# Racket meet-up Saturday 1 April 2023 at 18:00 UTC :racket:

**URL:** <https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756>\
**Category:** General\
**Tags:** event, meet-up\
**Created:** [March 25, 2023, 7:00pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756 "2023-03-25T19:00:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![spdegabrielle](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/spdegabrielle/32/95_2.png) [@spdegabrielle](https://racket.discourse.group/u/spdegabrielle)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2023, 7:00pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/1 "2023-03-25T19:00:37Z")

</div>

Racket meet-up Saturday 1 April at 18:00 UTC :racket:

At this meet-up:

- [Racketfest!](https://racketfest.com)
- Show and tell
- News & rumours
- AOB

Meet-up time at your location: 2023-04-01T18:00:00Z / [timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20230401T180000&p1=tz_pt&p2=tz_mt&p3=tz_ct&p4=tz_et&p5=136&p6=204&p7=241)

In the '_ **Racket Room** _': [https://gather.town/app/wH1EDG3McffLjrs0/racket-users](https://gather.town/app/wH1EDG3McffLjrs0/racket-users)

 ![Racket Room in gather.town](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/racket/original/1X/36c88cbd1f9f16357fa67387c88d5112fe1824f7.jpeg)

_Racket meet-ups are on the first Saturday of EVERY Month at 18:00 UTC_

> [@Racket meet up Saturday 5 Feb 18:00 UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-5-feb-18-00-utc/581/3):
>
> And remember - showing up at Racket Meetups helps you learn the news of the Racket world as they happen! It is informative, it is interesting, it is helpful, it is greatly appreciated by everyone involved and it is fun!

30 minutes but can overrun (it usually lasts ~1hr)

EVERYONE WELCOME 😁

Stephen :beetle:

[![Racket Discourse](https://img.shields.io/discourse/users?label=Discuss%20on%20Racket%20Discourse&logo=racket&server=https%3A%2F%2Fracket.discourse.group)](https://racket.discourse.group/) [![Racket Discord](https://img.shields.io/discord/571040468092321801?label=Chat%20on%20Racket%20Discord&logo=racket)](https://discord.gg/6Zq8sH5)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![spdegabrielle](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/spdegabrielle/32/95_2.png) [@spdegabrielle](https://racket.discourse.group/u/spdegabrielle)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2023, 9:44pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/2 "2023-03-31T21:44:07Z")

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Racket meet-up tomorrow at 2023-04-01T18:00:00Z in [The Racket Room (gather.town)](https://gather.town/app/wH1EDG3McffLjrs0/racket-users)

See you there

Stephen :beetle:

> [@spdegabrielle](#):
>
> Racket meet-up Saturday 1 April at 18:00 UTC :racket:
> 
> At this meet-up:
> 
> - [Racketfest!](https://racketfest.com)
> - Show and tell
> - News & rumours
> - AOB
> 
> Meet-up time at your location: 2023-04-01T18:00:00Z / [timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20230401T180000&p1=tz_pt&p2=tz_mt&p3=tz_ct&p4=tz_et&p5=136&p6=204&p7=241)
> 
> In the '_ **Racket Room** _': [Gather](https://gather.town/app/wH1EDG3McffLjrs0/racket-users)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![spdegabrielle](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/spdegabrielle/32/95_2.png) [@spdegabrielle](https://racket.discourse.group/u/spdegabrielle)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2023, 12:04pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/3 "2023-04-02T12:04:10Z")

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Firstly: my apologies - I set the wrong time on the discord event.

We effectively had two meet-ups;

The first included Sage @slg giving a demo about his work innovating in software distribution & package management space.

As I got the time wrong I’d appreciate it if the attendees could reply with a short summary of the first half of the meet-up _for the record_ I’d really appreciate it.

(I missed most of the demo and don’t know what else was discussed)

@slg mentioned that he would be setting up a site [https://typeand.click/](https://typeand.click/) but in the meantime was happy to be contacted.

Also discussed was the influential poet Owen Barfield and _The Muse in the Machine_ by David Gelernter.

