Well, I've finished the trial runs of the Idiomatic Perl course and all the feedback was very positive. Acxiom are keen for me to run it again soon and I might get a chance to try out the Competant Perl course as well.
Noticed a couple of days ago that the version of perlfaq2 in Perl 5.6.1 includes DMP in its list of recommended Perl books. As there are only a dozen or so on the list I consider that quite an achievement.
Oh, and I got home last night to find a cheque from Manning. It's five months until I expect my first royalty cheque, but it turned out to be my share of the publishing royalty from the people who want to publish it in Brazil. So I'm expecting to see a Portugese version pretty soon.
Which will be weird but interesting.
Thursday, May 31, 2001
Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Is it really almost three weeks
Is it really almost three weeks since I posted something here?
The May london.pm meeting was postponed for a week due to a tube strike that didn't happen. We finally got together on May 10th. Most of the usual suspects were there and, once again, a load of new faces. Was planning to leave relatively early, but that just didn't happen.
Web Techniques magazine has published a very positive review of the book. This is slightly strange because the book really has nothing to do with the web.
I've been trialing the Iterative Idiomatic Perl course with a couple of classes at Acxiom. It all seems to be going very well and the classes seem to be very interested in what I'm showing them. We're hoping to run a public course at some point in the next few weeks, but our marketing skills are letting us down a bit :(
On top of all that I need to write some talks for TPC and YAPC::Europe.
The May london.pm meeting was postponed for a week due to a tube strike that didn't happen. We finally got together on May 10th. Most of the usual suspects were there and, once again, a load of new faces. Was planning to leave relatively early, but that just didn't happen.
Web Techniques magazine has published a very positive review of the book. This is slightly strange because the book really has nothing to do with the web.
I've been trialing the Iterative Idiomatic Perl course with a couple of classes at Acxiom. It all seems to be going very well and the classes seem to be very interested in what I'm showing them. We're hoping to run a public course at some point in the next few weeks, but our marketing skills are letting us down a bit :(
On top of all that I need to write some talks for TPC and YAPC::Europe.
Wednesday, May 02, 2001
I spent the last week in New York
I spent the last week in New York with some people from london.pm.
On Thursday we met ny.pm. Much cultural cross-pollenisation ensured - and some great pizza.
Also on Thursday, Chromatic's review of "Data Munging with Perl" finally appeared on Slashdot. Thisa lead to the usual high level of discussion (!) but for once the Slashdot effect was overwhelmingly positive. Watching the Amazon sales rank over the next 24 hours was very interesting. The highest that I saw it on amazon.com was 86 and on amazon.co.uk it got to 38 (which made it the best selling computer book on amazon.co.uk - albeit just for a couple of hours!).
All in all, that made Friday a great day to meet Marjan and Helen from Manning for dinner. They were _very_ happy about the way things are going. We could need a second printing very soon.
The transcript for the linux.com online chat has just appeared online too. All in all, there's plenty of good publicity around at the moment - it's all very exciting!
On Thursday we met ny.pm. Much cultural cross-pollenisation ensured - and some great pizza.
Also on Thursday, Chromatic's review of "Data Munging with Perl" finally appeared on Slashdot. Thisa lead to the usual high level of discussion (!) but for once the Slashdot effect was overwhelmingly positive. Watching the Amazon sales rank over the next 24 hours was very interesting. The highest that I saw it on amazon.com was 86 and on amazon.co.uk it got to 38 (which made it the best selling computer book on amazon.co.uk - albeit just for a couple of hours!).
All in all, that made Friday a great day to meet Marjan and Helen from Manning for dinner. They were _very_ happy about the way things are going. We could need a second printing very soon.
The transcript for the linux.com online chat has just appeared online too. All in all, there's plenty of good publicity around at the moment - it's all very exciting!
Friday, April 20, 2001
Another excellent london.pm technical meeting
Another excellent london.pm technical meeting last night.
I tried out my "Why Perl Advocacy is a Bad Idea" lightning talk. It still needs some work. Concensus is that it needs to be more shouty!
