My London Perl And Raku Workshop 2024

Few days ago, I participated to London Perl And Raku Workshop and I was shocked and thrilled to see how it was a brilliant success!

For once, I will say a word about Deriv which was the biggest sponsor of the event.

It's a nice place to work 👍 for both juniors and gray hairs (that are very much desired). There's an office in Reading!

Also for once, I will post a picture of me.

The review

The venue was great. Both the location, size and equipment.

When arriving, you got a sticker to wear with your name (great idea!) and a gorgeous scarf (best goodie ever!).

The venue was literally crowded of Perl developers. With a ratio of 2/3 Britishers and 1/3 of foreigners.

It started with a keynote from Julien:

I attended the very much awaited talk from Paul Evans, on Perl syntax, CPAN experiments and Perl future:

In front of this talk was the another very much awaited talk "Perl Diver" that I had to miss (but I managed to steal a picture from it).

Then it continued with a Raku talk ("RakuDoc v2").

I liked this talk.

Then the usual "TPF updates" with half of presentation and half of questions.

One a side (TPF) note, Makoto Nozaki took a recent great initiative with a 3 parts blog posts, doing a big gift to the foundation and everyone, be sure to read them:

• Things I've Learned Serving on the Board of The Perl Foundation
• Board Reflections: Continued Experiences with The Perl Foundation
• Understanding the Financials of The Perl and Raku Foundation (TPRF)

This transparency is needed for solid trust in our foundation. It's very much welcome and breaks some relative opacity (not on purpose) of the foundation. So once again thank you Makoto!

Then, a talk that I would never miss, OpenTelemetry from José Joaquín (JJ) Atria. Never deceived by a talk from JJ Atria!

The picture does not render it, but small room was so full that organizers had to refuse people to enter (but by luck I arrived earlier).

And it was already half of the day track...

Went at hotel for lunch and talk preparations. My talk rehearsals took longer than expected and I missed first talks of the afternoon 😢 and also missed the CPAN Security BoF 😢 that was in parallel.

Still was able to attend a later talk about security (Meterian)

And take a moment in a room to work closer with Sebastien, Olaf And Leo (in the common space).

And finally we reached the lightning talks, maybe the activity that I enjoy the most in conferences. I delivered a little talk ("This is a camel") and listened to others (Paul about sdview, Tux about DBI, Dave about Perl School etc...)

Also, Theo Van Hoesel did a tribute to Abe Timmerman, it was very poignant when the whole room did a minute of silence.

The conference ended with a keynote from Lee Jo, revealing the undercover of such event organization.

Visiting around the venue

The venue location was nice.

I walked around it, first reaching Bunhill Fiels cemetery where I relaxed for a while. The place, even being a cemetery, is more like a little garden, and it reigns a absolute calm, it's very pleasant.

William Blake has its tomb here.

I went to the south to reach Saint Paul's Church. My first impression was that it is gigantic (and beautiful).

Another very beautiful place is Guildhall library.

Totally by luck, I discovered a Banksy fresque (the "Banksy Basquiat") in Golden Lane, when going back to hotel after pub on Friday!

Before the event, we enjoyed a beer at Craft Beer (45 min from venue, just good for me). A typical pub with a large choice of beers.

After the event, I even more enjoyed the event at "The Eagle" pub (more people and hello 👋 Stig, Rolf, Salve, Robert...)

Fun

The accent problem

It's not a surprise but in UK, as a French guy, and more of that from South of France, I have an accent problem.
It means people don't catch some of my words, even some simplistic ones like "London", "City Road" or "Burden". And worst, my nickname "tib".
Second, it means that my comprehension is very reduced because of British accent (and native using more vocabulary).

UK is same but different

First UK is not anymore in EU, so the need of passport.
Second, UK is geographically aligned to where I live, but not aligned as a timezone.
Third, of course I forgot about the different power supply format and had to buy an adapter.

Cultural shift

London, at least the area where I stayed, was full of good energy.
You really feel the "go to pub for a beer" cultural habit (when we do "apero" in France), and my hotel had installed a fixed beer bottle opener on a wall.

Errol Court / Error Count

Do you like me read "Error Count"?

Too long time spent as a programmer...

Red Hat

I finally found where we can buy Red Fedora Hats!

Free library

A very picturesque free library

Perl Monks Pub

Is it where Perl Monks gathers at end of day?

Conclusion

Going to such even was such a lot of fun, socializing and charging battery that I'm more than grateful to have been part of it. I really feel like "privileged".

Again, it was a a brilliant success, thanks to organizers, speakers, attendees and all.

See you again and "Long live to Perl!"