Portland State University Fourth Avenue Building (FAB) Room FAB 88-09

This workshop is aimed at those who have never used NCurses before and will cover the basics of how the library works as well as how to make simple menus and text animations. This will be a hands-on workshop where we will be using C to create a menu and a Matrix code feed, but if you want to just come and watch that is fine too.

Ever wondered about how to use that cryptic software called emacs? Have you wanted to know if emacs really is Lisp in disguise? Would you like to wow all your classmates when you know how to use the cool software? Come to the talk and let Rob teach you how emacs works in an interactive workshop format. Bring a laptop, as you will want it.

Rob Werfelman is is a student of Computer Science at Portland State University, an active member of the PSU chapter of the ACM, and a CS tutor. Hosted in the ACM room inside the CS tutoring lounge.

Have you ever written a nice friendly email and gotten a reply that seems like they read a whole different email?

In Open Source communities we write to each other all the time, but we’re not really writing, we’re speaking with our fingers. Text is our primary way to communicate, but text has problems. Speaking conveys subtle emotional cues that as social animals we rely on; text strips them out. A thoughtful correspondent can put those emotions back, but we’re often not thoughtful.

This talk is about the special problems of textual communication: mitigating them; ensuring that what you mean to say is what is understood; interpreting messages that seem totally out of whack; and increasing empathic bandwidth.

About the speaker

Nóirín Plunkett is a jack of all trades, and a master of several. By day, she works for Eucalyptus Systems, as a geekEnglish translator, and general force multiplier. She's passionate about community, communication, and collaboration.

Her open source work epitomizes the saying “if you want something done, ask a busy person”: Nóirín cut her teeth on the httpd documentation project at Apache, but soon started running conferences for the Apache Software Foundation . She was involved in setting up the Community Development project, is Org Admin for the Google Summer of Code (with more than 40 students!), and continues to contribute to projects as diverse as Infrastructure and Incubator.

Nóirín was the first woman on the board of the Apache Software Foundation, and continues to sit on the board of the Open Cloud Initiative. She's also an advisor to The Ada Initiative, supporting women in open technology and culture.

When she’s not online, Nóirín often found on the dance floor or down at the pub, although she’s also a keen harpist & singer, and an excellent sous chef!

Lifecycle of the common software developer: a field study of the habit, environment, and community of several pacific northwest "programmers" as they progress through their professional life.

Synopsis

The common household developer – homo sapiens sapiens mollis – has an interesting lifecycle; tending to be only about 8-16 years long and accomplishing great tasks, then either retiring or quitting in a rage to create public art. But their formation is largely a source of confusion, and their practices during their lifetime are mysterious. We trekked into the depths of Portland to discover their habits, the environments their flourish in, and the odd communities that they create and survive within. In particular, we study one specimen who was particularly attracted to glitter (which we had in great abundance) and taught him proper english so that he could communicate with us; if we're especially lucky he will make a guest appearance to answer questions.

About the speaker

Chuck Lauer Vose is the lead instructor at the Portland Code School and a senior software developer focusing in Drupal and Ruby. His love of glitter and party hats has been well documented, but he can also be found programming professionally and helping people become better developers in his free time. He is an organizer for the pdx.rb user group (as much as it is organizable), and he likes ducks.