I can't convince my boss to give me the time off for the upcoming Perl conference. I've brought up a few of the many benefits of going, but I need a better argument. His primary question was: "What do you really expect to learn there?"

After reading the description of the conference, I think the question answers itself, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I'm still crafting my Official answer, but so far, this is what I have:

• Perl 6 is coming out and we need to stay with the changes in order to avoid getting blindsided
• You can meet more important people in 3 days at something like this than you can in 3 years of just doing your job
• Two words: Damian Conway
• The Open Source conference is right next door, so we can find out about developments in all things OS, PHP, Apache, etc.
• The various workshops and lightning talks are all but guaranteed to show us optimizations that will save us a clock cycle or two, or at lease keep us from writing the same thing that someone else has already written on CPAN
• The very people who wrote so much of the code we're relying on right now will be there in person. They have an incredible amount of knowledge to share, and it would be great to be among so many talented resources in the same place
• The next State of the Onion

I know this list isn't complete by far. I need help in putting together a list which will inspire. I need something that will translate directly into something the upper people can grasp. I'm trying to say "See what I can do now in 2 hours and 40 lines? This can teach me to do it [some amount sooner hours] in [some amount fewer lines]!"

I know I won't be able to quantify it in such concrete terms, but I believe I need something more than I have right now. If this doesn't work, hopefully someone else will be able to use it to convince their boss to let them go.

Any suggestions are appreciated

MM

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