It's that time of year again, when lots of St. Louis tech folks get together to demonstrate their bowling prowess, or the lack thereof!
Thanks to our friends at IBM, bowling and food are completely free! (If you're not bowling, then hey, just show up. Hanging out is free too.)
We have enough lanes reserved for 25 people to bowl simultaneously, or more if people switch out. Of course, you're also welcome to eat, drink, and socialize without doing the bowling thing.
Festivities start at 6:30pm on Wednesday, December 19th, at the same place as last year:
Tropicana Lanes
7960 Clayton Road
Richmond Heights, Missouri 63117
http://tropicanalanes.com/
Go here to let us know you're planning to attend (or strongly considering it):
http://stltechbowl2012.eventbrite.com/
Don't worry about printing tickets! We're just asking folks to RSVP so we know how many people to expect.
Hope to see you there!
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Friday, November 23, 2012
Thursday 11/29 - tmux and tweaks!
WHAT: St. Louis Vim Geeks - Mark Volkmann Takes on tmux - A Tour of Perrin Westrich's Vim Environment WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology Room 143 (note room change!) 5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105 WHEN: Thursday, November 29th, at 6:30pm RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/
Hope everyone's recovered from their annual bout of Thanksgiving stuffing and conspicuous consumerism, because we have lots of cool stuff coming up at this month's meeting:
Mark Volkmann Takes on tmux
Heard of tmux, the "terminal multiplexer [that] enables a number of terminals ... to be created, accessed, and controlled from a single screen"? Lots of folks have been talking about the productivity boost it can provide, and there's a significant overlap between people using Vim and people interested in tmux. Fortunately, Mark Volkmann is one of those people, and he's offered to give us an overview of tmux, including how he uses it with Vim.
A Tour of Perrin Westrich's Vim Environment
We're continuing the Vim Environment Tours this month, where one of our group shows us around their setup and explains the customizations that make Vim work just the way they want it to. This month, Perrin Westrich will do the honors, and has promised plenty of interesting weirdness (including a bit about vim integration with tmux -- it's almost like we plan this stuff).
Food, Drink, and Free Stuff
We're glad to have Norton Staffing sponsoring this month's meeting, so come hungry. Be sure to RSVP so we don't run short on food and drinks. Oh, and we also have more giveaways from our friends at O'Reilly, too.
When and Where
We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Thursday, November 29th, in Room 143 at CAIT. (This is different from our usual spot, so look for the signs once you enter the building.) Here's the address:
CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology) Room 143 5 N. Jackson Ave St. Louis, Missouri 63105 CAIT on Google Maps Forsyth MetroLink Station
CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)
See you Thursday,
Bill
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Monday 10/22 - Jedi Text-Editing at Vim Geeks!
WHAT: St. Louis Vim Geeks - Crafting Your Vim Lightsaber - Charlie Sanders - A Tour of My Vim Environment - Steven Pritchard WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology Classroom 24 5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105 WHEN: Monday, October 22nd, at 6:30pm *** Note: Monday Again! *** RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/
Here's what's happening this month:
Crafting Your Vim Lightsaber Using Git and Vundle
A personalized Vim environment, with a big bunch of plugins and a .vimrc customized just-so, can be a blast. Unfortunately, it can also be a big, unmaintainable mess. Charlie Sanders has a better way:
Configuring your editor is like crafting your own lightsaber. Vim is an extremely powerful and flexible tool; as Obi-Wan Kenobi describes it, "it is not as clumsy or random as other text editors. An elegant tool, for a more civilized age.". In this presentation, we will discuss how to use git and vundle to manage vim configuration and plug-ins.
Vim Environment Tour
Most long-time Vim users build up collections of settings, keymaps, plugins, and other tweaks to tailor their Vim environment to their own work and preferences. There's a lot to be learned from seeing how people customize Vim for their particular needs, so we're kicking off a new feature this month: Vim Environment Tours.