* * *

The second session included discussion of Racketfest; a higher number of Racketeers (in a very nice venue) enjoyed excellent presentations. Not least was [Untitled Maze Game (Pacman)](https://racket.discourse.group/t/untitled-maze-game-pacman/1838) by Jens @soegaard. (I had a [first go at making a level](https://gist.github.com/spdegabrielle/4541b10fa30f9d497d258a5dc47ec94a) - it was fun and easy so **have a go** )

@dominik.pantucek got us very excited by sharing that there is a possibility to hold next years Racketfest in Prague

These was also discussion of text interfaces (Plan9!) with the [Expeditor (Terminal Expression Editor)](https://docs.racket-lang.org/expeditor/index.html) and [Unicode Tables](https://docs.racket-lang.org/uni-table/index.html) packages being called out as enabling building-blocks if someone wanted to build a full [Text User Interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface) in Racket.

Finally, we have identified that Gather is now blocking more than 10 attendees to the meet-up (we have previously had many more)  
…so we need to find a solution.

PS please let me know if I’ve omitted anything

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hendrikboom3](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/hendrikboom3/32/2748_2.png) [@hendrikboom3](https://racket.discourse.group/u/hendrikboom3)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2023, 12:29pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/4 "2023-04-02T12:29:20Z")

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> Firstly: my apologies - I set the wrong time on the discord event.

So. It was a discord event, not a discourse event. I attended neitherm and went to gather as usual, where there was a mention of a discourse event.

The event on gather town had fewer attendees than usual.

I had heard of neither a discord event nor a discourse event. I guess I missed the announcement.

Where should I go next month?

And would I need an incitation to join on discord, if that's the location?

And if it's discourse, how to join? Is that where this mailing list is held? I access it only by email,

-- hendrik

> We effectively had two meet-ups;
> 
> The first included Sage @slg giving a demo about his work innovating in software distribution & package management space.
> 
> As I got the time wrong I’d appreciate it if the attendees could reply with a short summary of the first half of the meet-up _for the record_ I’d really appreciate it. (I missed most of the demo and don’t know what else was discussed) @slg mention

Looking forward to the summaries,

-- hendrik

> The second session included discussion of Racketfest; a higher number of Racketeers (in a very nice venue) enjoyed excellent presentations. Not least was [Untitled Maze Game (Pacman)](https://racket.discourse.group/t/untitled-maze-game-pacman/1838) by Jens @soegaard. (I had a [first go at making a level](https://gist.github.com/spdegabrielle/4541b10fa30f9d497d258a5dc47ec94a) - it was fun and easy so **have a go** )
> 
> @dominik.pantucek got us very excited by sharing that there is a possibility to hold next years Racketfest in Prague
> 
> These was also discussion of text interfaces

That sounds like the half-meetup I did attend.

Please go on posting times in UTC (or UCT, ehichever language you make the acronym from.)

-- hendrik

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![spdegabrielle](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/spdegabrielle/32/95_2.png) [@spdegabrielle](https://racket.discourse.group/u/spdegabrielle)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2023, 2:02pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/5 "2023-04-02T14:02:40Z")

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There is only one meet-up and it happened one Gather, but I failed to account for the change to British Summer Time(BST) when setting the meet-up _event reminder_ in the [Racket Discord](https://discord.gg/6Zq8sH5).

> [@hendrikboom3](#):
>
> Where should I go next month?

That is a good question as the free Gather service is no longer sufficient for our needs.

I'm looking for suggestions. This is what I have so far:

- Zoom (100 user/40 minutes) [https://zoom.us/pricing](https://zoom.us/pricing)
- Discord voice (no limits?) [https://discord.com/community](https://discord.com/community)
- Jitsi-Meet [https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/](https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/)
- Gather (10 users) [https://gather.town/](https://gather.town/)
- Toucan (10 users / 30 minutes) [https://www.toucan.events/pricing](https://www.toucan.events/pricing)
- Google meet (limits?)
- Other?

The constraints are

- we often go over 10 attendees,
- we often go over 1 hour

Given the constraints we are down to Google Meet, Discord, Jitsi, or Zoom - unless there are other options I am not aware of?

I also don't want to be administering a server. (does Jitsi require a server?)

