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.

Seasons greetings to you all!

For those who haven’t noticed, the next meeting is on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 7pm 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.

The next meeting is at 7pm, Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at the Bunch of Grapes pub, just behind London Bridge Station.

As usual there is no agenda for this meeting; bring a laptop to code or ask questions, or just come for the food and drink and the company.

I’m planning to bring my copy of the Cocoa Design Patterns book and Coders at Work for anyone who wants to have a look through them.

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.

I’ve also pimped this on Upcoming : http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4883312

See you there!

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.

See you next week.

The first London NSCoder Night was a success!

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.

So, until the next time; follow @NSCoderNightLon on Twitter and subscribe to the iCal calender to stay up to date.

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.

See you there.