brian d foy

After a long, long time maintaining the perlfaq, I'm moving on from that part of my work in Perl. That leaves a spot for someone else to step in. The latest stuff I had in my briandfoy/branch was merged with blead earlier this week, but any changes I had queued up on my local machine are going to drop through the cracks. I can send that to-do list to anyone who'd like to take on the job.

As such, I'm also stopping the autoposter to comp.lang.perl.misc. This was driving all of the updates as the people in that newsgroup noticed even the most trivial of errors. Although it sometimes took me awhile, I responded to most of them, and the perlfaq was much better for all of the work that other people did and I merely committed.

This might seem like a big, scary change, but no part of any project should be so reliant on one person. What if I had been eaten by one of these killer swans roaming Copenhagen? You'd be in the same position, and I'd be a green goo that you'd step in. This week, tchrist regaled me with tales of almost being stomped by a Moose (the sorts with hooves and antlers). It was probably slightly sad when he and Nat Torkington moved on from maintaining the perlfaq too, but their absence made a spot for me. Now that I'm moving on, there's a spot for someone else. You don't have to be a Perl god or guru to do the job, although as you research the improvements you have to make, you might become one. I spent a lot of my time learning the things I had to fix. Don't be scared that you don't know the answers yet-I didn't know them either.

You're not going to see any immediate effects. The perlfaq on perldoc.perl.org will still be the one in Perl 5.14 for about another year, just as it would have been had I stayed.

Having one fewer responsibility leaves me an open slot, and the thing I think I'm going to fill it with will be a lot better for all of you than perlfaq. :)