Pittsburgh Perl Workshop 2011 - Survey Results

The following survey results are a simple presentation of the raw data. No attempt has been made to analyse the data and compare with previous years. See forthcoming PDFs for more in depth analysis.

Click on pie charts to view larger image version.

Demographics (required)

These questions will help us understand who our attendees are.

Attendees:

Count	Description
34	Responded
48	No Response
82	Total
41	Response Percentage

Age Band:

Count	Description
1	under 20
4	20 - 29
15	30 - 39
13	40 - 49
1	50 - 59
0	60 and over

Job Type:

If your position covers many roles, please base this on your most senior responsibility. Also base this on the role you perform, rather than your job title. For example, a 'QA Developer' would be a 'Developer' role, and 'Information Manager' would a Manager role (Technical or Non-Technical depending upon your responsibilites)

Count	Description
5	CEO/Company Director/Senior Manager
0	Non-Technical Manager
4	Technical Manager
2	Technical Architect/Analyst
13	Developer
2	Engineer
3	SysAdmin
0	Student
1	Lecturer/Teacher/Trainer
0	Human Resources
0	Researcher
4	Unemployed
0	Other

Industry:

If you or your company undertake work within mulitple industry sectors, please select the primary one you are currently working within.

Count	Description
0	Automotive
2	Education
0	Engineering
2	Finance
3	Government
7	IT Services
8	Internet/Web
0	Legal
0	Logistics
2	Media/Entertainment
1	Medical/Healthcare
0	Property
2	Research
1	Retail
1	Telecommunications
2	Travel
3	Unemployed
0	Other

Region:

Please note this is the region you were a resident in, prior to attending the conference.

Count	Description
30	United States
0	Canada
0	South America
3	Europe
0	Asia
1	Australaisa
0	Africa

The Perl Community, YAPCs & Workshops

These questions are designed to help us understand our attendees level of involvement in the Perl community.

How do you rate your Perl knowledge?

Count	Description
3	Beginner
11	Intermediate
20	Advanced

How many previous YAPCs have you attended?

Count	Description
9	Never attended one

Attended YAPCs	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	total
YAPC::NA	3	3	6	1	1	2	-	1	-	-	-	-	2	82
YAPC::Europe	2	1	1	-	-	-	-	2	-	1	-	-	-	33
YAPC::Asia	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	4
YAPC::Australia / OSDC::Australia	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1
YAPC::Israel / OSDC::Israel	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1

How many previous Perl Workshops have you attended?

Count	Description
12	This was my first workshop

Attended Workshops	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	...	17	total
Pittsburgh Perl Workshop	5	1	2	5	3	-	-	-	-	-	...	-	48
Frozen Perl Workshop	1	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	...	-	8
Perl Oasis Workshop	-	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	...	-	7
any European Perl Workshops	1	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	1	...	1	35

Do you plan to attend a future YAPC/Workshop?

Count	Description
27	Yes
6	Maybe
0	Don't Know
0	No

If no, could you tell us why?

Particularly if this is your first YAPC, we would like to understand why you would not be able or interested in attending another event like it.

• All the talks assumed a level of knowledge that was beyond me. I would need to attend a perl bootcamp before I could relate to these people.
• Informative small conference + meeting new smart people => score!

Are you a member of a local Perl Mongers user group?

Count	Description
16	Yes
18	No

If not, do you plan to find one or start one?

Count	Description
4	Yes
6	Maybe
1	Don't Know
7	No

What other areas of the Perl Community do you contribute to?

Count	Description
16	I'm a CPAN Author
2	I'm a CPAN Tester
5	I'm a Perl project developer (eg Rakudo, Catalyst, TAP, Padre, etc)
12	I have a technical blog (e.g. on blogs.perl, use.perl or a personal blog)
12	I use or contribute to PerlMonks or other Perl forums
14	I use IRC (e.g. #perl, #yapc, or #london.pm)
9	I contribute to Perl mailing lists (e.g. P5P, Perl QA, etc)
4	other ...

If 'Other' please enter your area of contribution

• I help to code/organize where I can
• jointly provide blogs.perl.org hosting
• various

Pittsburgh Perl Workshop 2011

Regarding Pittsburgh Perl Workshop 2011 specifically, please answer the following as best you can.

When did you decide to come to this conference?

