Happy belated Chicago Lisp news!

Two weeks ago (March 21st), we had our first meeting to bootstrap the new Chicago Lisp User Group. We had 7 people show up for the initial meeting:

Craig Luddington
Eli Naeher
Victor Kryukov
John Quigley
Shaneal Manek
Dave Morrow
Peter Christensen

Items Covered:

Future meetings – We decided on monthly meetings, the third Friday of every month, 7pm. The next meeting will be Friday, April 18th where John Q. will give a presentation on continuations. The May meeting will have several lightning presentations – submissions welcome (please post a message on the Coordinatr event)! All but one of the attendees live or work in the city of Chicago, so we decided that all meetings will be held in Chicago.

Meeting locations – The first meeting was held at Ambrosia Cafe (1963 N. Sheffield, Chicago, map: http://tinyurl.com/2koztz). It was a nice place for a meeting but we’d like to find a place to meet with a projector, so presentations can be given and recorded. Some proposed locations are the IIT Institute of Design (350 N. LaSalle St) and the Harold Washington Library (400 S. State St). If anyone has an office or location they’d like to volunteer, please let me know.

Scope – We decided to keep the group and meeting open to the greater Lisp family – Common Lisp, Scheme, Arc, etc. That will be the focus of the group but all are welcome to attend. Some people expressed desire to start or adopt a project that we could work on as a group.

Name – Some people wanted a better name than “Chicago Lisp”, and who can blame them? One nomination as “LispChics” (inspired by NYC’s Lispniks) but I thought it was false advertising (7 guys with laptops, Chics, ??). The name is up in the air, nominations accepted.

Web Presence – John Q. owns the chicagolisp.org domain and Craig L. has a server he volunteered for use. A project we develop could be hosted there, and I recommended a CLiki instance for group notes. I’ve also setup a group on coordinatr.com that I’d like to try out for organizing meetings. You should get an email soon.

The common-lisp.net chicago-lisp mailing list will still be used but only as a supplement. The list is not great because of spam but there are a hundred or so subscribers still on the list that would have no other connection to the group.

Intro to Lisp Workshop – John Q. informed of a planned, all day workshop designed to introduce programmers to using Lisp – from installing and setting up an image to programming basics to advanced concepts. It is planned for a Saturday in May (date TBD, location probably Institute of Design) and volunteers would be appreciated.

Coordinatr – I’ll be trying out a new site called Coordinatr.com to manage the meetings. You can RSVP there, submit ideas for proposals, etc. You should receive email inviting you to the first two meetings shortly after this email. There is also a feed of new events created for this group here: http://coordinatr.com/feeds/rss/vcwxbvdrepk2blkbtwctez . You can get updates and reminders by email and/or SMS, but I think the RSS feed doesn’t get updated (the platform has only been out for a couple weeks). Let me know how this works – I think it’ll be better than a zillion back and forth emails.

You can view the feed without registering at the site, but you need to register AND be invited to see the event website, RSVP, post messages, etc. Good news is that you can invite new people to an existing event once you’ve registered.

Calendar:

Friday, April 18, 7pm: Chicago Lisp Meeting
Location TBD
Presentation on Continuations

Friday, May 16, 7pm: Chicago Lisp Meeting
Location TBD
Lightning presentations, accepting submissions

Some Saturday in May: Intro to Lisp Workshop
Location TBD (probably Institute of Design)
Getting started with Lisp, all-day event

Homework Items:

Name the Group! Send submissions to Peter

Lightning Talk Proposals for May 16 meeting

Locations for future meetings – 3rd Friday of the month, 7pm, ~10 people, preferably with wireless access and a projector. If you have a place, email Peter

Feedback on using Coordinator for managing events

Thanks,
Peter Christensen
DFGL (de facto group leader)