News

London Perl Workshop Raffle Prize Winners

18/11/14 12:21 by Claire Jackson (‎clj‎)

So we have our winners, randomly picked out of the bag

Bingos- Make: Getting Started with Sensors
Kaitlyn Parkhurst- Make: Getting started with Intel Galileo
Barbie- User Story Mapping
Vytas- Arduino Workshop
Dave Cross- Arduino Cookbook
Sue- Mastering Perl 2nd edition
Leigh Keating- Make: Lego and Arduino Projects
Stefan Seifert--- Make: More Electronics

Could winners please email Mark or Claire with their full postal address and we will get your prize sent out to you. Thanks for a great London Perl Workshop, see you next year

Food and Drink

05/11/14 09:17 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

This year, as previously reported we will be having two 'sponsored' coffee breaks where there will be tea, coffee, light drinks and a delicious cake/sweet treat supplied by CV Library, OpusVL and Exonetric.

In addition to this we have arranged with the University to have the Coffee Shop on the Lower Ground Floor, next to where we will be hosting our Registration and Sponsors, open during the day.

The coffee shop will serve a selection of sweets and cold sandwiches as well as the following items from its standard menu:

New Cavendish Coffee Shop

Drinks:

Cappuccino/Latte medium £2.25
Hot Chocolate small £2.00
Hot Chocolate medium £2.30
Hot Chocolate large £2.50

Food:

Bacon & Cheese turnover £1.55
Tomato & Cheese turnover £1.55
Cornish Pastry £1.00
Steak Slice £1.30
Chicken Slice £1.30
Chocolate&Caramel shortbread £1.40
Butter Flapjack £1.40
Pain aux raisins £1.15
Croissant £1.00
Pain au chocolate £1.00
Lemon Muffin £1.40
Chocolate Muffin £1.40
Ham, Cheese & Tomato Panini £3.00
Cheese & Tomato Panini £2.75

These will be available from 09:00-15:30.

Please note that due to the extra food and drink we will be presenting throughout the day at this year's event we have decided not to do the buffet food at the public house in the evening. There will still be a courtesy beverage or three available until the sponsorship fund peters out.

Toys, toys, toys...

04/11/14 21:30 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

If you have been watching the tweets about this year's London Perl Workshop by our chief organiser, Mark Keating (@shadowcat_mdk), you may have seen him announcing images of some of the fun things we will have to play with at this year's conference.

Some of our attendees will be receiving high-quality Arduino training on the very-fully-booked workshop, and many people will be jealous of them. However for those of you who are not in the Arduino workshop you can head on over to the cafeteria area in the Lower Ground floor next to Registration where Tom Bloor will be hosting the Toys.

We have a range of robotic items for you to play with and maybe to get working with a Perl module or two. You will need to have the latest Arduino software:

Arduino Software

and the Perl that you want to use, though we hope to have a local CPAN distribution with us.

We have:

* 3 MeArms from the people at Phenoptix - powered by an Arduino
* 1 Arduino Robot
* 2 Bump and Go robots (Arduino)

We also hope to have:

* A 3D printer (Mendel Max)
* Microslice Laser cutter/engraver (Kickstarter Edition)

For those of you who just wish to push buttons and play, there will be competitive mini football using our football robot teams 2-10 players (1 to 5-a-side) and our very own remote controlled minion Dave (unless he gets loose and starts to invade the talks).

Make sure you plug your smile in and head down to join in with the maker fun.

Pre-Conference Social

04/11/14 21:20 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

Each year at the London Perl Workshop we appoint a Czar, usually the London Perl Mongers Czar do arrange the pre-conference meeting. This year the dates of the workshop are very close to the LPM monthly meeting and, wonderful folks that they are, as such they have rearranged their meeting to coincide with the pre-conference social on the Friday evening.

As Tom Hukins writes:

[This month's] "meet in the Barrowboy and Banker, a large Fuller's pub near London Bridge:

Barrowboy_And_Banker, SE1_9QQ

Open Street Map

I'll arrive some time between 6 and 6.30 in the evening, but please arrive whenever suits you. I'll have a stuffed camel with me to help you spot us. We don't have any reserved space in the pub, but it's big enough that we'll certainly find room.

