News

Organizer's log: Day 5

30/08/12 23:43 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

Today was the day for travelling home. The first ones left before 6 in the morning to catch the early flight out of SVG, and the last group left the Preikestolen Mountain Lodge at 09:40.

The logistics went quite smooth, with no surprises and everything going as planned. It was almost boring. :)

Five of us had late flights, so we stayed in Stavanger for some food and good drink. We started off at N.B.Sørensens Dampskibsexpidition. A nice place, but quite expensive. After lunch we went to another pub after a while, followed by another pub switch to The Cardinal pub where we ended the day with a few games of Fluxx Cthulhu and couple of wonderful beers from their huge bottled selection. Salve finally got the one he had been ranting about for weeks, and was happy.

A brilliant ending to a brilliant hackathon, if one might say. :)

-- Salve (hackathon organizer)

Tags: perl moose rdf hackathon organizer log

Organizer's log: Day 4

29/08/12 23:47 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

Sometimes it seems like we're at a food hackathon! We had a nice Norwegian breakfast, a tasty lunch and a four-course dinner to finish off the hackathon. In-between these bouts of consumption, we hacked on all kinds of things. But this time with the rather striking knowledge that the hackathon is about to end. Some of us chose to continue well into the night, knowing that we had to get up quite early to catch the bus to the airport.

Well done to the attendees! We've had a great time, achieved a lot, and proved the substantial value of gathering people in the same room in order to solve problems quickly.

Now we only have to wait for the attendees to write their own blog posts about the event! ^^

Tags: perl moose rdf hackathon organizer log

Organizer's log: Day 3

28/08/12 23:30 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

The day starts off with rain, but luckily not as heavy as the meteorologists predicted on Tuesday. Breakfast was pleasant, and we enjoyed looking at the grey weather outside while munching dark bread with jam and Norwegian brown cheese. Marcus arrived in time for a late breakfast.

Then the hacking commenced.

We had lunch at noon, with announcements about food and presentations.

And then the hacking commenced.

We finished off with a round of presentations of what everyone has been doing the last few days. Much has been going on, and we're looking forward to see some blog posts about the results. Kjetil went home right afterwards, and we went to the restaurant for a tasty mutton dinner. Auggie's birthday was today, so we had a small cake for desserts and we all sang a copyrighted birthday song in her honor. :)

The evening went on with both socializing and hacking, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Tags: perl moose rdf hackathon organizer log

Organizer's log: Day 2

27/08/12 23:02 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

The weather was even better today, with clear skies and lots of sun but a little colder. We started off with a tasty breakfast followed by sartak giving his Moose Role Usage Patterns talk he gave at YAPC::EU. At noon we went for a warm lunch (tomato soup with eggs) with discussions about teaching Moose, Booking.com and role-related terminology. This was followed by Patrick's introductional talk about NQP.

Hacking then commenced.

By dinner-time we learned that a gusher of oil professionals were arriving and that we should have ours an hour early. Fine! We made room for the oily people, and as thanks we got free drinks. :)

Hacking then commenced, with the evening activities slowly puttering into a night filled with the Madness of the Old Ones.

Tags: perl moose rdf nqp hackathon organizer log

Organizer's log: Day 1

26/08/12 23:38 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

We started off with a quick breakfast, picked up our lunch packages and started the climb to Preikestolen. Several of us couldn't join us on the hike because of pain in their legs. I hope they get another chance some day, because the view from Preikestolen was truly worth the effort to get there.

We were off before 10 o'clock, with a pleasant 15°C in the air and some clouds. Good weather for both walking and photography. We were also joined by Rune Nessen - a remote-controlled helicopter pilot who was charged with recording our trip to the viewpoint. He brought several RC helicopters, all of them fitted with cameras, and all of them with enough fuel or batteries to last for a few hours of aerial movie shooting.

The slowest among us arrived some three hours after departure, and were greeted by a stunning view, and LOTS of people. We enjoyed our lunch at the edge, taking lots of pictures and watching the helicopter fly around and over us. It was a bit chilly, but everyone seemed to have a good time, so we took our time enjoying the view.

On the way back we had a few more aerial recording shoots, all the time getting questions like "will you publish this on YouTube?" and "this is so cool, where can I download it when you're done?". We replied "we'll see, but if we get enough good footage, we'll most likely publish it on the Oslo.pm website. Let's see how it goes.

