Every year for the last twenty one years we at the Perl Advent Calendar have been telling you about twenty-four modules, code, or tools that we love. And every year, on Christmas day, I typically throw in a few links to other Perl resources on the web, somewhat as an afterthought.

But it's not the code, or these tools, or the language features that make an awesome programming language - it's the members of the programming community that produce that code, those tools, and the language features - not to mention offer you the support, let you know about what's going on, and teach you about these new things. I stand on the shoulders of giants, and, yes, believe it or not, I'm saying the real treasure is the friends you make along the way...

So this year I'm going to flip the script - I'm going to spend twenty-four days linking to places on the internet where the various Perl communities have been awesome. For you following along at home, this does indeed mean that this year Santa is giving you homework.

Hear ye, hear ye.

So, what's new in the world of Perl? These days I find out all the latest once a week from the fabulous Perl Weekly newsletter.

A long time ago Perl had a dedicated news website that updated several times a day called "use.perl.org". It was a slash site (back when "slash site" meant running the open source Perl code that also ran Slashdot.org, not a tumblr blog shipping Klance) which I dearly loved, but the Perl Weekly newsletter is better.

While it may seem like getting updates several times a day would be superior - didn't we move away from email to the web for ease of use? - it's not. It's much better to have someone curate this firehose of information to just the interesting things. Think of it more like reading NextDraft rather than the entire of Twitter. There's a reason why small newsletters are back in fashion.

The Perl Weekly newsletter shows up in my inbox every Monday morning like clockwork. Preferring in general to link to content rather than include it outright, it's assembled by some of my favorite Perl people, and is written with a friendly tone to inform rather than as a marketing exercise.

And if email isn't your cup of tea? You can always read it on the web, subscribe via RSS, or any number of other social networks. Give it a shot for a couple of weeks - I'll guarantee you'll enjoy it.