The pub is a short walk from London Bridge mainline and underground station, and a pleasant walk across the bridge from Monument.

Our social meetings are open to anyone who wants to talk about Perl and related things regardless of their level of knowledge. This meeting gives you the added bonus of meeting the speakers other attendees from outside London before Saturday's workshop."

We look forward to seeing you there on Friday, 7th November from 18:30 onwards..

Limited Edition Tokens

03/11/14 14:25 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

The wonderful Castaway (Jess Robinson) and Theorbtwo (James Mastros) will have speacial, limited edition, 3D printed tokens for sale at the London Perl Workshop.

You can view a selection of the tokens here.

These items come in a number of colours and for those people that pre-order you can select a colour here and they will have it made for you.

You can tweet at them: @jandj3d on twitter, or email them for queries or pre-orders.

The tokens will be available from Jess or James and on the registration desk for the stunningly affordable charge of 50p per item.

Another Great Giveaway

03/11/14 14:14 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

Those wonderful people over at O'Reilly have sent a number of prize giveaways' for this year's London Perl Workshop:

1. Mastering Perl - brian d foy (2nd Edition) 2. Arduino Workshop - John Boxall 3. Make: More Electronics 4. Make: Lego and Arduino Projects 5. Make: Getting Started with Sensors 6. Make: Getting Started with Intel Galileo 7. User Story Mapping - Jeff Patton 8. Arduino Cookbook - Michael Margolis 9. Perl One Liners - Peteris Krumins

When attending the London Perl Workshop this Saturday morning please don't forget to pick up your raffle tickets for a chance of winning a book. If you can make it to the Dave Cross' tutorials in London the following week you'll want one of his tickets as well.

Tickets are strictly limited to one per person.

Geek University Join the Sponsors

03/11/14 12:30 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

Attendees at the London Perl Workshop over the last few years will have noticed an annual workshop on Dancer and Perl given by Andrew Soloman. Andrew has been a constant supporter of the event and has always supplied his time and expertise to us.

This year Andrew is launching the Geek University to coincide with the London Perl Workshop and as part of that will be offering free 'limited time' places to those students who attend his, and Ian Norton's class:

Learn Perl with Geekuni. Geekuni is an institute providing online courses for learning to develop software using Perl. Every concept is presented in the context of a hands-on exercise and the completion of the course is a fully functional piece of software. Geekuni’s Perl courses take you all the way from writing a simple 'Hello World' script through to developing a search engine and an online game.

With immediate feedback, the community of students and a mentor, the Geekuni student can rapidly acquire real-world Perl coding skills. Each course provides a certificate of completion and a course description clearly defining the skills attained with a good job fit. For a 3 day free trial go to:

Geek University

p.s. The first 50 students attending the London Perl Workshop's training sessions will get a two week free trial. Enrol here:

Learning Perl Learning Web Development

Perl 6 Developers join the list of Sponsors

03/11/14 12:26 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

It is our pleasure to once again welcome back the Perl 6 Developers to our list of sponsors who are supporting the London Perl Workshop.

Camelia is the spokesbug for Perl 6, the spunky little sister of Perl 5. Like her world-famous big sister, Perl 6 intends to carry forward the high ideals of the Perl community.

Perl 6 is currently being developed by a team of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers. You can help too. The only requirement is that you know how to be nice to all kinds of people (and butterflies). Go to #perl6 (irc.freenode.net) and someone will be glad to help you get started.

This year we are unfortunate in not having a Perl6 track, however prominent members of the community will be in attendance to support the event and discuss the latest developments in the Hallway Track. Make sure to seek them out and find out what is new in the fast-changing Perl6 and Rakudo worlds.

Extension to the Call for Papers

24/10/14 23:13 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

We have added an extra three days to the call for Papers for this year's London Perl Workshop. The new closing date is Monday, 27th October 2014 at 23:59.

Please note that we will not be extending beyond that date and we will also be asking you to submit your lightning talks for then as well.

