Now that it's summer and I have a break from working on a Masters degree late at night after work, I find myself wanting to take on some projects. I've recently contacted the Houston Perl Mongers and proposed partnering with them to submit a bid to host YAPC::NA::2007. In my e-mail to the Houston PM leader, I mentioned that the hosting of the conference could be a partnership between our group (Brazos Valley Perl Mongers) and theirs. I think they're considering it.
I've considered contacting some people about their to-do lists to see if there was anything that I could help with. I haven't done it yet, but I'm still considering it. I read Ask's posting on the Perl NOC site asking for volunteers. It looks like he found enough for what he needed. I've also read through some of the Perl Foundation's Summer of Code ideas.
Also, one of Jim Brandt's posts on the Perl Foundation blog got me thinking about trying to work on something like he mentioned (Perl Based Conference System). It would probably be a very worthwhile project for me if our bid for YAPC::NA::2007 was awarded and it came to Houston next year. Then, I would be in a great position to work on such a project.
Then, I started thinking about what I was trying to do. Maybe other people are in a similar situation, where they want to have a central place to go to find volunteer projects (instead of sifting through Sourceforge, etc.). This got me thinking about working on a 'Perl Volunteer' project. Maybe it could be volunteer.perl.org or something. And how great would it be to have the volunteer system built by none other than the volunteers themselves?!
Who knows, maybe I'll just go through the summer and get some much needed rest. If anyone has any ideas or recommendations, please let me know!
Re:Volunteering, without resorting to scut work...
Alias on 2006-05-24T03:46:33
I just realised that my comment sounds unnecesarily negative, despite the fact that I didn't want it to.
And it also sounds like a recruiting pitch, despite the fact it isn't.
There's always plenty to be done, and I personally have a queue in my head about 9 months long. Much of which aren't my projects.
But beware that many people who have big projects are used to seeing volunteers not follow through.
Perhaps what might be useful is some guide to _what_ it is exactly you are looking for. Something in a particular area? Something just to help out? Something you can put your name on? Do you like web, testing, bio, async, CPANy-infrastructure, functional programming, and so on and so on.
What is it you are looking for as a volunteer.
Of course, statistically, there's about an 80% change I won't get a reply, but I would like to keep my hopes up, because when a good volunteer arrives, it is a wonderful day.Re:Volunteering, without resorting to scut work...
jfluhmann on 2006-05-24T15:50:02
Thanks for the replies. I've worked with Perl on Windows for a few years (I've only recently been given the opportunity to work with a Linux server). I'll take a look at the StrawberryPerl link you mentioned and maybe some of your other stuff.
To address "what I'm looking for", I would say that I've found I learn best by doing, and doing again, and again. I'd love to have a project that I could say I worked on, but I'd also like it to be a project that allows me to learn more. I want something that allows me to "get in the game" so to speak. I think the more I start to contribute, the more I'll continue to contribute. I would eventually like to start contributing to CPAN. I want to be able to work on something that people will find useful. After three years, I still consider myself very new to Perl and I've only recently started trying to get involved in the Perl community. I started a Perl Monger group where I live and am trying to encourage a neighboring PM group to work on a proposal with me to bring YAPC::NA::2007 down here to Texas.
Most of what I've worked on is web-based, but I've also worked on various system management tools for Windows boxes. I've generated PowerPoint presentations from Perl as well as developed a partial IIS management tool for work. Now that I'm officially a programmer (by job title), I'll have a much greater opportunity to work on projects at work and learn more Perl (all of our applications are written in Perl). Even though I have projects at work, I still would like to contribute to the Perl community.
I guess I'm not exactly sure what I want, to be honest. I'll probably just have to play around with some things to see what I like, or even better, what I'm good at. Hopefully the two will be the same, but I'm the kind of person that if I'm good at something, I'll probably still do it even if I'm not too crazy about it. Hopefully I'll be good at something!
