Path: usenet.cise.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!howland.erols.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-pull.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-dc-9.sprintlink.net!news.rain.net!news.teleport.com!not-for-mail From: Larry Wall Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.misc Subject: Release Notes for Version 1.00 of *The Perl Institute* Followup-To: comp.lang.perl.misc Date: 28 Jan 1997 13:58:43 GMT Organization: The Perl Institute Lines: 110 Sender: -yp- @gadget.cscaper.com Approved: merlyn@stonehenge.com (comp.lang.perl.announce) Message-ID: <5cl0mj$jbd$1@nadine.teleport.com> Reply-To: larry@wall.org NNTP-Posting-Host: gadget.cscaper.com X-Disclaimer: The "Approved" header verifies header information for article transmission and does not imply approval of content. Xref: usenet.cise.ufl.edu comp.lang.perl.announce:99 comp.lang.perl.misc:16085 Release Notes for Version 1.00 of The Perl Institute Product Overview The Perl Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to the task of helping not only people who use Perl, but also people who support other people's use of Perl. Hence, the Official Slogan of The Perl Institute is: To help people help Perl help people. The Perl Institute is primarily a technical society rather than a professional society. That is to say, we're not interested in telling you whether or not you are a professional Perl programmer. Rather, we're interested in helping you become one, in whatever sense you care to define it. To that end, The Perl Institute is about making connections between the people who have the resources and the people who need them. Different people will contribute different kinds of resources, but all of us will come out better in the end. Product Features This version of The Perl Institute has many new and exciting features. These include: * Cool plastic camels that aren't associated with tobacco products. * Discounts on various Perl Paraphernalia purchased through the Perl Store. * Discounts on The Perl Journal. * Many other things we'll think of presently. * Most importantly, though, The Perl Institute provides a systematic way for individuals and corporate sponsors to contribute time, ideas, and (of course) money to the ongoing development of Perl Culture. Note that if you don't appreciate that last feature, you probably shouldn't become a member of the Perl Institute, because, to be perfectly forthcoming, the *direct* monetary value of your membership benefits is likely to be less than your membership fee. We believe, however, that the *indirect* benefits of membership will, in the long run, make it worthwhile for you to join. The primary goal of the Institute is to build up the infrastructure used by Perl developers so that they can support other folks better. (See Slogan above.) To that end, one of our most important missions is to listen to suggestions from everyone involved, both the helper and the helpee. This means you, one way or another. Changes From Previous Version If you were familiar with version 0.99 of The Perl Institute, you'll find that this new version is leaner and more focused. Some of the merchandising activities of version 0.99 have been handed off to a subsidiary organization called The Perl Store, so that The Perl Institute version 1.00 can focus more on the technical issues and less on the marketing issues. Online Support and Bug Reporting To get your questions answered, and to suggest new features, please visit our Web site at www.perl.org. Known Bugs This program is really still in an alpha state, but we thought we'd release it anyway since that's how things are done nowadays. There are an insufficient number of volunteers. We're not always sure what to do with the volunteers we have. One of the volunteers we need is someone to coordinate what other volunteers do. The board of The Perl Institute suffers from Laziness, Impatience and Hubris. (Well, Laziness, anyway.) There's no -w switch. Compatibility Issues The Perl Institute does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, gender, national character set, CPU architecture, endianness, or preferred operating system. (Some of the Institute's members may, upon occasion, proffer their own opinions on these subjects, but these should not be construed as official policy of The Perl Institute.) Future Extensions The Perl Institute is exploring the possibility of becoming a Special Technical Group (STG) of the Usenix Association. (Since Usenix is into much more than just Unix these days, we don't construe this as an incompatibility. See above.) Beyond that, we really don't know what will happen. All we know is that The Perl Institute will become what you make of it. -- Tom Christiansen Perl Consultant, Gamer, Hiker tchrist@mox.perl.com Emacs is a fine programming language, but I still prefer perl.