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Meetings && Announcements
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December 2007 Meeting:
Thursday, December 13th, 2007 @ 7:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
Topic: Catalyst Hackathon
By: Ben Bixby
For our December meeting, we will be holding a Catalyst Hackathon, where we will build a fully working web application, with authentication, DB backend, etc, from the ground up. There has been a lot of buzz recently about web application frameworks such as Ruby on Rails (for Ruby) and Django (for Python), and some of you may be wondering if there is anything equivalent in Perl. There are a couple frameworks available, and we will use Catalyst (http://catalyst.perl.org) as our example.
For those of you unfamiliar with hackathons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon
Ben is posting some info to help everyone be ready
to start hacking upon arrival. Basically what he's prepared is a code
generator that will provide a shortcut from a generic Catalyst
application (created with catalyst.pl) to one with a user system
complete with administrative tools.
It currently resides here:
http://bennymack.com:81/~ben/Catalyst-MyApp-0.01.tar.gz
At the very least, attempt to run "perl Makefile.PL". If it passes all the prerequisite requirements then you should be good to go for the hackathon!
Ben will be available to reply to any feedback between now and Thursday with regards to Catalyst::MyApp. Another thing to think about and shoot ideas around is what type of application we will be creating.
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November 2007 Meeting:
Thursday, November 15st, 2007 @ 7:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
Topic: Introduction To Parrot
By: Dan Magnuszewski
An introduction to Parrot. We'll also touch on such topics as Perl 6 and Virtual Machines.
Presentation Slides
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July 2007 Meeting:
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 @ 7:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
Topic: Embedded Databases
By: Ben Bixby
An introduction to embedded databases.
Presentation, Examples/Code
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Last Minute Perl Lunch:
Saturday, January 27th, 2007 @ 12:00 Noon
Location: Pearl Street Grill and Brewery
Lunch Meeting With Randal Schwartz and brian d foy
We can meet up and drive together so that no one gets lost. I figure that we should meet Brian and Randal at the Motel 6, next to the old Hooters, at 11:30.
If you're interested in attending, then send me an email
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January 2007 Meeting:
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 @ 7:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
Topic: Guest Speakers Randal Schwartz and brian d foy
We will be going out for drinks after the meeting - location is still TBA.
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October 2006 Meeting:
October 24th, 2006 @ 7:00 PM
Location: Bell 224 (UB North Campus)
Topic: Meta::Attributes
By: Ben Bixby
"It's a module that automates a lot of boilerplate code involved with writing subs. I posted it to perlmonks.org:
http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=579458
I'm currently in the process of turning it into a CPAN compatible distribution. It'll be called "Meta::Attributes" because it uses attributes for meta programming"
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September 2006 Meeting:
September 12th, 2006 @ 7:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
Topic: Quantum Superpositions
Back in 2000, Damian Conway closed out YAPC::NA::19100 (an homage to the Y2K bug) with a mind blowing talk and module about "quantum superpositions." The module (Quantum::Superpositions -- it's on CPAN) simulates what quantum
computing will be like, allowing massively parallel computations with single operations. The module isn't all that useful for everyday things, but it illustrates some fascinating concepts and completely different ways to look at things.
I will do an hour or so on an intro to quantum mechanics, qubits, quantum supercomputing, and the Quantum::Superpositions module.
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August 2006 Meeting:
No Meeting!
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July 2006 Meeting:
July 18th, 2006 @ 7:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
Topic: What I Learned On My YAPC Vacation...
This meeting will be a review of some topics covered at YAPC::NA 2006, from members who attended the conference. People who were unable to attend, will be given an opportunity to hear some talks on subjects presented at YAPC.
Regular Expressions Made Easy With Regexp::Common
By: Dan Magnuszewski
Do regular expressions scare or intimidate you?! I will show you an easy way to use elaborate regular expressions - without using regular expressions. Sounds crazy, but I'll show you how! With time permitting, I will also go over some basic hints/tricks to create regular expressions more efficiently!
