Originally published at Perl Weekly 757
Hi there!
On Saturday, (evening for me, noon-ish in the Americas) we had an excellent meeting and there are recordings you can watch. In the first hour I showed some PRs I sent to MIME::Lite. You can watch the video here. In the second hour we changed the setup and we continued in driver-navigator style pair programming. I was giving the instructions and two other participants made the changes and sent the PR. Others in the audience made suggestions. So actually this was mob programming. As far as I know, this was the first time they contributed to open source projects. One of the PRs was already accepted while we were still in the meeting. Talk about quick feedback and fast ROI. You can watch the video here. Don't forget to 'like' the videos on YouTube and to follow the channel!
I've scheduled the next such event. Register here!. My hope is that many more of you will participate and then after getting a taste and having some practice you'll spend 15-20 min a day (2 hours a week) on similar contributions. Having 10-20 or maybe even 100 people doing that consistently will have a huge impact on Perl within a year.
Before that, however, there is the FOSDEM Community dinner on Saturday. If you are in Brussels.
Enjoy your week!
--
Your editor: Gabor Szabo.
Announcements
FOSDEM Community dinner information
On 31st January 2026 19:30,
Announcing the Perl Toolchain Summit 2026!
The 16th Perl Toolchain Summit will be held in Vienna, Austria, from Thursday April 23rd till Sunday April 26th, 2026.
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Open Source contribution - Perl - Tree-STR, JSON-Lines, and Protocol-Sys-Virt - Setup GitHub Actions
One hour long video driver-navigator style pair-programming contributing to open source Perl modules.
Open source contribution - Perl - MIME::Lite - GitHub Actions, test coverage and adding a test
One hour long presentation about 3 pull-requests that were sent to MIME::Lite
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Discuss it on Reddit
Ready, Set, Compile... you slow Camel
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Call for proofreaders : blogging on beautiful Perl features
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Discussion
I wrote a Plack handler for HTTP/2, and it's now available on CPAN :)
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Geo::Gpx.pm: no 'speed' field (even is GPX 1.0?)
Web
ANNOUNCE: Perl.Wiki V 1.38 & Mojolicious.Wiki V 1.12
I'll Have a Mojolicious::Lite
Gwyn built mojoeye, a tiny Perl app to run system and security checks across their internal Linux hosts.
Perl
Retrospective on the Perl Development Release 5.43.7
Corion mentions a number of places where things can be improved. I am surprised that the whole process is not fully automated yet. I mean some of the brightest people in the Perl community work on the core of perl.
The Weekly Challenge
The Weekly Challenge by Mohammad Sajid Anwar will help you step out of your comfort-zone. You can even win prize money of $50 by participating in the weekly challenge. We pick one champion at the end of the month from among all of the contributors during the month, thanks to the sponsor Lance Wicks.
The Weekly Challenge - 358
Welcome to a new week with a couple of fun tasks "Max Str Value" and "Encrypted String". If you are new to the weekly challenge then why not join us and have fun every week. For more information, please read the FAQ.
RECAP - The Weekly Challenge - 357
Enjoy a quick recap of last week's contributions by Team PWC dealing with the "Kaprekar Constant" and "Unique Fraction Generator" tasks in Perl and Raku. You will find plenty of solutions to keep you busy.
Uniquely Constant
The article skillfully uses Raku's comb, sort, and flip operations for digit manipulation to offer a straightforward and idiomatic solution to the Kaprekar's ongoing problem. It is both instructive and useful for Raku programmers since it carefully addresses edge cases like non-convergence and shows verbose iteration output.
Perl Weekly Challenge: Week 357
The post offers concise and illustrative Perl and Raku solutions to the tasks from Week 357, particularly the Kaprekar Constant implementation with examples that match the problem specification and well-explained iteration logic. For Perl enthusiasts, its clear explanations and references to actual Wikipedia details make the algorithms simple to understand and instructive.
Fractional Fix Points
The Kaprekar Constant and Unique Fraction Generator tasks are explained in a clear and organised manner in this post, which also provides step-by-step iteration breakdowns and solid examples to illustrate the problem. For Perl/Raku learners taking on the Weekly Challenge, its solutions demonstrate careful algorithm design and address important edge cases, making it instructive and useful.
Perl Weekly Challenge 357: arrays everywhere!
Luca provides a thorough and systematic collection of answers to the problems issued in all the languages (Raku, PL/Perl, Python and PostgreSQL) and has demonstrated proficiency in both algorithmic reasoning and the use and applicability of various characteristics of each of these programming languages. The articles describe in detail how to implement algorithms logically. As a result, readers are provided with clean and accurate code as examples of how to successfully implement these algorithms through the use of the listed languages.
Perl Weekly Challenge 357
The blog post provides a comprehensive overview of how to implement the Kaprekar Constant and Unique Fraction Generator tasks in Perl. The examples provided demonstrate the idiomatic (one-line) style of coding that is used to represent both of the tasks. Additionally, the post discusses how to handle exceptions such as non-convergence and uniqueness of fractions, in a sensible manner.
One Constant, and Many Fractions
Matthias's solutions are easy to follow and use a typical hiring challenge style for each week. Each of his solutions adhere to the challenge's requirements. Additionally, all of his implementations demonstrate good programming practices for Perl.
I could drink a case of you…
Packy's write-up for week 357 of the Perl Weekly Challenge offers a fresh perspective on the challenge by telling an entertaining story that incorporates the Kaprekar problem into the write-up. The article clearly details how to implement the code and produces good results as well. The final product is easy to understand and provides a fun, educational experience to those tackling the challenge this week.
Converging on fractions
A thorough explanation of the solution (both tasks) is provided in the post. The Perl code included is easy to read and closely adheres to the descriptions of each problem. Furthermore, the code has been written such that it handles 'non-convergence' where applicable, with clear and logical outputs as well as analyses of each step helping the reader to learn about the algorithms and their correctness.
The Weekly Challenge #357
Robbie has provided full Perl implementations of the Kaprekar Constant and Unique Fraction Generator problems, including clear descriptions and links to the source code for both projects. His article is very well organised and user-friendly, allowing readers to quickly familiarise themselves with both tasks and check out Robbie's own code implementations.
Uniquely Kaprekar
The article provides all the vital information you need to comprehend the fundamental algorithms of each challenge, including thorough code sample illustrations, as well as an extensive discussion on iteration behaviour and the reasons you don't want to use floating-point division in programming.
Fractional Constant
This blog article describes how to perform both Weekly Challenge 357 tasks step by step, showing examples of useful and correct code in both the Python and Perl programming languages, as well as considering input validation and control structures for the Kaprekar constant, as well as selecting the correct data structures to store unique fractions and display them in sorted order. By comparing the differences between the two programming languages alongside their implementation details, this blog is a valuable resource to help those programming these challenges as they learn about them.
Kaprekar Steps & Ordered Fractions
The Kaprekar steps and unique ordered fractions problems are two challenging problems; the author has provided a short list of Perl-based, well-considered solutions to handling leading zeroes, digit sorting, finding loops and sequence detection, and performing value-based ordering of fractions with duplicate removal. These solutions outline the steps taken and lessons learned while approaching each problem.
Weekly collections
NICEPERL's lists
Great CPAN modules released last week.
Events
Perl Maven online: Code-reading and Open Source contribution
February 10, 2025
Boston.pm - online
February 10, 2025
German Perl/Raku Workshop 2026 in Berlin
March 16-18, 2025
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(C) Copyright Gabor Szabo
The articles are copyright the respective authors.