I attended all the Perl/OSDC events since 2009. I had fallen in love with the Perl community from the start. They are smart, open minded, helpful and fun. Why had I waited so long to meet them IRL?! When Linkfluence sponsored me to attend to my first YAPC::EU and give a talk on Perlude, my CTO warned me: it’s even better than FPW because you realize how big and commited this community is. I was curious …

Actually: it’s awesome! Talking with guys that had inspired me for so many years (Larry Wall, Damian Conway, ...) and meeting all those clever, anonymous people comming from all over europe to share ideas and give feedback was an eye opening experience. Thanks, Linkfluence, thanks! I really mean it!

I read a lot of reviews since and everything is true :) Riga is a very beautiful place. The weather was wonderful and latvians are cheerful and outgoing. Plus: the YAPC team did some very good work. As result, the attendees and speakers had nothing to worry about: everything was simple and pleasant. Thanks, guys!

My first “class” was the Speaker training. Before the conference, I was skeptical about its value but the presentation blew me away and I now think that every speaker must attend this course at any OSS conference. I heard a lot of good advice about preparing and giving a workshop and Damian led us to more meta, such as “why am I really giving this talk?”, “who is my audience?” and other questions I had never asked myself despite the enormous value confered by answering them. So yes, Damian, I try to “be a Lion” :)

Then came ./yapc—start and we learned that Frankfürt will host YAPC::EU 2012 (this homepage wouldn’t be so cute if Jean wasn’t there). Congrats, you earned it. (How about YAPC::EU at Strasbourg ‘20?).

Afterwards, we heard Larry Wall’s keynote about post neo mutable aristotic modernism or something. I had to admit I had trouble making sence of this cerebral journey from Riga to the Bremen town musicians, to Stalin’s conception of modernism, to the risk of duck attacks, and finally to the future of Perl. It seems like Larry talked about images and ideas, their evolution and relationship with their origins, and the way they evoke the past.

While Perl has kept a strong spirit and community, it has changed a lot since 5.10. We have to spread these changes as well as Perl’s old strengths.

PS: I’m about to leave linkfluence HQ to join Belgian Perl Workshop 2011, See you tomorrow.