Perl::Critic
By: Kevin Eye
Perl-Critic is a source code analyzer that judges your code by the standards set by Damian Conway's book "Perl Best Practices".
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June 2006 Meeting:
June 20th, 2006 @ 7:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
Guest Speaker: Randal Schwartz
Topic: Perl Best Practices
There was an overwhelming response for the "Best Practices" talk (a.k.a. - no one voted for inside out objects). I think this talk will be beneficial to those at every skill level, so I'd like to encourage everyone to attend.
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May 2006 Meeting:
May 16th, 2006 @ 8:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
TOPIC:
Lightning Talks!
Lightning Talks are 5-10-minute talks about anything you want to share about Perl:
- Your favorite modules
- An interesting one-liner
- A cool thing you did with Perl
- Something you like (or hate) about Perl
- Comparing Perl to another programming language
- Etc....
This is an evening meeting where everyone can (and should)
participate. Five to ten minutes goes by faster than you think: it's a great
opportunity to talk about something without the pressure of putting together a
full talk. It's a great forum to discuss a subject that doesn't need a long
discussion.
Sign Up Here!
Want to know more about what Lightning Talks are all about? See MJD's
page on them
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April 2006 Meeting:
April 18th, 2006 @ 8:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
TOPIC:
Perl Jam - Music in the key of Perl
By: Dan Magnuszewski
(60 Minutes)
Part 1 of an "n" part series...
This talk will discuss my personal adventures of trying to create (decent sounding) music with Perl. A good portion of computer generated (or algorithmic) music, tends to sound like R2-D2 during a screaming match - which can be cool, but not all the time. My goal was to try and create random, dynamic, and improvisational music, controlled by a
computer program. What music genre encompasses these qualities? Jazz, of course. I figured that I could encode the fundamentals of playing Jazz music in Perl. How well are things working out for me so far? That's what I'll discuss during my presentation and live concert.
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March 2006 (Emergency) Meeting:
March 28th, 2006
Location #1: Buffalo Tap Room (The bar area, not the restaurant side)
6:00 - 7:30ish PM
http://www.buffalotaproom.com
2309 Eggert Road
Tonawanda, NY 14150
832-6054
Directions/Information
TOPIC:
Food and Drinks!
Location #2: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
8:00 - ??? PM
TOPIC:
Jim Keenan will be coming to town and he's offered to give a talk. The subject is "Taking Over Maintenance of an Existing CPAN Module."
CPAN has been around for over 10 years now, and for various reasons
module authors can come to a point where they can no longer maintain
their modules. That's where they need to pass the module off to a new
maintainer. Jim will talk about how to handle this process smoothly.
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March 2006 (Social) Meeting:
March 21st, 2006 @ 7:00 PM
Location: Buffalo Tap Room (The bar area, not the restaurant side)
http://www.buffalotaproom.com
2309 Eggert Road
Tonawanda, NY 14150
832-6054
Directions/Information
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February 2006 Meeting:
February 21st, 2006 @ 8:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
TOPICS:
AI::Prolog
By: Dan Magnuszewski
(45 - 60 Minutes)
1) Brief intro to logic programming.
2) Brief intro to the Prolog language.
3) Show example uses.
3) Bringing Perl and Prolog together.
4) AI::Prolog in Action!
Intro Perl & Cool Tricks - "Perl And External Programs"
By: Open Floor
(15 - 20 Minutes)
Intro on how to run an external script/program/command from a Perl script, and be able to use its output within the Perl script. Also how input can be piped into Perl scripts.
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January 2006 Meeting:
January 17th, 2006 @ 7:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
TOPICS:
Perl & Bioinformatics
By: Ganesh Shankar
(30 - 45 Minutes)
"Perl became firmly associated with Biology during the Human Genome Project. The usefulness of Perl for text manipulation and pattern matching has been argued to have saved the genome project. Additionally, Perl is used to locate signal sequences, design primers, and convert data formats. I will talk of the historical ( 6 years ago! ) and current uses of Perl. I'll also point the Mongers to the BioPerl project, which attempts to deal with bioinformatic needs at a more abstract, organized level."
