[Dev-sig] Looks like another lonely day...

[Charles N Wyble]

Tom Emerson wrote:
> here at the library (you did remember today is the first devsig meeting of the year, right?)
>   

Unfortunately I had a schedule conflict. I'll try to make the next one. :)

> As a way of providing focus for the group, and perhaps get a boost in attendance, I'm thinking we should consider some sort of "project" to work on primarily at the meetings, but with some "spare time" tinkering as well.  I had hoped a few people would show up so we could discuss project ideas.
>   

I think that is a good idea. Having a basic agenda really helps set the 
mood and increase productivity. Especially for me who wants to show up 
and hash some stuff out and have fun. Having some guidance and seed 
material is incredibly helpful. I presume other members of the LUG 
community share a similar spirit based on conversations I have had with 
them.
>  The first and most obvious idea that comes to mind is something we had at another user group -- an application to track attendance at meetings.  (this was for the OS/2 user group, and the application was written in rexx)  Since that group had a more formal definition of membership (i.e., you paid dues...) the program was able to draw on a database of known members and was tailored to their needs.  I want to create something a little more generic using a more "portable" language -- the idea being that once completed, we could offer it to the "community" (of other user groups).
>   

I like it. Its a pretty simple and finite problem space, and can be an 
excellent education in developing a web application and web service (I 
think providing a web service that other LUGs can consume would be cool).
> Of course, this is only a suggestion -- I've actually created a couple of versions in the past (though none of them really quite worked the way I had hoped) so if nobody else wants to work on this, it's no big deal -- I'll just continue to work on that idea on my own.  
>   

Well I would be interested in working on it personally. My web 
development skills have been getting a bit rusty lately.


> Regardless of what we decide as a group, I'd like to spend time at the meetings in a "design" mode, then during the month have folks work on the actual implementation (perhaps via a shared repository...)  later meetings would be for review and debugging.
>   

Sounds like an excellent plan to me. :)


-- 
Charles N Wyble charles at thewybles.com (818) 280 7059 
Website: http://www.thewybles.com/~charles
Blog: http://jackshck.livejournal.com