YAPC::Asia 2007 (4/4-5 in Tokyo, Japan) was again a huge success: lots of attendees (approx. 450) and interesting talks. Even if you didn't make it, you can enjoy the conference online now that Video and Audio recordings are available.
All video files are now uploaded on Google Video so you can browse all the talks with Flash player or download as DivX or MP4 movie file. They are also integrated in YAPC::Asia 2007 Sessions detail pages using Google Video embed Flash player.
For people going mobile, Podcast feed (mp3 audio) and Videocast feed (iPod/PSP ready mp4 video) files are both available.
Enjoy!
Re:we need it now
Aristotle on 2007-04-25T10:45:43
Any piece of crap seems able to make it into the CPAN.
That’s why CPAN has succeeded and all other repositories to date either failed outright or stuck around but flounder.
When you meander, and want trivial bucks vice doing it for love, you are dead, dead, dead. Show me the code. Something stable, that I can program against.
Do you know how little manpower actually is behind the whole thing? Everyone wants it now, but people actually doing something about getting it now are a damn sight rarer.
And if you end up using it once it’s ready in spite of your claims now that it will end up being an academic excercise, be prepared to be called on your bluff.
Re:we need it now
gregm on 2007-04-25T21:35:50
I use the CPAN. Some of it is *great*. Some of it is more or less vital, for some of the things I do. As in not always having OS-native tools for things like current cryptographic hashes. Linux md5sum and sha1sum do not always satisfy the need. But in too many cases, you have to do to much legwork researching overall quality, and it's easier to just write what you need, and get an internal code review organized.
"Do you know how little manpower actually is behind the whole thing?"
That explains the *problem*, but it's not something that gives me confidence in a forthcoming Perl6.
"And if you end up using it once it’s ready in spite of your claims now that it will end up being an academic excercise, be prepared to be called on your bluff."
Fully prepared, I guess. I don't know about calling this a "bluff" though. I can't see how that term applies, in this context. I fully expect to be using at least bits and pieces of an emerging Perl6--I already am. But it's becoming more and more painful. I am not sanguine re: future support needs.
If it's taking roughly forever, and the explanation is that there are few people working on it, why would I be somehow reassured? I'm *not* wishing for the death of Perl. I would *hugely* rather smooth and happy ports to Perl6. But there are things I have to do in fairly short order, it's *still* not ready, and I'm going to end up migrating a bunch of code to Python.
Painful? You bet. The last code migrated was slower. Enough that I'm going to have to write some C, and the code review on that is going to *suck*. Another factor is that I do some minimal (hardened) Linux systems. A minimal SuSE system doesn't include Python. So now I have to look at multiple versions to cover both SuSE and Red Hat, think about going to C for everything, or other madness, and I can't stall any longer. The need is very much there, and I'm getting sniped at.
Most systems are Red Hat, where a minimal system *does* give me Python, which is a definite factor to consider.
This isn't an antiPerl rant. It's more in the nature of a howl of pain.
I was lurking on the list when what I think was the the first Linux FHS was being defined, back in 2000 or so. The vendors just wanted *something* and the designers couldn't get their act together. I would argue that the Linux community is paying the penalty for that, to this day.
I've a very bad taste left over from that. Not getting the concepts of 'window of opportunity', and 'deliverables' is not a Good Thing. I don't hate Perl--I fear for Perl.
Re:we need it now
jdavidb on 2007-04-27T18:15:01
I don't get it. Why are the minimal systems that include Python going to jump up and suddenly include Perl 6 when it comes out, which is a completely different language from Perl 5?
And why the urgent need to, if your code is in Perl 5, migrate it to Perl 6, which is a completely different language? Or, if you are developing new code, why the need to do it in Perl 6 instead of Perl 5?
You've got to do "stuff" in fairly short order. What? You have code you're considering migrating to Python or C. You imply a desperate need to migrate to Perl 6. Why?? It's presumably in Perl 5 -- isn't leaving it in Perl 5 cheaper than migrating to any of those other options?
Your obvious solution is to stick with Perl 5, a language with a bright future and plenty of support, at least until Perl 6 arrives, if it ever does. And since your comments ignore the obvious (cheapest) solution, I suspect you're doing so intentionally in order to come up with this artificial urgency so you can troll Perl in general because Perl 6 isn't here.
