Perl 6 training report - YAPC::EU 2009

Since I arrived in Lisbon I hardly have time to write anything. The first two days I was giving my Perl 6 for programmers class. It went surprisingly well.

There were seven students and a few guests. On the first day Carl Masak, one of the most experienced Perl 6 programmers was sitting in the class and helping me in areas where I could not answer. On the second day Patrick R. Michaud, the project leader of Rakudo Perl 6 was in the class which was very lucky as we covered regexes and he is probably the most qualified to help in that area. Nearing the end of the second day Gloria and Larry Wall also joined the class so if the pictures are good I'll be able to show how Gabor Szabo is explaining Perl 6 to Larry Wall. I think I can use that in some promotional material for my classes ;-)

I know what the expectations of my students were as I asked them Why do you learn Perl 6? so I am really looking forward their feedback. They seemed to be satisfied with the training and the discussions that evolved during the class.

It is very encouraging to see how the perception of Perl 6 improved in just a few months.

In February 2009, after the German Perl Workshop I offered free Perl 6 training. There were only 2 people who were ready to spend some time on it and even that was done in 3 hours.

In April 2009, after the Nordic Perl Workshop there were already 7-8 people who were ready to take a one day Perl 6 class, still offered free of charge.

In August 2009, before YAPC::EU there were already 7 people who were ready to spend 2 days on Perl 6 training and pay for it. They were ready to invest time and money in it.

I think this means that people see the enormous progress the Perl 6 design and development team made. They see that even though there still many missing features it is already good enough to start playing around with it and to start implementing small projects in Perl 6.

I'd like to thank the students their confidence that I can provide them good value for their time and money.