[pgh-pm] Making meetings more beginner friendly: some starting points

[Matthew J. Hughes]

   I think the biggest thing to increase attendance in meetings is to 
announce them via email. (Though that may be a personal thing. I always 
seem to find out about the meetings after they have occurred.)
   I like all of the ideas bellow. I am most intrigued at the Problem 
solution stuff. A contest for something per meeting would be great. Be 
it a glass of beer or Pepsi. However one of the things about PERL is 
that there is more than one way to do it. Even if you have an answer to 
the contest you may like someone else's. I think for me the best way to 
learn/improve my perl is to use it. To use it, I think a series of 
challenges that increase in difficulty or adds new tools would be best. 
Oh and they must be solvable. (a challenge like writing a quine would 
put me off not encourage.)
   One last general thought about new members and organizations like 
this. There is a wide variance in the membership. Beginners sometimes 
don't understand enough to comment on the advanced topics and advanced 
users tend to be bored about beginning topics. getting them both 
interested in the same meeting is _very_ difficult. For my personal 
situation I was very interested in PERL several years ago. I taught 
myself some basic perl before life interrupted me. I later decided that 
I need somebody else to say I knew something and took the class at CCAC. 
Which on the whole was good but since I pretty much already knew what 
was in the beginning class it was not necessary. Having let my perl 
skills lay dormant for a couple of years I am somewhere between novice 
and intermediate.
   Lastly I would say, that in my recent experience, accreditation would 
encourage participation. I am currently unemployed and to know that I 
could seek accreditation assistance through your Organization would be 
great. If I were employed I think that it would also be beneficial, as 
it would make me more valuable to future employers.

Matthew Hughes.


Tom Moertel wrote:

>Pittsburgh Camelfolk,
>
>During one of our discussions on reaching out to a wider audience, we 
>considered giving talks of a more introductory nature.  To move forward, 
>maybe we ought to work on a list of beginner-friendly ideas.
>
>To get things started, here are some thoughts.
>
>Introductory talks of any kind are good.  Even better are talks that --
>
>- emphasize helpful Perl features that might not
>   be obvious to people coming from other languages
>   (e.g., closures, dynamic scoping, live symbol table)
>
>- show how to take steps from Perl beginner to Perl journeyman
>   (e.g., how to create packages, contribute to CPAN, test
>   effectively, become a part of the Perl community)
>
>- demonstrate solving interesting problems that Perl is uniquely
>   suited to solve quickly, easily, and/or elegantly  (e.g.,
>   log-file analysis, spam protection, one-liners)
>
>- show how Perl can be used to kick butt in problem domains
>   where people might not think it fits  (e.g., statistics,
>   finance, video editing, online poker, etc.)
>
>Some of our past talks have touched on these areas before.  Maybe we 
>should revisit them?
>
>Some of these areas we have not covered much, if at all.  Seems like 
>easy pickings must be in there somewhere.
>
>Other ideas for beginner-friendly meeting features:
>
>*Coding Rumble*  At each meeting (and on the mailing list) we pose a 
>small yet interesting programming problem and invite people to submit 
>solutions in Perl.  Then at the next meeting, we take a look at the 
>solutions, highlight the interesting bits, and extract useful tips and 
>tricks.  We might even pick a winner and offer a prize of a free beer or 
>something.
>
>*CPAN Update*  A regular feature where we select a recent offering or 
>two from CPAN and show how they can be put to good use.
>
>*Itchy Scratchy*  We invite people, at meetings and on the mailing list, 
>to submit problems.  Then we select an interesting submission, solve it 
>with Perl, and talk about it at the next meeting.
>
>
>PLEASE HELP!
>
>OK, now it's your turn.  Do any of these ideas sound good?  Can you add 
>anything?  Can you think of a concrete step we can take to move any of 
>this stuff closer to reality?
>
>If you are a lurker on this mailing list, we especially want to hear 
>from you.  Want do you want out of Pgh PM?  If you don't come to 
>meetings, why not?  What can we do to change your mind?  Please let us know.
>
>Cheers,
>Tom
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>  
>