2nd Quadrant Join the London Perl Workshop

13/10/14 10:37 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

It is our great pleasure to announce that 2nd Quadrant, one of the driving forces in the world of PostgresSQL development and support, has joined the list of Sponsors for this year's London Perl Workshop.

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2ndQuadrant is the world’s leading authority on the open source PostgreSQL RDBMS, backed by team experience that collectively is unrivalled. Many of our team are significant contributors to the development of PostgreSQL, with many features found in the current version of the software developed by 2ndQuadrant staff. In fact, more than 10% of the core code has been produced by us and we are the only company to contribute major features into all of the last 10 releases.

We have an unrivalled reputation for providing expertise and services that are focused on customer needs and the highest levels of satisfaction. As a company providing PostgreSQL professional services we’re trusted by some of the biggest global enterprises from every sector but are equally accessible to smaller organisations who need assistance.

----

There is an extra bonus in that Josette Garcia, formerly of O'Reilly, who has attended many of the London Perl Workshop events is now community manager at 2nd Quadrant and will be representing them at the conference.

We welcome 2nd Quadrant to our event and look forward to seeing them and Josette on the day. If you see Josette please make sure to say hello and thank her for the generous participation of 2nd Quadrant.

Floss UK sponsor with a treat

09/10/14 11:56 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

FlossUK join the ranks of this year's community sponsors at the London Perl Workshop with a broad approval of the event and our aims and a special treat.

One lucky workshop attendee will win a free attendance on Dave Cross' Intermediate Perl Course. To win you must be able to attend and grab a free raffle ticket on the day. Winner will be drawn from a hat at the closing ceremony.

Intermediate Perl - 11th & 12th November 2014

Venue: Ambassadors Hotel, 12 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1H 0HX

2 day Intermediate Perl (including practical sessions)

NOTE: All delegates will need to bring a laptop with a recent version of Perl installed.

Description: This course is aimed at people who have written a little Perl and who want to add another dimension to their Perl knowledge. This will take you from being “someone who uses Perl” to a “Perl programmer”.

Course Outline:

Types of variable
Strict and warnings
References
Sorting
Reusable code
Object orientation
Testing
Dates & times
Templates
Databases
Further information

Tutor: Dave Cross is the owner of Magnum Solutions Ltd, an Open Source consultancy company based in London. In 1998 he started london.pm which has grown to be one of the largest Perl Mongers groups in the world. He nominally led the group until September 2001. Between August 2002 and June 2006 he was the Perl Mongers User Groups Co-ordinator for the Perl Foundation. Dave is a regular speaker at Perl and Open Source conferences and is often invited to present tutorials alongside the main conference. He is the author of "Data Munging with Perl" (Manning, 2001) and a co-author of "Perl Template Toolkit" (O'Reilly, 2003). Dave lives in SW London. The rumours about gold-plated cats were never true.

This is a great opportunity to advance your Perl skills from a well respected tutor.

Booking.Com return as Sponsors

09/10/14 11:39 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

We are enormously happy to announce that Booking.com has joined the growing army of Sponsors for this years Workshop.

We are looking for top talent! Are you a great Perl programmer, or willing to learn Perl, and would you like to be challenged?

Join the international and dynamic Booking.com team in our Headquarters in Amsterdam!

Booking.com is a large Perl shop with some of the greatest developers and as a company we sponsor almost all Perl events around the globe to support the Perl community.

We offer an extensive relocation package, we take care of your visa and book the trip for you (and for your spouse, if applicable).

For more information go to http://bit.ly/BookingDevPerl and http://www.facebook.com/bookingcomcareers

We are looking forward to receiving your application!

Booking.com have been constant supporters of Perl, the Perl Community, The Perl Foundation and many conferences and workshops including the London Perl Workshop and we are proud to have them at our event.

Perl Careers Join as Sponsors

09/10/14 11:32 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

Perl Careers has joined the 2014 London perl Workshop as a room sponsor. This is the first year that Perl Careers has sponsored the event and we are happy to welcome them on board.

Perl Careers - Perl recruitment done right

Perl Careers is a Perl-focused recruitment consultancy, run by a CPAN contributor with a recruitment background, rather than by a non-technical person.

