🚀 go-pugleaf

             ANNOUNCING THE FIRST MEETING OF THE
         Vancouver Area Smalltalk Users Group (VSMUG)

                      ___ What ___

The fledgling Vancouver Area Smalltalk Users Group will be a group
of individuals and organizations who are interested in object-oriented
analysis, design, and programming with a particular emphasis on
Smalltalk.  The Users Group is primarily for individual developers
to meet, share ideas and experiences, discuss technical issues,
and learn cool stuff.  The Users Group is designed not to be a forum
for sales pitches from vendors.

                   ___ Who & Why ___

We, Ann Patrick (MPR), Bjorn Freeman-Benson (OTI), and Bill Nadal (MSA)
are organizing this group because, well, because we want to attend 
this type of users group.  We believe that there is enough Smalltalk
activity in the greater Vancouver area to make this group a success,
and we believe strongly enough that we are willing to organize 
the first few meetings.

                     ___ Who ___

We envision the group being run by a few energetic individuals
(co-chairs) serving one-year volunteer terms.  We'd like to keep
the Users Group simple enough that it does not develop a
bureaucracy -- after all, this is a group for users!

                  ___ When & Where ___

Our first meeting will be Wednesday, September 27 at 7:30 p.m. in 
the "Town Square D" meeting room of the BCIT campus.  We intend for
the group to meet monthly, at least for the first few months.  (All of
these issues can, of course, be adjusted.)  The room rental, coffee, etc. will
be funded by pseudo-voluntary donation at the door: $3 should
cover it.

The BCIT cafeteria is right next door and will be open until 9 p.m.
The best place to park is lot P7 (staff parking) which will cost you 
$1 for the evening.

Please R.S.V.P. to Ann Patrick (apatrick@mpr.ca -- (604) 293-5144)
so that we can have a clearer idea of how many people to expect.  
Plus, as a bonus if you call/e-mail now, Ann can send you a 
detailed map of the BCIT campus and instructions on how to get there.

                   ___ Again What ___

We envision that the meetings will consist of equal parts formal and
informal.  The formal portions of the meetings will consist of a
presentation by an experienced Smalltalker, perhaps a vendor
technical representative, or ...  In other words, someone with
interesting things to say to the group.  The informal portions of the
meetings (i.e., nutrition breaks) will consist of drinking 
coffee/juice, eating muffins, and talking to colleagues.

The formal portions of the meetings could cover a wide range of issues
including, but not limited to:

  - OO methods
  - OO project management
  - Productivity and performance metrics
  - Performance and optimization
  - Configuration management in a team environment
  - Training people in objects and Smalltalk
  - OO Testing and testing in Smalltalk
  - Corporate class libraries
  - Reuse of enterprise business objects
  - Buying and using commercial class libraries
  - Distributed objects including distributed Smalltalk, OLE, CORBA, ...
  - Persistent objects and OODBMSes
  - Patterns
  - The various flavors of Smalltalks
  - The Smalltalk standard 
  - Delivery of Smalltalk applications (packaging, stripping, bundling, ...)
  - Using Smalltalk in an engineering company (in a banking company, in a ...)
  - Conference/trip reports
  - Frameworks
  - Browsers

Initially the speakers will be group members (volunteers), but we
plan to quickly invite external guest speakers.  The members'
talks may include previews of conference presentations as
well as case studies of local projects.  We, the three organizers, 
will provide content for at least the first meeting...

                   ___ Again Who ___

Ann Patrick                       apatrick@mpr.ca
MPR Teltech                       (604) 293-5144

Bjorn Freeman-Benson              bnfb@oti.on.ca
Object Technology International   (604) 361-4438 x14

Bill Nadal                        73531.3666@compuserve.com
Medical Services Association      (604) 737-5582

-- 
Ann Patrick
MPR Teltech Ltd., 8999 Nelson Way, Burnaby, B.C., Canada  V5A 4B5
apatrick@mprgate.mpr.ca                        http://www.mpr.ca/