Re: Philly Lambda Charter / Splintering, was Re: Scala in Philly?

[Dan Mead <d.w.mead@gmail.com>]

there just aren't enough programmers in the area that want to come out
and talk about programming

the more specific a group, the less people you'll get for sure

so that means any language specific group would have much less of an
attendance record than philly lambda or plug.


but, if you're just itching to start a group that's fine, but
specificity with technology groups can't be a good idea and should not
be encouraged.



On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:10 PM, Trotter Cashion <cashion@gmail.com> wrote:
> Bah! You're being too negative. Though you're likely right about there being
> a short spike in attendance at the beginning followed by a long term
> decline, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I remember back when nyc.rb was
> routinely 4-6 people per meeting, and it turned out that those people were
> wicked smart. A small group focused on such a young language can help each
> other grow and learn more about the language, prepping members with the
> knowledge to be leaders in a growing community as the language becomes
> popular.
> Basically, you're right, no one should expect a Scala group to draw 20
> people per meeting for its first year. I'm just not convinced that's a bad
> thing.
> - Trotter
> P.S. - Kyle, I'm totally down for a Clojure group. Maybe even more so than
> for a Scala group.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 10:27 PM, paul santa clara <kesserich1@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> It's not really any of my business what people do or don't do, so please
>> feel free to completely disregard my opinion on the matter.  Personally,
>> though, I would caution against setting up a group that is narrowly focused
>> on any one of the nascent jvm languages.  As a general rule, the more
>> esoteric and specific a group's charter, the lower it's attendance.
>> If we go down the line from largest to small communities we see plentiful
>> options for java groups, at least two .net, ... , one ruby group that is
>> largely sustained because of rails discussions, and almost no python
>> presence.  I suspect that a group devoted exclusively to either Clojure or
>> Scala would see  a short spike in attendance as people came to investigate
>> it, followed by a sharp and permanent decline.
>> Sorry, if i'm sounding too negative on this matter.  My intuition just
>> tells me that all these topics are niche enough to fit under a single
>> umbrella.
>> -Paul
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Dan Mead <d.w.mead@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Tldr: splintering bad, variety of meetings good
>>>
>>> On Jun 3, 2010 8:33 PM, "Aaron Feng" <aaron.feng@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Brian,
>>>
>>> > Honestly, it just seemed that a group focused primarily on Scala didn't
>>> > fit
>>> > with Philly Lambda...
>>>
>>> For some reason, the group has been more focused on Lisp than anything
>>> else.
>>> I just checked the meeting's page (yes, I just updated :) )  and there
>>> were 6 Lisp related
>>> meetings, and one on Scala.  Not saying the group isn't interested in
>>> Scala, in fact,
>>> I think it's quite the opposite.  It's just in the past, people have
>>> offered to do more Lisp
>>> presentations.  I definitely think Scala related talks would be very
>>> welcomed by the
>>> group members.
>>>
>>> > what's going on with
>>> > Philly Lambda, but I thought (perhaps erroneously) that trying to
>>> > shoehor...
>>>
>>> After all, we had 6 Lisp meetings :)
>>>
>>> A lot of people come to Philly Lambda for a break from the norm.  I
>>> believe this is why
>>> the group has been focused on interesting and up-and-coming technologies.
>>> After the meetings
>>> when we go to a pub, the conversation is usually centered around FP.
>>>
>>> However, I can definitely appreciate a more focused group.
>>> Aaro
>