Today we are starting the next Perl Catalyst development cycle, codenamed "SicilianButtercup" (explanation below). As in the last cycle you can refer to playperl (http://play-perl.org/player/jnap) to see and discuss the the proposed targets for development, but here is a short summary to get you started:Convert existing legacy dispatch types to be chained types 'under the hood'.This is intended to allow us to start to think about how to improve the Catalyst dispatcher, which is somewhat on the slow side amongst other things. This is intended to be a legacy backward compatible change, although it is a deep change so some compatibility issues might arise.There's an existing branch in the repo that one can use to jumpstart this work.Catalyst Async SupportThere's a small patch to Catalyst Engine in the repo, which is also inlined in a demo on github (http://github.com/jjn1056/Perl-Catalyst-AsyncExample/) that lets you use Anyevent style async in your controllers. I think we'd like support and examples for both AnyEvent and IO::Async so that we can begin to think about what other things in Catalyst might benefit from async style programming.Coring the unicode PluginShould be straightforward port of the existing unicode plugin to core and test it!And Two prototypes:1) Better control over POST/PUT body parsing2) Restful Content negotiation.Status of that stuff is over here (https://github.com/jjn1056/CatalystX-Example-Todo)I'll blog next week more about these targets, which I think are solid ones for the month of May. We hope to release the next Catalyst during the first week of June, based on these goals, and we will have the opportunity to discuss at the upcoming YAPC in Austin, TXAbout the code name:I always admired how Ubuntu used codename releases as a way to try and help bring attention to rare and endangered wild animals. However many of you might not think of it, but a large number of our traditional farm kept/livestock animals are also facing extinction due to modern corporate farming practices (you know, the ones that deliver you tasteless tomatoes, flavorless chicken and all that) which place an emphasis on profits over food quality and lack smart long term management of farm animal genetic diversity.In addition to the food quality of the older stock and the safety net diversity provides, there is also something to be said for showing a sense of respect to the history of farm animals of our various national heritages. Some of these animals came to the US (and other places) with the early settlers, and they went West with the pioneers, who would not have survived without them. The same is true all around the world. Think of these animals as living museums!The Sicilian Buttercup is a rare breed of poultry living here in the USA. The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy considers it "Threatened", which is the second most level of urgency. It orginated from the Mediterranean and has been with us for more than 100 years. Its considered a warm weather breed (like most Mediterranean originated birds, although mine seemed to do fine in my cold upstate NY farm) and tends to be wild and flighty! Mine loves to roost high in the barn rafters and is nearly always one of the first birds out the door and wandering around my farm.Since the breed is somewhat wild and likes to roam and fly about it has not been the type of bird that large corporate poultry farms want to have. However it is a great forager which means you don't need to spend a lot on bought food for it and its ability to fly well gives it an edge over other birds should a fox or racoon wander into your free range area. This makes it a good bird to have if you just want chickens and don't want to spend a lot of time herding over them. The fact it loves to be out and about often means less mess for you in the nighttime coop as well!It is also considered an attractive bird, and many people keep them for ornamental purposes. It can be found both in normal and bantam sizes, and is an indifferent egg layer, producing about 200 eggs a year during peak.Mine is a classic dark gold and showy bird. See more and some pictures here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Buttercup_(chicken)Good luck and lets start contributing!