Announcing Computer Science for Computer Scientists, Oslo
We're starting a new meetup in Oslo!
For a while now, I've been eager to revisit computer science topics that I explored when I was younger: data structures like RRB-trees, algorithms like word detection in audio, or something that's very dear to me: programming language design. There’s some great meetups out there already which focus on one of these topics specifically, but I’m eager to explore them all and find something new for me to learn and apply. Have you ever eaten a marshmallow and rabbit fajita? You’ll never know if you like it unless you try it, and just like all the various combinations of possible foods, computer science topics all need sampling before you might find one that really interests you. A lot of people discover these topics at university, but then never get to apply them in their real-world work life. Some may say that if you don’t need a particular skill at work, it’s not that useful. Well, I would counter that with the age-old words of wisdom: if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Not every interest has to serve a purpose, but with each piece of knowledge you gain, suddenly there are more options for how you approach problems.
With that in mind, we’ve started Computer Science for Computer Scientists, Oslo. A monthly meetup where the audience gets introduced to various topics, papers, and books from the world of computer science. This is a meetup for people who have studied some area of computer science, and now would like to refresh or build on that knowledge. Maybe you studied graph theory at university but never got to actually apply it. Maybe you're a polyglot and would like to discuss with others the tradeoffs of different languages. Perhaps you're a budding language designer and would love some tips and tricks for implementing your language. There could even be a book or a paper you're interested in and want to share with others. CS for CS is the place to be!
Each meetup will roughly be structured as the following:
- 3 speakers will present a topic within 10 minutes each
- We will breakout into rooms for each topic, and audience members should go to the topic they find most interesting. We will spend 30 minutes discussing the topics, and notes will be made - keeping track of suggested resources like books and papers for people to read later.
- 1 speaker will present a topic for 30 minutes
- The last 30 minutes will be used for programming something brought up in the topics of the day -- perhaps one of the talks was about binary trees, so the last 30 minutes could be used for implementing some of the basics of a binary tree.
Each meetup will build upon the last: perhaps in the next session someone will present one of the recommended papers or books, or perhaps they'll talk us through how they implemented some of ideas discussed. As the notes are made available after each session, anyone is welcome to pick up and join at any point. Any topic is welcome: but the focus will be about the theory. So if you’ve implemented something really cool at work and want to talk about it, you’re more than welcome, but make sure to explain the algorithms and data structures behind the application.
Your host will be me, Noah, a former researcher who has been active in the open source world for years, formerly part of the Elm core team and now working on his own language, Derw, while working as the tech lead of Aftenposten.
If all of this sounds interesting to you, sign up to the meetup, or join our first event. If you’ve got something you’d love to share with others, reach out through meetup.com or email me at noah.hall@schibsted.com.