Adam Turoff

One year later, there were a couple dozen Perl Monger groups scattered over the country. Today, there are over 180 from all over the globe.

But who exactly are the Perl Mongers? What are we about?

Perl Mongers, the organization, is a not-for-profit entity that exists to help people use and evangelize Perl. It has no official ties to any of these local groups, but exists to provided network services as needed for these groups.

Like Perl, the Perl Mongers motto is "there's more than one way to do it". It's up to you and your local mongers how to help people use perl. It may be as simple as gathering occasionally to be social and exchange war stories. It may be more a more formal series of technical discussions. It can be a group project that helps the whole Perl community. It can be anything you want, and everything you have time and energy to provide.

This presentation will highlight some of the experiences of the Philadelphia Perl Mongers (phl.pm). Many of the 180+ Perl Mongers groups attract members from a wide metropolitan area, and have to solve basic problems like "where do we meet?" and "what's for dinner?"

phl.pm has worked around these issues, to the point where our small group of mongers offers weekly meetings. Along with the standard dinner meeting, we conduct monthly technical meetings and a bi-weekly reading group.

This talk will discuss ideas you can use with your local Perl Mongers group, even if your locale does not have the natural technical draw of a Route 128, Silicon Valley, or Wall Street.