The next friendly ‘fireside chat’ for people interested in software development for RISC OS will take place on Saturday, 30th September, with the official run time scheduled for 7:30pm.
Taking place wholly online, the meeting will be held on the Zoom video conferencing system, making it easy for anyone to join from pretty much anywhere as long as they have a suitable computer and an internet connection.
To attend the meeting, you don’t need to have a history of software releases or a record of contributions to open source projects – you simply need to have an interest in programming on RISC OS, and at any level: a BASIC beginner, an ARM aficionado, perfecting your Python, schooling yourself in C, or anything else. Neither the language nor the skill level matters, as long as you’re interested in doing at least some of that on RISC OS – even if you haven’t started yet!
The goal of the fireside chats is to make programming on the ARM-based operating system a more accessible subject. People with more experience can share their tried and tested methods for performing certain tasks, and those with less experience can benefit from that sharing. They allow guidance and advice to be given and received (depending on your abilities and those of the people you are talking to), and for all of this to be done in a friendly, informal way.
The way the meetings progress can vary from discussions of general issues faced by beginners, through to more specific questions of how certain tasks are carried out. Sometimes a recently produced demonstration video might be played, followed by a discussion on that video or the topic it covered. And if a specific question comes up that can’t be quickly or easily answered on the night, they could open up a more specific avenue for a future meeting to focus on, or for videos to be produced.
If you’ve attended any of the previous meetings, the details should be the same, but if you haven’t you can obtain them by sending a direct message to Andrew McCarthy on Twitter or Mastodon – or indeed from your RISC OS computer using ChatCube – or by sending an email to me here in the RISCOSitory bunker.
Please be aware, though, that any emails sent this way on Saturday may not get a reply until close to the meeting’s start time!