Phoenix Clojure Group - Moving Forward

[Charlie Griefer]

Good evening, all.

To recap tonite's group, we mainly discussed the pros and cons of
moving forward either as is, with a dedicated Clojure group, or
merging with the Phoenix Groovy UG and morphing into an alt-jvm group.

Ideas were tossed about, tempers flared, furniture was thrown, and
tears were shed. It was a good meeting.

The short of it is, that while it certainly is a "nice luxury" to have
a dedicated group, I think it's a luxury worth pursuing. We're going
to continue on as the Phoenix Clojure User Group. With Paul's
blessing, I've taken over the task of coordinating/scheduling with
UACT as well as lining up speakers.

So, the first official order of business is, do we want to stick with
the current schedule, which is ... um... the last Tues of the month at
6:30 (somebody correct me if I'm wrong there). As I understand it,
we're meeting at the same time as the local mongodb usergroup, which
is a shame, as I'm sure that there are people in both groups that
would like to be able to attend both meetings. If there is an
alternate day that people would like to meet up, please let me know.
I'd love to move to a day that doesn't conflict with mongodb, and will
make every effort to ensure that we don't conflict with any other
groups that might hold a mutual interest, but if I knew what days
worked best for those who plan on attending, that'd help.

Second order of business is lining up speakers. Unlike Paul, I won't
be able to do much in the way of presentations. At least, not yet. If
you'd like to present on anything, please let me know and I'll get it
on the schedule. A lack of presenters lined up means that we're gonna
be doing a lot of 4Clojure and/or Project Euler. Not that either of
those are necessarily bad things. We may also try some online meetups,
maybe via Google+, which would allow us to bring in some non-local
speakers. Maybe folks who are working on presentations for
Clojure/Conj and would like to present to a small UG as part of a test
run.

That's about it. For now, if you all could, please provide:

- Best day of the week for you to meet (bonus points for specifying
beginning/end of month)
- What presentations you'd like to make :)

Also, if there's a particular topic that you'd really like to see
presented, please let me know and I'll see what I can do.

In closing, HUGE thanks to Paul for getting the group started and
keeping it running for the last year. Here's hoping we can keep it
going for a few more.

Thanks to all of the members as well. Without you, it's not a User
Group. It's just... well, a User.

--
Charlie Griefer
http://charlie.griefer.com/

I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my life. I love
my wife. And I wish you my kind of success.

[Andy Coolware]

Good evening,

I am really glad that clj-phx group will not cease since at least 2
members will continue to meet :-). Driving long way home has its
benefits, namely a lot of time to listen to favorite music and
self-reflection. I was thinking thru today's brainstorm and it
occurred to myself that I still want to pursue a concrete project. A
feeling that I need a lot of training was like a refrain. So one day
I could become a FP black belt.

All thoughts crossing my mind in all possible and impossible
directions resulted in a simple idea: I want to redo
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/
in native Clojure and perhaps Scala as well. I want to touch
foundations one more time. Time permitting, hopefully at some point I
would love to share my progress with our group. Perhaps we could be
working together on a lecture or two. Time will show if it is a lame
deflection of one of my 10000s pipe dreams .... or something REAL.

(send (from "Andy") 'Best)

[pmbauer]

Thank you Charlie, Andy, and Tomasz.

I'm heartened that there's enough interest to keep a Clojure-focused group going here in the valley.

I'll ping my co-workers to see if they want a guinea pig audience for their conference talks.

After my move, I do plan to attend user groups up here in Phoenix on occasion, as that scene in Tucson is a bit muted.

So I hope to see you all again.

[Charlie Griefer]

Hey again all…

The last time we chatted was back around the end of August. My intention, good as it may have been, was to spend the remainder of 2012 getting up to speed with Clojure enough that I'd feel comfortable leading the group and starting us fresh in 2013.

That was the intention, at least.

As you may have surmised from the tone, I don't think that I'm there. I will get there, but I'm not there right now. Not to a point where I can lead us. 

If we're just looking for somebody to be the "contact person" and make the arrangements with UACT for the room, I can certainly do that. But that's not really managing or leading the group. I don't feel comfortable telling you that I can present on any particular topics, nor do I feel at this point that I could even come up with topics to suggest.

I suppose that leaves us back where we were in August, for which I truly and sincerely apologize. I certainly didn't intend to string this along for 4 months with no eventual resolution.

I believe there was talk at that time of possibly merging with the local Scala group and forming more of a general FP group. If that's still an option, we can discuss that further.

I'd still like to see a dedicated Clojure group, whether managed by me or somebody else. My new (well-inentioned) goal is to be able to step up and do that at some point this calendar year. If anybody else steps up and does it before me, that'd be wonderful. 

But for the time being, I'm open to other options.

Thanks,

Charlie

--

Charlie Griefer

http://charlie.griefer.com

"Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself." 

-- Desiderius Erasmus

[Brandon Mason]

Have you considered making it a group effort?  Perhaps have people submit areas of interest that they would like to focus on?  That might give focus and keep everyone involved.

[Charlie Griefer]

That'd work fine, I just don't honestly know how much of a "group" we have at this point? Our last official meeting, wherein we discussed the future of the group, there were 4 of us altogether. That included myself, and Paul B who has since fled for the greener pastures of Tucson.

If people want to submit potential talks… if people want to volunteer for presentations, that'd all be great. I'm still more than happy to act as the person who makes sure we have a place to meet. There's just not that much more that I currently feel that I have to offer the group.

Others? Thoughts?

Thanks,

Charlie

[Andy Coolware]

Hi,

I have to admit I have not worked actively with Clojure since we met
last time but it tremendously broadened my FP horizons yet on a few
occasions, the 101 Clojure knowledge became super handy (have you
heard about Storm?). Also I felt in love with Scala's typing system
which makes my life so much easier not only from bug prevention
perspective but speeds up coding us well, especially when done within
IDE (I use Netbeans these days). And I yes (or Nooooo :-( ) - I have
kind of abandoned Emacs for programming ...

In terms of active learning, I invest my time into http://liftweb.net
currently. Jaw dropping technology with a clean room design ...

As far as our group goes, my main desire is to stay in touch with
individuals who believe in FP and actively practice it on daily basis.
I would be interested in discussing some language agnostic
fundamentals though like
http://debasishg.blogspot.com/2012/07/does-category-theory-make-you-better.html
and practical implications of that.


Best wishes,
Andy

[Brandon Mason]

Yeah, I'll agree with that.  My main focus is Coffeescript, but FP style is at the core of what I do, and Clojure has taught me a lot about that.