The first meeting of the TC Lispers group was a big success, IMO. I was figuring on an attendance near 20. My estimate is that it was really right around 40. That left us a little cramped in the meeting room at the Cafe, but we managed. We also lost the room before the presentation portion of the meeting was completely done, so there wasn’t much time for mingling. Actually, there was apparently a patio where people mingled afterward. I didn’t see this and took off too early. Mea culpa.
The presentation at this first meeting was on NST (not an abbreviation or acronym, but a sound effect /unsst/) which is a testing framework for Common Lisp. John Maraist did the presentation. He was a lively presenter, definitely had a good grasp on some dark corners of Lisp (like exactly what’s involved in the underbelly of MOP). Being a Haskell hacker though, he had some strange opinion that Lisp would be better if only it had strong typing. Well, what can you do? I mean, it’s not like he kicks puppies, I suppose. 8^)
It was great to see so many Lispers at so many levels there. About six or seven folks worked at Honeywell at some point in the past. Apparently, Honeywell had lots of Lisp development at one point. Who knew? About six or seven folks (overlapping a bit with the previous group) currently work at SIFT. There were some University students, a University teacher, some Ruby folks who wanted to see what Lisp was all about, some Lisp hobbyists, some independent consultants, some folks who can get Lisp in under the radar in their jobs, and on and on.
The next meeting is going to be 6pm on Tuesday, July 14th at the Common Roots cafe on 26th and Lyndale in Minneapolis. The topic is not quite set yet, but it seems like it might be a series of short talks on introductory aspects of Lisp.
There’s much discussion going on on the mailing list about finding a bigger venue for August and onward. There’s much discussion about exact topics for next month’s meeting. If you’re able to make it to the Twin Cities on a Tuesday evening, mark your calendars and come on out.
(assert (>= tclispers-meeting +fun+))