Back at the lodge, we promptly went on to hacking and discussing.

Dinner was nice, with the main course being a wonderfully tasting chicken club with chickpeas, salsa and cabbage.

We kept on hacking until quite late, even if many of us were exhausted from the trek. And we even got in a couple rounds of Fluxx. Good times! :)

Tags: perl moose rdf hackathon organizer log

Organizer's log: Day 0

25/08/12 22:08 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

Today we spent our time getting to the lodge. Arne's logistics planning paired with Eystein's bus driving skills got all of us to Preikestolen Mountain Lodge in one piece. The ferry ride was beautiful, with a pleasant breeze keeping us cool, and the music we played was appropriately Norwegian.

Arriving at the lodge, we notice quickly that the area around the lodge is very quiet, with a beautiful lake view and lots of forest and mountains to rest weary eyes on. This is a nice place to hack for a couple days.

When everyone had arrived, we did the introductions and gave everyone a tiny blue-sweatered plush moose so we would get into the mood. At seven we took the short walk to the restaurant for a tasty 4-course dinner filled with plenty of discussion and even a couple project introductions from Kjetil and Stevan.

After the food we gathered in the lodge for some hacking and discussions. Distracting these guys from their code and their projects is HARD. As I figured, it's pointless to plan the hacking itself. :)

As for weather, the forecast looks good for Sunday. We'll hike to Preikestolen tomorrow, and if all goes well, we'll be on our way around nine-ish.

Tags: perl moose rdf hackathon organizer log

Introduction and braindump materials on the Perl+RDF Wiki

08/08/12 23:33 by Kjetil Kjernsmo (‎kjetilk‎)

People in the Semantic Web with Perl community have been busy adding stuff to the new wiki. For most participants, it is the introduction to the Semantic Web for Perl Hackers that will be of most interest.

People have also been dumping their brains on two pages that describe the main directions we're headed, Moose for the low-level API and RDF semantics to Moose. In both cases, we hope that the community will help us turn these ideas into something solid we can code.

Tags: perl rdf moose hackathon oslo.pm wiki

Preparing for the hike to Preikestolen

05/08/12 16:03 by Robin Smidsrød (‎robinsmidsrod‎)

The hike from the lodge was about 2 hours last time I was there, and considering I'm mostly a desk jockey these days, I'm going to assume that it is going to take us about 3 hours to get to the top. If you are anything like me, I'd urge you to get some walking exercise for the next few weeks to prepare your body. Most of the walk is a light uphill walk over grassy and mountainous terrain. At the end of the trail there is a somewhat steep climb (from what I can recall, it's about 45 degrees) where you will have to use your hands to some degree, but it only lasts for about 30-40 meters. Pack in a way that ensures you can have both hands available for climbing if required. The entire trail should be fairly well marked, so there should be little chance of getting lost. It is advisable to wear a pair of boots with a good grip and preferably water-proof or water-repellant coating (no sandals or heels). The trail contains some puddles of water here and there, but they shouldn't be too hard to avoid. There might be more water along the trail if the weather has been bad for some time. A couple of band-aids can be wise to bring as well, in case of blisters.

Be sure to bring a good amount of water, as the hike up can be pretty dehydrating. About a liter of liquid should be the minimum you bring, maybe a bit more if you can handle the weight. Also bringing something to eat is advisable, to make sure you can replenish your blood sugar once you've reached the top. Some slices of bread, some cookies, maybe a bar or two of chocolate, or a portable grill along with some hotdogs if you feel adventurous (they sell it all at any local grocery store). The Oslo.pm guys say they'll organize some food though, so might not need to worry much.

The top can be quite windy, and if we're unfortunate the wind can be quite cold. The best way to protect yourself is to use clothing that protects against the wind, but allows your body to breathe while you walk. A jacket made to repel water and wind is probably a good choice. Short pants are not advised, a pair of jeans or some synthetic material similar to the jacket is probably best. If you sweat a lot you should avoid using cotton for your underwear, finely woven wool underwear is a much better choice. You should be able to get the pieces in any decent sports clothing store. If you don't have this, don't stress it. It will help you not feel cold because of the wet underwear once you get to the top and stop walking. Some kind of hat or head-wear to protect your ears against the wind is probably smart too.

