Technical Meetings

The technical meetings are a monthly event, that aims to provide the Birmingham Perl community with an educational night of talks. If you wish to attend, please feel free to come along and listen in.

Talks Wanted: If you would like to do a talk, whether a 5 minute lightning talk, a 15 minutes talk or longer, please let us know and we'll add you to the schedule. If we are unable to add you to the schedule for the next meeting, we will give you priority at a future meeting.

Guest Speakers: Are you visiting Birmingham at some point in the future, and would be willing to give a talk? Or are you based outside of the West Midlands, but would be willing to make a trek over to see us and present a talk? If so, then I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email with details of when you are in Birmingham and the talk you would like to present. I'll then arrange a schedule and confirm.

See also:

Schedule

22 November, 2006 - Birmingham.pm Technical Meeting
Time: 7pm - 9.30pm
Venue: O'Neills
Address: 90 Hurst Street, Birmingham, B5 4DT
Details: A selection of talks regarding Perl and related subjects. Entry is free, and newcomers are welcome. See our meetings page for further details.
Links: Technical Meetings

The Talks

Alex Willmer * - GPS and Geospatial Information Systems with Linux

Abstract:

Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) are to geography, what CAD is to engineering. It's revolutionising the field; even whilst itself being revolutionised by the likes of Google Earth & web mapping.

I offer a tour of the GIS landscape - the whats, the whos & the whys. A vaguely sciency bit about the workings of GPS, with pictures. Demos of Free/Open Source GIS & satellite navigation (satnav) software. A rundown of geospatial data sources, free as in beer and otherwise. Finally a pitch for OpenStreetMap, a project I'm involved with.

Tom Hukins * - What I learned at YAPC Europe

Abstract:

an attendee's guide to our conference in August.

Jonathan Worthington * - Formal Theory, Informally

Abstract:

When we talk about programming languages, we mostly talk about their syntax and semantics in an informal way. In this talk I'll take you on a sight-seeing tour of formal programming language theory, illustrated with Perl 6 and the Parrot compiler tools.

Along the way you'll parse through the land of grammars, hear the leaves of abstract syntax trees rustling in the wind and watch in wonder as attribute grammars transform them before your eyes. Then you can tuck into the formal semantics dinner and enjoy a refined type of wine as you return home through the polymorphic republic of type theory.

No experience of any of the topics being covered is required. Please note that exploding brains are not covered by our insurance policy.

* = Guest Speaker