[Chicago] Fw: Idea: weekly Chicago coding sprints?

[Jason R Huggins]

Adrian Holovaty wrote on 06/09/2006 03:25:43 PM:
> Jason R Huggins wrote:
> > My proposal is that every Monday morning from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., open
> > source hackers meet somewhere in downtown Chicago and work on the 
projects
> > that interest them... 
> 
> That sounds fantastic! I'd totally do that. But... 6 a.m. on a Monday?

>From experience training for a few Chicago marathons, I realized I was 
more likely to train (if I ever did) in the morning than in the evening... 
By 5 p.m., something better always seams to come up. If folks committed to 
5-7 (or 6-8) p.m., it would compete with dinner plans, happy hours, having 
to put extra time in at the office, lots of stuff... My thought was that 
fitting this in the morning, yes would be 'harder', but would actually be 
easier to fit into folks' already busy schedules... What better way to 
start your week than working on the projects that you enjoy?

However, I realize if I'm the only one who would show up at 6 a.m., then 
what's the point... Plus, lots of coders are the youngin' type... and 
those youngin' don't know what 6 a.m. looks like. :-)

Again, looking at the parallels to exercising and running clubs, I just 
checked out the Chicago Area Runners Association for their list of weekly 
"fun runs": http://www.cararuns.org/fun_runs/index.html

It looks like that Monday-Thursday, evenings at 6 or 6:30 are the most 
popular... and on the weekends, between 6 - 8 a.m. is the most popular 
start time. I'm not proposing we do this on the weekends, just yet...

Since I would like this to be a self-sustaining success from day-one... 
I'd rather have *more* people show up than less... So maybe I'd be fine if 
we did this from 6 - 8 *p.m.* to start. It really depends on what time 
would get the best turn-out.

To summarize the criteria to match ideally:
* Free Wifi
* Cheap, plentiful drinks (coffee if in the morning, sodas/beer(?) if in 
the evenings.)
* Comfy seats
* Electricity for laptops
* An eclectic mix of Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP, Java, .Net, and JavaScript 
hackers
* Somewhat centrally located downtown, easy to get to, close to the "L"...

I'd like to kick this off the week of June 19... (Gives me a week to get 
more feedback and scout more locations).

-Jason