Re:we need it now
chromatic on 2007-04-27T19:17:54
I suspect you're doing so intentionally in order to come up with this artificial urgency so you can troll Perl in general because Perl 6 isn't here.That's a standard, passive-aggressive blackmail tactic. "If you don't do what I want RIGHT NOW, I will leave and take my non-contributing, useless, whiny stop energy somewhere else."
If we can't discourage people from making those kinds of threats, we can at least encourage them to make good on their threats to leave.
Re:we need it now
gregm on 2007-04-28T23:21:50
"I suspect you're doing so intentionally in order to come up with this artificial urgency so you can troll Perl in general because Perl 6 isn't here."
Not the case. I'm faced with a couple of cases where companies are choosing between LAMP (Perl) and Java/Python (leaning more toward Java, after calling around, catching people at home on a Saturday), and have some anecdotal evidence from people I trust, that it's not just me.
The issue is that managers aren't seeing Perl 5 & 6 as separate languages. In terms of high level languages, they are seeing things in blanket terms of Perl, Python, Java, or Ruby, and versions need not apply. Granted, this is a limited sample, but the signal is very strong.
I don't know what management rags they may be reading, but I do know that a lot of what I do will be handed down by edict. It doesn't have to make sense, and there's nothing in particular that I can do about it. Arguing in mgmnt meetings just gets me brushed off and/or sniped at from the Java guys, in a couple of cases that are fairly important.
That's about as pleasant as you'd imagine it to be. Not at all.
Sorry you suspect me of being a troll. But situations differ, and I'm not at liberty to completely describe mine. I've been as up front as I can. It will have to do, and if it wasn't enough, well, it wasn't enough. It was still the best I could do.Re:we need it now
jdavidb on 2007-04-30T10:54:35
You get paid to deal with your clueless management. The Perl 6 community does not. If your management isn't interested in being technically astute enough to figure out that Perl 5 is a well-supported language with a well-supported future, your company deserves what it gets for having them.
Re:we need it now
gregm on 2007-04-30T19:18:04
OK, I can see where that viewpoint comes from, and it's difficult to argue against it.
My original post seems to have generated more heat than light--accusations of trolling, insults, etc. But if you check out the entire thread, I at least offered to pitch in with some doc writing or testing. I really don't care for writing doc, spare time is limited, etc. I could apply all the usual excuses.
But the offer *was* on the table. Your reply was, in essence, "You have a problem, not us. Deal with it on your own." There's a great community-builder.
OK, enough is enough. I'll take your suggestion, and deal with it on my own. Sadly (for me), dealing with it probably doesn't involve deploying much new Perl. It's difficult to see how this discussion has added anything I could take to (admittedly lame) IT mgmnt as a positive. From my POV, there were things that I was worried about, and in the final analysis, I couldn't easily find a mechanism whereby I could contribute, according to my skill level (not a language implementer). A mere user, decent doc writer and testing guy, but also something of a decision influencer.
I don't make final calls, but my walking away means Perl is dead at a Fortune 1000 company, as I was the sole voice supporting it, and had a couple of respect chips I could play. Those are pretty much gone now. All I'll be able to do is maybe get some system reporting stuff done, as a holding action against how much Java is costing us. Sweet. I am now an official bag-holder.
So you've successfully taken out the non-language-implementer trash. Congratulations, and flame on, if you think this is a win for Perl. I won't be seeing perl.org posts in future, so it's not as if it's going to cause me any more pain.
Color me disgusted.
Best of luck, folks. I really do wish the Perl community well, but I'm not going there again. I just don't see the risk as commensurate with potential rewards.
Re:we need it now
jdavidb on 2007-05-01T14:09:19
Your reply was, in essence, "You have a problem, not us. Deal with it on your own."Actually, that was other people's reply. My reply was essentially, "I can't see why you have a problem."
There's a great community-builder.To be honest, I'm not much interested in the Perl 6 community right now. I played that game when it first came out. I received no benefit, and I think the community benefited even less from my participation. So I stopped. Other people can work on building it, if they care. If it gets good, I may join at some point. For right now, I'm a Fiver.
