AngloHaskell/2007

On June the 9th 2006, Microsoft Research sent out an advert for a job. This eventually led to AngloHaskell 2006, and much fun was had!

Doing it again in 2007 seems like a good idea, who's up for it?

Date and Venue

Confirmed! We're going with the 10th-11th of August in Cambridge, starting with talks at Microsoft Research and with more planning to happen below.

Many thanks to Matthew Sackman for offering us an alternative venue! Perhaps we can try it next year?

Yes, I'll still be at Imperial then so I can't see why not! MatthewSackman

Directions to MSR

MSR has some directions, which can be best summarised as ‘get a taxi’. Here is (hopefully) a Google Earth location of MSR, as well as a Google Maps link. (J J Thomson Avenue is immediately west of Clerk Maxwell Road.)

If you do take a taxi and the driver doesn't know where it is, tell him or her to drive down Madingley Road until you reach the West Cambridge site, J J Thomson Avenue. The Computer Laboratory (next door) has marginally better instructions.

The fastest way to MSR (on foot and public transport) from the station is to cut through to Trumpington Road via Bateman Street (don't follow the driving directions!), and take the Citi 4 or Uni 4. There's a bus stop just across the road from Bateman Street.

To get to the city centre by bus, take the Citi 1 or Citi 3. Do ask to make sure they're going in the right direction though! There are also a number of clearly marked shuttle busses between the centre and station running during the day every 10 minutes or so.

To walk to the centre (20 minutes not carrying luggage), go straight down the road facing you when you come out of the station, bear right when the road ends at some traffic lights / a WW1 memorial / the botanic gardens, and keep walking straight (Hills Road / Regent St / St Andrews St) for quite a while until you reach a pedestrianised bit, at which point you are in the centre.

From the city centre to MSR, you can catch the number 77 Madingley Road Park and Ride which goes from bus stop M on Emma St. (Or find your way to Pembroke or Silver Street, and catch the Citi 4 / Uni 4 from there.)

Attendees

Per last year, all attendees should bring or make a nametag that identifies you by your real name and/or IRC name. If anyone wants to drag a roll of stickers and a pen along that'll help!

Definite

• Philippa Cowderoy
• Neil Mitchell
• Simon Peyton Jones (leaving for vacation on Saturday though)

Possible

• David Himmelstrup (Lemmih)
• Ben Moseley
• Alex McLean - very keen, can also confirm once more details are set. I would much prefer an independent or university venue rather than a 'big business' one
  • MSR doesn't really feel 'big business' - it's more or less a uni venue. PhilippaCowderoy
  • It's literally next door to the Cambridge University CompSci department. PMc
  • Well, I'm not that worried about it - Alex
• Ganesh Sittampalam
• Peter McArthur - I live in Cambridge, so I was gutted that I couldn't make it last year. Cambridge or London are both good for me. :-)
• Ian Lynagh
• Edwin Brady
• Claude Heiland-Allen - keen, definite (or not) depending on date/location
• Titto (if it is in September)
• Sebastian Sylvan - interested. It depends on the talks. I'm sure all the talks listed so far will be interesting, but if we can get one or two of the "big names" to give a talk, then it's a surefire guarantee that it'll be worth coming for, and then other talks would be icing on the cake! Personally I'm very interested in the concurrency/parallelism stuff that's going on currently (so if anyone reading this has something to say on that, sign up!). Also, might be worhtwhile to synchronise it with a bank holiday so people don't have to take a day off?
• Lennart Augustsson - I can probably make August 10-11, otherwise early September.
• Matthew Sackman - it's unlikely I won't be there.
• Ben Lippmeier - If it's at MSR then I'm already there.
• Duncan Coutts - The 10th-11th of August would be perfect for me.
• Andy Gimblett
• Tom Parslow - Sounds fun, hopefully will be there

Lodging

It's likely that there'll be people in need of crashspace and so forth, so please organise here! Both offers and requests are good.

Programme

Planning will be taking place on IRC as per last year: #anglohaskell on irc.freenode.net

If you're having trouble following things on IRC, the discussion page on the wiki might be a good place to leave comments and questions.

Last year we had talks in the day on a Friday, followed by pubbage in the evening and assorted activities on the Saturday. This seemed to work, so we'll follow a similar model this year.

Talks

It wouldn't be AngloHaskell without some talks, so volunteers please! Last year we had a largely more practical set of talks than you might find at Fun in the Afternoon or an academic event. This was a good thing, and some of the best talks were from people who were far from considering themselves as experts, so feel free to tell us about your experiences.

When we have a venue confirmed, we can also put up details of the equipment available for speakers.

• Philippa Cowderoy can give one of a number of talks, will pick one as time goes on
• Neil Mitchell - making Yhc faster than GHC
• Alex McLean - something related to improvising live music with Haskell
• Claude Heiland-Allen - maybe something on embedding Haskell inside the multimedia software Pure-data
• Lennart Augustsson - I could have my arm twisted enough to give a talk.
• Ben Lippmeier - effect inference and optimisation, like at SAPLING

Other activity

After Friday's talks, food and drink would be a good idea!

At a pinch we can organise Saturday on the Friday again - last year we met up in a Wetherspoons for brunch, went punting and then hit a pub for dinner and chat. Something similar should be fun - ultimately the aim's to relax, talk and have space to code when people inevitable get their laptops out.

I'd like it if we can eat at a restaurant before finding a pub for the evening on friday. Borrowing Fun in the Afternoon's post-talks curry works if nobody's got any other suggestions - PhilippaCowderoy

Wiki organisation

This isn't really a major point, but: it seems to me that keeping about the pages used to organise previous events is a good idea as things go on, and that this page should be used both to link to the archives and contain the current discussion. Anyone take issue with this?