[Discuss] Meeting Presentations

[John Blomfield]

As the newly minted Membership Director I have been talking to Larry 
(VLUG meeting presentation coordinator) about the content of our 
presentations and the possible influence on meeting attendance and 
membership.  Larry has already compiled a challenging list of possible 
presentation titles and several members are volunteering to give talks 
in the coming months.  Larry has asked me and I have agreed to give a 
talk in the area of programming Linux applications but I am uncertain as 
to the level at which to pitch my talk.  The question is whether to 
assume the majority of meeting attendees would like:

a) How to get started programing Linux applications, with a review of 
possible languages to use, the tools, interpreters, compilers etc. and 
some simple examples in Python, C, C++ and KDevelop, or,

b) A more focused talk on developing applications using C, C++, Qt and 
KDevelop, assuming a basic knowledge of the languages.

The thinking is that a) would appeal to "newbie programmers" and b) 
would appeal to those with some programming knowledge and an interest in 
hearing about my use of the above specific tools.  The other thought is 
that b) might attract people that might not normally attend meetings 
because the topics have been mainly for newbies but on the other hand 
might b) bore newbies and discourage them from attending.

To help resolve this dilemma, I thought it would be useful to conduct an 
un-scientific poll of the readers of this mailing list but rather than 
add some specific questions to the end of this particular email I am 
going to send out a separate email to which you may respond if you 
wish.  Stay tuned!

John Blomfield