Mark Fowler gave two lightning talks for the price of one. The first was about how he's using TT2 Views to create a web page for our NMS (Not Matt's Scripts) project. The second was about the progress of that project. It seems to be coming on very well.
Robin talked about Mutagenic Modules - which was full of Robin's usual inspired madness. And made me rethink my TPC paper a bit. When Robin posted the slides to the list this morning, Simon Cozens mentioned that he'd been working on a similar (but different) idea. Turns out that MJD's "You can't just make up any old shit and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!" line might not be true for much longer :)
Jo gave a talk on Tangram - using a very interesting presentational style. And to finish off, Alex generated some more music for us.
I tried out my "Why Perl Advocacy is a Bad Idea" lightning talk. It still needs some work. Concensus is that it needs to be more shouty!
Mark Fowler gave two lightning talks for the price of one. The first was about how he's using TT2 Views to create a web page for our NMS (Not Matt's Scripts) project. The second was about the progress of that project. It seems to be coming on very well.
Robin talked about Mutagenic Modules - which was full of Robin's usual inspired madness. And made me rethink my TPC paper a bit. When Robin posted the slides to the list this morning, Simon Cozens mentioned that he'd been working on a similar (but different) idea. Turns out that MJD's "You can't just make up any old shit and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!" line might not be true for much longer :)
Jo gave a talk on Tangram - using a very interesting presentational style. And to finish off, Alex generated some more music for us.
Thursday, April 19, 2001
It all went a bit weird
It all went a bit weird here last night.
To explain, that messageboard is aimed at readers of Liz Castro's book "Perl & CGI for the World Wide Web - A Visual Quickstart Guide". Of all of the "non-programmer" Perl/CGI books, that one is probably the best. It's far from perfect, but the second edition is going to be much better.
I've been hanging around the messageboard for a few weeks now and it's clear that I know far more Perl than the majority of the people there. I've been answering people's problems and gently trying to steer them towards better Perl habits. This has obviously been winding up a couple of the existing "experts" there.
Last night it all got too much an one of them had a bit of a go at me. By trying to defend my actions I only made it worse, leading to this very amusing thread.
Various london.pm members waded in and it all got very silly.
Think I'll lie low for a while :)
To explain, that messageboard is aimed at readers of Liz Castro's book "Perl & CGI for the World Wide Web - A Visual Quickstart Guide". Of all of the "non-programmer" Perl/CGI books, that one is probably the best. It's far from perfect, but the second edition is going to be much better.
I've been hanging around the messageboard for a few weeks now and it's clear that I know far more Perl than the majority of the people there. I've been answering people's problems and gently trying to steer them towards better Perl habits. This has obviously been winding up a couple of the existing "experts" there.
Last night it all got too much an one of them had a bit of a go at me. By trying to defend my actions I only made it worse, leading to this very amusing thread.
Various london.pm members waded in and it all got very silly.
Think I'll lie low for a while :)
Friday, April 06, 2001
Iterative meeting yesterday afternoon
Iterative meeting yesterday afternoon. Everyone seemed a bit depressed when I arrived. I think they were on the verge of jacking it all in. Seemed happier three hours later. We have a short-term plan and we started to thrash out an "Effective Perl Programming" training course. We even have another potential product - code reviews.
Last night there was a London.pm meeting at the Anchor. Those meetings are getting very strange. I used to know everyone who turned up to them, but we're getting so many new members that I can't keep up.
Retook the Brainbench Perl test this morning. Scored 4.76 which puts me back on top in London and second (behind Piers) in the UK. That's got to look good on the marketing literature hasn't it?
Last night there was a London.pm meeting at the Anchor. Those meetings are getting very strange. I used to know everyone who turned up to them, but we're getting so many new members that I can't keep up.
Retook the Brainbench Perl test this morning. Scored 4.76 which puts me back on top in London and second (behind Piers) in the UK. That's got to look good on the marketing literature hasn't it?
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