Damian reports that he took two and a half months to write the 25 pages for Exegesis 4 (which is promised RSN) and I'm really not interested in his touring. There's no sign of the 5th Apocalypse

Maybe the silence means that Larry and Damian are tackling the tough part of designing Perl 6. You know, the point after the part where everything seems easy to design because you haven't gotten in the details, and before the part where everything finally fits together nicely.

I don't really think Damian and Larry spend their days at the beach, downing pinacoladas, laughing about the great Perl 6 swinddle ;--)

As for the touring, I must say that if you have never heard Damian talk, well... you should really try! He is really funny and clever, and makes you feel that there is more to life in general, and Perl especially, than CGI, XML or whatever you earn a living with.

That said I don't think you are obliged to give, neither this time nor any time. I just think that I have gotten more than my money's worth with Perl in the past 6 years, regardless of what happens with this specific donation, so I might give again.

As for the touring, I must say that if you have never heard Damian talk, well... you should really try! He is really funny and clever, and makes you feel that there is more to life in general, and Perl especially, than CGI, XML or whatever you earn a living with.

As one who was fortunate enough to attend Damian's advanced OO perl talk in Boston last year, I can say that it's well worth the entry fee. He is easily the most knowledgeable perl hacker I've ever met. The talks are enlightening and entertaining. The subject matter is facinating and well thought-out. He's got some VERY funny stories. And to top it off, you'll love the Australian accent. ;-) Attend as often as you can - you won't regret it.

As for donating, I plan on donating something after my next paycheck. I just found a job after 6 months of unemployment, so I can't give as much as I'd like. But as ask said, everything counts. Give as generously as you can.

To whit my usual reply is "I've been in my cube doing what you pay me for, things are going forward, hence all the work, and I'd be doing fine without all these interruptions"

And I continued to get paid, and the work gets done. He stopped asking to see daily progress reports years ago, and now is happy with his once a month Operating Report.

The point of my story? We might not be hearing from them because they're working, and the work isn't all that easy.

C-.

Update:++mirod getting to it first

You should hear more from us, though. I know that I, for one, have been a bit lax in substantive summary reports. (I've been using Damian's journalling system, though not in green, at http://yetanother.org/dan/ but that's not been updated recently) I've been taking something of a speaking tour, but unless you're somewhere between Boston and Washington DC that's no help. :)

I'll see about fixing that, at least for me. The exegeses and apocalypses speak for Damian and Larry, generally.

If anyone wants me to come make a Parrot/Perl 6 presentation to their PM group, send me mail (dan at sidhe dot org). We can work something out, I expect.

A meta-node: I find the level of downvoting of the parent node quite alarming. Clearly the poster anticipated the reaction and so posted anonymously.

Certainly your votes are yours to cast as you see fit. But I'd like to point out that even though you may disagree with the author's point (I personally disagree), s/he made a point clearly, quietly, and inoffensively. This isn't a troll, it's someone stating an unpopular opinion.

VSarkiss braces himself for the trip to Worst nodes.

I too would actually much rather see the money go to Dan than to Damian. I understand the value of his contributions better and I believe he needs the grant more than Damian who I would think can get his way paid by teaching more easily.

For Larry then I am happy to help sponsoring him even if it's hard to see what he actually does. He has been more involved since O'Reilly laid him off and even if not then I don't mind giving him money for "past performance". :-)

 - ask

-- 
ask bjoern hansen, http://ask.netcetera.dk/   !try; do();

Agreed. ask++ Dissenters need a break too.

A *real* troll would have made the post personal in some way. I'll pile on a bit since the window's open. Watch my karma drop! :)

In a way, I agree with him/her. Dan's contributions are very solid, concrete, he's doing something. He's writing code that will be practical one day -- it'll get used as the base for a real language I'm sure, if not the Wolkenkuckucksheim Perl.

Damian's contributions are of a far less practical nature. His modules tend to be more academic and interesting than practical. (And his practical modules are updated far too infrequently.) To be honest: if it's not practical, then I'm not paying for it.

I've attended a few of his talks, and they're very entertaining. Being in the midwest my opportunity to actually see one of these is generally limited to my YAPC pilgrimmage. I get to see him fly overhead an awful lot. And his monthly travelogues are worth the money. Wait, no they're not.

Larry is a sensitive point: anything less than a glowing opinion will cause crateloads of rotting onions to show up in my mailbox I'm sure. He is more active now on the Perl 6 lists. That's nice. Apocalypses are still too far between though for my tastes though. As far as his ORA situation, well, times are tough all over. I'm more ambivalent than anything else about Larry's situation. *shrugs* (He's a really, really nice guy though!)

Don't believe me? Try looking at the Apocalypses and the Exegeses as a dialogue between two exceptionally smart people.

Larry writes an apocalypse, and Damian then sets about interpreting that to produce some 'real' code. And in doing this he trips over possible problems with the Apocalypse so he goes back to Larry for clarifications and/or bugfixes, and so the design evolves.

What we have here is a case of two heads being better than one. I am utterly convinced that without Damian's input the Perl6 design process would be even slower than it already is. I'm also expecting it to accelerate. A/E 3&4 are fundamental to the workings of Perl 6.

As for the length of time that E4 took, Damian has said that the first draft exposed some flaws in A4 and those took a good long while to fix. It can't have helped either that Damian hasn't been well.