[chicago-lisp] Lisp Workshop 01: coordination/planning

[John Quigley]

Let's use this thread to coordinate.  The workshop is of course this coming Saturday, at 3:00pm.  I have an inquiry in with the building manager requesting access to the building at 2:00pm, which will allow us some time to set things up; information on that forthcoming.

=== Presentation Deck and Code Demo ===

I'm working on the 'workshop project,' which is running a bit behind.  I'm on schedule to have it completed for Saturday, though.  My other task is to organize the presentation materials into a Latex deck.  I can't promise I'll have the time to do this, it's a very time-consuming activity, but I'll really try.  If anyone else is familiar with Latex Beamer, you could be of great assistance in helping me with this!

I have materials from Craig, but I need Peter's; please email me.  Craigs materials are here:

* http://rimpoche.chi.il.us/macros/macros.html
* http://rimpoche.chi.il.us/macros/debugging-log.lisp
* http://rimpoche.chi.il.us/macros/form-bind.lisp

=== Workshop DVD ===

Grant is taking charge of the workshop DVD, it sounds as if everything is moving smoothly on that front.  Thanks very much for the updates and excellent wiki page detailing this effort, Grant.  The wiki page:

* http://www.chicagolisp.org/wiki/doku.php?id=giftbag

=== A/V Facilities ===

We need lots of help here.  The Institute of Design has lots of A/V equipment.  I have an initial inquiry out with the building manager, but I need someone to pickup the slack here to figure out what is needed.  I'm an A/V dummy and have too much on my plate as it is.

=== Workshop Floats ===

We need more floaters, folks who are competent with certain aspects that we'll be covering, who can go around the room and assist people.  Please sign up at page bottom:

* http://www.chicagolisp.org/wiki/doku.php?id=lispworkshop#coordination

=== Workshop Format ===

We need someone to finalize on the format.  My basic thoughts:

1) Setting up a Lips environment
I'll have some basic materials on-line by Thursday that describe the procedure.  I'll advertise this, and hopefully people will come prepared.  There will be stragglers.  During the workshop, I'll start off with a basic introduction of our group, members and how to operate in Lisp.  This will be mostly free-form, I don't believe I'll have time to put together formal slides for this part.  I don't think slides are appropriate anyways, I suspect we should just thread our floaters and presenters through the room, to answer questions and assist in a hands-on way.  This ad-hoc approach seems good to me; it will loosen people up and probably provide for the most efficient means to get everyone operational.  This could take anywhere from between 45 to 75 minutes, with questions and hands-on help.

2) Lisp Basic Idions
Peter has this covered, I'll let him fill us in with any thoughts.  This will probably run approximately 60 minutes, with questions and hands-on help, I would imagine?

3) Macros
Craig and Eli will be covering this.  They're pretty organized in that they have all material together already, thanks guys.  They'll be doing code demos among other things, so this could take anywhere between 45 and 75 minutes, with questions and hands-on help.

4) Code Demo
I've got this one covered.  It's going to be a fairly simple chat server that people can use a basic telnet client to connect with.  This will be a partial code-review, demonstration of some neat aspects (lots of focus on runtime patching, for instance), and iterative design.  This will probably run 60 minutes, with questions and hands-on help.

Total running time appears to be approximately 4 hours of raw presentation, not including break time.  We should probably have a good-sized break between (3) and (4), to liven people up.

=== Beverages and Food ===

We had an offer for sponsorship from Obtiva, can someone follow-up on this?  Food and drink are allowed at the Institute of Design, including beer.  I'll probably be bringing some microbrews, if others could do that same, that would be great.

There's also the question of whether we should go out to dinner afterwards?  We'll have a lot of new people, both from Chicago and from (way?) out of town, so this might be nice to do.  Thoughts?  We'd want an organizer for this as well.

=== Conclusion ===

What more can I say, there's lots left to do, so please give us a hand.

Thanks very much, hope everyone is well.

- John Quigley