The Perl API for the Mortally Terrified

By Mike Friedman (‎friedo‎) from NY.pm
Date: Saturday, 30 November 2013 12:00
Duration: 50 minutes
Target audience: Intermediate
Language: English
Tags: api c inline perl terror xs

Have you ever wanted to contribute to a Perl module, but were dismayed to find parts of it written in C? Do you want to optimize some slow code, but the letters XS make you tremble in fear? Maybe you just want to find out how Perl works under the hood, so you can sound smart when people start talking about HV *'s and mortalisation.

This presentation has just enough to get you started on your way to Perl guts hackery. Rather than an introductory (and not that useful) tutorial on setting up XS, this talk dives into how the Perl universe actually works. Don't know any C? Don't worry. We'll have a quick crash course to get you up to speed with what you need to know, then go over Perl's internal type system, the main API endpoints you'll need to understand, and the resources available to learn more.