December 2010 Archives

Hello (Perl) World!

What an odd thing to write... I've been developing software in one way or another for about 30 years and Perl has been my primary language since around 1993. And yet I don't have a single CPAN module to my name and haven't really been involved in the community at all other than thanking the stars that it exists and produces such fantastic things.

So, I suppose, consider this my hello.

Interestingly, I find myself being pulled more and more strongly into the vortex because of my involvement as one of the core developers of Melody. As great as Movable Type has been (and as proud as I am that it's being used here on blogs.perl.org), it's a mess of years-on-years of internally-focused development. With Melody, we're trying to unwind the mess (without unwinding the features) so that we can continue to make it even better in a far more efficient and community-driven way.

The problem is all I seem to be doing is refactoring and fixing bugs from other people's refactoring. And as much as I was confident of my perl skills before I am now completely aware of my shortcomings. I've been looking for a place to talk about these things where people would understand and, perhaps, even be able to help.

So that's what you can expect from me here. I hope it's enjoyable or enlightening in some way for you readers. For me, it will probably be more catharsis than anything else. Sweet, perl catharsis...

About Jay Allen

user-pic Long-time perl and Movable Type developer. Principal of Endevver (http://endevver.com). Former MT Product Manager at Six Apart. Co-founder and Board Member of the Open Melody Software Group (http://openmelody.org)