It's great when organizations with (marketing? public relations? good will?) budgets authorize financial backing of events like the Perl QA Hackathon. Donations to these kinds of efforts are one of the many ways to contribute to the Perl ecosystem. But did you know you can donate to the Hackathon personally?

This year, I decided that I wanted to make a donation to the Perl QA Hackathon (albeit modest). For those of you who have some spare change burning a hole in your wallet, maybe some of the reasons I decided to donate will resonate with you.

My relationship with Perl is personal. I use the Swiss Army chainsaw because I choose to. The fact that I am employed by a company that wants to leverage this choice is almost happenstance. Said another way, if my employer decided to stop developing in Perl, I would seek a new employer.

I use Perl because I enjoy it. This enjoyment is strictly due to the efforts of a lot of really bright and talented CPAN and Perl core developers who make "getting things done" progressively easier. They iterate relentlessly over the scaffolding of giants such that yesterday's mountains become molehills. And when I read through this year's proposed ambitions, I said "Yes, I want that, too!"

I won't even pretend I have the wherewithal to contribute programmatically or even strategically to the efforts described in this year's proposed projects. But I want the benefits that would come when any of those proposed efforts succeed, and those benefits will continue to fuel my enjoyment of Perl and facilitate my livelihood. So in lieu of being able to make my life easier with my own hands, investing a miniscule fraction of my lifetime Perl earnings to make earning with Perl even easier/more enjoyable/etc. seems like a great idea.

Also, Ron Savage served as a role model and made a private donation. It's always easier when someone else gets the ball rolling. :)