It's difficult to see how this discussion has added anything I could take to (admittedly lame) IT mgmnt as a positive.How about "Perl 5 is a viable project with support and a viable community for the foreseeable future?" You've basically not listened to what I said. There's no reason on the planet you can't implement in Perl 5 and plan on sticking with it indefinitely. The fact that somebody said, "Oh, we might have a Perl 6 some day" is no reason to think of Perl 5 as dead. It's very much alive, and will remain so.
Re:we need it now
chromatic on 2007-05-01T18:28:58
So you've successfully taken out the non-language-implementer trash.My concern is merely in promoting the view that non-contributors do not have the right to complain about the schedule.
Re:we need it now
gregm on 2007-05-04T21:30:53
Checked this as my week is at an end, unless I get called in the middle of the night. Which I probably will--but that's nothing to do with Perl. Just venting about a long FUBAR (in the acronym sense, so caps) week.
"My concern is merely in promoting the view that non-contributors do not have the right to complain about the schedule."
No argument whatsoever. In the final analysis, intentions and concerns, and whining that 'contributing is hard' don't matter. The only thing that *does* matter is what you've actually *shipped*, be that code, testing, doc, or whatever.
As someone who already feels as if they've brought more heat than light to the discussion, I have to STFU, and wish you all the best possible future.
Re:we need it now
chromatic on 2007-05-04T21:40:11
As someone who already feels as if they've brought more heat than light to the discussion, I have to STFU, and wish you all the best possible future.Thank you!
If you do have time to participate in whatever fashion, we would love to have you. I have two projects to complete in the next fortnight, but once that is done I'll revise the Parrot getting started guide, in the hope that the next people who wander by with an hour or two will be able to make much better progress.
Re:we need it now
gregm on 2007-05-04T23:02:38
That would be most welcome, hopefully to many people, if you can manage it. I've had very little luck in predicting my schedule beyond two or three days. Good on you, if you can manage it.
I bagged daily updates via email, as there was too much flamage (that has a personal impact, believe it or not), and I still have to get on with porting a fair amount of systems software. That is teh sux0r, but I'm stuck. It's a managerial edict thing, and Friday has not been a Good Day. No, it's not the Perl community's problem. But most of what I was afraid would happen, has happened.
I'm just screwed and venting. The Java guys taste blood in the water, and are now even proclaiming that they have the language for future Unix SysAdmins, on top of everything else, based upon recent Sun press. WTF madness is next? XML init files?
This is *profoundly* depressing.
I've a bookmark to the top of this, and will a) check back periodically, and b) go read some Terry Pratchett.
Re:we need it now
Aristotle on 2007-04-27T23:50:58
I don’t see your comment quite as negatively as jdavidb or chromatic, but…
See, there are a lot of people, who, like you, are seeing the same danger and ringing the alarms. The problem is, just because a lot of people are ringing the alarms everywhere, that doesn’t actually get anything done. It’s all well and fine to yell that the house is on fire, but if noone actually starts passing buckets to put the fire out, the house will burn down in spite of the screams.
You aren’t wrong with what you’re saying. Indeed, the longer Perl 6 takes, the more opportunities will be missed. But regardless of how many people point this out, the work won’t get done any sooner for it. If all the people who think it’s taking too long and think it needs to be done would not stop at warning about the imminent danger, but would actually step in to lend a hand, there wouldn’t be any imminent danger to warn about anymore.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not accusing you personally. You may have good reasons for not contributing. The problem is that collectively, so does everyone else! Hence, Perl 6 is not getting done.
How do we break through that?
Beats me.
Re:we need it now
gregm on 2007-04-28T22:39:52
"You may have good reasons for not contributing."
I feel that I have two good reasons:
1) I don't believe that I have the talent. I'm aware of the difference in talent required to use a language vice implement a language.
2) Lack of time. There's enough going on at the moment that spare time is really short.
Reason 2 is fairly lame. There is probably testing or doc work that I could be contributing *something* toward. I'm open to suggestions. Is there a URL you can send me to that describes, for instance, where I can contribute to root doc work?
If not, is this seen as a failing? I'm probably not the only person who would contribute if there was a widely publicized clearing-house where I could go to pick up specific tasks, and which took end-user issues (re: doc, for instance) off implementer plates.
