Vim Geeks Virtual Edition!

It has been far too long since we've had a meeting. Let's fix that!

Wednesday, January 27, 2021 at 6:30PM CST, join me for a virtual meeting at https://meet.jit.si/Vim-20210127. (If it says there is a password, use Vim.)

9th Annual St. Louis Area Tech Group Bowling Extravaganza!

It's that time of year again, when lots of St. Louis tech folks get together to demonstrate their bowling prowess, or the lack thereof!

We've rented out the whole Moolah Lanes again for Monday, 12/18 from 7 PM to 10 PM! This includes bowling, pool, & ping pong for 3 hours.  If none of those activities pique your interest you can still come out and just meet new people.

• Please sign up here: https://stltechbowl2017.eventbrite.com/

Special thanks to our sponsors. They're providing the money to rent the lanes and buy appetizers. This year's sponsors are:

• Norton Staffing
• GDG St. Louis
• NetEffects
• 1904labs
• Concordia Publishing House

We still have room for more sponsors, so if you or your company are interested in sponsoring the event, let us know.

Please forward this to any other groups that might be interested.

Thanks,

Your friendly STLATGBE Organizers

8th Annual St. Louis Area Tech Group Bowling Extravaganza!

Hello all,

It's that time of year again, when lots of St. Louis tech folks get together to demonstrate their bowling prowess, or the lack thereof!

We've rented out the whole Moolah Lanes again for Monday, 12/19 from 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM! This includes bowling, pool, & ping pong for 3 hours.  If none of those activities pique your interest you can still come out and just meet new people.

* Please sign up here: http://bit.ly/2gIccas

Thanks to our returning sponsors Norton Staffing and SBS Creatix.  We still have room for more sponsors, so if you or your company are interested in sponsoring the event, let us know.

Please forward this to any other groups that might be interested.

Thanks,

Your friendly STLATGBE Organizers - Steven Pritchard, Matt Follett, Bill Odom, & Andrew Williams

October 28th: Vim Plugins

For the October meeting Mark will walk through some things he learned writing custom Vim plugins. One changes old style JavaScript anonymous functions to arrow functions. Another helps with commenting and uncommenting HTML elements.
While the functionality of these plugins won't be of interest to everyone, learning how they work will help you write your own plugins.

Asynchrony Labs will be sponsoring food.

We'll be meeting at 6:30 at Observable Networks:

230 S. Bemiston Ave, Suite 420

Saint Louis, MO 63105 (map)

We'll be meeting at 6:30 at Asynchrony Labs:

900 Spruce Street, Suite 700 
St. Louis, MO 63102

Please check the mailing list for instructions on how to get in.

You have two options for parking:

1. Street parking. It is free after 7, so just bring a few quarters until then.

2. Cupples garage.

Street parking is recommended.

September 23rd: Social Hour

In light of our meeting being in such close temporal proximity to Strange Loop this year we are going to host a social. The social will start at the standard date and time, 9/23 at 6:30 PM. However, it will start at at Salt + Smoke on The Loop. Their menu has a good selection of BBQ as well as a salad and a falafel burger. The best item on their menu though is their burnt ends toasted ravioli.

After dinner we'll either hang out there or retire to Cicero's for a drink of some sort.
If you know any Vim Geeks alum who will be in town for Strange Loop be sure to invite them along. 

Please try to RSVP on the list with a number so I can attempt to make reservations.

August 26th: Welcome Back, Vimmers

We're starting Vim Geeks back up this Wednesday and are hoping you'll be able to stop by! This meeting will be an informal one. We'll focus on vim-related Q&A and various neat tips and tricks people want to show off from their vim dot files.

As we did in the past, we'll be meeting at 6:30. However, we do have a new host & a new location; we'll be meeting at Observable Networks:
230 S. Bemiston Ave, Suite 420
Saint Louis, MO 63105 (map)

Another change of pace is that we'll have a food sponsor this month. Asynchrony Labs is kind enough to provide us food!

If you plan to make it please join the list and RSVP so we can get a proper food count.