Steven Pritchard's going to get us started, taking us through the setup he's been using since his conversion from unapologetic-vi-holdout to unabashed-Vim-enthusiast.
Food, Drink, and Free Stuff
The good folks at O'Reilly have provided books and some other goodies to give away, and we'll also be serving food and drinks. Don't forget to RSVP so everyone has enough to eat!
When and Where
We'll be meeting at 6:30pm this Monday (not Wednesday!), October 22nd, in Classroom 24 at CAIT. Here's the address:
CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology) Classroom 24 5 N. Jackson Ave St. Louis, Missouri 63105 CAIT on Google Maps Forsyth MetroLink Station
CAIT also provides
detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)
Make sure you RSVP!
See you this Monday!
Thanks,
Bill
Thursday, September 20, 2012
UPDATED - NEW PLACE AND TIME - Monday 9/24 - Hang out with Drew Neil of vimcasts.org!
NOTE: NEW PLACE AND TIME! We're now meeting at 6:30pm at Maggie O'Brien's, literally right next door to the Union Station Marriott.
Join us this Monday at 6:30pm for dinner, drinks, and socializing with Drew Neil, the creator (and enchanting voice) of Vimcasts!
Drew’s in town to teach his Vim Masterclass at Strange Loop 2012. The class is long-since sold out, but you can still meet Drew (and perhaps osmotically absorb some expert-level Vim wizardry) by coming out to Maggie O'Brien's this Monday.
The details:
WHAT:
Dinner and drinks with Drew Neil of Vimcasts
(brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Vim Geeks)WHERE:
Maggie O'Brien's *** UPDATED! ***
2000 Market Street
Saint Louis, MO 63103
(314) 421-1388
MapWHEN:
Monday, September 24th, at 6:30pm *** UPDATED! ***
Note: This takes the place of the usual monthly Vim Geeks meeting, so please don’t show up at CAIT this Wednesday night. We won’t be there. :-)
Hope to see you this Monday night!
Bill
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Vim Geeks this Wednesday, August 22nd at 6:30pm
WHAT: St. Louis Vim Geeks - Emacs Isn't Evil (Unless You Want It To Be) - Getting Way Beyond Started (continued) WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology Classroom 24 5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105 WHEN: Wednesday, August 22nd, at 6:30pm RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/
A couple of quick updates:
- The great folks at Technology Partners have stepped up to sponsor this month's food and drinks. Much appreciated!
- The Kickstarter "Beautiful Vim Cheat-Sheet" posters finally arrived. If you were one of the people that participated in the project, I'll be bringing them to this Wednesday's meeting. (This might also be a clue to one of the items we'll be giving away.)
We've got two presentations again this month, one that's completely new, and the one we didn't get anywhere close to finishing last time out. Here's the skinny:
Emacs Isn't Evil (Unless You Want It To Be)
You know the old joke that goes "Emacs is a great operating system, lacking only a decent editor"? Well, it seems some people took it to heart and created "Evil" -- an (E)xtensible (vi) (l)ayer on top of Emacs. Aditya Siram (a.k.a. deech) is going to tell us all about it:
Evil is a Vim emulation layer on top of Emacs I've been using almost exclusively for the past year or so. It was built to ease the transition to (read: pitch) Emacs but there will be no evangelism in my presentation. Instead I'll talk about how it has changed my mindset on text editing in Emacs, some of the Vim (Evil) features that I now find indispensable, ones that I could never quite get, where the two editing philosophies work well together and where they clash.
Getting Way Beyond Started (continued)
Time ran short during our last meeting and we had to end the second presentation early, so we're picking it up right where we left off. Here's the description from last month:
Steven Pritchard and I will be sticking a little closer to the essentials, showing how to get Vim installed and configured wherever you may need it, and how to start taking maximum advantage of it as quickly as possible. (Okay, it's really more of an excuse for us to show off a whole bunch of cool stuff you can do to make Vim stand up and dance, all jammed into a single presentation, because we just can't help ourselves.)