Intro Perl & Cool Tricks - "Map & Grep"
By: Kevin Eye
(15 - 20 Minutes)
"The most underappreciated functions of Perl are map and grep. With
them available, I hardly use for loops, and I think the code is
clearer,
too..."
~ K.E.
Intro To Writing Perl Modules
By: Kevin Eye
(45 - 60 Minutes)
We'll see you on Tuesday the 17th!
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December 2005 Meeting:
Buffalo Tap Room (The bar area, not the restaurant side)
http://www.buffalotaproom.com
2309 Eggert Road
Tonawanda, NY 14150
832-6054
Directions/Information
TOPIC:
The agenda will consist of both business and pleasure. The only
business for the night will include setting dates for the next few
meetings and assigning them topics and speakers - so come ready with
ideas! The rest of the meeting will consist of holiday cheer (beer),
coupled with casual Perl conversations and geeky banter.
We'll see you on Wednesday the 21st!
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August 2005 Meeting:
Buffalo Tap Room
Monday, August 29, 7:00 PM
TOPIC:
End of Summer Gathering
This will be a nice informal meeting where we can talk about YAPC, OSCON, and any other Perl related topics.
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June 2005 Meeting:
Wednesday, June 15, 7:00 PM
Location: Bell 242 (UB North Campus)
TOPICS:
Talk about topics for the remaining sessions this summer and set some tentative agendas.
YAPC, who's going?
Main Topic: Installing Modules
- How do you install a Perl module from CPAN on a Unixy type system by hand?
- How do you install modules using the CPAN module?
- Other features of the CPAN module
- Problems installing modules
- Installing modules on Windows
Autobundles
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March 2005 Meeting:
242 Bell Hall
Thursday, March 3, 7:00 PM
TOPIC: CGI::Prototype
Randal Schwartz will be talking about his new module CGI::Prototype and how it makes Perl web application development easier. We have used this module at UB and Randal has also used it with Geek Cruises, one of his other clients.
There have also been discussions of this module on Perlmonks, where there has been some controversy over why Randal developed this solution rather than using CGI::Application.
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December 2004 Meeting:
Friday, December, 17, 2004
5:30 PM
Alternative Brews (3488 Sheridan Dr, Amherst NY)
Social Meeting: Holiday Drinks!
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November 2004 Meeting:
November 18, 2004 7:00 PM
242 Bell Hall
TOPIC: SlimServer and the Slim Devices Squeezebox
Slim Devices makes a digital jukebox hardware device and all of the source code running it is open-source perl code. We thought it would be cool to play with one of these devices. Possible loose agenda:
* Try to hookup and use the squeezebox from a Mac, Linux, and Windows computer;
* Look at the available plug-ins and try them:
http://www.slimdevices.com/dev_plugins.html
* Maybe try to hack on one of the plug-ins? Hey, it's just Perl code.
At this meeting we will take a look at the squeezebox, and an even closer look at the SlimServer code it runs (which is written in Perl). For more information, check out this article: How Perl Powers the Squeezebox
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October 2004 Meeting:
Thursday, October 21, 2004
7:00 PM
242 Bell Hall
Jim Brandt will be giving a presentation based on one of his talks at the HighEdWebDev conference in Rochester this past week.
This talk is based on the following article: http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2004/12/09/epayment.html
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September 2004 Meeting:
Thursday, September 16, 2004
7:00 p.m.
242 Bell Hall on the UB North Campus
Amherst, NY
I hope everyone has had a great summer. After a period of summer
hibernation, the ascii buffalo ( @|^|` ) has awakened.
Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 16, 2004 with a
tentative location at 242 Bell Hall on the UB North Campus.
