Growing the Perl Hackers of tomorrow (or, "Hook 'em while they're young")

Growing the Perl Hackers of tomorrow (or, "Hook 'em while they're young")

By Rick Scott (‎shadowspar‎)
Lightning talk
Target audience: Any
Language:
Tags: activism college community education high school teaching university volunteering youth

You can find more information on the speaker's site:

• Talk: http://shadowspar.dyndns.org/rick/pub/present/perl-hackers/perl-hackers.xul

All across the country -- nay, all around the world -- a tragedy is unfolding.

An innocent high school kid dabbles in Visual Basic.
An impressionable young college student forms their first opinions about computer programming by using Java.
A university student throws up their hands in frustration because the programming language they're using simply won't Do What They Mean.

I respectfully submit that if you are worried about the future of Perl and the Perl community, one of the best things you can do is to teach Perl to those who would be the future of Perl. In this lightning talk, I'll stump for the notion of exposing young minds to Perl and explore the numerous ways one can go about this.