WLUG are pleased to announce that Paul Fenwick and his wife Jacinta Richardson will both be giving talks at the Waikato Uni

Who: Paul Fenwick and his wife Jacinta Richardson

When: 7pm-9pm 12th Feb 2009

Where: SG01 at the Waikato University in Hamilton. map

What:

The Art of Klingon programming - Paul Fenwick

A good programmer needs many qualities: intelligence, foresight, dedication, and the ability to fight off a hundred angry targh armed only with your bat'leth. On Qo'noS, software developers undertake an intensive course in combat programming before they are cleared for active duty. The tlhIngan traditions have long known one truth holds true for both glory in battle and software development:

bIlujDI' yIchegh()Qo'; yIHegh()!

It is better to die() than to return() in failure.

For too long, Perl has been a pujwI', and unsuitable for use by true warriors. In this talk we will show how the new autodie pragma can help you to code with batlh!

On Speaking - Jacinta Richardson

You've been to those talks. The kind where the title first drew your attention, the abstract made you go wow, and you were so excited you took afront seat. Then the speaker went to their first slide and it was so full of text (15 bullet points!) and you just knew they were going to spend the next ten minutes talking about what you've just read in two. Worse, being up the front, you can't easily leave and it'd be rude to pull out your laptop...

Don't be one of those speakers. No matter how technically brillant your talk, it's worth nothing at all if you can't keep your audience interested. This (short) talk will cover a whole bunch of tricks you can use to get your audience's attention and keep it. Better yet, if you use these ideas there's a good chance people will remember what you spoke about and will attend your future talks as well.

There is room for up to 80 people, so feel free to invite anyone else who may be interested.

Paul Fenwick is well known for his work with perl - you can find out about him here http://pjf.id.au/ Jacinta Richardson is Pauls wife, and also winner of the 2008 White Camel award for contributions to the Perl community.