History Annals

Boston Perl Mongers

Ronald J Kimball & Bill Ricker

1998-2023

Boston Perl Mongers history is divided into three parts, like Gaul.

Key Highlights (annals) this file

(Note. This file is in chronological order, most recent at the bottom. All start with a table of contents by year.)

When What Happened
1998-01-30 Boston.pm founded by Chris Nandor
1998-02-01 Discussion list created
1998-09-?? Meeting at MIT with Randal Schwartz
1998-10-?? First of many social meetings at Elaine Ashton’s house
1999-01-25 First regular tech meeting, held in Uri Guttman’s attic
1999-03 Ronald Kimball takes over as leader of Boston.pm
1999-04-27 Boston.pm hosts a party during O’Reilly’s Perl Tutorials in Boston
1999-06-07 Cambridge.pm is founded – we’re still not sure why :)
1999-09 Uri Guttman holds a haiku contest on the list; Phil Johnson, J Proctor, & John Saylor win books
1999-10-20 Discussion list moved to hfb.pm.org
1999-12-05 Boston.pm paintball outing
2000-02-07 Last regular tech meeting in Uri’s attic
2000-02-19 Jeff Burke covers a social meeting at Elaine Ashton’s house for digitalmass.com (alas rolled off front page before first Archive.org snapshot
2000-03-06 First regular tech meeting at Focalex, Inc.
2000-04-01 Boston.pm sells shirts & hats and gives out camel-shaped cookies at the Geek Pride Festival
2000-08-26 Elaine Ashton serves cold Guinness at a party; the list erupts in flames
2000-09-01 Job posting policy for the discussion list instituted
2000-11-05 Tech meeting with MySQL’s Monty Widenius; at NuSphere, Bedford (corp Shuttle bus!) NuSphere permanently loans a projector to Boston.pm
2001-01-17 Last regular tech meeting at Focalex, Inc.
2001-02-13 First regular tech meeting at Boston.com
2001-03-06 Discussion list moved to pm.org
2001-07-08 Social with Damian Conway and Michael Schewern at Uri’s
2001-07-09 Tech meeting with Damian Conway during his first ever trip to Boston
2002-01-18 Boston.pm has a team in the MIT Mystery Hunt (merges with team Austerity Nymph)
2002-09-03 Discussion list moved to mailman from majordomo; Announcement list created
2002-10-xx Boston.PM listing added to Boston User Group Calendaer and www(.)BostonUserGroups(.)com
2004-01-13 Last regular tech meeting at Boston.com
2004-03 Ronald’s 5th Anniversary as Facilitator goes unrecognized since no meeting. Yeah Ronald!
2004-04-27 First regular tech meeting at Boston University
2004-05-04 Social meeting with Randal Schwartz and Tad McClellan
2004-09-22 Boston.PM.org Kwiki set up during a tech meeting at Akamai/Novell, followed by Social meeting with Randal Schwartz in Cambridge (CBC)
2004-09-28 Social meeting with Randal Schwartz at Legal Seafood, Framingham (pattern?)
2004-10-02 Our own Dan Sugalski presents Perl 6 to GBC-ACM Seminar Series (for $$)
2004-12-14 Tech meeting downshifts to Social, BBW.
2005-01 Boston.pm.org web site moves to hosting provided by Sean P. Quinlan
2005-01-19 Social Meeting at Fire & Ice Harvard Square with Ben Tilly
2005-02-10 Social Meeting at Cheesecake Factory Cambridgeside with brian d foy
2005-04-12 Last regular tech meeting at Boston University
2005-08-09 First regular tech meeting at MIT
2005-0x-xx Boston.PM’s own Jarred ‘pthbb’ Pierce agrees to be first interregnum editor of PerlAdvent.org, with Boston.PM’s help.
2005-10-26 Tech Meeting with Damian Conway and his Small Miracles talk
2005-12-xx PerlAdvent.org YAP(A)C 2005, Jarred & Boston’s first.
2006-04-28 Social meeting with brian d foy - Jasper White’s Summer Shack(R)(tm)(sm)
2006-09-25 Damian Conway’s Open Talk 2.0 & Da Vinci Codebase talk with the Best Friends Cocoa Buffalo Memorial Foil Hat Contest as intermission entertainment
2006-12-xx PerlAdvent.org 2006, Jarred & Boston’s second.
2007-06-12 CIDC Cambridge Interactive Development Corporation began sponsoring tech meetings, thru 2008; Sean Q was hiring.
2007-11-13 Social at Boston Beer Works; JohnGalt Staffing bought a round!
2007-12-xx PerlAdvent.org 2007, Jarred & Boston’s third.
2008-06-24 Bill Ricker takes over as leader of Boston.pm. Thanks to Ronald for 9 great years.
2008-07-08 Social at Sunset Bar + Grill
2008-12-09 Social meeting RedBones in Davis Square
2008-12-xx PerlAdvent.org 2008, Jarred & Boston’s fourth.
2009-03-31 2009-04-01 BPM publicizes Larry Wall presenting “Ballistic Programming” to HCS and MIT SIPB on adjacent days on his world tour “an unedited version of the history of Perl, its current development and much wit and panache.”
2009-12-xx PerlAdvent.org 2009, Jarred & Boston’s fifth.
2010-12-xx PerlAdvent.org 2010, Jarred Pierce’s & Boston’s sixth and last; Mark Fowler resumes as Editor in 2011.
2011-10-11 CIDC sponsors one meeting, presentation by Sean Quinlan
2013-06-xx No one notices Bill Ricker’s 5th anniversary either.
2013-08-xx Social at CBC
2013-09-11 Boston.PM.org moves from Kwiki to Wikispaces, shortly before the kwiki’s 9th birthday. This ends the spam pollution.
2014-12-09 Stirring the Hive with a Perl Stick: Hadoop with Perl - Charles Hardin a Suburban Meeting @ EIG Burlington, c/o longtime member Sean Quinlan
2015-05-12 Emergency Social in lieu of tech topic, blue shirt in lieu of RedBones
2015-10-11 Social for Ronald Kimball, former Boston.PM facilitator/leader, removing to the upper mid-west.
2015-12 The Perl Shop begins sponsoring meetings, courtesy of long-time Boston.PM member Tom Metro.
2017-05-04 May the Fourth cookout Social at Uri G’s, with Randal Schwartz
2017-06 MIT declares Parking Alert
2018-06-xx No one notices Bill Ricker’s 10th anniversary, we’ve got a trend!
2018-08+09 Wikispaces pivots business model to courseware; FLOSS project wikis no longer free, so Boston.PM.org moves to QualityBox.us demo multi-tenant wiki
2018-10-09 Mark Fowler, “Perl Advent Calendar Redux” a Suburban Meeting hosted by MaxMind in Waltham, while Mark was visiting their local office.
2018-10 MIT lifts Parking Alert (for visitors after 5pm at E51)
2018-11 Jason Crome (of Dancer project) starts Charlotte (NC) Perl Mongers.
2020-03-09 MIT announces COVID19 Lockdown archived
2021-04-28 first joint Boston + Charlotte PM virtual meeting.
2022-02 QualityBox.us folds, Boston.PM.org wiki eventually falls unresponsive
2022-08-19 MIT announces open campus will not return, locked is the new normal.
2022-09 Boston.PM.org redirects to bostonpm.github.io/ , now produced as markdown -> static html offline