The Perl Conference 2019

Pre Conference Newsletter

In this issue:

Volunteers Needed

The Perl Conference is 100% volunteer powered! We need your help during the main conference on June 17 – June 19! Volunteer for 2 hours during any event day and lunch is on us! Give us 16 hours and you’ll also get free admission to TPCiP’s main event days!

There’s still room to volunteer for room moderator, camera operator, runner positions, and setup/cleanup crew.

Don’t worry, we’re not looking for experts! We’ll help you understand the job and how to perform it! There is even an instructional video available for volunteer videographers so you can see what you are getting yourself into!

Sign up here: http://bit.ly/tpcipvolunteer

Room Moderator: This volunteer introduces each speaker prior to their talk. They work with the camera operator to ensure talks do not start until the videography team is ready to record. The room moderator also ensures that their room keeps to the schedule, cuing the speaker to end their talk as necessary. Room moderators also provide any special announcements between talks as instructed by the organizer staff.

Camera Operator: This volunteer uses the recording equipment setup in the conference room to start a recording at the beginning of a presentation and stop the recording at the end of the presentation. The camera operator may need to direct a runner and communicate with the videographer and assistant videographers.

Runner:  This volunteer is available to help out as necessary with general duties. The runner may need to deliver something (an item or a message for example) to an organizer or fellow volunteer or help setup/breakdown a room.

Setup/Cleanup Crew:  This volunteer is available to help setup and/or breakdown a room or conference area. This may include (but is not limited to) helping to position tables and chairs, picking up empty water bottles and coffee cups accidentally left behind on tables, taping down electrical cords, pulling up taped areas from floors and furniture, and/or removing paper signs.

Arrival Information for TPCiP

The Perl conference is just a few days away! Remember, the main 3-day conference event is on June 17-19, 2019 with optional master-class tutorial sessions offered on June 16, 20, and 21. By now you’ve registered to attend the event and made your travel arrangements, right? Probably so, but it’s not too late to buy a ticket or book a room if you haven’t yet.

Now is the time to start planning what to pack and when to start your travel. Here’s some arrival information to help you plan.

Getting to the hotel:

The conference venue and recommended lodging are at the same address:

DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel & Suites Pittsburgh Downtown

One Bigelow Square

Pittsburgh, PA  15219

1-800-222-TREE (8733)

The DoubleTree by Hilton & Suites Pittsburgh Downtown website has general driving directions from all points. Parking is available at the hotel. It is valet-only at $26 day and space is limited. The parking garage entrance is around the back of the hotel on Centre Avenue.

The hotel does not offer an airport shuttle service. The hotel website lists Super Shuttle as a shuttle option to take you from the airport to the hotel (and back). It’s recommended to book ahead.

There is also a bus service option that serves downtown Pittsburgh – Bus line 28x. It makes regular rounds (every 10-30 minutes or so depending on time of day) and picks up at the baggage claim outside of Door 6 at the Pittsburgh International (PIT) airport.

Sunday Events

  • Entertainment: Hackathon space is available from 9am – 5pm in the Monongahela room. Work independently or collaborate on a project. Later, from 8pm to 11pm join us for some games in the Keystone Suite.

Check-in and Breakfast

Check-in at the registration desk in the Upper Foyer section to get your name badge and t-shirt. A free continental breakfast will be offered on Sunday at 8am. The registration desk will be open from 8am – 12pm on Sunday and it will open again on Monday at 8:30am.

Main event conference days (Monday – Wednesday) begin with a free continental breakfast starting at 8am, followed by daily sessions beginning at 9am.

Coffee at TPCiP

Coffee is an important part of Perl conferences for a lot of attendees. This year organizers have made special arrangements to serve the same quality of coffee you may have enjoyed at past Pittsburgh Perl Workshops. We’re calling it “PPW coffee”! The beans are acquired from a local company and are actually roasted on the day of the event for maximum freshness! The coffee brewed is according to SCA Gold Cup standards. There’s nothing industrial or freeze-dried about PPW coffee. It’s as fresh as fresh can be! We hope you enjoy it.

Share Your YAPC::NA / TPC::NA Story

TPCiP marks 20 years of Perl Conferences! If you’ve attended a past Yet Another Perl Conference (YAPC) or The Perl Conference (TPC) and have a memory or story to share, we’ll have an outlet for that! Please fill out this form if you have a story to share! http://bit.ly/myTPCstory

Stories should be brief, no more than 5 minutes long and can be from any YAPC or TPC in North America since 1999. All years are welcome, but we especially want to hear about the early years!

Call for Lightning Talks

Lightning Talks are short, 5 minute, talks that may be serious, funny, or both. They may be given by experienced speakers already giving full length talks or by first time speakers just starting out (this is a great way to get started if you have something to say). If you are a first time speaker you will win a tie with an experienced speaker when the schedule is made, if it comes to it. Today’s first time speaker could be tomorrow’s keynote speaker!

Consider giving a lightning talk at TPCiP!

TPCiP Event Schedule

Have you viewed the TPCiP schedule yet? Visit the 2019 TPCiP event schedule and check out the “Sched” app (App Store, Google Play) for your viewing convenience. Make an account so you can plan out your daily conference schedule!

