Getting Ready for the Hackathon

How Do I Get Ready for the Hackathon?

1 Registration

To facilitate building access on Hackathon day, please register in advance at the New York Perl Meetup page for this event.
Please bring photo ID for presentation at security desk in lobby. A photo will be taken at security desk for your guest badge access.
If you have mobility issues, please notify the conference organizers in advance, as wheelchair access to the conference room requires a staff-operated elevator.
If you have special dietary needs, please notify the conference organizers in advance.

2 Select a project

Your own project

If you have a project that you want to hack on and that others can hack on as well, post a brief description of it on the Projects page. Include the location of your source code repository and the version control system you use.
Someone else's project

If you don't have a project of your own, sign up for one or more of the projects posted by other participants on the Projects page. Before the hackathon, make sure you have visited the source code repository and have a client installed for that project's version control system.

3 Get your laptop ready

Recent version of Perl or source code for your project

Take this opportunity to upgrade to the latest stable release of Perl: Perl 5.20.2. If hacking on the Perl 5 core distribution, you should have a checkout of the HEAD of blead:
```
% git clone git://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git perl
```
If you're using a Windows laptop, we recommend you have Strawberry Perl installed: http://strawberryperl.com/.

If you're working on a project other than the Perl 5 core, have that project's source code installed before arriving at the event.
Developer tools

C compiler and other command-line tools normally used for software development on your operating system.

Perlbrew will also prove useful for installation of Perl-related software.
Version control system client

Find out what version control system (VCS) your project uses: Subversion, Git, Mercurial, etc., and have a client installed.
Wireless internet access

You don't want to waste time during the hackathon trying to get on the wireless.
IRC client and other tools

During the hackathon we will heavily use irc.perl.org: #hackathon for general purposes; other channels such as #p5p, #qa, #toolchain, etc., as needed for specific projects.
Power supply

Because you don't want your laptop to die only two hours into the event.
Data projector

During the hackathon we hope to have a data projector available. We will post the technical requirements for the projector when we know them.

4 Get your brain ready

Study the project you're working on

If you are working on a project with fellow hackers, feel free to discuss it with them prior to the day of the event.
Know the basics of the VCS your project uses.

A hackathon is a good place to learn advanced features of a VCS from a fellow hacker, but you should come to the event already knowing the basics.

5 Other useful preparations

CPAN

Perl libraries distributed under Open Source licenses are generally house on the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). To place libraries on CPAN, you need a CPAN account, which you can obtain via PAUSE.
Github

Since many of our projects are hosted on Github, you should consider getting an account there prior to the hackathon.

Hey! The above document had some coding errors, which are explained below: