At ActiveState, Perl has always been a big focus for us. You may have seen a few blogs from us recently on the pervasiveness of this (almost) 30-year-old language in the enterprise and examples of where Perl is being used today. Keeping this powerful and critical language relevant is important, so we’re very happy to support the upcoming Perl QA Hackathon (QAH) in Rugby, UK. The event, in its 9th year, will take place April 21-24. The purpose of the event is to provide dedicated time to work on Perl critical systems and tools, with all the right people in the same place.

Neil Bowers is one of the Perl Hackers organizing the QA Hackathon this year. According to Neil, “The group of attendees gradually evolves from year to year, as it’s based on the people who are currently maintaining and evolving the toolchain. A lot gets done at the QAH, but the discussions also tend to generate plenty for people to work on in the following year.”

The results from this hackathon benefit all Perl programmers. Keeping the language relevant for old and new Perl programmers is extremely important.

Yes, there are those who have recently learned Perl.

If you’re one of those people who have referred to Perl as a ‘dying language’, you may find the results from a recent ActiveState survey quite surprising. We reached out to those who downloaded ActivePerl, our Perl distro, and asked them how long they have been using Perl. We discovered that a whopping 48% of respondents said they started using Perl in the last 4 years. A similar finding was discovered in a survey of programmers who participated in the CPAN Pull Request Challenge last year.

This is not what a “dying” language looks like…clearly the reports of Perl’s death have been exaggerated.

Whether you’ve been using Perl for decades or have just picked it up in the past few years, the Perl QA Hackathon is definitely something our community should get behind. We look forward to seeing the results from these four days in April.

Learn more about the upcoming Perl QA Hackathon and don’t forget to use the hashtag #perlqah2016 when sharing information about the event. Read the latest blog by Neil Bowers, The Perl Toolchain: Developing Your Module.