Count	Description
11	I'm now a regular Pittsburgh Perl Workshop attendee
5	After YAPC::NA 2010 in Columbus, Ohio
0	After joining the Facebook event group
0	I was nominated to attend by manager/colleague
4	I was recommended to attend by friend/colleague
0	After reading an ad in a magazine
2	After seeing a link or advert on a Perl specific site
0	After seeing a link or advert on a non-Perl site
2	After reading an email sent to a mailing list I was in
2	After seeing other promotions online/in the press
7	other ...

If 'Other', what else helped you decide?

• $WORK sponsored, so they wanted to have someone present.
• ACT conferences lis
• apeiron told me to
• as soon as I realized I could get the time off of work
• Blackwell invited me
• google search for perl info
• Noticed a holiday put me in the vicinity at the right time

Were you a speaker?

Note that "similar conferences" includes other YAPCs, as well as Linux, Open Source or large technical events such as workshops.

Count	Description
17	No
2	No, but I have spoken before at similar conferences
11	Yes, and I have spoken before at similar conferences
3	Yes, and it was my first time as a speaker

If you were a speaker, would you have been able to attend if you hadn't been speaking?

Count	Description
12	Yes
4	No

If you weren't a speaker, would you consider speaking at a future conference?

Count	Description
14	Yes
1	No
7	Ask me later

What was your motivation for coming?

Count	Description
15	the list of speakers
13	the quality of the talks scheduled
12	to be a speaker
23	to meet with Perl/project co-contributors
25	to socialise with Perl geeks
11	to visit Pittsburgh
5	other ...

If 'Other' please let us know your motivation for coming

• Because of Tom's kick ass coffee!!!!!!!!!!!
• last year was great, so I wanted to do it again
• learn more about the perl community and perl issues.
• Seemed silly not to come, since I was so close anyway
• Wanted to visit the PPW for quite some time.

What aspects of the conference do you feel gave value for money?

Count	Description
27	the talks / speakers
23	the conference venue
16	the city of Pittsburgh
21	the hallway track
23	the attendees
5	other ...

If 'Other', what else did you think was value for money?

• everything...this workshop is a bargain!
• food!
• great swag too
• phat lewts
• Tom's coffee

Did you have holiday planned around your workshop attendance?

Count	Description
20	I came just for the workshop
1	several days before only
7	1 day before only
0	several days before and after
3	1 day after only
2	several days after only

Were there any talks you wanted to see, but missed due to clashes in the schedule?

Count	Description
15	Yes
18	No

If 'Yes', which talks did you miss?

There are always conflicts in the schedule, as it's difficult to know what everyone would like to see. However, if you could list a few talks that you missed, it would give speakers an idea whether it would be worth updating their talks for furture events.

Count	Description
2	A Dominus Chrestomathy by Mark Jason Dominus
2	Baking in transparency by Matt Simmons
2	Bringing Perl to a Python/Matlab fight by Joe Kline
2	InfoSec: The Advanced Persistent Adversary and You by Brad Lhotsky
2	Intro to Dancer by Mark Allen
2	Postmodern Module Packaging by Ingy döt Net
2	Usability testing by Jure Kodzoman
1	A Brave New Perl World by Stevan Little
1	Demystifying pack and unpack by Walt Mankowski
1	Devops with Perl at Linode by Mike Greb
1	Managing Large Deployments or How Dev and Ops Can Live Happily Together by Cory Watson
1	Off the Beaten Track by Ted Rodgers
1	Programming WebGUI: WebGUI 8 as a Web App Framework by Scott Walters
1	Scripting Things - How to use Perl to interface with devices by Hans Scharler
1	The Art and Science of Debugging, Some Techniques by Brock Wilcox

Additional comments:

• All of Sunday.
• I wish I could have gone to the entire hardware hacking session, it was awesome. I ended up leaving for some other talks and wishing I had just stayed in the hacking session. Other than that, I would have loved to have gone to all the talks. Hard to make a specific list.

Were there any speakers not present, who you would like to have seen at the conference?

Count	Description
15	Yes
15	No

If 'Yes', which speakers?

Count	Description
7	Damian Conway
3	Larry Wall
2	Chip Salzenberg
2	Matt S Trout
1	Michael Schwern
1	Piers Cawley
1	Paul Fenwick
1	Ricardo Signes
1	Shawn Moore
1	Tom Christiansen

Additional comments:

• Lots, but that would be true anywhere
• Most of the ones you mentioned canceling as a result of YAPC::Asia. :-)

What kinds of talks would you prefer at future Pittsburgh Perl Workshops?

Count	Description
1	More beginner level talks
3	More intermediate level talks
5	More advanced level talks
20	It's about right
4	No preference

Are there any topics you would specifically like to see featured?

