ESPUG::May::Meeting::Suggestions?

[Tim Maher/CONSULTIX]

n Sun, May 14, 2000 at 02:42:19AM -0700, Ryan Erwin wrote:
> e?SPUGers-
> 
> As many of you have no doubt noticed, our May meeting is rapidly
> approaching.  The meeting is scheduled for the 24th at 7:00 pm.  As I
> write this message, that meeting is just over 10 full days away.
> Unfortunately, we do not yet have a topic for the meeting.  If you have
> any suggestions for possible meeting topics or if there is any topic
> that you would be interested in presenting, please email me as soon as
> possible.

Speaking as the "SPUG Meeting Director", I know that
topics for meetings are actually easy to come by,
but speakers to go with them quite a bit harder 8-} .
Many (E-)?SPUG members know Perl pretty well, but don't
have much experience in structuring live presentations,
or in the particular application areas that might make
for the most exciting meeting topics.

To deal with this situation, SPUG has found it useful to
nominate a chapter or two from the "Perl Cookbook" for
an upcoming meeting, and ask volunteers to come forward
to lead the discussion. This provides a "pre-fab script"
for the meeting, and an audience that is predisposed to
help spark discussions by bringing specific questions
along with them.

I'd list the following Perl books as possible candidates
for E-SPUG meeting fodder; anybody want to nominate others?

* "Effective Perl Programming", by Joseph Hall & "some other guy",
  which is my favorite of the "here's how real Perl Programmers
  actually use Perl" variety, 

* "Advanced Perl Programming" by Sriram Srinivasan, which is
  unique in delving into areas rarely touched by other Perl authors
  (RPC calls, TK, extending & embedding Perl)

* "OO Perl", by "our own" Damian Conway.  (Although APP also shows a
  way of doing OOP in Perl, Damian's book describes an OOP style that
  is indisputably the new de-facto standard).

* Lincoln Stein's book on CGI.pm, but unless a new edition is out that
  corrects the egregious typesetting errors I've heard about, it would
  be best to delay its use (to delay SPUGster purchases until then)

Another option, which has the added benefit of being much
*cheaper*, is to cover a particular (non-trivial, and
technique-oriented) Perl *man page* at a meeting, such as
"man perldsc (Data Structures Cookbook), man perltooot (OO
tutorial), etc.  I'm sure there are (E-)?SPUG lurkers out
there who have had to scrutinize some of these documents
for a programming project, become fairly expert on their
contents, and happy to leverage their expertise for the
benefit of the group.

If I weren't unavailable, I'd personally volunteer to
speak at that meeting, just to sample these "free cookies"
I'm hearing so much about, and to demonstrate that "man
perldsc" or similar can work as an effective meeeting
topic, but alas, it won't be feasible for me on that
date. (I hope the rest of you also have good alibis!)

> (snip)
> 
> Ryan Erwin
> ESPUG Emperor
> rerwin at ricochet.net
> 
> BTW: don't forget to call your mom today!

Thank you Ryan, you may have saved my life with that reminder! 8-}

*========================================================================*
| Dr. Tim Maher, CEO, Consultix       (206) 781-UNIX/8649;  ask for FAX# | 
| Email: tim at consultix-inc.com        Web: http://www.consultix-inc.com  |
| CLASSES; 5/16: UNIX  5/22: Basic Perl+Modules  6/12: Intermediate Perl |
| DAMIAN CONWAY Seminars;  Adv. OO Perl: 7/6,  Parsing with Modules: 7/7 |
*========================================================================*

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