Sorry for the late notice but there is an NSCoder Night London on ish. at the Bunch of Grapes in Borough. Google Maps isn’t accurate, so use this map to find it. I’ve booked a table upstairs so we won’t have to hang around waiting to find a place to sit.
WiFi can be spotty in the pub, so if you want to be sure to find us drop me a message and I’ll let you have my mobile number. There is food available until 9pm if you’re likely to be hungry. Unfortunately, there is a minimum age of 21.
As usual, you don’t have to bring a laptop and code; you can just come and be social.
Finally, at one of last year’s meetings, mention was made of having a Cocoa hackday along the lines of CocoaDevHouse. If you have any ideas for this or have experience in setting up these kinds of events I’d love to talk to you about taking this further.
On New Year’s eve, Dámasa asked me to calculate some fraction of a fraction and provide the answer as a fraction in eighths. The post had just arrived so I flipped over an envelope and started working it out.
“Why do you need the answer in eighths?” I asked.
“Because I’m trying to convert a recipe and my scales only go down to eighths of an ounce.”
“Why don’t you just use grams?”
“…”
This little episode reminded me of an article by Alex Papadimoulis where he used the analogy of being asked whether it was better to use a bottle or a shoe to pound a nail. Although there are situations where either could be used, the real answer is, of course, to use a hammer. Sometimes we are asked questions to which we can provide an answer; but perhaps we should first stop and ask the reason for the question before answering it.
Let’s take Stack Overflow as an example. The programmer’s question and answer site that is also a game. ‘Good’ behaviour, such as asking good questions, providing helpful answers, are rewarded by upvotes, ‘bad’ behaviour; lazy questions, incorrect answers, are discouraged by downvotes. It is becoming increasingly common to find a Stack Overflow link as the top hit when searching the web for answers to programming questions. But, if you follow a mailing list for your chosen speciality it isn’t hard to see the same question in both places and different approaches to answering them.
Stack Overflow’s recommended approach to help vampires is a pragmatic one. Essentially, you can either be aloof and use the tools of the site to discourage the behaviour; or you could just answer the question and get some points. On a mailing list like, say, CocoaDev, a weak question will get sharp answers (if any); but on Stack Overflow, somebody might just answer the question because they get something out of it.
This might be useful to somebody. I’m sure there are times where we all just need a quick answer to question without deeper knowledge. Get help with the ‘how’ to get something done, and pick up on the ‘why’ later. But read enough questions in public forums and you’ll soon recognise those who just want to know the ‘how’, and no amount of saying they need to learn the basics is going to help. Maybe back up and ask why they are asking so you can better answer their question.
To tie this back to fractions, have a look at this Republic of Math post about the difference between relational and instrumental understanding in mathematics. A particular example is how the invert and multiply method of fractional division is widely taught without actually developing an understanding of the operation itself. When I was 14 my elder brother taught me differentiation. Not by saying “subtract one from the exponent and multiply”, but rather by drawing a curve and working through calculating a tangent using deltas and differences tending to zero and how it led to the simpler method. I’ve long forgotten the hard way, but after that I was very good at calculus.
Perhaps this is something to think about next time you see somebody ask how to write an application without using Interface Builder.
The London chapter of NSCoder night closed the year in style. More developers than ever attended travelling in to London from as far as Brighton, Cambridge, Reading and Colchester. A very crowded and noisy pub meant that it was more of a social occasion with laptops being brought out only now and again. The picture was taken early on so it doesn’t look that croweded, but we ended up taking over the whole corner. The numbers were also swelled by combining it with the London CocoaHeads group this month.
Thank you to everyone for coming out and making these monthly gatherings a success. We’ll start again in January, just as the wind up to NSConference starts. Keep an eye on the feed and the calendar for up to date information.
For those who haven’t noticed, the next meeting is on ish. at the Bunch of Grapes pub in Borough. We’re usually upstairs and are easy to spot. If you still want to be sure, drop me a line and I’ll send you my mobile number. WiFi can be spotty at the pub so calling me if you’re lost is probably better than resorting to the great communication medium of our time that is twitter
There may be some books brought along so people can look through them if they are considering buying them.: Coders At Work, Cocoa Design Patterns, Core Data, Xcode3 book, Head First Design Patterns, Head First Javascript. Please let me know if your interested in any of these; I don’t mind bringing them along, but not just for the sake of it. Particularly the Head First books, which have a unique approach which looks strange to a lot of people, so they are worth a look.
I’ve set up a Google Wave for the meeting. which you can find by searching for:
with:public NSCoderNightLondon
Add yourself, and anyone else you think might be interested to the wave. This is easier than sending me your wave id and me adding you, although that is still an option.
The October meeting is on Tuesday the 20th at the Bunch of Grapes as usual.
I’ve set up a Google Wave for this meeting. Let me know if you want to be added to it. Just let me know what your googlewave id is, drop me an email to abizern at gmail dot com.
Eleven people turned up, travelling from as far as Brighton and Reading to join in the fun. There was a mix of indies, learners, small mac shops and students.
We started off upstairs at the Bunch of Grapes and then moved to the outside area for more room. The tables outside are at a comfortable height for standing around so people were able to move around to different groups. There was a food, drink and talk and the laptops came out a few times as well.
We decided that this is going to be a regular event, held at the same place on the third Tuesday of the month. Next time I’ll book a table upstairs so we can sit down more comfortably. You don’t need to tell me you’re coming, but I’d appreciate an idea of how many people are going to make it so I can reserve approximately the right number of seats.
Thanks everyone for coming out. It was a great night and I hope you all went home with as much enthusiasm for coding as I did.
It’s surprising that there isn’t an NSCoder Night chapter in London. There is a monthly CocoaHeads meeting in Swindon, and the UK Mac Dev meeting once a month in Central London, but I think that there is a gap for an evening of coding in a social setting.
So, in the spirit of “if you build it, they will come” I’m going to try and get this started. So, this Tuesday, September 22, from about 7, let’s get together at the Bunch of Grapes pub just behind London Bridge Station map. Bring a laptop (charged) and you can either sit and code or just chat with anyone else. You can work on what you want. You don’t have to show anyone what you’re working on; but feel free to ask and answer questions.
But, this is still just an experiment. Don’t know whether it will be a weekly or a monthly event. I’m not even sure about the location. I was there last week and the WiFi was a little flaky. There was a party upstairs so it was busy, but there was a high turnover (as you would expect for a pub near a train station). I still managed to get a table. But, unless we try and get together, we won’t be able to answer these questions.
So, Come along tomorrow night. Follow @NSCoderNightLon on Twitter and subscribe to the iCal calender for future meetings.