Once you reach the top, be aware that there are no railings or anything else to protect you from the abyss, so do keep your distance from the edge. We don't want anyone to fall to their death. :) You should bring something to sit on, as the ground might be cold and wet. One of those small rubber-foam mats (usually about 35x30cm) is what I'm planning to bring. They fit nicely into a small backpack. Having checked the coverage map for my cell provider, I do believe the location should have decent 3G coverage, so if anyone has a small device capable of live-streaming, we could attempt something once we're there. I have a Wi-Fi hotspot I plan to put in my pocket, just in case.

The view is magnificent, and I urge everyone to bring a camera if you have one. I plan to bring my Canon equipment, even though it's quite heavy. Last time I was there I just had a really crappy point-and-shoot (film, not digital), and I really look forward to seeing the location again, but this time being able to capture the moment. If you have decent equipment, bring a wide lens, you won't regret it.

The trip back is quite easy. Last time I was there I jogged back in less than 45 minutes, but you're not going to be able to do that unless you're in great shape (and not worried about dirtying your clothes). Somewhere between an hour or two is probably a reasonable time to expect to spend on the return walk, considering it's all downhill. Do expect that the clothes you wear probably will get dirty, so bring something to change into once you get back.

Check list (in prioritized order)

  • Lots of water to drink
  • Small/light backpack
  • A good pair of hiking boots
  • Jacket against wind (and rain)
  • Trousers, either jeans or some other material similar to the jacket
  • Something to eat
  • Hat, to protect your ears against cold wind
  • Camera equipment
  • Rubber foam mats
  • Band-aids, in case of blisters
  • Sports wool underwear
  • Get some walking exercise next few weeks

I look forward to sharing this memorable trip with members of the Perl community. See you there!

-- Robin Smidsrød

Tags: perl moose rdf hackathon oslo.pm prekestolen preparations check-list

p5-mop hackathon goals (part 5 of 5)

30/07/12 21:42 by Stevan Little (‎stevan‎)

This is our fifth and final article in the series in which we discuss the goals for the p5-mop hackathon. In this article we will discuss our goals around integration with Perl 6.

Integration with Perl 6

So, in this final article I want to discuss what is perhaps the most ambitious goal as well quite possibly the most important one. Ever since the conception of Perl 6, it has always been said that it would not be backwards compatible. And that Perl 6 was a not so much a break with the past, but a giant leap into the future. So instead of backwards compatibility, the goal was interoperability, and for a long time that goal was hinged on the idea of the Parrot virtual machine and a Perl 5 running atop that. Unfortunately that project (Ponie) was ultimately "put out to pasture" in August of 2006.

If you trace the lineage of the p5-mop project you will first come to Moose. But Moose, while borrowing from a number of languages, got the majority of its inspiration from Perl 6, which was a direct result of work done on the Pugs project. It it only fitting that we come back around full circle here and make one of the goals of the p5-mop to interoperate with Perl 6.

So with this goal in mind, we are very happy that both Patrick Michaud (the Perl 6 Pumpking) and Jonathan Worthington (an avid Perl 6 contributor whose focus is on the metamodel) will be attending the hackathon. Having these two with us will not only help stir the discussion for Perl 6 interop, but also allow us p5-mop hackers to learn from the experience of the p6-mop hackers.

As mentioned previously, the deadline has passed for registration, but it is still possible to contribute virtually over IRC, etc. So if you are interested in participating and helping out, please consider joining us on the #p5-mop channel and the p5p mailing list during the hackathon.

Tags: perl p5-mop p6-mop moose hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen perl6

On the importance of supporting Perl events

18/07/12 03:05 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

This hackathon wouldn't be possible without our sponsors! We have several of them, each of them giving us both reason and means to Make Stuff Happen. Thanks go out to Renée Bäcker and Perlmag, to Reini Urban and cPanel, to Matthew Horsfall and Dyn, and most importantly to the people at NUUG Foundation who matched Oslo.pm's initial donation to the project.

But with that said, we've had some important considerations to take into account — of which the most important is that the goals of this hackathon probably don't match the goals of our sponsors. We can't say "come to us to hire new Perl people" or "come to us to show yourselves off to the Perl community". We can only say "help us improve Perl."

This hackathon is a very small event and its topics are most likely too narrow to make it a good candidate for traditional "marketing money" where visibility is the main goal. Instead, we concern ourselves with some very advanced stuff. Tasks and topics that might not be available for run-of-the-mill developers for years.

