OctConf 2012

At this stage, everything is still tentative as the details start to coalesce. Complain about anything here in the dev mailing list or the talk page.

Most useful thing you could do right now is write your name in the Participants section below if you think there is high probability that you'll come.

Location

Montréal, Québec, Canada. There are a number of venues. There are two possible non-academic venues for having the hacking sessions, and Jordi is also investigating the possibility of having it in an academic setting, perhaps in one of the local universities.

Quick notes about Montréal: a lively city with English and French widely spoken plus many other minority languages. Most business can be conducted in either language. It has four large universities, two Anglophones, McGill, Concordia; and two Francophones: UQAM, and Université de Montréal. The Centre de Recherches Mathematiques (CRM) is a mathematical centre that brings together researchers from all four universities and many others from Montréal and Canada.

The Montréal summer can be quite hot and humid with some chance of rain. The city has a very serviceable public transportation network of buses and underground trains (metro), so it is quite feasible to get around without renting a car.

Dates

Probably June 4 - June 8, 2012, may be moved to second week of July. Should go on for 5 days. First two days are intended for newbies and casual users, who may possibly be interested in getting involved in development. Next three days are for code sprints and development. Participants are encouraged to attend for all 5 days, but may choose only the first two or last three as convenient.

Possible schedule:

Monday

Introductions, "What is Octave?" talk for a general audience (advertise this a lot in the local scientific computing and engineering communities). Helping with Octave installations, presentations about basic Octave use.

Tuesday

More advanced Octave use, including calling Octave from C++ code. Minimum C++ knowledge necessary expounded. How to work with development tools (reading the Octave source code, using Mercurial, bug and patch trackers, mailing lists, IRC).

Social event during evening.

Wednesday

State-of-the-Octave address. Identify problems to work on, pair off and start working on those problems. Code sprints.

Thursday

Reports of results of the previous day. Tech talks if necessary. More code sprints.

Friday

Reports. Last code sprint. Farewells.

Lodging

There are several hotels and cheaper lodging in Montréal. Additionally, the universities (McGill University, Université de Montréal) offer dormitory-style lodgings. The CRM also has more suggestions.

Participants

• Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso
• Joanna Cheng (pending funding and leave)
• Juan Pablo Carbajal (pending funding).
• Carnë Draug
• Ben Abbott (possible scheduling conflict)

Funding

There may be limited funding to cover the travel expenses of selected participants.