We'd just managed to get through the installation and configuration sections, so this month we'll jump straight into the tips and tricks. Bring your questions!
Food and Drink and More Free Stuff
As we did last month, we'll be serving free food and soft drinks, and we'll have a few more prizes to give away. Make sure you RSVP so we know how much food we need!
When and Where
We'll be meeting at 6:30pm this Wednesday, August 22nd, in Classroom 24 at CAIT. Here's the address:
CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology) Classroom 24 5 N. Jackson Ave St. Louis, Missouri 63105 CAIT on Google Maps Forsyth MetroLink Station
CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)
See you there!
Thanks,
Bill
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Vim Geeks this Wednesday! New location! Free food! Git! Exclamation marks!
JUST THE FACTS
WHAT: St. Louis Vim Geeks - Integrating Vim & Git: Fugitive - Getting Way Beyond Started WHERE: CAIT ** New Location! See below! ** WHEN: Wednesday, July 25th, at 6:30pm RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/
FANCY NEW DIGS
Remember how excited you were when you first heard there was a Vim group in St. Louis? (I know — it was a little overwhelming.) But then came the crushing disappointment: The meetings were actually in... Illinois.
Well, the days of crushing disappointment are over! The bullheaded Illinois holdouts (that'd be me and Steve) have finally been coerced^Wconvinced to move the Vim Geeks meeting to the other side of the Big Scary River.
That's right — the St. Louis Vim Geeks are now meeting in... um... St. Louis. Heh.
Our new home is at CAIT, a.k.a Wash U's Center for the Application of Information Technology, and it's pretty great. Lots of space, all the amenities, a large attached parking garage (with bonus cool spiral exit ramp), and all in a nice central part of town that's easy to get to no matter what part of the Greater St. Louis Area you're coming from. There's even a MetroLink stop just a few feet away.
TOPICS & TALKS
Here's what we'll be doing this Wednesday in our new locale:
- Matt Follett will take us on a tour of Fugitive, a Git plugin for Vim that's (to quote its not-even-slightly-modest creator) "so awesome it should be illegal." Even that doesn't do it justice. If you use git (and even if you don't currently use Vim), you owe it to yourself to check out Fugitive.
- Steven Pritchard and I will be sticking a little closer to the essentials, showing how to get Vim installed and configured wherever you may need it, and how to start taking maximum advantage of it as quickly as possible. (Okay, it's really more of an excuse for us to show off a whole bunch of cool stuff you can do to make Vim stand up and dance, all jammed into a single presentation, because we just can't help ourselves.)
EATS & LOOT
If that's not enough to whet your appetite, then how about free food and free stuff? We'll have lots of crazy-good pizza from Dewey's Pizza (so don't forget to RSVP so we know how much to get), and even a few giveaways to celebrate our change in venue.
WHEN, WHERE, & HOW
We'll be meeting at 6:30pm this Wednesday, July 25th, in Classroom 24 at CAIT. Here's the address:
CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology) Classroom 24 5 N. Jackson Ave St. Louis, Missouri 63105 CAIT on Google Maps Forsyth MetroLink Station
CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)
Make sure you RSVP, so we know how much pizza to order!
See you there!
Thanks,
Bill
Monday, June 25, 2012
"Vim for SysAdmins" this Wednesday, June 27th at 6:30pm
We tend to think of Vim as the ultimate text editor for developers, but you don't have to be a programmer to get a lot out of adding Vim to your toolbox. At the next Vim Geeks meeting, Steve will take us through some of the ways he uses Vim to ease the pain of system administration. If you've ever found yourself editing a maze of twisty config files, all alike, then you'll want to see the tricks Steve has up his sleeve.
