Considering closing the SV chapter

[Tedd Fox]

All,

I am asking for your engaged conversation on this topic. We have been meeting for roughly a year and every month it seems to be a struggle to find speakers. This month I even reached out a little earlier than normal.

We consistently have problems finding speakers. The group is small and finding speakers is challenging. I suggest we look at the following choices.

1. Turn the group into a discussion group. Free form, no lecture. Just have a group of discussions instead of show and tell.

2. Close the group.
The need for speakers in a lecture type of group is a constant and we seem to have run dry. Mr Oster can only speak so many time before we start getting college credit :-)

This is just a reality of this group. There are at least 5 meetups in the area based on Cocoa.

Let me know your thoughts on this

Tedd

Sent from my iPhone

[Eric Wing]

That makes me sad.
Free form hasn't been too bad. I don't mind too much doing ad hoc presentations.

However, I still really want to do a formal presentation on LuaCocoa.
I just haven't had time to put it together. (Definitely won't happen
by this Thursday.)

-Eric
--
Beginning iPhone Games Development
http://playcontrol.net/iphonegamebook/

[Dave DeLong]

This also makes me sad, and I'm also fine w/ ad hoc presentations. Like Eric, I want to work up a presentation on some of the projects I've done, but doubt I'll have anything ready by this Thursday.

Dave

[Conrad Shultz]

On 2/13/12 6:58 PM, Eric Wing wrote:
> That makes me sad.
> Free form hasn't been too bad. I don't mind too much doing ad hoc presentations.

I concur.

Personally, I really enjoyed the "group programming" last month, which I
suppose is an ad hoc presentation.

I have a couple small items I've been working on too that I hope to one
day present, but nothing presentable as of yet.

Regardless, I plan to be there Thursday.

--
Conrad Shultz

Synthetiq Solutions
www.synthetiqsolutions.com

[Elle Plato]

Tedd,

I am new to the area, and I have not found the other groups, nor
have I been able to attend any of the meetings yet, but I wonder if
the problem is one of defining our purpose in the context of what
people need and want.

I'm a programmer turned network engineer, but I want to get into
modern programming via the Apple tool chain. I can find almost all of
what I need on the web, in apple docs, and from books, but sometimes
you just want to interact with other people and see what they are
working on, and get advice on approach. In some of the previous
places I've lived, we have had similar groups with similar challenges.

Tedd, could you tell me the five groups you are referring to? Also, I
am curious what the leadership of the group wants to get out of the
group. By leadership I mean the people who actually take the time to
do the work, to present topics, to attend meetings and so on. The
reason I ask the leadership, is that in my experience the people doing
the work define everything, and the folks attending are attracted
based on the leadership. Members can offer feedback, but at the end
of the day, groups are defined by what their members are interested in
and willing to spend personal time to do and accomplish.

Elle

[C Larsen]

Tedd,

Sorry for your frustration.  I'm willing to speak but I've been waiting to volunteer for a several different reasons.

• The project I would speak about has drifted from being primarily an Objective-C project to primarily a C++ project.
• As I understand it, the terms under which Google allows us the use of a room requires that we talk about open source software.  I fully plan to make my software open source but it isn't ready for publication yet.  I don't know if this conflicts with the terms of use that Google has established.  Perhaps David Oster can shed some light on that aspect.
• (This is somewhat related to the first reason listed above) The project I'm working on is an amalgam of various technologies (bison, flex, OpenGL/GLUT, libcurl) which may not be of interest to a primarily Objective-C/Cocoa audience.
• I really had hoped to be farther along on the project so that my presentation would be about a (nearly) finished application rather than just a "this is what I've finished so far".
  

Having said all that, if you don't have a speaker for Thursday and if people are interested I can talk about a math library to support 3D graphics (OpenGL in particular) which is part of the project.

I find the meetings valuable would hate to see them go away.

Regards,

Chris

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:03 AM, Tedd Fox <ted...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Andy]

Hey Ted.
I've been wanting to attend these, but since I live in the city, it's quite difficult to leave work early enough to drive down to the valley and actually attend.
Perhaps moving the location to somewhere in San Francisco would help make this event stronger?

-Andy

[Tedd Fox]

We can continue the group.  Not a problem, but if we want to do free form, open discussion (not lecture / podium based) then we can.  Many of the Cocoaheads groups are just that: a bunch of developers getting around a table and jamming.   I would love to see the group continue.  

We just have to decide as a majority.

[Janice]

I would like to see the meetings continue as a discussion group. I
have enjoyed getting together with this group. I really appreciate
all that you and David have done for the group.

Janice

[Mischievous Dragon]

My 2 cents, or maybe 1/2 a cent.  Hope I don't step on any toes. 

I have some questions.  In the meeting I heard that Google allows the group to use a conference room as long as open source software is discussed.  Is this true?  Does it have to be 100% open source, you if have something to talk about as long as it uses open source components is that good enough?  

If you are having problems finding speakers you could try asking everyone in the group some simple questions. 

       A) Is programming a profession or a hobby.

       B) Is cocoa a profession, a hobby, or some place in between

       3) What are your programming insterest?      

       4) What projects are you working on? 

       E) Of your active projects which are cocoa related?  

       F) Which of your active projects are using open source?

    VII ) Which of your active projects would you be willing to share or talk about?

    VIII) What programming languages do you know.

Worse comes to worse you could have people comment on the status of the projects they are willing to share/talk about.  People could tell where they currently are, what problems they had the past month, how they fixed the problems, what problems they are still having, where they hope to be next month.  

I would find that helpful and might keep me on track for my cocoa hobbies.  

Have you tried to find a "project" the group could work on, taking peoples programming interest into account?  

Alexandra

[Jeff Watkins]

I have to admit, this has turned me off from even considering making a presentation. Nothing I work on could be considered open source.

[Tedd Fox]

not everything has to be open source. Just SOMETHING in the evening