Every year we bring together the lead developers of the Perl and CPAN toolchain! This event was previously known as the QA Hackathon, but in 2016 it became the Perl Toolchain Summit (PTS) to more accurately reflect the scope and purpose.

This is an event where pressing issues around Perl’s toolchain, CPAN, testing infrastructure and much more are hacked on, fixed and improved, and where important issues are discussed and decided on. The focus is the continued support and development of the tools used every day by individuals, organisations, and companies that rely on Perl in Production.

Many improvements in the CPAN ecosystem can trace their roots to this event, including Test2 improvements, the “River of CPAN” analogy, numerous MetaCPAN additions, improvements to the Perl Authors Upload Server (PAUSE), policies on how to handle CPAN distribution adoption and takeover, work on the CPAN Testers service, several consensus documents and much, much, much, more!

This year’s summit will be in Oslo, Norway running from Thursday 19th April 2018 through Sunday 22nd April. Attendees be staying at the Smarthotel Oslo, with the event itself at Teknologihuset, a short tram-ride away.

10 year anniversary!

The first QA hackathon was held 10 years ago in Oslo, so to celebrate ten years of productive gatherings, we’re returning to where it all started. The format has evolved, but the ethos is still the same: bring the right people together for dedicated time working on things that benefit everyone who relies on Perl.

How does the PTS affect me?

The PTS is primarily an invite-only event, but the organizers make an effort to invite anyone who has a proven record for producing useful work on the CPAN ecosystem. If you’d like to be invited, just make sure to commit useful code! Don’t worry - the organizers will notice.

If you’re still curious, feel free to drop by the #pts channel on irc.perl.org and ask around. If you’re only a regular Perl developer or user, then you’ll get the benefits from the PTS without doing anything! - After all, we’re an Open Source community that cares. :)

How is the PTS organized?

The PTS is typically organised by people who have attended past events. The core toolchain developers nominate additional people who are working on the CPAN ecosystem, and they in turn suggest additional people to invite. In this way each year we invite the people who are currently having the most impact on our ecosystem.

There are four people in the organising team this year. Salve J. Nilsen (SJN) is the host, and will handle local matters (venue and accommodation) from Oslo, and be the public face of the event. Philippe Bruhat (BOOK) will be leading the sponsorship drive, from his base in Lyon, France. Neil Bowers (NEILB) will be taking care of attendees before the event. Laurent Boivin (ELBEHO) will be handling the money, both inwards (getting it from the sponsors) and outwards (covering expenses and refunding attendees).

I want to help the PTS succeed!

Thank you for considering helping us organize this event! Details on how to become a sponsoring partner can be found on the PTS sponsorship page. If you want to know more, please contact Philippe: book at cpan dot org. We appreciate any and all help!

Tell me more!

Pictures of the venue have been posted on SJN’s blog. More info will be posted on blogs.perl.org and the pts2018 event site as we go!