Melbourne Compose - will it prove a worthy successor to Melbourne Scala?
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Ben Hutchison
Aug 31, 2024, 10:32:34 PM8/31/24
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Many of you will know that I organised Melbourne Scala User Group meetings for about 12 years. We had some great times!
This post is about Melbourne Compose, a successor group to Melbourne Scala that I have started with John Walker, who runs the Melbourne Haskell meetup [https://www.meetup.com/melbourne-haskell-users-group/].
Join the group at https://groups.google.com/g/melbourne-compose-group
I believe Melbourne Scala expired due to a combination of
- Covid and the post-covid rise of WFH work culture which greatly reduced in-person meetup activity across the city
- The lack of a sponsor to cover the steadily rising fees charged by Meetup.com. If you don't payup $300+ a year, they don't just disable new events, they delete the entire group! (er.. no thanks, we'll take our business elsewhere)
- A decline in activity around Scala, and functional programming generally, in Australia, (eg the loss of Lambdajam conference 😢).
People asked me afterward whether there would be a future Melbourne Scala, and then John and I got into a fruitful conversation about merging our efforts.
We talked about what motivated us to run a meetup/user group in the first place. And we looked at what has been working elsewhere, such as Brisbane's BFPG [https://www.meetup.com/brisbane-functional-programming-group-bfg/] and Sydney's SydFP [https://www.meetup.com/fp-syd/]. And formed some opinions..
Firstly, the world has a surplus of online content. So much community and content have gone online that there's little demand for more. And do people really want to be on zoom after hours when they already spent the workday online?
However, the online experience is not the same as in person (IRL). While online is convenient, it is also lacking the spontaneity and social connection that physical company offers. I find communication via zoom etc plain exhausting, even after much practice. It is suited to broadcast model where one presents and others listen. But spontaneous conversation & collaboration feels stunted.
Secondly, it seems that multi -language and-technology user-groups prove more resilient than narrower, focused groups. As well as drawing from a wider base, they can better adapt to evolving technology trends.
And so, John and I decided we wanted to focus on a group whose charter spanned the breadth of "Typed Functional Programming" and which includes regular in-person gatherings.
We realise that in this post-Covid world, IRL gatherings will likely be small. It's more effort to head out from home, than coming on to a city meetup after the office. But when I think back to some of the early meetings of Melbourne Scala, how awesome they were, and how much I learned and grew from those experiences, I do hope "Small is beautiful".
We want to lean into the strengths of in-person gatherings to create something distinctive and valuable.. Social connection. Spontaneity. Hands-on conversations across a keyboard. Real learning. A meeting of minds.
Not all of Melbourne Compose will be IRL. We'll have online discussion, via the google group ATM but I also have an eye on Zulip (no free Slack, nothing that throws away the valuable content that users create as if it were worthless.) And when we have a remote presenter, or a local presentation amenable to live-streaming, it makes sense to run online.
But there will be times where it just happens in the room, and we make no apology for that. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised 🎶 (Gil Scott-Heron 1970, look it up)
If this sounds like it might be your cup of tea, let us know what you want out of a Melbourne functional programming community. I really hope you jump into the group at https://groups.google.com/g/melbourne-compose-group
Our meeting dates will be 3rd Thursday evenings of the month. Arrive from 5:40pm for a chat, we'll start official proceedings at 6:30pm. For 2024 the schedule is
- 19 September
- 17 October
- 21 November
Our venue is Kathleen Syme Library and Community Centre in Carlton, next to the Melbourne Uni tram terminus.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/9HKnUFpdMpifGBPV8
We'll announce the first meeting facilitator & topic in next few days.
Hope to see you there :)
-Ben
This post is about Melbourne Compose, a successor group to Melbourne Scala that I have started with John Walker, who runs the Melbourne Haskell meetup [https://www.meetup.com/melbourne-haskell-users-group/].
Join the group at https://groups.google.com/g/melbourne-compose-group
I believe Melbourne Scala expired due to a combination of
- Covid and the post-covid rise of WFH work culture which greatly reduced in-person meetup activity across the city
- The lack of a sponsor to cover the steadily rising fees charged by Meetup.com. If you don't payup $300+ a year, they don't just disable new events, they delete the entire group! (er.. no thanks, we'll take our business elsewhere)
- A decline in activity around Scala, and functional programming generally, in Australia, (eg the loss of Lambdajam conference 😢).
People asked me afterward whether there would be a future Melbourne Scala, and then John and I got into a fruitful conversation about merging our efforts.
We talked about what motivated us to run a meetup/user group in the first place. And we looked at what has been working elsewhere, such as Brisbane's BFPG [https://www.meetup.com/brisbane-functional-programming-group-bfg/] and Sydney's SydFP [https://www.meetup.com/fp-syd/]. And formed some opinions..
Firstly, the world has a surplus of online content. So much community and content have gone online that there's little demand for more. And do people really want to be on zoom after hours when they already spent the workday online?
However, the online experience is not the same as in person (IRL). While online is convenient, it is also lacking the spontaneity and social connection that physical company offers. I find communication via zoom etc plain exhausting, even after much practice. It is suited to broadcast model where one presents and others listen. But spontaneous conversation & collaboration feels stunted.
Secondly, it seems that multi -language and-technology user-groups prove more resilient than narrower, focused groups. As well as drawing from a wider base, they can better adapt to evolving technology trends.
And so, John and I decided we wanted to focus on a group whose charter spanned the breadth of "Typed Functional Programming" and which includes regular in-person gatherings.
We realise that in this post-Covid world, IRL gatherings will likely be small. It's more effort to head out from home, than coming on to a city meetup after the office. But when I think back to some of the early meetings of Melbourne Scala, how awesome they were, and how much I learned and grew from those experiences, I do hope "Small is beautiful".
We want to lean into the strengths of in-person gatherings to create something distinctive and valuable.. Social connection. Spontaneity. Hands-on conversations across a keyboard. Real learning. A meeting of minds.
Not all of Melbourne Compose will be IRL. We'll have online discussion, via the google group ATM but I also have an eye on Zulip (no free Slack, nothing that throws away the valuable content that users create as if it were worthless.) And when we have a remote presenter, or a local presentation amenable to live-streaming, it makes sense to run online.
But there will be times where it just happens in the room, and we make no apology for that. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised 🎶 (Gil Scott-Heron 1970, look it up)
If this sounds like it might be your cup of tea, let us know what you want out of a Melbourne functional programming community. I really hope you jump into the group at https://groups.google.com/g/melbourne-compose-group
Our meeting dates will be 3rd Thursday evenings of the month. Arrive from 5:40pm for a chat, we'll start official proceedings at 6:30pm. For 2024 the schedule is
- 19 September
- 17 October
- 21 November
Our venue is Kathleen Syme Library and Community Centre in Carlton, next to the Melbourne Uni tram terminus.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/9HKnUFpdMpifGBPV8
We'll announce the first meeting facilitator & topic in next few days.
Hope to see you there :)
-Ben
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