Anything we choose needs to be accessible to as many Racket users as possible.

As this stage we need suggestions about what will work for the next meet-up.

I generally like to have the meet-up details confirmed about 3 weeks beforehand so we only really have a week or two to work out how to do the next meet-up.

Best regards,

Stephen

**PS**  
Racket is discussed widely across a number of forums and chat platforms; including but not limited to

- Racket Discourse
- Racket Discord
- The Racket subreddit r/racket. (and the r/scheme and r/lisp subreddits)
- Racket Slack
- Racket IRC
- Lisp Discord
- Scheme Discord
- Functional Programming Discord
- Family of Lisp Telegram
- Racket Telegram
- Even the old mailing list on google groups gets occasional traffic

I _try_ to spread the word to as many as possible. This is often when I am going for a walk. (I consistently fail with IRC as it is just too hard to use from a phone).

**PPS** IMO there is no point _telling_ people what forum or chat to use - people have their reasons and I am unlikely to be able to make them change their minds

**PPPS** I also occasionally try to reach out to other PL design and implementation communities including

- Programming Languages Discord
- /r/Programminglanguages Discord
- Programming Language Development
- [https://strumenta.community](https://strumenta.community). (I think _strumenta_ means 'tool' or 'to instrument')

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sschwarzer](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/sschwarzer/32/1940_2.png) [@sschwarzer](https://racket.discourse.group/u/sschwarzer)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2023, 4:50pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/6 "2023-04-02T16:50:32Z")

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> [@spdegabrielle](#):
>
> I'm looking for suggestions. This is what I have so far:
> 
> - Zoom (100 user/40 minutes) [Plans & Pricing for Zoom One | Zoom](https://zoom.us/pricing)
> - Discord voice (no limits?) [Community Resources | Discord](https://discord.com/community)
> - Jitsi-Meet [About Jitsi Meet | Free Video Conferencing Solutions](https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/)
> - Gather (10 users) [https://gather.town/](https://gather.town/)
> - Toucan (10 users / 30 minutes) [Pricing | Toucan Events](https://www.toucan.events/pricing)
> - Google meet (limits?)
> - Other?

Stephen, thanks for collecting this information! 🙂

Another option is [BigBlueButton](https://bigbluebutton.org/) ([Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BigBlueButton)). Like Jitsi, this is open source software. BigBlueButton is used by schools and universities. We used the software for several Python [barcamps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcamp) for, as I remember, 40 participants or so. But in principle, the software is usable with many more participants.

> [@spdegabrielle](#):
>
> Given the constraints we are down to Google Meet, Discord, Jitsi, or Zoom -

Personally, I'd prefer an open source solution, but if a service doesn't require registration with any personal information (like email address or phone number), that would be kind of acceptable for me.

> [@spdegabrielle](#):
>
> I also don't want to be administering a server.

Same for me. 😉

> [@spdegabrielle](#):
>
> (does Jitsi require a server?)

Yes, Jitsi and BigBlueButton require a server. There are public Jitsi servers. One I know of is [https://meet.jit.si](https://meet.jit.si) , but I guess there may be more. I can't tell how well they work with, say, 20 participants in a meeting, so we'd have to try it.

Since BigBlueButton is used by schools and universities, maybe Racketeers who work there could reach out to their institution to host our meetings for free. Just an idea. 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sschwarzer](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/sschwarzer/32/1940_2.png) [@sschwarzer](https://racket.discourse.group/u/sschwarzer)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2023, 4:53pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/7 "2023-04-02T16:53:59Z")

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> [@hendrikboom3](#):
>
> So. It was a discord event, not a discourse event. I attended neitherm and went to gather as usual, where there was a mention of a discourse event.