If resources are thin, maybe a way to better organize available help, and unload Perl6 developers would be a Good Thing? Or perhaps this is out there now, and the word just hasn't been passed well enough for me to get it?
If the word has indeed been passed, and it's my bad, I apologize in advance. I need to go off and answer a couple of more hostile mails from jdavidb and chromatic. Some fence-mending is clearly in order.Re:we need it now
chromatic on 2007-04-29T00:01:43
There is probably testing or doc work that I could be contributing *something* toward.We'd love to have you. The best way to get involved is probably to join #perl6 on irc.freenode.net or #parrot on irc.perl.org and ask "Is there anything I can do to help?"
I believe we've written some getting started guides somewhere, but I can't find them at the moment and they might not be linked prominently enough or might be incomplete or somewhat misleading. Any suggestions you or anyone else reading this might have to make them more useful would be immensely valuable!
Re:we need it now
gregm on 2007-04-29T00:29:07
Will do tomorrow, for the IRC. We will probably run across one another, at some point. Be advised that a frank discussion of your using terms such as "whining, crying, ungrateful." will ensue.
I don't think that was justified, and I'm mildly upset. You can make all of that right if you can run down any of those 'getting started' guides. Or find whoever might have rough notes, if it didn't actually happen. Any *accurate* public starting point is a Good Thing, if it didn't exist before, right?Re:we need it now
chromatic on 2007-04-29T01:09:28
You can make all of that right if you can run down any of those 'getting started' guides.The best I can find at the moment (as I've been home for most of a full day in the past week) is "How to Get Involved" on Parrotcode. It's fairly lame, so when I get back home and sleep for a week, I'll pull out the "What's going on where in the Parrot source code?" from my Parrot talk into a better getting started guide.
Re:we need it now
gregm on 2007-04-29T01:58:09
That works for me. Go home and get some sleep.Re:we need it now
Aristotle on 2007-04-29T02:28:47
To be honest: I can’t help. I haven’t pitched in appreciably either, just watched.
However, it’s a question that I’ve seen raised many times, and that I’d try to find an answer to as well, if I was to start now.
I just went to look at the state of http://dev.perl.org/perl6/; it seems that it has started falling out of date in all areas (a few are long out of date) and in any case it isn’t helpful at taking up newcomers and helping them into the fold.
There are some IRC hangouts you could look for; I don’t know where to go for Perl 6 activity, though. Still, that place would probably be the quickest way to learn the ropes.
However, what happens on IRC is (as you see) thereafter invsible to the rest of the world (and in some ways that’s a good thing). Maybe a good place to start would be to document how to start?
:-) Re:we need it now
prakash on 2007-05-25T19:02:17
Not exactly. http://irc.pugscode.org/ seems to be the online archive for #perl6. Not sure how far back it goes though.However, what happens on IRC is (as you see) thereafter invsible to the rest of the world (and in some ways that’s a good thing).Re:we need it now
chromatic on 2007-04-27T07:12:31
Frankly, I'm tired of hearing about Perl6, and vaporware VMs. Ship, Real Soon Now, or you're going to be justifiably regarded as a largely acedemic exercise.Linger just long enough at the door on the way out that it hits you, preferably twice.
PS. You can still use all of the code that all of us volunteers have contributed over all of the long years you were sitting around not doing anything. You can use it for free with or without our permission no matter how much you whine or cry about not getting everything on your own ungrateful schedule, sweetums. We're swell that way.
Re:can't see the screens - useless for learning
miyagawa on 2007-04-28T01:48:27
Most videos have Slides available which help you a bit or not.Re:can't see the screens - useless for learning
miyagawa on 2007-04-28T03:38:16
Another reason I could think of would be: you're watching the video on your browser using FLV as a format. You can download higher quality video in the DivX format, from the right box of the video. That might increase the quality a bit.Re:can't see the screens - useless for learning
stas on 2007-04-28T20:40:01
The slides should make it much more useful. I haven't thought of that. Thank you for the suggestion, Tatsuhiko!
As for DivX, do you mean the one on Google Video? It's still unreadable:( Re:can't see the screens - useless for learning
miyagawa on 2007-04-29T03:33:00
To me most slides are readable, excpet a few ones with small fonts. Just download it to your desktop and fullscreen it and it'd get much better. In any case you have the original slides...
