Perl 6 Microgrant: Articles on Operators

brian_d_foy on 2007-09-14T13:34:00

I'm pleased to announce that we've just accepted a Perl 6 Microgrant proposal from Adriano Ferreira to write a series of articles about Perl 6 operators. Adriano's propsal appears below:

NAME
        Proposal for a Perl 6 microgrant "A series of micro-articles at ONLamp"

DESCRIPTION
        I plan to write a series of blog entries at ONLamp site (which belongs
        to the O'Reilly Network) on a Perl 6 related subject. The resulting
        articles will also be integrated into Pugs' documentation and licensed
        under the same terms. The theme of the series contemplates brief
        introductions to the myriad of Perl 6 operators to the varied audience
        that reads the site weblogs.

                O'Reilly weblogs
                http://weblogs.oreilly.com/
                ONLamp (blogs show up at the right)
                http://www.onlamp.com/
                ONLamp blogs (another view)
                http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/

        My initial idea is to approach at each micro-article one operator or a
        group of closely related operators providing the reader with some small
        doses of Perl 6 at a light pace. This light pace would be three articles
        per week, ideally at Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

        To enhance the content, each article shall be submitted for review on
        #perl6 on freenode. This feedback may prevent mistakes and result in
        more complete discussions of each operator/feature.

WHO AM I
        I am a long time lurker at the Perl community, writing ocasionally at my
        journal at use.perl, releasing modules at CPAN, and strugling to
        maintain the dual life of a few core modules (namely, Shell, Exporter,
        and very recently Pod::Perldoc).

                http://use.perl.org/user/ferreira/
                http://search.cpan.org/user/ferreira/

        By the end of 2005, I have shared with David Landgren the fun of writing
        perl5-porters summaries (but I had to stop for a lack of tuits). Eh, I
        missed those times.

                Some samples:
                http://dev.perl.org/perl5/list-summaries/2005/20050915.html
                http://dev.perl.org/perl5/list-summaries/2005/20050926.html
                http://dev.perl.org/perl5/list-summaries/2005/20051226.html

        I am currently not well versed at the Perl 6 development, but I believe
        I have what takes to accomplish the simple task proposed in this grant.
        It is a chance for me to take a closer look at the current state of the
        Perl 6 art and make something useful at same time for the sake of
        broadcasting what Perl 6 would look like and mean to developers all
        around. Of course, in a very humble scale.

        I am an (obscure) ONLamp blogger since May 2007.

                http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3044
                (See the BLOG handle.)

WHEN IT WILL BE DONE
        Well, Perl 6 has many many operators. Some of them are brand new and
        deserve more attention. Others are well known and standard and could be
        discussed in a batch. Anyway they are many.

        From the table in Synopsis 3

                http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3044

        I estimate more than 30 articles (which would take more than 10 weeks
        when publishing 3 per week).

        Well, that does not sound convincing. I have to think harder and maybe
        stand on a compromise on 8 weeks or 24 articles. Suggestions for
        defining sharper boundaries to these task welcome.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION
        The idea occurred to me only recently. Flávio Glock agreed it could be
        desirable. And so I submitted this.

BLOGGING ABOUT PROGRESS
        The progress can measured by the very publishing of the articles on the
        site. If preferred, I may report this on my use.perl journal as well.

A SAMPLE
        I prepared a first sample of the contents of the first articles on the
        series and put them online in a private site.

                http://ferreira.nfshost.com/perl6/proposal.txt
                http://ferreira.nfshost.com/perl6/intro.html
                http://ferreira.nfshost.com/perl6/zip.html
                http://ferreira.nfshost.com/perl6/stitching.html

PREREQUISITES
        * I've got the thumbs-up of James Turner, the ONLamp editor
                (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2978) as an O'Reilly
                representative to use ONLamp.