Forming an idea about the consequences of having an efficient RDF stack in Perl? Figuring out how an in-core Meta Object Protocol might influence Perl developers in general? These are very difficult considerations, and probably well beyond the hiring requirements for most people who get to decide which events to sponsor.

What does this mean for the Perl community? Should we stop organizing events that have non-obvious consequences? Or only long-term consequences? Should we only focus on creating marketplaces for finding competent developers? Should we only help regular @businesses find their next employees?

My personal opinion is "no", and here's how I think about it.

Everyone has to consider their long-term viability and ability to survive in their market. Hiring professionals, companies in growth, students looking for a job and anyone else trying to just do their business – they all know their immediate needs. To match supply with demand. To match competent people with workplaces where they can thrive and create value. To do what's necessary to get the job done.

I think we should also look beyond our immediate needs — but to consider the long-term viability of the field, we need to be aware of the ideas and issues that are important in that field. We have to be aware of details and trends and people and needs. Why should an individual choose technology A above technology B? Why should some student stake their future on a specific programming language instead of another one? Why do some people leave, some stay and some come back? Self-awareness questions like these are deeply necessary for the health of the Perl community, and they deserve our full attention.

Our full attention means the full attention of the Perl community members — we just can't expect anyone else to do it for us. Kudos to the Perl shops out there who try to make a difference, but I just don't think "the commercials" out there can do this on their own. They don't coordinate, so the Perl community has to coordinate themselves.

And my own gut feeling on how to take this further?

People, students, developers choose to spend their time on things that are fun, exciting, and powerful.

As far as I know, the qualities that draw people to any language are almost always about touchy-feely stuff. Stuff that make people go "wow, is that really possible?" and "holy crap, that's soooo cool!" or "I've got a friend/teacher/family member who learned it, so I'll learn it too."

The hard part of this, is that we have to make this happen. Expletives like "holy crap!" don't come all by themselves. They need a reason to appear, and someone has to create that reason. Create it with care and afterthought, and perhaps even with support from highly talented people who have the vision and foresight and discipline to create things that might not become "universally cool" for several years.

This is hard work, and probably quite unsexy. And certainly not exciting for most managers with a sponsorship budget.

This is why Oslo.pm is so immensely grateful for the support we've received for organizing the Moving to Moose hackathon. We believe we're organizing something that might lead to something very valuable, and we hope lots of developers eventually will agree with us. But we wouldn't be able to do this without the trust and support from our sponsors. So that's why we say the following:

Dear sponsors. Thank you very much! We really wouldn't be able to do this without you, and I hope that you appreciate your role in shaping the Perl community and it's future.

And the rest of us? We're an Open Source community without a commercial backer. That means we'll have to make cool stuff happen ourselves, and then be the ones that tell about it.

Go for it! :)

Tags: perl moose p5-mop rdf hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen sponsors

p5-mop hackathon goals (part 4 of 5)

11/07/12 10:50 by Stevan Little (‎stevan‎)

This is our fourth article in the ongoing series in which we discuss the goals for the p5-mop hackathon. In this article we will discuss our goals around integrating the new p5-mop with the existing p5 core.

Integration with Perl core

The ultimate goal of the p5-mop project is for it to become part of the perl5 core. The current plan is that the first version of the p5-mop will likely appear on CPAN as a standalone module, followed by inclusion in the perl 5 core distribution, also as a standalone module, and then eventually as a core feature of the language. This gradual and controlled approach will allow us to properly vet the model before inclusion in the core language, allowing us to avoid costly mistakes that might lead to backwards incompatability and long deprecation cycles.

A benefit of this approach is that we have a longer time in which to explore the exact details of how the MOP might be implemented in the core interpreter. One of the goals of the hackathon is to encourage discussions about this both online (via p5p) and in person. Of the current confirmed guests there are a number of core hackers as well as a number of experienced XS/C hackers and it is our hope that much progress can be made on this front.

As I mentioned in the previous article, unfortunately the deadline has passed for registration, but it is still possible to contribute virtually over IRC, etc. So if you are interested in participating and helping out, please consider joining us on the #p5-mop channel and the p5p mailing list during the hackathon.

Tags: perl p5-mop moose hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen perl-core

p5-mop hackathon goals (part 3 of 5)

02/07/12 18:23 by Stevan Little (‎stevan‎)

This is our third article in the ongoing series in which we discuss the goals for the p5-mop hackathon. In this article we will discuss our goals around the POD documentation that accompanies the p5-mop proposal.

