Welcome to the weekly series “Meet The Champion”.

Last week we spoke to Kevin Colyer, the winner of The Weekly Challenge - 030.

Today we are talking to the Perl Weekly Challenge - 031 winner Mark Senn. I hope you are going to enjoy the interview.

Mohammad: Tell us about your technical background?

Mark: Joined the U.S. Army as an attack helicopter crew chief to do what the Army described as “experimentation". There wasn’t much experimentation but too much boredom, grease, needless work, physical labor, and sweat to be fun. Took college courses for something to do and saw how computers could be used to plot mathematical functions. Quit the Army to get a college degree. Did programming while in college to earn money. Earned 4 year degree from Purdue University with distinction in Interdisciplinary Engineering, Computer Systems (mostly software) in 1983. Have been programming professionally on a wide variety of projects since then, mostly on *nix using Perl.

Mohammad: How/When did you start using Perl?

Mark: Learned of Perl 4 somehow. Continued with Perl 5 when it came out. Started using Raku after it came out. My favorite programming language is Raku. (Wolfram Language (the programming language used in the Mathematica technical computing environment) is a close second.)

Mohammad: How did you come to know about “Perl Weekly Challenge”?

Mark: From Gabor Szabo’s Perl Weekly newsletter, I think.

Mohammad: What do you like the most about “Perl Weekly Challenge”?

Mark: Learning from other solutions.

Mohammad: How much time you dedicate every week to “Perl Weekly Challenge”?

Mark: From zero to twenty hours.

Mohammad: Do you checkout others solutions and who is your favourite?

Mark: Of course. Damian Conway!

Mohammad: What do you suggest someone just started the weekly challenge?

Mark: Read the problem description carefully. Don’t try to be too clever - this is NOT Perl golf.

Mohammad: Anything else you would to like share with us?

Mark: Thanks to all the people who have worked on Perl and Raku communities, documentation, software, etc.

That brings the end of the conversation with Mark Senn. Please do let us know your view. We will come back next week with another champion.