[epo-core] new aims/membershgip section for site, proposed

[J. Shirley]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 5:24 AM, Matt S Trout <mst at shadowcat.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 08, 2008 at 07:52:23PM -0400, Jesse Vincent wrote:
>> >
>> A first round of comments:
>>
>> >Aims of the Englightened Perl Organisation:
>> >
>> >To encourage the usage of the Perl programming language as a modern,
>> >high-level development platform by working to fund and/or organize:
>> >
>> > - Improvements to the public facing parts of existing perl
>> >projects, including design and content organisation and
>> >accessibility, by co-operation with the projects involved to see
>> >where their volunteer capacity is lacking
>>
>> This sounds like "websites"  Is that all you have in mind or is there
>> "more"?
>
> I've bootstrapped lists and IRC channels and stuff for people before.
>
> My sort of thought was to mean websites but have it open to other bright
> ideas if we find there are useful ones :)
>

I think a very large part of the budget could/should go towards
marketing and design -- this is inclusive of websites but I don't want
it to stop there.  There should be significant perl propaganda at the
various open source based conferences.  OSCON has such a small perl
presence that it does give the impression that something did die, or
is at least too close to death to show up.

What won't help is showing up with a back booth with nothing more than
a poster-board sign.  This is of significant costs, but could perhaps
be offset by corporate sponsorship (and in turn, we provide a space
for corporate materials to be handed out from our booth, etc.)

If perception is really what the goal is (improvements to the public
facing parts) then I think the following are a must:
 - Better websites that look professional
 - Screencasts (I hate them, but they help with credibility)
 - Personally Identifiable Officers.  There is too much fame in the
echo chamber, and then people go "Who?" outside.  The world should
know (and fear) the letters "mst", along with many others (Schwern is
a great DHH counterpart)
 - Physical presence where it counts


>> > - Eliciting the creation and/or improvement of tutorials,
>> >screencasts, and other accessible documentation to make it easier
>> >for new users to get started with modern perl
>>
>> Is it worth specifying reference documentation, books and training
>> courses in that list?
>
> Maybe. Thoughts, everybody?
>


If you are talking about "public facing" it definitely means that.  I
was just mulling over is the idea of perl certification training.  If
we can get a new book published (see Mike's later post, since my
thoughts closely echo his) then immediately following publication
would be the time to launch a series of Perl cert courses.  I can see
the following:
 - Perl Programming for High-Traffic Web Applications
 - Modern Perl: It's not 1999
 - Advanced Perl: Moose, Meta and More

A traveling troupe of folks who can teach the various segments (and
sorry Matt, I don't think you'd be well suited.  Nobody would
understand your dry humour or your accent).

>> >
>> > - Encouraging people to blog their experiences of perl development
>> >both as individuals and as part of corporations in order to raise
>> >the profile of perl across the blogosphere and social media
>> >aggregators
>> >
>> This is the one item in this list that doesn't seem to have a direct
>> and easy "throw money /volunteers at it" - is there a cunning plan?
>
> Yes. Setting up planets, allowing self-registration to them, offering prizes
> of some sort - given the amount of effort people put into trying to talk
> T-shirts out of Mark (and you, I suspect, though I've not seen that as often
> first hand) I suspect merch type stuff will work nicely.
>

I don't know about multiple planets, but the merch giveaway is
probably sufficient.  I would recommend making special edition shirts
just for that, so the people feel "empowered".  It just isn't some
shirt, it's -the- shirt that shows they were awarded something...
limited edition and all that.

>> > - Making installation of common "new wave of CPAN" libraries and
>> >applications developed using them easier in order to simplify
>> >experimentation and deployment
>>
>> This feels like it may want to be generalized to "simplifying and
>> streamlining installation and deployment of programs and libraries
>> written in Perl to encourage innovation and deployment" or something
>
> Possibly. I don't want to overstretch the aim so much though.
>

There are packages on CPAN that simply fail to compile, those should
automatically be omitted (or better yet, deleted from CPAN).

Then there are the "best" modules.  The ones that do what they're
supposed to do, have an active user base, unit tests, etc.  This is
what I would like to install.  Ideally, the "best" modules would only
depend on other "best" modules, but I'm not sure if that is
reasonable.

I'd love to see a cpan.iusethis.com -- so we should hit up Marcus for that :)

Which, this brings me around to a digression that can probably be
safely ignored for some time... CPAN is, and has always been, the best
argument for why people should use perl vs. other arguments.  The lead
that CPAN had over competitors is diminishing greatly, and doing so at
a quick pace.

The CPAN packages are still being actively developed and worked, but
search.cpan.org and www.cpan.org are not.  www.cpan.org is not
helpful.  The links are not meaningful.  I have the same complaints
for perl.org, but we can talk about that later.  I know that Bricas
has been working on CPANHQ, a Catalyst-based system, but I think that
simply getting some better copy/basic design on cpan.org would help.

If you look at http://www.rubygems.org/ it immediately tries to be
helpful (first link is a users guide)
If you look at http://www.github.com it (almost) immediately gets into
how things work.

I think www.cpan.org needs this.  If whoever runs cpan.org doesn't do
it, then I honestly think that enperl.org should (speaking of which, I
think we should register eperl and enperl domain names.)


>> > - Bounties on specific pieces of code that scratch no developer's
>> >itch but make corporate and/or hobbyist adoption of enlightened perl
>> >easier
>>
>> +1, though be careful about phrasing it as "bounties" as that may have
>> tax/nonprofit implications. That's a question for your lawyer and
>> accountant, though.
>
> Mark?
>

Grants?

>> > - Production of articles and white papers to provide a CxO level
>> >view of the advantages of modern perl as a platform for new
>> >development
>>
>> This is one place where you may be able to cajole placement help from
>> TPF once you have the content and the EPO branding on it.
>
> Yep. That and the "extended perl core" thing that's slowly being prototyped
> via Task::Kensho I intend to convince TPF and perlbuzz to help us promote.
>

How hard is it to get an article published in CIO magazine?  Can't be
that hard from what I've seen... volunteers?

Thanks,
-J