Damian Conway
Damian Conway holds a PhD in computer science and is an honorary Associate
Professor with the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Monash
University, Melbourne, Australia.
Currently he runs an international IT training company—Thoughtstream—which
provides programmer development from beginner to masterclass level throughout
Europe, North America, and Australasia.
Damian was the winner of the 1998, 1999, and 2000 Larry Wall Awards for Practical
Utility.The best technical paper at the annual Perl Conference was subsequently
named in his honour.He has been a member of the technical committee for The Perl
Conference, a keynote speaker at many Open Source conferences, is a former columnist
for The Perl Journal, and is author of the book Object Oriented Perl.In 2001
Damian received the first “Perl Foundation Development Grant” and spent 20
months working on projects for the betterment of Perl.
A popular speaker and trainer, he is also the author of numerous well-known Perl
modules, including Parse::RecDescent (a sophisticated parsing tool), Class::Contract
(design-by-contract programming in Perl), Lingua::EN::Inflect (rule-based English
transformations for text generation), Class::Multimethods (multiple dispatch polymorphism),
Text::Autoformat (intelligent automatic reformatting of plaintext),
Switch (Perl’s missing case statement), NEXT (resumptive method dispatch),
Filter::Simple (Perl-based source code manipulation), Quantum::Superpositions
(auto-parallelization of serial code using a quantum mechanical metaphor), and
Lingua::Romana::Perligata (programming in Latin).
Most of Damian’s time is now spent working with Larry Wall on the design of the
new Perl 6 programming language.
The animal on the cover of Perl Best Practices is an American staghound,a hybrid of the greyhound and the Scottish deerhound that is bred specifically for coursing,or hunting by sight.Coursing is one of the world's oldest field sports, and “gazehounds,”or “sighthounds,” have been tested in competition since as early as AD 116.
The staghound is not recognized as a breed, but is considered a type of sighthound.
Although some lines of staghounds have been bred together since the 1700s—longer than some modern breeds—most huntsmen don't push for breed recognition.They believe the staghound should be left unrecognized in order to preserve it as a coursing animal bred for function and not form.As a result, there are no breed standards.
Staghounds come in any color or pattern found in either the greyhound or
Scottish deerhound and have three coat types: “shag,” “slick,” and “broken” (which is between shag and slick).
The staghound exhibits many of the same physical characteristics as the greyhound,with long legs, strong muscles, a deep chest, and keen eyesight, and has the enduranceand scenting ability of the Scottish deerhound.The staghound's coursing instinct is so strong that anything that runs—rabbits,deer,coyotes,etc.—may be
considered quarry.Because these dogs are fast and alert but not hyper or aggressive,they are also said to make excellent pets if exercised regularly.