Grand Rapids Perl Mongers

Meeting Minutes For March 26, 1999

Meeting Place: Pizza Hut at 131 & 44th @ 11:30AM

 

I. Introductions

We had several new folks this month, including Steve Poling Polingsd@rapistan.com, and Tim Pilson Tpilson@usxchange.com

 

II. Old Business

    1. GR.PM Web Page – Ed Eddington Ed@pcr7.pcr.com

- We’ve Added minutes onto the "Events" portion of the web-page

B. Books from O’Reilly – Bill Gathen Bgathen@usxchange.com

- O’Reilly has mailed the GR Perl Group two books, one on SQL and second on using Perl with Gnu Image Manipulation (GIMP) to create images on-the-fly. A third book, on Java I/O, is available to anyone interested in reading it and (possibly) reviewing or discussing the material at a meeting. The books are free.

C. Perl Training In West Michigan – Bill Gathen Bgathen@usxchange.com
      1. Bill is going to be attending the Perl Tutorial in Boston on April 27-28, and will be speaking about his experience at the next meeting. Anyone else attending is encouraged to speak up – he can’t attend ALL the seminars for us.
      2. Starting at our next meeting (April 30), we will begin taking a gentle stroll through perl, explaining It’s features. Instructors are needed

D. Newsgroups and Advocacy – Joel Muelenberg

A Script was discussed that would search through a newsgroup and find the e-mail domains that ended in west michigan.

 

III. New Business

A. Perl Power Tools Project – Joel Muelenberg

- Joel Handed out a list of UNIX commands still to be implemented in Perl and we discussed some options. No conclusions or firm projects just yet.

B. Meeting Format – Matt Heusser

- Some discussion about an outside-of-lunch meeting place to better facilitate instruction and serious discussion. No direct conclusion.

C. Ideas – At-large
    1. A "Dunning" Program that would automate E-mail notices of upcoming meetings, and keep asking until it receives an RSVP. (Steve Polling’s idea, Bill Gathen wrote it)
    2. A "Troll" Program to read newsgroups, searching for domains in West Michigan, and then west Michigan posters and tell them about GR.PM

    1. Next Meeting Place

- The general consensus was April 30th at The Taste of India at 44th & Breton @ 11:30AM