[LispSea] getting people involved

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Justin Grant wrote:
>
> The value is in getting the members of the group involved while 
> writing some Lisp code that has a practical use for us.
> It doesn't need to be a web app, in fact something else would be a 
> nice change but what would gain more visibility for the group than a 
> web-app we can say was implemented in Lisp itself ?
> LispSea 3D demos would help very much in this regard for the 'oooh 
> aaahh' effect. They need a place to live though...

Here's my trick for projects.  I don't offer to do new projects.  I only 
offer to repurpose the projects I was doing anyways.  OpenGL demos, game 
demos, Lispsea 3D demos, nothing changes for me.  I will be doing 
exactly the same thing if zero other people want to do them.

I do think "getting involved" is a good energy and impetus to try to 
instill in a group.  The danger is when it means scaring people off, 
because they don't want more work than they were doing already.  Unless 
of course you're talking about people with not enough to do that are 
really looking for a project.  Those are about.  Perhaps clever people 
can harness them.

I would point out that "getting involved" is a social dimension, and 
needs no technical requirements at all.  People could, for instance, 
"get involved" by taking a backpacking trip together and talking about 
Lisp in the woods, devoid of any technology.  Or take solar panels and 
hand crank generators with them, ha ha ha!  I would encourage people to 
think about what "getting involved" can mean in humanistic terms, rather 
than technological terms.  This is why SeaFuncers drink beer.

I tried to start a game for Seattle Sputnik IGDA people to play once 
upon a time.  It didn't pan out.  But silly community Lisp games are 
ways of getting people involved.  Hm, I think there's

I think Jeff Henrickson had a good idea with his live coding sessions.  
It fell down because there aren't really any other strong OCaml people 
in SeaFunc.  It would be much easier in LispSea to support some 
canonical CL working environments.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every