SPUG: SPUG@cpan.org

[Richard Anderson]

I never read any e-mail or heard any suggestion that anyone would be made
"unwelcome" if they showed up at the meetings without reading the Cookbook.
Tim did urge everyone to read the chapter; I think he was trying to help
people get the most out of the meeting and if you were scared off from
attending, I apologize.  We don't give pop quizzes at the meetings, so I
don't think anyone can tell who has read the chapter and who hasn't.

I think Tim's e-mails often project the image that SPUG is "his group" and
we have to play by "his rules", but in fact the group is open to all and
anyone is welcome.

It would be hard to find any technical book that SOMEONE doesn't have
something negative to say about.  I find the few minor flaws in the Cookbook
don't prevent me from using it as one of my most heavily-used Perl books,
second only to "Programming Perl".  It also serves SPUG well in offering us
a meeting topic when no one comes forward with a presentation.  I think we
should keep this as an option while striving to get prepared presentations
from our members.

Richard.Anderson at raycosoft.com
www.zipcon.net/~starfire/home (personal)
www.raycosoft.com (corporate)
----- Original Message -----
From: <highroad at zipcon.net>
To: <B.Ingerson at epixtech.com>
Cc: <spug-list at pm.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2000 7:45 AM
Subject: Re: SPUG: SPUG at cpan.org


> I know why I haven't been showing up.  It was made clear that you would
> not be welcome at the meetings unless you read the applicable "Cookbook"
> chapter.  And in another post someone said that the "Cookbook" wasn't
> very good.  I was reluctant to read a book of questionable merit just to
> be able to go to the meetings.
>
> How about unlinking the "CookBook" from the meetings?
>
> Just my 3 cents (adjusted for inflation).
>
> Bob B.
>
> B.Ingerson at epixtech.com wrote:
> >
> > Hi Everyone,
> >
> > My name is Brian Ingerson. I have been attending SPUG meetings regularly
> > since August of last year. Some of you may know me from the talks I gave
in
> > May about "Extending Perl with C" and "Perl Internals" (at ESPUG).
> >
> > I was very impressed by the volume of technically savvy spugsters who
> > turned out for the latest SPUG and ESPUG meetings featuring Dr Damian
> > Conway. I was also a bit surprised. Where has everyone been all year?
After
> > the meetings I lamented to Colin and Ryan that the August attendance
would
> > probably drop back down to the usual 10-20. (I think I have the all-time
> > record low of 6 attendees for "Perl Internals"; 2 of whom were newbies
8^O)
> >
> > I pondered about what could be done to raise the interest level of our
> > organization. Obviously the present format of discussing programming
topics
> > and defaulting to the "Cookbook", isn't a huge draw. And I don't reckon
we
> > can count on guest speakers of Damian's caliber to be showing up each
> > month. But what if the meetings could be more proactive; if we could
come
> > to not only discuss programming, but actually do it. If we could work
> > together on building something useful and have it continue from month to
> > month. What if everyone could contribute according to their level, and
> > everyone could learn hands-on and by example. And finally, what if we
could
> > take the results of our collaboration and return it to the Perl
community.
> >
> > Here's my idea:
> >
> > I think we should have interested members of SPUG and ESPUG work
together
> > to create a new module for the CPAN. We'd register the entire group as a
> > single CPAN author (handle = SPUG). (This automatically gives us an
email
> > address of SPUG at cpan.org which could be used for the author address of
the
> > module and forwarded to a spug-dev-list at pm.org) We can vote on a
project,
> > work on its design, break the work into chunks, have people volunteer
for
> > the various duties, code it, package it, upload it, and maintain it
using
> > the mailing list. This would probably span several months. We'd likely
need
> > a Development Coordinator, a PAUSE Uploader (someone with the password
to
> > actually upload), and someone to host a source-code repository, at a
> > minimum. We can work out those details a SPUG meeting.
> >
> > This project should not only be highly educational, but hopefully would
> > give people a good reason to drag themselves out once a month. At the
very
> > least, it would give us firsthand knowledge of how to create and
contribute
> > a full-blown open source project to the CPAN. I don't think many people
in
> > our group have much experience at this. When I took a poll at the
> > "Extending Perl" meeting, not one of the 20 or so fairly seasoned
> > programmers had ever contributed (including myself). But the real intent
of
> > this would be to make (E)SPUG meetings a bit more attractive to all you
> > smart people (and to keep Tim and Ryan's efforts alive).
> >
> > I suggested the proposal to Tim (Maher) yesterday, and he seemed to take
> > the bait ;-) I went ahead and requested the PAUSE id. We should get
> > confirmation of the registration within a week. Tim agreed to devote the
> > August meeting to the initial discussion/planning/voting phase. We need
to
> > come up a good module idea to work on.
> >
> > Whaddya think?
> >
> > Off to the Conference :-)!!!  Brian
> >
> > PS Check out these sites for CPAN and PAUSE info:
> >
> > http://www.cpan.org/misc/cpan-faq.html
> > http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/modules/04pause.html
> > http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/modules/            #mailing
list
> > archive where our request is pending
> >
>
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