Our topic is Lightning Talks. Each Lightning Talk will have a time limit
of 10 minutes. It's a chance to talk about a favorite Perl module, a
cool hack, a feature of the Perl language, or absolutely anything else
you'd like to talk about, as long as its related to Perl. If you'd like
to know more about what Lightning Talks are, visit:
http://perl.plover.com/lt/lightning-talks.html
Topics:
- Kevin Eye - Extending Excel with Perl
- Dan Magnuszewski - Making Fantasy Football Better With Perl
- Kevin Christopher - HTML::Template
- Jim Brandt - Something cool about Perl (I haven't decided yet.)
- Tim Ace The joys of -|
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June 2004 Meeting:
Cancelled For YAPC 2004!
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May 2004 Meeting:
Sunday, May 30th, 2004
1:00 p.m.
Buffalo Coffee Works
2072 Kensington Avenue, Amherst, NY 14226
The Buffalo Perl Mongers is holding a planning meeting for volunteers who
want to help with the June 16-18 YAPC conference at UB.
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January/February 2004 Meeting:
Thursday, February 19, 2004
7:00 p.m.
242 Bell Hall on the UB North Campus
Amherst, NY
I hope everyone had a great holiday.
Since UB isn't back in session until Monday, January 12, and we don't have
anything in particular planned, I suggest that we cancel the Thursday,
January 8 Perl Mongers meeting.
Also, since everyone seemed to really like the Lightning Talks meeting we
had last year, I suggest that we have Lighting Talks.
Topics:
- Kevin Eye - Debugging perl with ddd
- Dan Magnuszewski - What's "Flowing" through your network? Perl can show you!
- Kevin Christopher - Embedding a Ruby Interpreter into a Perl Extension Module and Vice-Versa
- Jim Brandt - The Class::DBI module
- Jim Brandt - CGI::Prototype--a new approach to a cgi application
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December 2003 Meeting:
Thursday, December 11, 2003
7:00 p.m.
242 Bell Hall, UB North Campus
Amherst, NY
Speaker: Kevin Eye, Web Applications Developer, Creative Services and Marketing, University at Buffalo
XML-RPC and SOAP are methods of allowing software running on different machines, written in different programming
languages to communicate at the data structure and procedure call level. This machine-, language- and
platform-independent API is the foundation of web services.
Kevin will give a more detailed overview and some examples of web services, and show how to use SOAP::Lite to create a distributed application.
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November 2003 Meeting:
Thursday, November 13, 2003
7:00 p.m.
Alternative Brews on 3488 Sheridan Drive
Amherst, NY
What we will be doing:
- Rob Raux will be giving a little talk on Perl internals. Nothing too
boring, I thought 10 minutes on why you might want to use Perl in a C
program, or C in a Perl program. I will bring some basic examples and a
couple of tips from my limited experiences. This should be something
different to think about and last perhaps 10 minutes or so.
- Hoping that someone will bring something interesting to talk about or
display. [see below].
- Dan Magnuszewski discussed MRTG - A network monitoring tool
- Discussing the latest happenings in the Perl world.
- Kevin Eye will give a presentation on mod_perl and FastCGI.
There is still time to bring an idea, a discussion, a favorite module, a
little script for us all to digest. Just bring a couple of printer
handouts. If one or two people do this, the meeting will be much more
productive and entertaining. No need to even tell me, just show up with
a smile and a topic.
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October 2003 Meeting:
Thursday, October 9, 2003
242 Bell Hall (subject to change)
7:00 p.m.
UB North Campus
Lightning Talks Night!
Lightning Talks are 5-10-minute talks about anything you want to share
about Perl:
- Your favorite modules
- An interesting one-liner
- A cool thing you did with Perl
- Something you like (or hate) about Perl
- Comparing Perl to another programming language
- Etc....
This is an evening meeting where everyone can (and should)
participate. Five to ten minutes goes by faster than you think: it's a great
opportunity to talk about something without the pressure of putting together a
full talk. It's a great forum to discuss a subject that doesn't need a long
discussion.
Want to know more about what Lightning Talks are all about? See MJD's
page on them
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September 2003 Meeting:
Thursday, September 11, 2003
242 Bell Hall (subject to change)
7:00 p.m.