• It would be cool to have a 50 minute beginner style talk on how to begin programming object oriented Perl for people who are just beginning to use OO or who want to start using it. Also I'd like to see a 20 minute talk on using perl -d.
• Just in a general sense, I would really like to see more talks that take a specific problem and show how perl was used to address the challenge.
• ModPerl
• More around the space where hardware and Perl meet. Hans Scharler did a really good job.
• Perl 6
• Talks at Perl conferences seem to fall into one of two categories: either pure engineering, with a lot of good code without a lot of discussion of real-world applications; or specific coverage of real-world applications (like the Linode or debugging talks) that are mostly on the "soft" side. Both of these are great, but it'd be nice to see more code in the presentations that are light on them.
• The sys admin track was great, I'd like to see maybe more implementation details (i.e. actual code or configs).
• XS

How do you rate the workshop?

How would you rate your overall satisfaction of the following areas of the workshop?

Choices	1	2	3	4	5
Newsletters/Updates	12	11	3	-	-
Web site	18	10	4	-	-
Registration process	20	9	-	1	-
Directions/Maps	16	9	5	1	-
Content of the talks	16	13	3	-	-
Schedule efficiency	19	12	1	-	-
BOFs	8	5	-	-	-
Social events	16	7	1	-	-
Parking	16	5	1	-	-
Facilities	27	3	-	-	-
Food service	21	10	-	-	-
Accommodation	15	8	1	1	-
Staff	29	3	-	-	-
Overall experience	23	8	1	-	-
Value for price	26	5	1	-	-

Key:
1 = Very Satisfied
2 = Somewhat satisfied
3 = Somewhat un-satisfied
4 = Very un-satisfied
5 = N/A

Would you like to expand on any strong views?

• another enjoyable year, i wish i could have made the afternoon talks on sunday but travel got in the way. Personally i'd like a bit long break during the day if it is nice to enjoy the weather and campus but i will take that on my own.
• As with other Perl workshops (YAPC::NA), the wiki isn't kept up to date or complete often times, but I'm willing to help out with this next year (as I've mentioned to Robert).
• Great food - the breakfast idea rocks!
• I didn't know if it was safe to park across the street from CMU. It wasn't very explicit whether I could or not the first day so I used a parking garage a mile away.
• I greatly appreciate the low-cost for unemployed. This workshop gave me a chance to mingle a little with perl hackers, learn a little about perl, talk to some recruiters, gain insight into what people are doing with perl and helped be decide to continue my efforts in developing perl skill and how I want to direct these efforts, and I gained some motivation and look forward to possibly attending next year with a plan and prepared to get more out of it.
• I really just come for the coffee.
• It was difficult to determine where to park my rental car in relation to the venue. An annotated campus map would have been great: "Workshop is here", "Closest Parking is here and here". I did like how parking was free on the weekends and saw that on the venue details.
• It would have been nice if there had been a bit more Perl-specific content in the Devops track.
• The site at CMU was fantastic.
• The talk density was weak. Fewer breaks and more talks!
• This is my second time attending PPW and I couldn't be happier with it. Location, venue, social events...everything is just great!
• You all did a great job! Thank you so much, especially to the lady who helped us get registered. She was awesome and very friendly. Also, I was happy to see an unsweetened tea option this year. This is such a small thing and really not a big deal but I would like to see more diet drink / water / artificial sweetener options if possible. As a diabetic I usually bring my own so it's no big deal [for me] but I figured it was worth mentioning.

The Attendance Fee

In order to help future organisers gauge an appropriate attendance fee, how much would you (or your company) have paid for a workshop ticket? Feel free to provide an answer for all rates, where corporate rate would be paid for by your company (possibly including a place on a training course), standard rate would be the regular price paid by attendees in paid employment, and lastly the concession rate for anyone who holds proof that they are in fulltime education or are unemployed.

Corporate Rate:

Count	Fee
1	$ 100
1	$ 180
1	$ 200
2	$ 250
1	$ 275
1	$ 300
1	$ 500

Standard Rate:

Count	Fee
1	$ 75
1	$ 90
5	$ 100
1	$ 125
1	$ 125.00
2	$ 150
1	$ 200

Concession Rate:

Count	Fee
2	$ 25
1	$ 30
1	$ 40
1	$ 45
4	$ 50
1	$ 100

How did you pay for the conference fee?

Count	Description
9	N/A - I was a speaker
0	N/A - I was a sponsor
8	My company paid
12	I paid out of my own pocket
0	I wasn't able to attend