Improving the POD Documentation

Along with the p5-mop prototype, we have also put together some POD documentation that attempts to document and define the proposed MOP by splitting it up into three different aspects.

If you followed some of the links above you would have noticed that the documents are slim in some areas. This is one of the goals of the hackathon, to fill in some of the slimmer areas of the docs and try and capture the details that are missing in the others.

Unfortunately the deadline has passed for registration, however it is still possible to contribute virtually over IRC, etc. If you are interested in participating and helping out, but cannot make it to Preikestolen, please consider joining us on the #p5-mop channel during the hackathon.

Tags: perl p5-mop moose hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen pod documentation

Registration closes in a few hours

25/06/12 13:29 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

Today is your last chance to register! We close at 23:59:59 UTC tonight, June 25th 2012.

Tags: perl, moose, rdf, hackathon, deadline

New Semantic Web Wiki

22/06/12 09:58 by Kjetil Kjernsmo (‎kjetilk‎)

There's a new Wiki on the Semantic Web with Perl site.

This will grow to the canonical community wiki, but currently, the main intention with this wiki is to flesh out some requirements for the work we'll do on the hackathon. Basically get some clarity so that the Moose folks can better help us get there. To really straighten this out, we need a face to face meeting, which is to us a large part of why we organize this hackathon.

Part of the work will be to create a much more flexible API. The whole Semantic Web community has a problem in that the low-level APIs have a very small number of methods and extension points, and for programmers, it means they cannot easily take advantage of the optimizations of the underlying stores. If we can succeed with Moose, we'll have something that goes far beyond what anybody else in the Semantic Web community has.

The other part is to try to put RDF semantics on the top of Moose. If successful, this will yield a totally new way of interacting with RDF data, much more dynamic and intuitive. It'll really make it fun to develop with Semantic Web.

It is history we're creating here, so do sign up and come hack with us!

Tags: perl rdf moose hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen

Last chance to sign up for the hackathon!

22/06/12 09:50 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

Time is running out! If you consider coming to the Moving to Moose hackathon, then make sure to sign up today! The registration deadline is June 25th, at 23:59:59 UTC.

To give you an impression of the finality of this deadline, here's a quote.

09:48 < sjn> the finality of this final deadline is *very* final, deadly 
             and line-shaped! :)
09:52 < frettled> It's an actual deadline!  The line will be dead!

I hope this is sufficient to illustrate the linear deathyness of this finale.

Tags: perl moose hackathon oslo.pm registration deadline haha-only-serious

p5-mop hackathon goals (part 2 of 5)

21/06/12 13:48 by Stevan Little (‎stevan‎)

This is our second article in the ongoing series in which we discuss the goals for the p5-mop hackathon. In this article we will discuss our goals around the implementation of Roles in the p5-mop.

Roles

Perhaps one of the most exciting features to come out of the Perl 6 Synopsis was the idea of Roles. Roles were originally inspired by work done in Smalltalk by the Software Composition Group (part of the Institute of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics (IAM) at the University of Berne) and is detailed in the papers found here (NOTE: these papers are actually on our suggested reading list for the hackathon).

Currently we have an implementation of roles in a branch of the p5-mop repository. This is currently the most complete of the several attempts we have made, but to be honest, it is not yet satisfactory to us. Because of this, one of the key goals of the hackathon is to try and work out the best design for Roles in the core. This not only includes the details of how Roles behave on the language level, but also how they fit into the underlying MOP.

Our current list of attendees includes a number of core Moose developers, all of whom have done significant work on that Role system, as well as Jonathan Worthington, one of the key designers of 6model the Perl 6 meta-model layer. We hope given this mix of people there will be much spirited discussion had and hopefully a unified design for Roles in the core of Perl 5.

So if you are interested in Roles and want to help, make sure to sign up as soon as possible (remember June 25th is the deadline), and come join our discussion.

Tags: perl p5-mop moose hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen roles

Who is coming to the Moving to Moose hackathon?

20/06/12 08:30 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

The success of a topical hackathon depends very much on who shows up. We'll be focusing on Moose and RDF-related stuff, so it's prudent to ask who is coming from the #moose, #p5-mop and #perlrdf communities?