UB North Campus
FastCGI and mod_perl: Serving Up Dynamic Content Faster
Jim Brandt, analyst with Administrative Computing Services, University at Buffalo, and Kevin Eye, Web applications developer with Creative Services and Marketing Department at University at Buffalo, will compare mod_perl and FastCGI, two nonproprietary solutions for accelerating dynamic content.
mod_perl brings together two of the most powerful and mature technologies available to the web professional today. mod_perl can accelerate your existing dynamic content with the standard Apache::Registry module and reduce the load on your server at the same time. mod_perl allows Perl programmers to write powerful custom Apache modules to extend and tap into the power of the world's most popular http server.
FastCGI is a fast, open, and secure Web server interface that solves the performance problems inherent in CGI, without introducing the overhead and complexity of proprietary APIs. FastCGI's advantages include performance boosts through persistent processes reused to handle multiple requests; simplicity, with easy migration from CGI, and language independence.
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August 2003 Meeting:
Thursday, August 14, 2003
242 Bell Hall (subject to change)
7:00 p.m.
UB North Campus
Jim Brandt will report on the O'Reilly Open Source Convention
being held July 7-11, 2003, in Portland, Oregon.
Kevin Eye will give a presentation on mod_perl and FastCGI.
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July 2003 Meeting:
Thursday, July 10, 2003
242 Bell Hall (subject to change)
7:00 p.m.
UB North Campus
Kevin Eye will report in the YAPC::North America conference being held
this week at the Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, U.S.A.
Jason Parker-Burlington will give a presentation on CGI::Application.
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June 2003 Meeting:
Thursday, June 12, 2003
4th Meeting of the Buffalo Perl Mongers
Meeting Place:
Alternative Brews
3488 Sheridan Drive
Amherst, NY
(Direction from 290: Take I-290 to Millersport South Exit,
At 2nd light on Millersport, turn right (Sheridan Drive).
You'll see Alternative Brews on your right.)
Time:
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Speaker:
General Meeting
Agenda:
- Planning, scheduling talks for upcoming meetings
- The BPM Web site
- Using the Mailing List
- Expanding membership, outreach
- Floor open to new business
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May 2003 (Special) Meeting:
Thursday, May 1, 2003 7:00 PM
242 Bell Hall
The room will be open at 6:45 p.m.
Our guest speaker will be none other than Randal Schwartz (a.k.a. "Merlyn) who, among many other claims to fame, is co-author of O'Reilly's Learning Perl and Programming Perl (2nd edition), and eponymous creator of the "Schwartzian transform." Schwartz is also the owner and operator of Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc.
Schwartz's talk will be a "live version of perldoc perlboot."
Parking on the UB Campus is free and unrestricted after 3:00 p.m. If you need directions or other information for visitors, go to UB's Visitor's Guide page.
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May 2003 Meeting:
Thursday, May 29, 2003
3rd Meeting of the Buffalo Perl Mongers
Meeting Place:
242 Bell Hall
SUNY at Buffalo, North Campus
Time:
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Speaker:
Jim Brandt, UB Administrative Computing Services
Talk:
Advantages of Template::Toolkit and a Live Sample Migration
This is what Jim has to say about his talk:
"When developing a web site, the advantages of a templating system
usually become apparent after you have a ton of content and it is too
late to easily implement one. I'll review some of the advantages to a
template system and show a simple migration from a sample dummy website
with html and cgi scripts. This will largely be a live demo, so input
and commentary will be welcome."
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March 2003 Meeting:
Thursday, March 27, 2003
Higher Grounds Coffee House
Amherst, NY
7:00 p.m.
Our first meeting will be held on Thursday, March 27, 2003, at 7:00 pm at
Higher Grounds Coffee House at 3622 Sheridan Drive in Amherst, NY. Please contact me (Kevin Christopher) at kevin@binarymojo.net
to express your interest in participating. Directions to Higher Grounds: Take I-290 into Amherst and get off at the "Millersport Hwy South" exit.
At the intersection with Sheridan Drive, turn right. The Higher Grounds parking lot will be on your right just after the City Mattress store.
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