[Caml-list] [ANN] First OCaml hacking session in Belgium -- 1-2 July

[Danny Willems <contact@danny-willems.be>]

Hi everyone.

I'm glad to announce and invite you to the first OCaml/Reason (Compiler) 
Hacking
Session in Belgium which will be the first week-end of July (1-2 July) in my
appartment (yes, in my appartment for the moment. I hope I will have
a bigger place later). The registration are opened here[2]. The full 
location
will be given later. If you have any problem to come, we can find a 
solution if
you come in Brussels, don't worry about that. For info, you have to take
the train from Brussels to come and it lasts 1 hour. I will take you to the
station.

The event is opened 24/24 and the entire week-end. You can come the
entire week-end or only one day or few hours. If you want to stay to 
sleep, I
can host around 5 people (just take a sleeping bag). Just tell me if you 
come.

Thanks OCamlLabs for offering OCaml stickers to all participants!

### Motivation of the event.

I wrote an article on my blog[1] some weeks ago about the idea of 
organizing some
hacking events (specially about OCaml/Reason) in Belgium.
Since last year, I learnt and had some interesting experiences in the OCaml
community and I'm still more and more interested in collaborating and 
meeting other
OCaml developers I speak with on Twitter and GitHub or by email.

The main purpose of this event is to meet other people sharing the same
interests than me and sharing cultures and knowledge.

### Subjects

The subjects of this first event will be very large and will depend on 
coming
people. The only thing I would like to keep in mind is <b>hacking</b>. Hack
for me is discovering and understanding new subjects and build something 
new or
fix some issues. I hope other hackers like me, with the same mindset, 
will be
interested in this event and will come.

The (non-exhaustive) list of subjects is:

- hack on OCaml compiler. It can be fix some junior issues
   (https://caml.inria.fr/mantis/my_view_page.php), understand the type 
system,
   improve it, learn how type systems work, improve front-end, propose some
   useful syntactic sugar, etc.

- hack on Reason front-end compiler. Reason changes the syntax of OCaml by
   giving a syntax more friendly to people coming from other
   languages like JavaScript. Reason community also builds very 
interesting tools
   to interact with React or JavaScript world.

- hack Ocsigen. Ocsigen is a very interesting web framework and maybe 
the most
   advanced web framework in terms of new ideas and concepts. The core 
team is
   very small and doesn't have a lot of time to develop a lot of new 
features. As
   there are not a lot of core developers, Ocsigen lacks some useful 
features
   present in most web framework. The documentation and the website must be
   updated and lots of issues must be fixed.

- hack on opam. opam is the main and the most used package manager for 
OCaml.
   The release of opam 2.0 is coming soon and we can look after some 
last issues.

- hack on Mirage. In the world of unikernels, Mirage becomes popular and a
   subject I would like to learn.

### About me

I will be able to help in the first three subjects.

- About the OCaml compiler, I work at INRIA for several months and I 
built typing and subtyping
algorithms based on the type system DOT for first-class modules in OCaml. I
think I will able to help for the type system and the front end. About 
multicore
or ASM code generation, I'm not an expert and don't have a deep 
knowledge about
it.
- About the Reason front-end compiler. I have some experience in lexing and
   parsing.
- About the Ocsigen project, I work on Ocsigen Start for several months 
and had
   some experience in Eliom.

About the two last, I don't have any hacking knowledge (I never use 
Mirage, but
it's on my TODO list).

### About drinks and foods.

I think drinks and food will be offered, to be confirmed depending on the
number of participants (don't trust the article on my blog). A special 
beer will be offered to all
participants (We are in Belgium, it's mandatory =)).

### Registration.

You can register on the Eventbrite link. Please register if you are only 
sure to come.
If you have a better solution than Eventbrite, tell me (I don't think 
Eventbrite is a good solution but I'm not an expert). The event is 
entirely free. If Eventbrite asks you to pay something, refuse and 
contact me.

### About next events.

I really want to create a community in Belgium around functional 
programming and specially about OCaml and Reason. I would like to create 
more hacking sessions. If you want to contribute or help to the 
organization of such event (by hosting for example), contact me.
I hope some institutions or companies will be interested in such events.

[1] 
https://blog.danny-willems.be/ocamlreason-compiler-hacking-sessions-first-announcement/
[2] 
https://www.eventbrite.fr/e/billets-ocaml-hacking-session-belgium-35217611825

-- 
Danny Willems
https://danny-willems.be
@dwillems42
https://github.com/dannywillems