Twas the Release Before Christmas

Twas the release before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a dependency was stirring, not even Mouse.
(actually, as you know we're using Moo, which is much better
but we are in the middle of a poem, I'll talk about that later)
The plugins were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that Sukria's new release soon would be there.
The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced, blinking like so many LEDs.
And the sysadmin in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long regression test's snap.
When out on the network there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the stash.
(which is silly, for the stash is used by Catalyst, not Dancer,
this might not be a tech poem, but dammit, those things matter)
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects 
    (did we mention Dancer 2 is now all OO?).
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a neatly tar'red sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.
(Obviously, moreso in high times of celebration,
It's crucial to craft good compressed distributions)
With a little old driver, very lively yet a bit fickle,
I marveled for a second: "they using DBD::Oracle?"
Anyway, more rapid than eagles its coursers they came,
And it whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!
"Now sukria! now, Dancer! now, bigpresh and ambs!
On, yanick! On, sawyerx! on, on franckcuny and dams!
To the top of CPAN! to the top of the coderwall!
Now dance away! Dance away! Dance away all!"
As dry retorts that within the wild IRC channels fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, t'was mount the /dev/tty.
(which I must confess is a pretty weird way to debug,
and might be influenced by all the eggnog 'forehand chugg'd)
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of apps, and clever hacks too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of those lovable little goofs.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney the heir of Sinatra came with a bound.
He was dressed all in Perl, from his HEAD to his PUT,
And his scripts were all beginning with #'s, and referring perltoot.
A bundle of modules he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a hacker, just opening his pack().
His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose looked like this in ASCII => :o)
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
He was as pleased as a startup the morning of its IPO!
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his cli command,
And the smoke results encircled his head like a garland.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like the promise of a sane API!
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly young framework,
And I laughed when I saw him, 
    excitement tingling all the way down to my socks!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Carrying promises of TFMs soon written, soon read.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And installed all the plugins, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the protocol stack he rose!
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew, one day to be back fo shizzle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he traced out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

... yes, Christmas is nearly here, and Santa is heading out to visit each and every CPAN mirror; he's been told that all the CPAN mirror admins and users have been nice, so he's leaving a developer copy of Dancer 2 for each and every one!

Documentation and rough edges are being polished ready for a stable release early in 2013, but in the meantime:

https://metacpan.org/release/SUKRIA/Dancer-1.9999_02

... a new, cleaner, more elegant style of Dancing is upon us!

The Dancer core development team would like to wish a wonderful Christmas and a happy and prosperous 2013 to each and every Dancer user and reader.

David Precious (bigpresh) would also like to apologise for his occasional tardiness in preparing posts for this year's calendar; perhaps preparation for next year's should start in, say, July :)

Author

This article has been written by Yanick Champoux for the Perl Dancer Advent Calendar 2012.