itcharlie

On May 2nd 2015, the Second NYC Perl Hackathon event took place and this time around it was a completely different experience from the First NYC Perl Hackathon that took place in 2013. In early February, Jim Keenan made a call for a Perl Hackathon venue space in the NY.pm mailing list and Peter Martini from Bloomberg L.P. arranged a meeting to discuss the possibility of having Bloomberg L.P. host the event ( This is where my adventure started ). Jim Keenan reached out to me to assist him as a co-organizer ( and I excitedly said Yes ! ).

After attending a meeting and a tour at the Bloomberg office I started to feel the pressure and I had realized that I didn't know what I signed up for. It was after a few evenings of chatting and phone calls with Jim Keenan that the answer became more obvious " just take the KISS approach and keep it simple". Around this time now I had a better understanding of my role. I was to organize a project that will be the "hook" for this Perl hackathon event and that project ended up being the "Mini Pull Request Challenge".

I still struggle as a participant of the original Pull Request Challenge but I know its the best way to 'hook' Perl developers into giving something back to Perl. Neil Bowers was very helpful in organizing the "Mini Pull Request Challenge" and basically alley-ooped me all the way to the end. At this point I wrapped up the project preparation and it was time to enjoy a small break before the Hackathon.

The night before the hackathon I enjoyed a nice dinner ( sponsored by Bloomberg ) with ( Olaf Alder, Yanick Champoux, Ricardo Signes, Peter Martini, Steven Lembark, Will "Coke" Coleda, Jim Keenan and Kevin Fleming from Bloomberg L.P. ) On my way over to the restaurant Yanick and I chatted about gps technology and lost our sense of direction to the restaurant and the team. During dinner, I had a good chat with Steven about technology before my time followed by a number of different chats with everyone at the table regarding Perl.

During the Hackathon, I met a lot of interesting developers. It was fun to talk with them and learn what each person was working / planning on working on . Doug Sims and Brad Oaks participated in the "Mini Pull Request Challenge" and made a few pull requests. Jaron Rubenstein ( who hosted the First NYC Perl hackathon and sponsored the Second NYC Perl Hackathon as Rubenstein Tech ) participated in the Docker Perl Hacking project with Peter Martini. Ricardo Signes ( Perl 5 Maintainer ) hacking and "fudging" on Perl 6 with Will "Coke" Coleda and of course I can't forget Yanick Champoux who saved me from GDGraph nightmare and schooled me on Dancer 2 and Moose to Moo conversions for Text-Xslate ( still work in progress ) . There is many more I can mention but wont because of time.

Overall I had a great time and definitely look forward to the next NYC Perl Hackathon.

I give thanks to Rubenstein Tech, Perltricks.com Bloomberg L.P. , my employer Michael C Fina and co-workers who handled a release that day without me , Neil Bowers for inventing the Pull Request Challenge , Jim Keenan for asking me to co-organize and my lovely wife Amanda for letting me participate in a full day of Perl Awesomeness in a Saturday.