2011.07.29 in #1Nice progress in the development of MetaCPAN
Olaf Alders provided his weekly report that was full of new items. You can now +1 Perl modules, use the public API of MetaCPAN and compete with other CPAN authors for fame.
2011.09.01 in #6MetaCPAN August Roundup
Olaf Alders tells us what happened to and around MetaCPAN in the last month. They the data collected earlier but have learned from this. Despite of this several sites started to use MetaCPAN as the default place to link. BTW this is a recursive link as Olaf started his report by mentioning the Perl Weekly. Thank you!
2011.11.03 in #15Happy Birthday, MetaCPAN!
Olaf Alders celebrates the first anniversary of MetaCPAN and uses the opportunity to mention the recent changes. If you still have not switched to MetaCPAN, this might be a good opportunity to give it a try.
2012.09.19 in #61Introducing HTTP::CookieMonster
I never had to deal deeply with cookies, at least not with Perl, so I am not sure how painful that was earlier, but I love this. If nothing else, the name is great. Way better than some of the boring, engineer-like anti-inspiration module names.
2012.12.31 in #75MetaCPAN is Moving Today (Dec 31, 2012)
In case you notice problems with Meta CPAN today, or in the coming days, please be patient, and read the note by Olaf Alders.
2013.03.09 in #85Sifting Through the CPAN
Olaf Alders explains the plans he had with MetaCPAN to solve at least some of the issues. I agree with him that this could be done by someone as a TPF grant. So if you need some money and would like to work on some really interesting thing with a large impact, talk to Olaf.
2013.06.29 in #101Perl Mongers Meetings via Google Hangout
The Toronto Perl Mongers, Olaf Alders reports, tried something new for their meetings: they are using a Google Hangout to let remote persons virtually assist to the event.
2013.07.12 in #103Fiddling with the metacpan.org URLs
Olaf Alders, the leader of the Meta::CPAN projects asks your input on how the URLs on MetaCPAN.org should look like. As this is one of the most important web sites for any Perl user, you should probably take a look at the issue. In a nutshell, what should be the fixed URL of a script supplied in a CPAN package?
2013.09.28 in #114Toronto.pm monthly meetings are now streamed live
The Toronto.pm Perl Monger meetings are also boldly shattering geographical limitations. Olaf Alders announces how the group is now broadcasting live via Google Hangout, and urges us to join the fun.
2014.03.06 in #137MetaCPAN is Hiring!
Don't get overly excited: Olaf Alders is... fluffing up the truth. What he means to say is that the Outreach Program for Women and the Goggle Summer of Code are both taking applicants, and they are both excellent vectors for students who would like to work on MetaCPAN during the summer.
2014.03.11 in #138You Can Help MetaCPAN by Helping the QA Hackathon
In general MetaCPAN does not accept monetary contributions, but being able to participate at the annual QA Hackathon helps Olaf Alders to allocate time to work on MetaCPAN and get others to be involved. So if you'd like to help MetaCPAN with money, the best way is to donate to the QA Hackathon. (See reports about this years QA Hackathon in the Testing section above.)
2014.06.30 in #154How to Run a Single Test via Dist::Zilla
So you are using Dist::Zilla to manage your module and you want to run a single test out of its test suite? No problem at all, you can just run it directly. But if the module also has XS components, it's a little trickier. Fortunately, Olaf Alders found how to do it in a fairly simple way.
2014.11.25 in #175Can you send 24 pull requests this December?
The idea behind this project is to encourage you to contribute to an open source project every day. Even if each contribution is small, this can get you in the practice of contributing.
2015.01.07 in #181MetaCPAN Welcomes Panopta as a Sponsor
The CPAN web portals, search.cpan.org and metacpan, are incredibly important for our day-to-day work, and it's easy to forget that their continued existence is usually fueled by the unrelentless dedication of a few volunteers and a budget that would make shoe strings seem opulent. In that optic, a new sponsor is always reason to celebrate. Huzzah for Panopta!
2015.03.18 in #191The Perl QA Hackathon is still looking for Sponsors
The QA Hackathon is an excellent event and dispite its name it is not only about Quality Assurnce. It became a more generice event when some of the people maintaining the core infrastructure needed for the Perl world get together for some much needed face-to-face conversation. I had the luck participating in two of such events, and now I had the privilage to even provide some funds to run the event. If you, or your company relies on Perl, this is a very good place to ensure the continous improvement of the whole ecosystem around Perl.
2015.05.20 in #200MetaCPAN Thanks Bytemark for Two Years as a Hosting Sponsor
"Sponsoring MetaCPAN makes perfect sense for Bytemark. It has the potential to save us weeks of developer time by helping our developers locate modules not included in the Perl standard distribution. Large Perl programs can use many modules, from those that interface with SQL databases to simple utilities."
2015.08.07 in #211On the status of HTTP::BrowserDetect
This is a state of the HTTP::BrowserDetect nation from Olaf, who has been maintaining it for 5 years. He wants to let us know it's still very much actively maintained, and that he's keen to receive, and quick to act on, pull requests to keep the coverage update. And he also wants to shame those of us who are tardy at merging PRs, and rightly so.
2015.09.04 in #215Stop Writing Your Own Commify Functions
Localisation is hard, and finicky, and maddening. Which is why it's better to leave it to a module specifically to take that pain of shoulders. Numbers, percentages, monetary amounts, CLDR::Number knows how to format them all. McCarthy would approve.
2015.09.29 in #219Building your own MMDB databases for IP-specific data
If you are dealing with GeoIP data for websites (or anything else, really), this article is for you. Olaf shows us how to create and query MaxMind's MMDB GeoIP database format.
2015.10.10 in #220Upgrading Business::PayPal::API
Olaf continues his series of updates about modules that he's adopted. He's done a developer release of Business::PayPal::API - if you've any code that uses it, please take it for a spin.
2016.04.27 in #249MetaCPAN at the 2016 Perl QA Hackathon
There was a whole MetaCPAN section at the QAH this year, which grew as the weekend went on. This is Olaf's summary of what they got done.
2016.09.17 in #269Announcing meta::hack
Olaf tells us about meta::hack, a hackathon dedicated to MetaCPAN. Also, talk to him if you want to sponsor it.
2016.09.26 in #271Make libwww-perl Great Again (TM)
Oalders is picking up modules related to libwww-perl, including WWW::Mechanize. He uses github-mergevelocity to see how quickly pull-request have been merged and is encouraging all of us to help. So go and help him!
2016.12.01 in #280meta::hack Wrap-up Report
Olaf's summary of meta::hack, the recent MetaCPAN hackathon that had a goal of switching over to MetaCPAN v1.
2017.05.21 in #304Olaf Alder's report
Olaf's report on how he spent the toolchain, hacking on a range of things related to MetaCPAN. Be sure to read all the way to the end, including the slightly scary story of things leaking from his plane!
2017.10.12 in #325Announcing meta::hack v2
Last year the MetaCPAN team held meta::hack, a hackathon where they worked on MetaCPAN. You can read about it in Olaf's summary. That was so successful that they've decided to have another one this year. The core MetaCPAN team will be meeting up in Chicago for four days of intensive work on MetaCPAN and friends. They're still looking for sponsorship; this would be a great way for companies to support the Perl community.
2018.04.13 in #351WWW::Mechanize Best Practices
A few pitfalls in WWW::Mechanize caused by defaults that you might, or might not expect to be what they are. Olaf has some excellent suggestions that already mad it to the official documentation as well, but they are worth pointing out separately as well.
2018.04.27 in #353Perl Toolchain Summit 2018 Wrap-up Report
As part of some of the other work going on, there was progress made towards a tighter integration of the CPAN river data in the MetaCPAN API. Also, we now have access to Neil Bowers’ CPAN river data generator. There’s a plan to have MetaCPAN directly generate this data, rather than having us pull the data from him.
2018.11.21 in #383meta::hack 3 Wrap Report
mata::hack was a small event with a big impact on the Perl community. A few people got together to improve MetaCPAN.
2019.02.19 in #396About the Various PANs
Olaf took the time to explain various PANs that somehow got lost in the air. I sometimes get confused with so many PANs. Now I have a reference point to onfirm.
2019.05.14 in #408How I Spent My Perl Toolchain Summit v2019
Olaf shares his experience at Perl ToolChain Summt 2019. You must read the blog to see how much work hard work he has put in.
2019.05.22 in #409Managing Your Travis CI Config Files with App::CISetup
I admit I don't understand yet when would I want to automate the creation and maintenance of my Travis-CI configuration file, but if at one point I need it, I know where to turn. Besides I learned about Travis-CI being bought by Idera, a company I've never heard of.
2019.05.23 in #409Creating a Twitter List of CPAN Authors
Olaf introduces us to t, a little Twitter command line tool. He also creates a Twitter list of all the CPAN authors who have shared their ID via MetaCPAN. I found quite a few funny and interesting posts.
2019.06.03 in #411How do I Open This?
Mac comes with 'open' and Linux comes with xdg-open. They will both open the appropriate tool based on the extension of the file you give to them. 'ot' can only open an editor, but it will figure out the file it needs to open in a very clever way understanding Perl Module names and even error messages.
2021.06.30 in #519CPAN Bus Factor
A measurement of the risk resulting from information and capabilities not being shared among team members, derived from the phrase 'in case they get hit by a bus.'
2022.09.30 in #584Playwright
Olaf gave us short presentation about Playwright at the Toronto Perl Mongers meetup.
2023.02.07 in #603Find expiring SSL certs using curl, Go and Perl.
Just like domain name registrations, SSL certificates need to be renewed regularly, otherwise they expire. This means you now have one more thing to monitor. Let's look at ways to do this in Perl, curl and Go. The article also gives a quick introduction to a hosted Mojolicious app that Olaf wrote to make this even easier.
2023.10.01 in #636MetaCPAN Core Contributors
Please do come forward and support MetaCPAN Core. As of now, we have 19 contributors. It would be nice to see this grow with your support.
2023.12.21 in #648Elves Versus Typos
Quick introduction to fun utility typos, written in Rust but can be handy for Perl. You should checkout for more informations.
2024.01.07 in #650Let's keep in touch
Invitation from Olaf to join the newsletter for interesting and fun post.
2024.03.25 in #6625 Reasons to Sponsor the Perl Toolchain Summit
It’s that time of year again. In a few weeks, dozens of Perl hackers will be meeting in Lisbon, Portugal to hack furiously on the Perl Toolchain. Here are 5 reasons why you should sponsor the Perl Toolchain Summit.
2024.04.15 in #665Getting Started with perlimports
perlimports is linter that helps you tidy up your code and Olaf explains in the blog why tidying imports is important.
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