I can understand the skills you're looking to hire for, make sense of your GitHub profile, and offer specific Perl-related career and salary advice.

I am very picky about only:

Recruiting for companies I'd want to work at
Placing candidates who I'd want to work with
I'd love to talk to you if you think you might be either.

In any case:

If you're a candidate and you'd like a second pair of eyes on your CV or résumé, want a confidential run-down on a company you're thinking of applying for (whether or not we work with them), want some recommendations on what employers are looking for, or want to know if you're being paid properly, I'd be happy to have an informal chat.

If you're a hiring manager and you'd like some advice on your job ads, some thoughts on free and paid channels for advertising for candidates, guidance on market salaries, or if you're non-technical and just need some help fleshing out what your actual requirements are, I'd be happy to have a commitment free chat.

Most of the candidates I place weren't actively looking for roles, and weren't available to traditional recruiters.

Many of the most rewarding companies to work for aren't actively looking to hire, but if a recruiter who understands the candidate's strengths and the company's needs puts them together, they'll find a place.

You can email me at: pete@perl.careers

Pete will be in attendance at the event on the day so please make sure to seek him out and say hello, thank you and see if he can help you.

Exonetric join as Sponsors

09/10/14 11:30 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

Once again the wonderful chaps at Exonetric have joined the London Perl Workshop as sponsors. This year they will be sponsoring some tasty delights to accompany the morning coffee break that is being sponsored by OpusVL.

Exonetric provides a specialist business-grade hosting service with the capacity to manage dozens of servers on a customer's behalf, sited in a first-class data centre and on a first-class network. Alongside this, we provide a unique FreeBSD jail-based hosting service, now offering FreeBSD jails with 1TB of online storage for 30GBP/month+VAT.

We provide consulting for individual projects and reliable hosting services. We provide software development for Internet-facing infrastructure, general purpose Sysadmin skills for in-house projects or for systems outside the Exonetric network. Exonetric also gladly provides support for a variety of Open Source projects.

It is great to have Exonetric back with us in 2014

LPW Latest News

03/10/14 16:33 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

Good Day to you all.

The London Perl Workshop is now just one month away and so it is time for the usual prods, kicks and pushes to be sent to those thinking of speaking, attending or sponsoring to get body parts into motion and change gear ratios or be left in a sea of shame and lost opportunity.

Already confirmed for this event:

A keynote by Hakim Cassimally and Adrian McEwan - authors of 'Designing the Internet of Things'. A workshop of using Arduino and the Internet of Things by the above. (see below) Dave Cross workshop/tutorial on Perl and the Internet of Things A workshop by Ian Norton on Learning Perl Together A workshop by Andrew Solomon on Web Development with Dancer2 The Hardware Toys to play with - bring a laptop and see if you can code on one of our toys to perform

Free Morning Coffee Break with special snacks.

Free Afternoon Coffee Break with cakes.

Evening 'sponsored' Beer in our traditional LPW Social. (see below)

Some important dates:

17th October Last date to sign up for the Internet of Things Arduino Workshop. A co-sponsored event that costs just £25 to attend (to help towards purchasing hardware). The actual cost of this event is far higher as both speakers have been generously sponsored and the Enlightened Perl Organisation will be picking up the extra £35 on each kit (the kit you will receive to take home contains both an Arduino and an Ethernet shield along with many other bits and pieces). This is a fantastic opportunity and the course is already half filled as there is a maximum number of places.

24th October Closing date for talk submissions but we will be starting the process of choosing talks this weekend, so this may change or a valuable chance lost as other talks whetted our appetites first. Time to submit people, even if it is a placeholder to make sure you are registering intent.

31st October Last date to register and ensure you are on the 'printed' list of attendees. Why does this matter? Well we base much of our decisions on room sizes and talk choices based on those that have registered, and this year due to us setting some of the scheduling early you will be able to pre-state what you want to attend a little earlier. It also helps us with the coffee breaks and beers in the evening.