Arrival Dinners and the Wiki

You can use the TPCiP event Wiki to post about your plans and get others to join you.

One Wiki item that’s become an unofficial tradition is a non-TPC coordinated Arrival Dinner and Alternate Arrival Dinner planned out by attendees. The Arrival and Alternate Arrival Dinners are not part of TPCiP or planned by TPCiP organizers. It’s basically a group of people going out for dinner, many old friends getting a chance to reunite, and some new friends looking for a fun dinner! The arrival dinners are welcome to all attendees.

Anyone can add a venue or an entry to the Wiki. Go ahead and add an Arrival Dinner venue, or RSVP to an existing entry. Venue ideas for an Alternate Arrival Dinner have already been started. The Alternate Arrival Dinner is traditionally Vegan friendly and host to a smaller group than the Arrivals Dinner.

Accessibility at TPCiP

Remember, accessibility belongs to the Perl community, all of us! Find out accessibility information about the venue and what to expect at TPCiP.

Social Event: River Cruise

On Tuesday, Jun 18, TPCiP invites you to our evening social event, a river cruise! The cost of admission to the cruise is included in your event ticket. Boarding will take place from 7:00 pm until 7:30 pm. Be prompt – the ship will depart the dock promptly at 7:30 pm – there are no exceptions!

The river cruise is on the Gateway Clipper fleet, located a little over 1 mile from our venue. Pittsburgh transit is nearby and can get you there for $2.75 (one-way fare, exact change required). You can also walk, carpool with friends, or use uber/lyft. The hotel does provide a free shuttle service but the shuttle service has a limited capacity and we request you leave this for people with physical disabilities.

Sign up for a Master-class Tutorial!

Here’s the lineup:

June 16:

Practical Perl 6 with Jeff Goff (full day) $115

Setting you up the bomb: interactive git rebase for the win with John Anderson (half day) $65

June 20:

 Introduction to Go with Dave Rolsky (full day) $165

 Programming the web with Dancer with Sawyer X (full day) $65

June 21:

 Introduction to Moose with Dave Rolsky (full day) $165

(This is the last class ‘Introduction to Moose’ Dave plans to teach so don’t miss it!)

Find out more information about these classes and get your tickets on eventbrite. Tickets are sold individually per class and are in addition to your main event (June 17-19) ticket purchase.

Birds of a Feather (BoF) List

We have a list of registered BoF’s. You can find out more information and sign up to attend a BoF on the wiki.

Thanks to TPCiP Sponsors!

Without sponsors like the very generous and thoughtful companies detailed here, The Perl Conference, a non-profit and volunteer-organized event, would not be possible!

These top-level sponsors not only help support The Perl Foundation but also sponsor The Perl Conference in Pittsburgh (TPCiP)!

cPanel

TPCiP is very grateful for the support of cPanel and their sponsorship of The Perl Conference in Pittsburgh and their continued support of Perl!

The cPanel & WHM software is an easy-to-use control panel that gives hosting providers, and website owners, a powerful modern interface for managing servers, websites, and applications. Developed in Perl since 1997, cPanel seeks highly motivated development team members in their Houston location. Visit https://go.cpanel.net/jobs for open positions.

Grant Street Group

TPCiP thanks Grant Street Group for their continued support of Perl and Perl conferences. Thank you for sponsoring The Perl Conference in Pittsburgh!

Grant Street Group has been a proud sponsor of various Perl Foundation events since 2003, including YAPC and TPC, the Pittsburgh Perl Workshop, the Perl QA Hackathon, and other regional Perl Foundation events in the United States and across the globe.

Grant Street Group has developed and administered websites used by government entities and financial institutions to conduct auctions and process high-volume, complex financial transactions. They have successfully hosted financial transactions exceeding $12 trillion for thousands of issuers throughout the nation since 1997. Today, Grant Street Group provides Software as a Service application for revenue collection, auctions, and e-payment processing.

Bluehost

TPCiP is very thankful to Bluehost for their sponsorship of The Perl Conference in Pittsburgh and their continued support of Perl and Perl conferences!

Bluehost was founded in 2003 with one goal: to make a better hosting company. Built from the ground up on open source technology like Perl, we’ve since grown to become one of the world’s largest providers of cloud-based online solutions. Operating beneath the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, over 700 of us are pushing boundaries to deliver the promise of the internet to more people than ever.

With Google Integration, 24/7 support, and a money back guarantee, it’s no wonder Bluehost is a top rated hosting provider.

… and a special thanks to our event sponsors!

Perl Careers

We help Perl Developers land their dream job.

Turnitin.com

Education with Integrity.

Geekuni

Online Perl training.

Bayou Media & Consulting, LLC

Ruth Holloway brings art and code to life.

For more information about donating to The Perl Foundation and/or Perl conferences visit http://bit.ly/tpcipsponsor.

TPCiP Newsletter Archive

The Perl Conference in Pittsburgh newsletters are archived on the website in case you missed one (or we missed you).

How to Reach Us

Send your questions about The Perl Conference to admin@perlconference.us. Someone on our organizing team will be happy to get back to you.

We’ll see you in – under a week – back where it all began, in Pittsburgh, PA! #TPCiP

By Shawn Carroll | June 13, 2019 | News |
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