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

[Mike Whitaker]

> 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.

Amen.

> 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.)

Presenting at conferences on EP-themed stuff, sponsoring an award,  
that kind of thing will improve folks perception of EP, and thus  
eventually Perl.

> 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

...and actually give some thought to their target audience.

> - Screencasts (I hate them, but they help with credibility)

...and they look good.

Also, contributing to Perlcast. I'm certainly willing (and have the  
technology) to record and clean up stuff for that, given the right  
folks to talk to.

> - 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)

Back to books again. Most Perl folks that are known outside the echo  
chamber are known because they write books.

> - Physical presence where it counts

Which means more than just YAPC's. Even if it costs us money. Although  
we should figure out some useful EP-themed presentations, work them up  
till they're slick as a very slick thing and potentially any of  
several folks can give 'em, and then get out there and get submitting  
abstracts.

>
>>>> - 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

I personally think the Perl that is Enlightened is OO, and thus has  
Moose as a core part of the language.

> 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).

...or his many awards for repeated use of the word 'fuck' :)

[...]

> 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.

Those are, I think, the ones we have in mind.

[...]

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

I like that idea :)
>
> 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.

I have a horrid feeling a lot of folks still download tarballs and  
make install from there :)

> 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.)

Good idea, even if as redirects to the main site.

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

I will be turning my Perl Is talk from UKUUG into an article this  
evening: if folks want to sanity check it for me not being on crack, I  
could submit that.
--
Mike Whitaker - mike at altrion.org