I'm so glad you asked! :)

Florian "rafl" Ragwitz
A frequent contributor to the Perl 5 core as well as many Perl modules on CPAN. He is the principal organizer of the Perl Google Summer of Code and Google Code-in initiatives, one of the maintainers of MetaCPAN, and a speaker, contributor and attendee at many Perl conferences and events.
Gregory Todd "kasei" Williams
Author of RDF::Trine, RDF::Query and many other semantic web Perl modules. He is writing a Ph.D thesis at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, on efficient federated query answering on the web.
Jesse "doy" Luehrs
The current maintainer of Moose, KiokuDB, and Bread::Board::Declare. He works with Stevan at Infinity Interactive and has been working with him on the design and implementation of the p5-mop project.
Jonathan "jnthn" Worthington
Designer of Perl 6's Meta Object Protocol, which Moose is strongly inspired by.
Kjetil "KjetilK" Kjernsmo
RDF and Perl geek with background in W3C and 8 years of industry experience. Currently working on his Ph.d. on efficient federated query answering on distributed SPARQL data sources by exposing compact statistical digests.
Konstantin "kba" Baierer
He writes a Master's thesis about adding RDF semantics to Moose, and he has published MooseX::Semantic for this purpose.
Marcus "marcus" Ramberg
Perl hacker with a long background in the Catalyst, Moose and Mojolicious communities. Marcus was the first known user of Moose in a production application. Currently CTO of Nordaaker, where he hacks on Perl based web apps as well as IOS applications.
Shawn M. "sartak" Moore
One of Moose's maintainers having written popular modules like MooseX::Role::Parameterized, Mouse, and Any::Moose. He aims to make p5-mop as extensible as possible, ensuring that it can support systems even more intricate than Moose can.
Stevan "stevan" Little
The original author of Moose and Class::MOP and has been writing meta-circular object systems for fun for the last 7 years. Stevan's latest project is to get a new object system into the Perl core.
Toby "tobyink" Inkster
He is the author of a large number of RDF-related Perl modules on CPAN, including RDFa parsers, HTML5 microdata parsers, FOAF+SSL authentication modules, etc. He is also a co-inventor of the FOAF+SSL protocol.

You can also find an updated participant list on the hackathon website.

In other words, we're already looking good when it comes to participants. Wanna join us? :)

Tags: perl p5-mop moose hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen attendees

It's the secondary goals that make a Perl event memorable

15/06/12 15:51 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

Oslo.pm is a tiny organization, and we can't boast of much. At best we can say we manage to "keep up appearances" by drinking enough beer to make everything look awesome. :)

We do have some ambitions though, of which the latest big one (especially promoted by the group's Kirk^H^H^H^Hleader, sjn), is to do more fun stuff.

  1. Do something cool
  2. Tell someone about it

From the organization side, the Moving to Moose hackathon definitely has a secondary goal - to show to the world that even tiny Perl Monger groups like Oslo.pm can do cool stuff. Thanks to our sponsors, we'll be spending quite the healthy amount of funds on this trip. We do this not only to hack on awesome stuff, but also to take pictures, create good stories to tell at home and - if all goes well - have something we can look back at years from now, and proudly say "we were there, and we had fun".

I think the "we were there"-ambition is good to have for any event, and I would love to see more organizers in the Perl community think this way. Whether or not your local .pm group has a Picard, a Kirk or someone else making stuff happen, doing something fun now and then is crucial for the health of the community. This "fun stuff" might not have anything to do with Perl, and should therefore be considered secondary as raison d’être. Perl is #1, but without a little fun we're just a bunch of geeks at the pub.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of both pubs, beer and geekery, and very much in favour of combining these. There are plenty of good reasons these three are common for many technical meetup groups - especially since these groups exist so it's members can learn to know new stuff and new people. I think it's bad to tone down the importance of a good brew and some idle chatter about interesting stuff.

But sometimes, it would be nice to do something extraordinary. So let's agree we also have secondary goals in the Perl community, and they're all are about making Perl events memorable and fun.

I'd love to see more attention being spent on secondary goals.

This is why Oslo.pm is trying something new. We want to hack on stuff we care about while actually getting to know the world we're trying to improve, and if this also leads to some great stories and memories worth telling to your friends, I'll gladly deem the project successful.

So please imagine how much we're looking forward to the Moving to Moose hackathon, and consider how much fun you could have if you could be there too!