Anytime We are still looking for sponsors to help join in with the 'evening social', this year we have paid for a new element in a hardware workshop, sponsored kits and increased university charges. For this reason we have less available in the pot for the evening. If you want your company to be part of the social event now is the time to act. We are also still seeking sponsors to help cover the cost of venue hire and our special event! We are also looking for vendors who wish to sell hardware at the event, if you know of anyone who creates IoT hardware such as Arduinos, Raspberry Pis etc. and they want to come to the workshop and sell their wares then please have them contact the organisers.

There are a greater number of workshops this year than we have ever held and this will be an unmissable chance to receive free training whether you are new to Perl or really keen to learn more about how to use Perl with hardware devices. If you know of any other list or interested parties please pass on the details of this mail.

As always Mark is contactable as m(dot)keating(at)shadowcat.co.uk.

Thanks

-mdk

Science Photo Returns

24/09/14 11:59 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

Once again it is our pleasure to welcome the fine folks at the Science Photo Library as sponsors to the London Perl Workshop 2014.

"Science Photo Library provides striking scientific images and footage, unrivalled in quality, accuracy and depth of information. Our specialist and lifestyle material covers Healthcare, Science and Technology, Space, Environment, Animals, Plants and History.

For more than 30 years, we have worked with leading science and medical experts as well as acclaimed photographers to provide a central source for the best scientific imagery and footage available. We have more than 400,000 images and 30,000 video clips to choose from, with hundreds of new additions added to the website each week. You can search, download and purchase material from our website or, if you want to save time, simply take advantage of our free expert research service.

Perl has played a key part in our business. The Perl community has given assistance and help along the way. We are extremely proud to sponsor the 2014 London Perl Workshop."

It is an enormous pleasure to have the Science Photo Library back with us for 2014.

First half: Basics of Arduino and Electronics

connecting Arduino, basics of IDE, basics of C++ for Arduino
breadboard basics
wiring up a simple output (LED)
wiring up a simple input (button, potentiometer)
more complicated outputs - RGB LED
connecting to a simple internet app (basic PSGI) to change colour of LED

Second half: Playtime!

Collaborate with other attendees or work by yourself on, for example:

more electronics, wiring up a more complicated input/output from our goodie bag
more client code: play with C++ on the Arduino side
more server code: extend the basic PSGI you connected to earlier into a full featured Cat/Ox/Mojolicious app
more Perl interfacing: play with Device::Firmata, Device::Arduino::LCD, or Device::WebIO

As part of this workshop all attendees will leave with an Arduino Uno, Ethernet Shield and various small components. The cost of these components is close to £60 per kit; but thanks to generous sponsorship the attendees who sign up to this will only be charged £25 per person.

To sign up to this you must contact Mark Keating at Email Mark or Claire Jackson Email Claire and confirm your participation. They will give you a link of how to pay. Payment *must* be in advance and numbers will be limited to 15 persons. We recommend you sign up early.

More details will be announced.

The speakers have been generously sponsored by the Enlightened Perl Organisation.

Adrian McEwan Joins the Line-up

10/09/14 13:18 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

It is our pleasure to announce that the co-author of Designing the Internet of Things (co-author to well-known Perl developer Hakim Cassimally), Adrian McEwan, will be attending and presenting at the London Perl Workshop.

Adrian and Hakim are appearing thanks to the generous donations from the Enlightened Perl Organisation who are also the business services sponsors for the event.

Adrian will be presenting a new version/variation on his TedX Liverpool talk whereas Hakim will be writing a special talk for this event concerning Perl and the Internet of Things.

Both presenters will also be giving a hands-on workshop on the day whose details will be announced soon.

Eligo Join as Marketing Sponsors

04/09/14 12:06 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

Once again the great folks at Eligo, specialist recruitment, have joined the London Perl Workshop as our premium Marketing Sponsors.

We are a niche boutique recruitment consultancy with a team of dedicated Perl Consultants.

We live and breathe our markets. In fact we like to think we are as passionate about the sector as those who work within it. If you want proof of it stop by and meet Rick Deller one of our Senior Perl Consultants.

Because we understand the market shifts, history and challenges, we are able to provide honest and accurate insight into the market in terms of new entrants to the market, company growth, new products, opportunities, candidate availability, salary surveys, industry standards, competitor information etc.

