this weren't a hypothetical question?