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I really love C — largely because I learned it at the same time I learned Unix, but my knowledge of C is largely limited to the chunks of Unix source code with which I am familiar. I’d love to learn C++ but I doubt that that will ever happen. Tonight I caught up with Matt Weigel,an old friend who just happens to be the organizer of the Austin C/C++ meetup. I took the opportunity to ask Matt about the Austin C/C++ meetup. |
(10:12:16 PM) Linear: C or C++: Is there more emphasis on one or the other?
(10:13:16 PM) Matthew Weigel: It’s a mix. We have a few Linux kernel developers who come, and a few old-school Unix developers of other stripes who stick to C.
(10:13:18 PM) linearb: Do you have presentations? or are these just meet and greets.
(10:13:24 PM) Matthew Weigel: no presentations as of yet.willing to host one, but so far no one has been chomping at the bit to give one.
(10:14:25 PM) linearb: Do you think that is because of the suitability of the venues, or do you think that the guys are just looking for an opportunity to get together?
(10:14:46 PM) Matthew Weigel: a bit of both? I mean, some people come strictly for the socialization. Any kind of presentation, I’d want to precede it or follow it with meet’n'greet. With B.B. Rovers we have the back room available, which is sufficiently separate and quiet that presentations are a possibility. The capacity is around 30? we usually have about 10-15 people show up. So, we have room to grow.
(10:18:36 PM) linearb: BB’s seems to be rife with geeks.
(10:18:53 PM) Matthew Weigel: indeed. wireless+beer.
(10:20:55 PM) linearb: How many of BB’s beers have you sampled? Any beer reccommendations ?
(10:21:05 PM) Matthew Weigel: 80+%, but not all of them there. Recommendations: Full Sail Session Lager, Fuller’s ESB, Great Divide Titan IPA
(10:23:40 PM) linearb: so, are you more of a C or C++ guy?
(10:23:50 PM) Matthew Weigel: “meh” :-). at this point I’ve probably actually spent more time working in C, but the current job is C++, so that will change before too long. I’m probably more of a C++ guy, but I also miss C’s simplicity
(10:25:11 PM) linearb: There is a real poetry about it. What are your favorite C/C++ books?
(10:26:43 PM) Matthew Weigel: for C, The C Programming Language, and The Practice of Programming, and for C++, Effective C++. The Practice of Programming isn’t really about C, it just uses C to illustrate a lot of points (along with awk, Perl, and Java)… but the C is the best.
(10:28:20 PM) linearb: Effective C++ seemed to spawn a bunch of similar books for other languages.
(10:29:24 PM) Matthew Weigel: the important part about the Effective C++ books (there are at least 3, but I’ve only read one) is that they’re written by Scott Meyers
(10:31:15 PM) linearb: I was thinking about Effective Perl Programming, Effective Java
(10:32:01 PM) Matthew Weigel: hehe, wow
(10:32:16 PM) linearb: and all the other books influenced by Meyer’s books
(10:32:53 PM) linearb: Although I don’t expect to see Effective Haskell anytime soon.
(10:33:06 PM) Matthew Weigel: parse error
(10:34:26 PM) linearb: So back to the meeting, do you find that meetup works for helping coordinate the meetings? Can you get contact info for the members? or does all communication have to be mediated through meetup?
(10:34:39 PM) Matthew Weigel: it works pretty well.Enough people use meetup that there’s a stream of newcomers, and meetup.com provides a mailing list, tools to track who has RSVP’ed and who’s active/inactive
(10:34:40 PM) linearb: So when is the next meeting and what is the linkedin page?
(10:34:54 PM) Matthew Weigel: 3/18 the URL is http://c.meetup.com/48/
(10:35:15 PM) linearb: Hey, thanks for the info.
(11:36:12 PM) linearb: hey, so do you know that joke? : “Two C strings walk into a bar….
(11:03:53 PM) Matthew Weigel: the first one says “I’d like a beer, please098u807g23pdhoenueuth,,.’ and the second one says “you’ll have to excuse my friend, he’s not NULL-terminated”
(11:04:20 PM) linearb: hehe, that’s the one
