SPUG: SOHO XP -- past status and future proposal

[Michael R. Wolf]

The first meeting of the SOHO XP discussion group went very well.  We
had good Indian food, then retired to my SOHO (Small Office, Home
Office -- it's both) to hammer out a metaphor for an algorithm as a
pair-wise exercise on a whiteboard.  We were ready to cut to some
prototype code when a USPS COB (close-of-business) deadline rearranged
our priorities.  I'm claiming success:  I had fun, learned something,
and got to know a fellow SPUGer better.

And I'm making a new proposal.

Dominus (a.k.a. MJD) has been running a Perl Quiz of the Week for
about 2 months.  I've enjoyed participating, and would encourage
others to do so.  In fact, I'm going to suggest that we make a SPUG
SOHO XP event of it.

  TMTOWTQI - There's more than one way to QOTW it. :-}

I see this as a complementary event to the monthly SPUG meetings.

Big possible upside gain:
 - We get to play with each other.
 - We get to learn from each other.
 - We get to work with a different kind of problem.

Little possible downside loss: 
 - Small time investment.
 - The code is disposable.
 - Nobody's depending on the code.
 - We're not making long-term commitments to our partners.

The International Olympic Committee is adding new sports; perhaps
OSCON could add a new event for those of us who are too handicapped
(for some definition of handicapped) to play Perl Golf, though I don't
quite like the ring of "Perl Special Olympics".  Perhaps "Perl New
Games", an allusion to a form of non-competetive games.

Check out http://perl.plover.com/qotw/ for more information.

Tim seems to have found that food-Perl-drink is a good sequence, so
I'm gonna follow the basic recipe by sandwiching Perl in between major
eating breaks.  (These don't have to be pricey, just ice-breakers, if
you will.)  If you're interested, reply to the list with a preference.
I'll coordinate the groupings.

%preference = (
  Friday_afternoon => [lunch,      QOTW, happy_hour],
  Friday_evening   => [happy_hour, QOTW, dinner],
  Saturday_morning => [breakfast,  QOTW, coffee]
);

And if you really are interested in working on this together, I'd
suggest that you don't do any *work* (though casual reading and
thinking's probably OK) on this weeks' quiz (coming out Wednesday)
until we get together.  It's not a race, so starting early actually
disrupts a balanced pairing.

-- 
Michael R. Wolf
    All mammals learn by playing!
        MichaelRunningWolf at att.net


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