[ale] NW ALE meeting

[David S. Jackson]

On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 10:58:50AM -0500 Geoffrey The Esoteric <esoteric at 3times25.net> wrote:
> Raylynn Knight wrote:
> 
> >Do we have a topic for January?
> 
> I had a discussion with Dr. Gayler at the last meeting.  He's going to 
> try and get some of the students more involved.  He's suggested two 
> presentations.  One on 'bash' for newbies and another on 'text editors 
> for newbies.' (vi and, well, I guess emacs would be okay.. :) )
> 
> David Jackson did a bash presentation at one time, but I know he's 
> pretty busy of late with a version 2.0 added to the family. :)

Uh, no version 2.0 added here.  I just haven't been too chatty is
all.  So, don't count me out too far.  But if someone else would like
to run with this, I won't feel mistreated or anything.  

Having said that, I always did want another crack at the
presentation, because last time, I really was expecting a lot more
veteran shell scripters and was unprepared to cover as many basics as
we covered that night (I sorta got bogged down).  If I were to try
it again, I think I would pick fewer principles to zero in on, but
they would be important and useful (command substitution, pattern
matching operators, etc).  Maybe we could look at several types and
levels of scripts and have people make improvements, remove errors,
and so on.  (Ie. some scripts would be one or two liners that do every
day things, and some could be 20 or 30 lines.  Everyday problems
like finding spacehogging files, searching and replacing text in
files, renaming a bunch of files or filetypes, and so on.)

Everyone could bring some scripts that they use on a regular basis.
Also, have folks bring along their .bashrc's with their favorite
aliases and functions.  Kind of like a bash flea market on floppy
disks (or ftp or websites?) or something. (Maybe not enough time.)

The hard part about a bash presentation is that there's usually quite
a spread of experience levels.  Finding a way to satisfy everyone at
least a little bit withtout pissing off or nauseating anyone is the
trick.

PS. Since I've dealth with a lot of the spam that comes to my site,
I'm better able to read email now, so hopefully I can keep up better
with discussions here.  :-)

PPS. Another idea I've been itching to talk about is the basics of
photography.  I'm pretty new myself, but I've been reading up on
basics like depth of field, composition, film speed, and feel I have
a basic understanding of what the "point and shoot" settings on
digital and film cameras actually accomplish.  Since most everyone in
the group is pretty geeky, understanding how a camera actually works
(either digital or film) might be of interest.  Also, editing and
organizing your collection could be good topics.

-- 
David S. Jackson                                dsj at dsj.net
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Leibowitz's Rule:
	When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger
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