Thanks to everyone who came last night. We had a great turnout, and it 
was nice meeting everyone.

What we discussed/learned
-------------------------

For those that didn't make it, we spent most of the meeting talking 
about what kinds of things we were interested in, and what kinds of 
presentations we'd like to see.

Most people wanted to have meetings once a month or more; several felt 
that we could start of with twice a month and see how that went.

About half of the group described themselves as 
beginning/low-intermediate developers, and about half described 
themselves as intermediate/advanced. A slight majority were doing 
Zope/Plone stuff, and a smaller group doing Python-only stuff.

The things people said they'd be interested in seeing presented were:

  - Plone (in general), and specifically, Plone skinning

  - Archetypes (Zope/Plone technology for simplifying development)

  - Government certification/bidding for Zope/Py/Plone projects

  - Bioinformatics

  - Extending Python (SWIG, et al)

  - Packaging Python into standalone applications

  - Jython

  - Fat Python and other Python distributions

  - ZCatalog

  - Zope Workflow

  - SQL Storage and other ways of getting Zope content in relational 
databases

  - CMFMember

  - Debugging Zope/Plone

  - Calendar servers

  - Functional programming

  - Text processing w/Python

  - Using Subversion bindings for Python

  - XML Tools

  - CPS/Silva (alternatives to Plone for Zope CMS)

  - Using HTTPS w/Zope (MCrypto, Apache, etc.)

  - ZEO

  - Best practices for SysAdmin setups for Zope/Plone

You can vote on the topics you'd find most interesting at
http://zpugdc.org/polls/topics.

There was also a suggestion to have a mini-presentation or two at each
meetings: a short introduction to a new Zope/Plone product, Python 
library, etc.

People felt that the meeting room we used was convenient.


Plans
-----

Let's try meeting twice a month and see how that works; if we don't get 
enough content or interest to sustain that, we can drop to once a week.

I think it would be helpful, if we have two meetings a month, to have 
them be "split" so that people that want to come to just one have a 
sense of which is right for them. Which would you prefer:

  - One meeting is for Python-in-general, one for Zope+Plone

  - One meeting is for beginning/intermediate topics, one for advanced

  - No split

Please vote on this at http://zpugdc.org/polls/split.


I've reserved the same room at Porter Novelli for twice a month meetings:

  - First Thursday of the month

  - Third Monday of the month

I've added the next few meetings as events to the site at zpugdc.org.

If you have a mini-presentation (10 minutes, tops) on a new product or 
library that you'd be interested in presenting, please let me know!

Thanks,

- j.

Joel Burton for the Zope/Python Users Group of Washington, DC