Meetup agenda

[Paul Gearon]

Hi everyone,

Since we're trying to get the group more active again, I thought it would be a good idea to poll the group to see what kind of format you are interested in for these meetings? This was a question that Matt and Chris had for the group to start with, but since it's been a while and we have a lot of new members it's probably worthwhile to see if the general direction is still acceptable.

The meetings I've attended so far have had code katas and short presentations. Personally, I enjoyed these as the presentations are always good for introducing things I haven't looked at before, and the coding gave me a chance to meet and learn from some of you while coding.

Is this the kind of format that people want to see continue? Would you like bigger, more formal presentations, or maybe lots of lightning talks? Maybe no presentations at all, and we all just sit and code with other people? Would you like to see hack fests on some particular software? Maybe tutorials for people who have only just start with Clojure?

We have people who are completely new to Clojure and functional languages in general, and we have highly advanced people who have used Clojure for years. We all have something to share, and I'm just hoping to find the best process to make that happen. Any suggestions will gratefully received.

Paul

[Jason Gilman]

I'd prefer a little of both. I'm betting a lot of people are like me and don't get to program in Clojure at their day job. I know I'd benefit from being able to try things out with more experienced Clojure developers. I really enjoy seeing presentations though and wouldn't want to lose them. It might be interesting to try tying the presentations together with the code we'd work on. For example, if we had a presentation on Datomic in the first half we might try building a small application on top of it in the second half. I see too many presentations about some new framework that quickly leaves my head. Getting my hands on it directly after hearing the presentation would help in retaining that knowledge. Not to mention the presenter/expert would be right there to assist in getting started.

[Paul Gearon]

That sounds really good to me!

I've been in a similar situation, where I can follow the basics in a framework, but then realize that it goes way beyond what I've learned about it when I see experts really put it through its paces (*cough* Compujure *cough*). I've also been at the other end, when I've seen someone go through a complex exercise when a simple tweak would have been sufficient (eg. last night someone talking about the complexities of hooking functions when alter-var-root! would have been trivial in the given situation). Just having someone present with the right knowledge can make a huge difference.

I'm planning to get Clojure/West attendees to debrief at the coming meeting (one person has said that he will if no one else does - thank you!), so there probably (?) won't be time for a presentation on something as complex as Datomic. On the other hand, I like how previous sessions have broken out into small coding groups, so I think we should have something to prompt code and discussion after the main presentations. It should also be something that is accessible to the many new users of Clojure that we have.

Does anyone have suggestions on what we can do there? My own interests are at the far end of the I've-been-coding-in-Clojure-for-a-while spectrum, so I'd be really interested to hear ideas from people who have limited experience, or even no experience with Clojure. Also, if any Clojure/West attendees get inspired next week, be sure to post ideas here!

Paul

[Wes Freeman]

As a semi-newbie, I'd like to see a basic web app be constructed. 

Wes

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[Paul Gearon]

Craig is already on the spot to do other things, but with a request like this we should get a Relevancer presenting Pedestal! :-)

But if you want simple, then ring/compojure can be set up and demoed in short order. I could do that, though I'm not really into webapps myself. Anyone else interested in taking it up?

Paul

[Craig Andera]

> Craig is already on the spot to do other things, but with a request like
> this we should get a Relevancer presenting Pedestal! :-)

I haven't been actively developing Pedestal, so I can't promise I'll
get everything right, but I'll be happy to relate what I know about
it.

> But if you want simple, then ring/compojure can be set up and demoed in
> short order. I could do that, though I'm not really into webapps myself.
> Anyone else interested in taking it up?

I've done a fair number of Ring apps now, so I'd be happy to show how
this is done as well. We can even go as far as shipping an app on
Elastic Beanstalk and/or Heroku if people think that would be cool.
But if someone else wants to, by all means feel free.