I meant to have this as a reply to something a long time ago (I think it was when Alias released the latest strawberry).
It was mostly fanboi-ish stuff about my Perl heroes.
There is of course Larry at the top.
Foundational heroes are people like Randall, tchrist, Tim Bunce, Nick Ing-Simmons, Jarkko, Nate, Orwant...many many more.
Then there are my current heroes. Folks that by their example inspire me to want to do more and be a better programmer. They are folks like Ovid, chromatic, brian d foy, Allison and especially Alias.
Just reading what they have done in the last year or so is *insert a superlative*.
Alias's work on strawberry is pure inspiration to me. The Portable Perl stuff will be quite an encore.
So, many thanks to all of the people that continue to make Perl the thing I love to code in and glad to be tangentially in the community.
And I shouldn't forget hfb. She adds a lot of spice to the mix.
