Doubleheader: perl5i and MetaCPAN

Though we usually meet on the last Thursday of the month, there are folks with wee ones and folks who wish to give candy to said wee ones on that Thursday so we're moving it a week back.

Tom Legrady (https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Perl-Mongers/members/6226691/), after having done a series (http://which-dwarf-are-you.blogspot.ca/2013/03/learning-perl5i.html) of (http://which-dwarf-are-you.blogspot.ca/2013/04/learning-perl5i-2.html) blog (http://which-dwarf-are-you.blogspot.ca/2013/04/learning-perl5i-3.html) posts (http://which-dwarf-are-you.blogspot.ca/2013/04/learning-perl5i-3-revisted.html) about it, will be talking about perl5i (https://metacpan.org/module/perl5i). The goal of perl5i is to "Fix as much of Perl 5 as possible in one pragma."

Olaf Alders (https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Perl-Mongers/members/33189732/) will be walking us through an installation of the new MetaCPAN VM. MetaCPAN (https://metacpan.org/) is both an API and a frontend that can be used in place of search.cpan.org. In order to speed up hacking on MetaCPAN, virtual machines (VM) can now be downloaded to get you up and running in a hurry. These VMs are preconfigured and Debian machines which come with pretty much everything you need to get MetaCPAN up and running on your own machine.

To download your own VM before the meeting begins, checkout the instructions (https://github.com/cpan-api/metacpan-developer). In this first of two parts, we'll talk about what it takes to get the VM up and running and we'll take some time to troubleshoot any issues which folks have had with the basic install. Please do follow the instructions listed above to install (or at least download) the VM before the meeting begins, so that we can be as productive as possible. MetaCPAN makes use of Vagrant, VirtualBox, ElasticSearch, Catalyst, jQuery, Template Toolkit and a whole lot of other technology which can help you towards full buzzword compliance.

As per usual, please arrive prior to 7pm. Someone will be down to collect you from the lobby and bring you to the venue. If you arrive after 7pm, please speak to security and ask for the number for the Toronto Perl Mongers. You can then text or call us to come getcha!