We'll see you at the usual time (that's this Wednesday at 6:30pm) and place:
Computer Room
3720 Green Mount Crossing Drive
Shiloh, IL 62269
http://www.computerroom.us/
http://goo.gl/maps/W5LA
Oh, one more thing -- there's a pretty good chance we'll adjourn to the newly-opened Global Brew Tap House in O'Fallon after the meeting:
http://www.globalbrewtaps.com/
Come thirsty!
Monday, April 23, 2012
No meeting this month!
Howdy all.
Both Steve and I are a little overwhelmed with work and life and stuff at the moment, so we're going to skip this month's meeting. I just wanted to let everyone know before anyone made the long, arduous trek all the way across the Big Scary River only to discover there's no Vim to be had.
Don't worry, we'll be back at it next month. We may even have some cool news to talk about -- but that's a story for later.
Thanks!
Bill
Monday, April 9, 2012
"The Vim Configuration Roadmap" at SLUUG this Wednesday, April 11th at 6:30pm
Befuddled by the horde of files that make up a tricked-out Vim configuration? Well, you'll be fuddled no more after you attend the presentation at this month's SLUUG meeting. Here are the details:
See you there!
The Vim Configuration Roadmap
by Bill Odom
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 - 6:30pm
SLUUG St. Louis Unix Users Group
http://www.sluug.org/
Graybar Electric Co, Inc.
11885 Lackland Road, Maryland Heights, MO 63146
Vim is renowned for its configurability. Nearly every aspect of its behavior can be tweaked or enhanced, and new features can be added with plugins. Unfortunately, it can be tough to know exactly where to *do* all this configuring -- it's not always as easy as tossing a couple of new settings in your .vimrc. Navigating the plethora of places where customizations might be squirreled away can challenge even the most experienced Vim user.
This talk is the guide to what goes where. We'll cover the purpose of the different vimrc files (yes, there's more than one -- there's even more than two), the various plugin types (and how to force them to behave), autocommands (and the dozens of places to put them), the super-handy "after" directories, and (since this is Vim) even more. We'll even briefly touch on managing this whole mess with tools like git, vundle, and pathogen.
See you there!
Sunday, March 25, 2012
This Wednesday, March 28th: Vimscript Hacking
Got a plugin you've been itching to build, or maybe one that just needs some debugging? How about a key map that's almost-but-not-quite smart enough, and could use a little code to make it better? Maybe you just want to get started using Vimscript, and don't know where to dive in?
This Wednesday's meeting is for you! We're setting aside the slide decks and presentations and jumping straight into code instead — and not just any code, but the oddball funkiness of Vim's built-in scripting language, Vimscript.
See you soon!
This Wednesday's meeting is for you! We're setting aside the slide decks and presentations and jumping straight into code instead — and not just any code, but the oddball funkiness of Vim's built-in scripting language, Vimscript.
The meeting is Wednesday, March 28th, and starts at 6:30PM:
Computer Room
3720 Green Mount Crossing Drive
Shiloh, IL 62269
See you soon!
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Next Vim Geeks meeting is 6:30PM TONIGHT - Wednesday, February 22, 2012
It's time again for another Vim Geeks meeting, tonight - Wednesday, February 22!
Sorry for the late notice. I don't know where the last month went.
As always, the meeting starts at 6:30PM at the usual place:
Computer Room
3720 Green Mount Crossing Drive
Shiloh, IL 62269
See you there!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Next Vim Geeks meeting is 6:30PM TONIGHT - Wednesday, January 25, 2012
It's time again for another Vim Geeks meeting, tonight - Wednesday, January 25!
It's been a while since we've gotten together to discuss all things Vim, so tonight I thought it might be good to concentrate on all of those questions that have undoubtedly been building up these last three months. (For example, there has been talk on the mailing list about various terminal issues, discussion of color schemes, and that sort of thing.)
So, if any of you have questions, want to show something off, etc., tonight is your night.
If we have any new people, we might want to do a refresher on some basics as well.
As always, the meeting starts at 6:30PM at the usual place:
Computer Room
3720 Green Mount Crossing Drive
Shiloh, IL 62269
See you there!
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