This whole crazy thing started from a “complaint” session about why Perl hasn’t had an in person hack session in many years. We decided to do something about it and thus the 2016 Perl 5 Hackathon was conceived. We have chosen to model the hackathon after the QA Hackathon but we’ve decided to add out own flair.
The number one problem with getting new blood into Perl core development is the amount learning required just to get started. Much of the information on how things work is held in the heads of a small group of people. Why isn’t it documented or made easier to understand? Nobody has the time to do so.
Our experiment at this hackathon will be to have small sessions where subject matter experts can give a walkthrough of their area of knowledge. We hope to make this information available online later so others can benefit from it.