We are able to find you the right person and/or job whether you are looking for- Permanent, Temporary and Fixed Term Contracts

We specialise in and have experience in recruiting Perl Specialists across a wide range of sectors, roles typically include –

Junior Developers
Senior Developers
Lead Developers
DevOps
Development Managers
Head of IT

Whether you are looking for a role or a candidate in the UK, Europe or US, we can help.

Please come to see us at the workshop or get in touch before on 020 8944 4187, Rick@eligo.co.uk, @PerlRick, Eligo technical. Connect with Rick on LinkedIn.

As always you can expect to see Rick on the stand in the main conference area and this year he may even give a talk on Perl Recruitment and the Perl Job Market. Make sure you wander over and say hello.

OpusVL brings the Morning Break

08/08/14 12:56 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

We are proud to welcome OpusVL to the London Perl Workshop once again as this year's Morning Coffee Break sponsors. OpusVL are a very familiar sight at the London Perl Workshop and delegates will be especially familiar with Jon Allen who has presented talks over many years.

Founded in January 2000, OpusVL have established themselves as one of the UK’s leading business systems, ICT and Open Source specialists providing best of breed, strategic and bespoke solutions. The company’s key strength is its straightforward approach, which is achieved by following a simple, yet effective method for every project: advice, implement, support, using an agile approach coupled with innovation as the cornerstone of every project.

If you are attending the workshop make sure to give a thank you to JJ and any other OpusVL attendee as you enjoy the complimentary refreshments they have generously provided. Please also take a moment to visit their website and look at the many products and services they provide.

CV Library Adds Afternoon Coffee

07/08/14 16:17 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

We are delighted to announce that CV Library will also return to the London Perl Workshop for 2014 and will sponsor the afternoon coffee. When we spoke to them earlier they added that this year they would also be bringing delicious cakes to help the coffee go down.

"CV-Library is one of the UK's leading online job boards, bringing millions of job seekers together with thousands of recruiters and direct employers. Comprehensively covering over 70 industries, CV-Library offers a high calibre of candidate across a wide range of industry sectors.

Based in Hampshire, the ever-growing company is fundamentally supported by a team of expert Perl developers who are the glue behind a site delivering record breaking traffic.

Keeping work in-house, CV-Library's development team are able to fully commit themselves as industry innovators – pioneering products to help user needs and keep ahead of competitors. Using agile methodologies, and working closely with design and marketing, they turn ideas into market leading products and services.

The team utilises technical innovation and best practices to help CV-Library become a celebrated market leader and achieve notable acclaim as a Deloitte Technology Fast50 company, among other titles. If you'd like to learn more about CV-Library, or wish to speak with us about our on-going recruitment opportunities, email Roxanne: r.fitzpatrick@cv-library.co.uk"

As always we are delighted when a sponsor joins us for the event, but there is a special joy in a returning patron. Please take the time to thank any member of CV-Library you meet. We look forward to welcoming them back to the event in 2014.

Nestoria Joins the Sponsors

06/08/14 09:27 by Mark Keating (‎mdk‎)

It is with great pleasure that I can announce that Nestoria, the property search engine, has once again joined the sponsors for the London Perl Workshop. This year Nestoria will once again sponsor a lecture theatre so look for their signs in all the published media.

"Nestoria is a vertical search engine for property that operates in eight countries across Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. Our focus is providing the best search experience for house hunters.

We use Perl for pretty much everything: our ETL systems, image thumbnail creation, geocoding (internally and with public APIs), internationalization, natural language processing, distributed data processing, and of course the website itself.

We also love Perl because it's so easy to teach. Our internship program brings on university students or recent graduates from around the world to work with us for 3 to 18 months - helping train the next generation of Perl programmers.

This year we started up the Nestoria Dev Blog at http://devblog.nestoria.com, so if any of the above sounds interesting please subscribe and leave us some comments.

If you're interested in joining our team check out our jobs page. "

Regular attendees will be very familiar with seeing Nestoria nestled proudly in our list of sponsors and the organisers have great pleasure in seeing them again this year.

There is little doubt that a complement of Nestoria staff will attend on the day so please make sure you take the time to say hello and thank them for their continued support.

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