I think the meaning was

- "Discord event" = "Gather event announced on Discord"
- "Discourse event" = "Gather event announced on Discourse" (here in this thread)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![spdegabrielle](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/spdegabrielle/32/95_2.png) [@spdegabrielle](https://racket.discourse.group/u/spdegabrielle)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2023, 10:04pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/8 "2023-04-02T22:04:37Z")

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I don't have any experience in either so if you do have a preference please vote

_Poll ([view on site](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/8))_

s.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jryans](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/jryans/32/31_2.png) [@jryans](https://racket.discourse.group/u/jryans)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2023, 10:40pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/9 "2023-04-02T22:40:28Z")

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I’ve successfully used a self-hosted installation of Jitsi Meet in the past for large gatherings of 100+ people, so I assume the public installation should work well for Racket meetups (assuming we don’t hit some artificial limit).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sschwarzer](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/sschwarzer/32/1940_2.png) [@sschwarzer](https://racket.discourse.group/u/sschwarzer)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2023, 10:44am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/10 "2023-04-03T10:44:16Z")

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I voted for Jitsi as I think the user interface is a bit simpler. BigBlueButton (BBB) is more complex since it has additional features that we most likely don't need for the Racket meet-ups. Still, I had wanted to mention BBB since it might be a fallback if we don't find/have a suitable Jitsi server. 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hendrikboom3](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/hendrikboom3/32/2748_2.png) [@hendrikboom3](https://racket.discourse.group/u/hendrikboom3)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2023, 1:49pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/11 "2023-04-03T13:49:58Z")

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> > [@spdegabrielle](#):
> >
> > I'm looking for suggestions. This is what I have so far:
> > 
> > - Zoom (100 user/40 minutes) [Plans & Pricing for Zoom One | Zoom](https://zoom.us/pricing)
> > - Discord voice (no limits?) [Community Resources | Discord](https://discord.com/community)
> > - Jitsi-Meet [About Jitsi Meet | Free Video Conferencing Solutions](https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/)
> > - Gather (10 users) [https://gather.town/](https://gather.town/)
> > - Toucan (10 users / 30 minutes) [Pricing | Toucan Events](https://www.toucan.events/pricing)
> > - Google meet (limits?)
> > - Other?

I'm a regular jitsi user.

jitsi is free software. I don't have the bandwidth to run it; otherwise I already would be doing so, instead of using other peoples' servers.

the free service is provided at [https://meet.jit.si/](https://meet.jit.si/)

You pick a conversation name, such as  
[Jitsi Meet](https://meet.jit.si/RacketUsers)  
and everyone that connects to the URL is connected together.  
There's no password or registration for their free servce. Just make sure your participants know the URL and the time they should join.

The jitsi site will suggest random names, but I suspect we'd be better off chooseing one we can remember easily. Such as the one I provided in my example.

I seem to remember a limit of about a hundred simultaneous users for the free service, but now it seems to be 25. (not sure about this, though).

If you don't want to use the free service, there are instructions how  
to set up your own server on the site. Or you can pay them for larger meetings.

I've attended jitsi meetings with about tn particilants. I find it more convenient tha zoom.

It does seem to remember when I've had meetings on the public free kitsi server, so it's not completely anonymous. I do provide it with my name when I connect, for convnience. Some of us users don't, and are labelled as 'jitsi user' instead. For all I know, it may store cookies on my machine or remember my IP number. I have never told it my email address.

The Devuan developers have a weekly chat on jutsi, but we use our own server.

Service on the jitsi free server has usually been excellent, except once when the server seems to have been down. My meetings on it usually have about four or five participants, byt I've attended one with about eight. We'll have to try it and see..

I've never used BigBlueButton.

I have used discord for video chat lasting about three hours. I don't know what the limit is.

I have used facebook messenger for video chats lasting more than two hours, but with only two participants.

-- hendrik

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![spdegabrielle](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/spdegabrielle/32/95_2.png) [@spdegabrielle](https://racket.discourse.group/u/spdegabrielle)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2023, 8:22pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-meet-up-saturday-1-april-2023-at-18-00-utc/1756/12 "2023-04-03T20:22:24Z")

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Thanks all

lets try Jitsi

If anyone has a moment to help me test jitsi please click this link I'll be on for about 10 minutes from now  
TEST Video meeting link: [https://meet.jit.si/Racketmeet-up](https://meet.jit.si/Racketmeet-up)

If it goes badly at the next meet-up - but I don't think it will - the fallback plan is to use the discord voice channel - confusingly named because it also supports video - it does require a [https://discord.com](https://discord.com) account with a verified email address.

s.  
:beetle:
