London Perl Workshop 2013 - Survey Results

Introduction

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

These questions will help us understand who our attendees are.

Attendees:

Attendees: pie chart

CountDescription
74Responded
134No Response
208Total
35Response Percentage

Age Band:

Age Band: pie chart

CountDescription
1under 20
1020 - 29
3030 - 39
2340 - 49
1050 - 59
060 and over

Gender:

Although this question is optional, with your help we would like to monitor changes in attendance over time.

Gender: pie chart

CountDescription
68Male
5Female
1It's Complicated

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)

Job Type: pie chart

CountDescription
4CEO/Company Director/Senior Manager
0Non-Technical Manager
10Technical Manager
4Technical Architect/Analyst
45Developer
2Engineer
3SysAdmin
0Student
1Lecturer/Teacher/Trainer
0Human Resources
1Researcher
2Unemployed
2Other

If 'Other' please enter your professional job role or title:

  • Digital Project Coordinator
  • Project Manager

Industry:

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

Industry: pie chart

CountDescription
1Automotive
1Education
1Engineering
4Finance
1Government
21IT Services
16Internet/Web
0Legal
0Logistics
7Media/Entertainment
1Medical/Healthcare
3Property
3Research
6Retail
1Telecommunications
0Travel
2Unemployed
6Other

If 'Other' please enter your industry sector:

  • Advertising
  • Energy
  • NGO
  • Publishing
  • Semiconductors
  • Utilities (Water)

Region:

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

Region: pie chart

CountDescription
59United Kingdom
13Europe
1North America
0South America
1Asia
0Australaisa
0Africa

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?

CountDescription
6Beginner
30Intermediate
38Advanced

How long have you been programming in Perl?

CountDescription
2less than a year
61-2 years
83-5 years
165-10 years
42more than 10 years

How many previous Perl Workshops have you attended?

CountDescription
16Never attended one

The following matrix lists, for each workshop, how many times an attendee has attended a particular workshop, with the total number of appearances of each.

Attended Workshops123456789total
London Perl Workshop139884-332170
Austrian Perl Workshop-1-1-----6
Belgian Perl Workshop1--------1
French Perl Workshop1--------1
German Perl Workshop2--11-1--18
Italian Perl Workshop-21--1---13
Netherlands Perl Workshop1---1----6
Nordic Perl Workshop3-11-----10
Portuguese Perl Workshop1--------1
any other European Perl Workshops4--------4
any American Perl Workshop1-11-----8
any other Perl Workshops11-------3

Do you plan to attend a future YAPC/Workshop?

CountDescription
66Yes
8Maybe
0Don't Know
0No

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

CountDescription
54Yes
20No

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

CountDescription
4Yes
9Maybe
7Don't Know
4No

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

CountDescription
36I'm a CPAN Author
6I'm a CPAN Tester
16I'm a Perl event organiser (e.g. YAPC, Perl Workshop, QA Hackathon, local technical meetings, etc.)
3I'm a board or committee member of a recognised Perl body (e.g. TPF, EPO, YEF, JPF, etc.)
9I'm a Perl project developer (e.g. Rakudo, Catalyst, Dancer, Padre, etc.)
18I have a technical blog (e.g. on blogs.perl.org or a personal blog)
22I use or contribute to PerlMonks, Stackoverflow or other discussion forums
31I use IRC (e.g. #perl, #yapc, #london.pm, etc.)
25I contribute to Perl mailing lists (e.g. P5P, Perl QA, etc)
4other ...

If 'Other' please enter your area of contribution

  • FreeBSD ports
  • I organise pub socials.
  • occasional path contribution to various modules via rt/github
  • Perl 5 core committer

London Perl Workshop 2013

Regarding London Perl Workshop 2013 specifically, please answer the following as best you can.

When did you decide to come to this conference?

CountDescription
30I'm now a regular London Perl Workshop attendee
11After London Perl Workshop 2012
2After reading a blog post about the London Perl Workshop
4I was nominated to attend by manager/colleague
8I was recommended to attend by friend/colleague
5After reading the Perl Weekly
0After seeing a link or advert on a Perl specific website
0After seeing a link or advert on a non-Perl website
1After seeing a link on Twitter, Facebook or other social media website.
3After reading an email sent to a mailing list I was on
4After seeing other promotions online/in the press
4other ...

If 'Other', when did you decide?

  • After a Nottingham PM meeting
  • I was looking for work-relevant conferences and found it on Lanyrd, I think.
  • I was sent an invite
  • MDK said "organise the social"
  • my dad made me ;)
  • sponaneously

Were you a speaker?

CountDescription
41No
14No, but I have spoken before at similar conferences
15Yes, and I have spoken before at similar conferences
4Yes, and it was my first time as a speaker

Note that "similar conferences" includes other Workshops and/or YAPCs, as well as Linux, Open Source or large technical events.

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

CountDescription
25Yes
0No

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

CountDescription
33Yes
10No
12Ask me later

What was your motivation for coming?

CountDescription
33the list of speakers
35the quality of the talks scheduled
13to be a speaker
35to meet with Perl/project co-contributors
44to socialise with Perl geeks
6to visit London
10other ...

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

  • I'm the organiser
  • It was the only Perl conference happening in my country and I thought I should see what the community was like. I'm not sure this counts as "socialising with Perl geeks" and that wasn't my main aim.
  • job interview
  • keep up with current Perl practises/what's going on
  • Learn more Perl
  • the beer!
  • the likely topics of the talks
  • to attend a workshop that was cancelled
  • to have fun!
  • To make the social happen.
  • To start learning Perl.

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

CountDescription
70the talks / speakers
37the conference venue
13the city of London
25the hallway track
47the attendees
6other ...

If 'Other' please enter your suggestions

  • ...there was a hallway track?
  • as event was free this is pure guesswork
  • social.
  • Sponsors
  • the beer!
  • the snese of fun and community.

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

CountDescription
13Yes
40No

If 'Yes', which speakers?

  • Curtis Poe
  • Damian Conway Larry Wall Mark Dominus
  • Damian Conway
  • Gabor Szabo
  • Jonathan Worthington
  • larry wall
  • Ovid
  • RJBS
  • Some Perl 6 proponent.
  • Stevan Little
  • The guy who did "why your slides suck" lightningtalk last year.
  • While there were speakers I would have loved to seen present, those that did turn up, were equally as great. If I was to pick any other speaker, it would mean you'd have to drop someone from the schedule who deserved to be there. So I guess my answer is both yes and no :)

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

CountDescription
5More beginner level talks
12More intermediate level talks
12More advanced level talks
37It's about right
6No preference

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

  • - perl (core) dev/debug/build maybe
  • A workshop on tests would be awesome, but maybe a little too specific to be practical?
  • Catalyst DBIX::Classs
  • Catalyst, Testing
  • Cookies, Authentication, Sessions, File Serving / Streaming, File Uploading, REST, ORM, DBIx::Class (DBIC), Catalyst
  • Dancer, Agile and Perl
  • Examples of problems being solved with applications in Web, Finances, Biotech, System administration.
  • Maybe a small resume of the new things in Perl
  • More in-depth coverage of tools I can employ today, less presentation of "futureware".
  • Perl 6.
  • Perl for web apps.
  • Perl tutorial / hands-on intermediate level workshops
  • so many topics to choose from. I think Perl is in a bit spoilt for choice with topics at the moment, so much going on and thankfully no end in sight. Looking forward to all the new projects to talk about next year :)
  • Validating XML/XSLT with perl
  • war stories of real world use
  • What makes an excellent CPAN distribution

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 24 33 7 - -
Web site 15 30 24 1 -
Registration process 36 30 5 - -
Directions/Maps 24 21 17 4 -
Content of the talks 37 32 3 - -
Schedule efficiency 42 25 4 - -
Social events 30 21 2 - -
Facilities 40 26 6 - -
Staff 55 15 - - -
Overall experience 50 19 3 - -
Value for money * 58 12 - 1 -

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

* Note that while the workshop has no attendance fee, your time and travel expenses aren't free :)