Hi there,

This is my 115th edition of the weekly newsletter. I know it is nothing as compared to the 323 editions by the chief editor Gabor Szabo. I am very happy to have come this far, thanks to all the readers of the weekly newsletter for the support and encouragements. It took me 4 years and 5 months to achieve this milestone.

Please excuse me for the long-winded editorial this week to celebrate the occasion.

As we all know Perl and Camel are insperabale for years now. I still remember when I was first introduced to Perl in the late ninetees, we use to refer Perl books as Camel books. The association of Perl with the big publishing house like, O'Reilly is mostly responsible for the trend. Having said, there were few others too in the market but O'Reilly stood out among them. But we can't ignore the ground reality at the same time, for reasons known to most of all, the Perl books started disappearing from the book shelves in recent years. Talking about Perl books, we can't forget the service of brian d foy, Damian Conway, Curtis Poe, Dave Cross, Randall L. Schwartz and many more. Of all those, brian d foy still holding the ground as far as Perl is concerned in my humble opinion.

Do you remember the announcement of Perl 7?

I still remember, I watched the announcement by Sawyer X and was very excited about it. But as you all know, it didn't turn out as planned. Let's not go there. Immediately after the announcement, brian d foy came up with the book, Preparing for Perl 7, published by {Perl School} run by Dave Cross. I was lucky to get the FREE copy of the book by brian d foy. I thoroughly enjoyed it as his many other Perl books. While collecting informations for this editorial, I noticed the book is now declared retired, unfortunately.

Fast forward, in the year 2021, we got another book, Perl new features v5.10 to v5.34 by brian d foy. Once again, I was offered the book for FREE by the author. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is new to Perl or even if you have used Perl for years. I found many new features that I wasn't aware of earlier. The best part is the explanation of each features with great examples. It makes it so easy to understand the topic. I read the book from start to end and came up with my own examples of some of the features mentioned in the book. Those who follow me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn knows that I ran daily feature series where I shared one feature with examples everyday. It is now documented for future reference in the form of GitHub repository as suggested by Dave Cross.

How many of you have read the book "Learning Perl"?

I have during my early days of learning Perl. It was the main source of information for me. Keeping the tradition on, brain d foy alongwith Randall L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix came up with the 8th Edition. This time, I was offered not one (1) but four (4) copies of the physical book with free delivery by the generous brian d foy. I picked four members of Team PWC(The Weekly Challenge) and hand it over the book, Learning Perl 8th edition. A very big thank you to brian d foy from the entire Team PWC members.

Do you think it stopped there?

Well, the short answer is "No". Recently brian d foy contacted me and offered me 50 coupons of his new creation Learning Perl Exercises. Honestly speaking, I didn't know about the book earlier. I have been giving one coupon every week to one lucky member of Team PWC. So far, I have already given 10 coupons. If you are a Perl fan or new to Perl then why don't you join us and learn from each other something new every week. Trust me, you will enjoy the journey.

How well do I know brian d foy?

Honestly speaking I haven't met him yet but would love to one day. My first interaction with him was in the year 2010 when I published my first distribution, Test::Excel. During those days, one need to get the namespace registered with PAUSE admins. He is one of the PAUSE admins that I happen to interact with. I still remember during the email conversation he mentioned that he liked my distribution and one day he would use it. Ever since, I have had many email conversation with on different occasions. I proudly remember one such occasion when brian d foy offered me to do interview series for perl.com. I happily accepted his offer without even blinking once. I did three interviews namely with Gabor Szabo, Curtis Poe and Damian Conway. Unfortunately after that I got distracted and busy with other personal projects.

Have you tried GitHub Workflow yet?

Two names i.e. Gabor Szabo and Dave Cross immediately come to my mind when talking about GitHub Workflow. In fact, Gabor Szabo seems to be on a mission to help CPAN modules to have workflow configured. Recently I published a new release of Test::CSS, the very next morning I noticed blog post by him. I would highly recommend you to take a look at his other similar works. Talking about GitHub Workflow, my colleague at work and friend, Julien Fiegehenn, wrote a detailed and thorough guide on the topic, you really don't want to skip it.

How many of you have completed the challenge of Hacktoberfest 2022?

One thing I noticed this year, the pull request has to be accepted and merged for it to qualify. Now even after the pull request is accepted and merged, you still have to wait for another seven days review period. This year, I was lucky to receive the distribution, HTML::Form as my assignment for October as member of Pull Request Club. To my surprise, I noticed HTML::Form is participating in Hacktoberfest 2022. As of today, I have submitted 2 Pull Requests. That means, I am done as far as my monthly assignment for Pull Request Club. With regard to the Hacktoberfest 2022, both the pull requests have been accepted and merged, thanks to Olaf Alders. One of them is passed the review period and other is still waiting. Although I submitted 2 more pull requests but unfortunately they are not participating in Hacktoberfest 2022, although both have been accepted and merged. To qualify for FREE specially designed T-shirt, I still have to find a distribution and submit 2 more pull requests. Wish me luck.

Have you nominated your Perl Hero?

If not then you still have chance to nominate your Perl Hero. Quick and easy to nominate is just commenting on this official announcement and giving the name with reasons. Easy, right?

Enjoy the rest of the newsletter.

Mohammad Sajid Anwar