OctConf 2012
At this stage, everything is still tentative as the details start to coalesce. Complain about anything here in the dev mailing list.
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. 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.