Script of “9000 km of Perl” ligntning talk at Nordic Perl Workshop 2009

Before I start, a couple of words about Oslo.

This thing at the entrance here symbolises the way a Russian tourist is forced to pass the border control at the airport. I'm not kidding: it took me half an hour to enter the country.

But anyway Oslo is the city intended for lightning talks sessions. You can host them even at bus stops, for example.

And now to my talk. It is “Nine thousand kilometers of Perl“.

A couple of years ago the map of the coverage of Perl events looked like this.

And this is how it will look at the end of May.

You may notice that the border between green and red parts are in fact the border between countries which were separated by Berlin wall.

A non-official title of the talk is “Perl behind the Wall”.

Well, by saying that I don't mean exactly this.

This year is a year of tenth anniversary of YAPCs

and YAPC::Europe in Lisbon is the tenth European YAPC.

I suddenly realized that my colleagues and I have already prepared or organized ten events,

and we did it in less than two years.

The area is 9000 km wide.

It covers five countries.

Despite that distance, there are still common things you may find. This is what we saw last year in Copenhagen.

This stands at the entrance here in Oslo.

Guess what you could see in Vladivostok?

Right. Yet another mermaid.

We can survive anywhere.

Another achievement is that lightning talk sessions are now the part of many regional IT-events in our country, not only Perl-related ones.

We have a localized version of the gong which separates talks at YAPCs.

This is how it looks like.

We also have tried a "new age" event, the hackmeet.

I did not write any code there . . . because there were some food.

Unlike a hackathon in Bratisava: I've only saw empty beer bottles when I came there.

In fact, quite important part of any event is entertainment.

Such as outdoor activities

or underground excursions.

Or just trying to turn on a popcorn machine.

Or more simple things.

But at the same time every event is very important and serious

in sense of bringing knowledge to people.

Even at the very remote parts of the country,

where people are very excited to meet Perl stars.

Next month we have two events. These are second YAPC::Russia in Moscow

and the first ever Perl workshop in Uzbekistan.

And we are going to organize more events and cover new places later this and next years.

That's all from me. Thank you.