Kelli had a great idea. 5 minute Perl videos for beginners. Take learning Perl and chop it up into short-attention span sized chunks with narration and video showing the code being written. This is not a new concept, I think the Rails and Selenium folks have been doing this, but I'm not aware of it being done for Perl.
Point is: short, poignant, entertaining, show don't tell.
Kelli, being a target for these videos, helpfully supplied a list of videos she wants to watch (in no particular order).
- What is Perl?
- Who is this Larry Wall guy?
- What's CPAN? (and why should I care?)
- What is version control? What has been used historically, and what should I use now?
- How do I install Perl?
- How do I write a Hello World program?
- How do I do basic bash scripting with Perl?
- Show me how to use the pattern matching stuff in Perl.
- How do I interact with files with Perl?
- How can I leverage Perl with my web app?
- What's the difference between Perl and PHP?
- What's the difference between the version of Perl that came with my computer and the latest versions?
- What's the difference between 5.8, 5.10, 5.12, 6.0, and what's the current state of each?
- How do I see if someone's already implemented this idea I have?
- How do I start a new project in CPAN?
- How do I join a project?
- Why should I join a project?
- Bug trackers... bugzilla vs. RT vs. etc.....
- Does Perl play nice with MySQL?
- Do Kelli's brainstorming lists ever go anywhere?
- Overview of good books to buy, websites to visit. Resources.
- What is Parrot?
- What is a YAPC?
- Is Perl Object-Oriented?
- How to types work? (What, no integer?)
- What's a hash?
- Why don't hashes use the # mark? :)
- Pretty Perl Programs (Perl poetry, programs written in symbols only, "another perl hacker" equivalents)
- I think I found a bug! What do I do?
- What's a makefile? How do I make a makefile?
- Why is testing so important? How do I implement testing in my program?
This is good.
ua on 2006-11-17T05:24:44
Yes. We also need:
- Perl on Rails (Show Jifty, Catalyst, or CGI::App)
- Hello World CGI
- How do I install modules from CPAN? (I prefer this syntax to the "What is CPAN", above, that is, if the answers are the same)
Recommend you test the visibility of the text on different services. Consider http://revver.com/ - we might be able to donate proceeds to TPF. If not, http://video.google.com/ might have better clarity over http://youtube.com/
That...
sigzero on 2006-11-17T13:18:19
Is a great idea.
Expanding on the topic...
Kelli on 2006-11-17T16:42:33
Okay. I got my own login so I can now post my crazy ideas myself.
For the record, the above is just a list I braindumped into Schwern's IM window last night past my bedtime. It's a good starting point, by no means complete, and I fully expect parts of the list to be deleted/merged/focus-changed.
The idea is to have these available on YouTube/GoogleVideo/perl.org/BitTorrent/etc. as standalones, as part of a FAQ, Wiki, or (best case) as part of an "open source" Perl course syllabus.
Next steps (high level):
Outline what information should go into a "Perl nugget" (and come up with a better name for it), put together a basic script, do a feedback loop, create/edit video, (more feedback), publish.
Once one's out there as a starting point, I'm sure more can follow. If there's a good format/skeleton/outline to follow, even better! The easier it is for Random.Perl.Aficionados to add their own 5-minute video, the better.
Hey, I just come up with these things. Someone else needs to grab it and run. I have next to zero experience with making videos. I'd be happy to help someone else, though.
What holds a bit of Perl...
jesse on 2006-11-18T02:25:35
They're called oysters ;)
Re:What holds a bit of Perl...
Kelli on 2006-11-18T02:41:59
Thank you.
Re:Expanding on the topic...
Alias on 2006-11-18T05:35:09
The actual movie making skills aren't that hard to learn.
I learnt the basics in a few hours/days when making up the movies for my YAPC talk.
I think what you need to deal with first is style, content and storyboarding.
Are we going to make them funny? Use real people? Cartoons? Just screen captures?
All these parts of production can be done with the actual video editing skills.
I'm in - lets do it ...
Hi
I think this is a great idea too.
Anyone who wonders why Ruby on Rails, is so popular need go no further than their screencast page to see how easy it is
http://www.rubyonrails.org/screencasts/.
Of course we know its probably easier and more fun in Perl.
My recommendation for creating such screencasts is wink.
http://www.debugmode.com/wink/.
(Its opensource, Windows/Linux and creates a Small flash swf file from your demo)
It comes with 2 screen cast tutorials.
After looking at those, that you be up and running a in a matter of minutes.
When I am recording sound I use the key stroke mode but when talking keep off the keys and mouse so all the audio is captured in one frame.
I find the best approach is to say what you are going to do and then do it.
Your mileage may vary.
Does anyone else have recommendations for screen cast software?
(The tutorials for Java one (
http://developers.sun.com/learning/javaoneonline/)are quite nice, a kind of simple power point presentation where the pages are linked to audio - anyone know of something similar in Perl )
But before we run off and start recording things I think some planning might (?) be in order.
In much the same way as the CPAN is huge asset to the Perl community I think a Comprehensive Perl ScreenCast Network
(Someone please think of a better name!) has the potential add similar value to the community.
I would like to see all the screen casts in one central place, so they are easy find.
I would like to see some control over screen casts.
How would you feel if someone started teaching you poor Perl practices?
So maybe initially a page on CPAN like the script page. (which I don’t mind helping/maintaining).
Maybe a new section in on PerlMonks?
But going forward something more like scripts submission mechanism on the vim site
http://www.vim.org/ where you can vote and leave comments about scripts.
Do we need a place to put other assets from the tutorial? e.g. completed files.
Does anyone have any ideas on the best place to host such a page(s) and take this idea to the next stage.
So just to summaries, I’m not saying we shouldn’t use something like video.google.com, we probably should. I am saying there should be a central place people go when they are looking for a screencast, which has votes and comments (searchable text etc )about screencasts, and links to screencasts where ever they may be.
I'm keen to help make this happen.
If I can help in any way let me know.
- AutoMagicMike
Should have checked my links ....
If you try
http://www.rubyonrails.org/screencasts
rather than
http://www.rubyonrails.org/screencasts/
you get a prettier page.
- AutoMagicMike
Just run off and start recording things.
schwern on 2006-12-30T18:58:44
But before we run off and start recording things I think some planning might (?) be in order.
No, please, just run off and start recording things.
Do you think people waited for CPAN before they wrote any modules? They wrote lots of modules and then we gathered them together into CPAN. Same thing here. If everyone waits until we have a repository nothing will get done.
Walk around the park first, we'll fill in the sidewalks later.
