Friday was the last day of the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, and a very long day it was too. I simplified my choice of sessions by following the Damian Conway track - starting off with "The Damian Conway Channel". Damian explained a number of modules that he's developed in the past year. Some (say the attribute modules or Filter::Simple) were obviously more useful than others (say Acme::Bleach).
Quite a few people have asked me recently about the silly modules on the CPAN, such as my Acme::Buffy. Yes, the module is silly and nobody should really use it in production code, but I'm of the opinion that it shows that the community is mature enough to make fun of itself, I've recently read Linus Torvalds' "Just for Fun" which contains the meaning of life (or at least Linus' one). He says that most things are developed in three stages and that we are always striving to reach the third stage. He explains how things like sex, fire, and Linux have progressed through the stages.
The three stages are survival, community, and entertainment. How does Perl fit these stages? Well, initially we were using Perl to rapidly develop applications in order to get the job done quickly and keep our boss happy. We've then progressed to the community stage, where we release modules to the CPAN, meet up in Perl Monger groups, and have Perl conferences in order to improve our standing and gain the admiration of our peers. I believe we're reaching the entertainment part, where we realise that Perl is the game. I expect many exciting new Perl developments in the near future now we've reached this stage. The Acme:: modules are only part of it. Wait and see.
In the afternoon the wonderful lightning talks (a series of rapid, five-minute talks) took place. These were all excellent, the highlights being Damian, ingy, and davorg. Is there anything Damian can't do?
And with that, TPC5 ended. It was long, it was tiring, but it was excellent. The scheduling was great. The BBQ-flavoured worms were great. It seemed that everyone had speaker badges. I learnt a great deal. The parties were great. I got some great new tshirts (thanks brian, ingy). I met lots of great people and had some wonderful conversations.
Later on, we headed down to the beach and grabbed some local food and partied. I'm typing this on the flight back. Ingy is staying with me for a couple of days in London and then off to Amsterdam for yapc::Europe!. If only I can recover in time...
And remember, there is no Perl Club...