Are you coming? :)

Tags: perl p5-mop moose hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen community organizing

p5-mop hackathon goals (part 1 of 5)

12/06/12 22:48 by Stevan Little (‎stevan‎)

In an effort to make the upcoming hackathon as productive as possible, we are beginning to plan out some of the goals we would like to accomplish and topics we would like to cover. In the original proposal we laid out five goals for the p5-mop portion of the hackathon and in this series of articles we will expand on each of them to provide more details.

More Tests

The Perl community has perhaps one of the strongest testing cultures around, with a set of tools and infrastructure that is unmatched in any other language. It is our goal with the p5-mop project to continue in this tradition and build a robust test suite that can be carried along through each stage of the project.

Tests are also one of the most accessible parts of a project and often the best place for new contributors to get involved. We will be looking for a number of different kinds of tests in an attempt to exercise the new MOP from as many angles as possible. Here are some short descriptions of those types of tests;

  • Example tests

    There is a place for simple contrived tests, these can isolate and test individual aspects of the code. However in order to really test the usability of the MOP, examples of a more realistic nature are invaluable.

  • Metaclass & Extension tests

    The power and extensibility of the MOP is of primary importance to our design goals, so the more metaclass and extension tests we have the more we can prove the design.

  • Edge & Error case tests

    This is Perl, a language famous for the ability to write completely incomprehensible insanity that can be executed from the command line. If the p5-mop is to be part of the Perl core, it has to stand up to the same level of language contortionism as the core language.

  • Integration tests

    The p5-mop aims to be cleanly compatible with the existing Perl OO world of packages and bless. Here be dragons! The more tests the better.

  • Module tests

    We found with Moose that one of the best resources for tests was the test suites of other modules written with Moose. We are trying to do the same with p5-mop, so come port your favorite CPAN module and tests.

So if you are interested in helping the p5-mop project grow into a stable and robust MOP for Perl, come to the hackathon and help us write tests, tests and more tests!

Tags: perl p5-mop moose hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen testing

The Digital Nomad on Preikestolen

11/06/12 20:18 by Kjetil Kjernsmo (‎kjetilk‎)

Now, with only two weeks to go, it is really time to register for the Moving to Moose hackathon!

Sometime during our hacking, we'll try to make a visit to Preikestolen - one of Norway's most iconic places. But to get an idea of just how spectacular Preikestolen is, we need help from professionals. National Geographic recently had their digital nomad, Andrew Evans, go there and make a very nice video of his hike to Preikestolen. Well worth a look!

-- Kjetil Kjernsmo (the RDF geek in the organizing committee)

Tags: perl moose rdf hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen

Travelling to the venue

06/06/12 20:00 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

This hackathon is different from other Oslo.pm events in several ways. It's the most ambitious one in group's soon 10 year-old history, it's a deeper-than-usual dive into topics that are very dear to our hearts, and perhaps most importantly it's far away from everything else.

Ok, ok. Maybe the venue is not that remote. Norway has plenty of much more remote places to visit should you desire to get away from everyone.

Still, travelling to this hackathon is less trivial than any other event Oslo.pm previously has organized. This one isn't located next to some major airport with speedy train connection to a nearby bustling metropolis. Instead, we'll have to travel to a small city on the fjord-scarred Norwegian west coast in order to take a ferry to catch and a bus that only leaves a few times a day.

Extraordinary travel requirements require extraordinary travel guidelines. This is why I'm happy to say we have a great guide on how to get to the venue! Arne has put together lots of useful information (even a map to the area!) and updated the hackathon schedule with important deadlines.

If you consider coming, please take a look. Hopefully this will make it less likely anyone gets lost on their way to Stavanger and Preikestolen! :)

-- Salve J. Nilsen (one of the hackathon organizers)

Tags: perl moose rdf hackathon oslo.pm

Planning the Moving to Moose hackathon

04/06/12 19:16 by Salve J. Nilsen (‎sjn‎)

What should I do?

An important question to answer before any hackathon, is the one about what actually to do. We've posted some ambitions and ideas but when it's time to sit down and actually make stuff happen, personal interests, curiosity and motivations tend to count much more than lofty ideas.

This leads us to the next natural question to ask; What do you want to work on? We've set up a project plans wiki page where you can share your thoughts.

Looking forward to reading them!

-- Salve J. Nilsen (one of the hackathon organizers)

tags: perl moose hackathon rdf