Portland ALT.NET User Group
I don't know if many of you have heard, but there's a new user group in town called the Portland ALT.NET User Group. You may be asking yourself "What is ALT.NET?" When I think of ALT.NET the first thing that comes to my mind is the ALT.NET PurseFight! blog, which I'll admit was hilarious to read, too bad all the content is gone. However, there's still a "non-active" twitter feed you can follow (@altnetprsefight). I just don't get those guys. *shaking head* Here's a tweet that I simply didn't understand:
What Alt.Net needs is a french revolution, and we'll tell you what: @shanselman is Louis XIV.
And that was Louis XVI, not XIV. Our bad.
Really? Wasn't Louis XVI the king that came to power at a young age and was later executed via the guillotine? Why would they say that? For that you should read this summary of what some folks thought was wrong with ALT.NET. Yeaht, those would be the crazies.
Now I've been a part of the ALT.NET community, in fact that's how I got to know Glenn Block. I participated in the list when the movement was first starting to swell. Back then I was teetering on whether I should start a Portland ALT.NET User Group. I even gave it another chance and went to the ALT.NET conference in Seattle last year. That was a lot of fun, the conversations were interesting, but it wasn't worth the drive up there. What did I learn that I didn't already know? Nothing. Did I get to hang out with a bunch of cool people and meet new folks? Absolutely, but frankly I'd rather do that when I'm at MIX/PDC, or when I drive up for one of Mithun's FireStarter events.
I guess the big question is whether the ALT.NET community has changed, or whether the Portland community can be different. This group in Portland is being headed up by a friend of mine, Jason Mauer. Jason is an ex-Microsoft employee. Does he have an ax to grind, will he turn out to be another Rob Conery? I don't know, we'll see. I'm hopeful that this group will be good for the community, but based on the history of ALT.NET I'm certainly not holding my breath. However, I'm willing to reserve judgement just yet and I recommend that you do the same. Their first meeting will be on March 31st from 6-9pm at WebTrends. Please show up with an open mind. I'll be there. Hopefully you'll be able to join us.
March 31, 2010 – 6pm to 9pm
at Webtrends (map)Agenda
6pm – food (yes, there will be food! Actual non-pizza food!)
6:30 – Kickoff discussion [Jason Mauer]
7:00 – Design Patterns [open panel]
8:00 – Flavors of Agile [open panel]
9-ish – wrap-upPlease RSVP on Upcoming so we can get a headcount for the food order:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/5553523