No meeting this month

We apologize for the lengthy hiatus, but we are working out a new meeting location.

Wednesday 10/22 - Social meetup 6pm(ish) - 9pm(ish) at J Greene's Pub

When:

    6pm until they kick us out some time after 9pm

Where:

    J Greene's Pub

    10017 Manchester Rd.
    St. Louis, MO 63122
    (314) 394-2330

    http://www.jgreenespub.com

    Map: https://goo.gl/maps/hOjtp

Agenda:

- Drink things

- Eat things

- Talk about Vim things

- Ponder future meeting location, uh, things

See you there!

Bill

Wednesday 8/27 - Social Meetup!

...which is a roundabout way of saying that I just found out our usual spot at CAIT is unavailable this month. :-)

Since we won't be able to meet at the normal location, I say we get together here instead:

Urban Chestnut Grove Brewery & Bierhall
4465 Manchester Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63110

Map

They've got good food and really good beer, and lots of big open tables to eat and drink it around. We can start off the evening talking about Vim, and then, after enough beer, finish the evening singing about Vim. :-)

We'll meet at 6:30pm, as usual, and hang out until whenever. Please let me know if you plan to be there, so I'll know how much of that big-open-tablespace to grab.

Thanks!

Wednesday 7/23 - Cherrypicking Favorite vi/Vim Features

WHAT:
  St. Louis Vim Geeks: “Cherrypicking Favorite vi/Vim Features” by Don Ellis

WHERE:
  CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
  Classroom 24
  5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:
  Wednesday, July 23rd, at 6:30pm

Cherrypicking Favorite vi/Vim Features

Don says he'd like to talk about

a fairly long list of operations that would help a new user get started, or a long-time user who hasn't plumbed some of the shallower depths.

Things we came up with include executing shell commands without exiting the editor; quickly setting up minimal config on a new system (with usable color scheme); determining whether syntax coloring is installed and how to make it so; using the system paste buffer while in visual mode, and a number of others that should be of special interest to a new user.

Drinks and Food and Stuff

RSVP by replying to this message on the mailing list (or privately to me and/or Bill if you're shy), and we’ll be sure to have enough food and drinks for everybody.

When and Where

We’ll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, July 23rd, in the usual place:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

Map: http://goo.gl/maps/b8r9
Forsyth MetroLink Station: http://bit.ly/PuOJ6a

CAIT provides detailed driving directions and parking information here:

http://www.cait.wustl.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37

(Don’t worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn’t apply to us.)

Make sure you reply to this message to RSVP!

See you there,

Steve

Wednesday 6/25 - Autocommands

WHAT:
St. Louis Vim Geeks: “Autocommands” by Perrin Westrich

WHERE:
CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:
Wednesday, June 25th, at 6:30pm

Autocommands

A cryptic blurb from Perrin (a.k.a. CrypticSwarm):

Throughout the course of the day we use our editors constantly. We write and type and type our writes (#haskell). Occasionally we find that our textual machinations tend towards the redundant and repetitive. Struggle as we might there is a light. Enter the Autocommand (#dragon).

(We think he's going to talk about these things: Vim Autocommands.)

Drinks and Food and Stuff

RSVP by replying to this message on the mailing list (or privately to me if you're shy), and we’ll be sure to have enough food and drinks for everybody.

When and Where

We’ll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, June 25th, in the usual place:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

Map: http://goo.gl/maps/b8r9

Forsyth MetroLink Station: http://bit.ly/PuOJ6a

CAIT provides detailed driving directions and parking information here:

http://www.cait.wustl.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37

(Don’t worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn’t apply to us.)

Make sure you reply to this message to RSVP!

See you there,
Bill

Wednesday 5/28 - The State of Neovim

WHAT:
St. Louis Vim Geeks: “The State of Neovim” by Kyle Pointer

WHERE:
CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:
Wednesday, March 28th, at 6:30pm

The State of Neovim

According to the Neovim Github project page at https://github.com/neovim/neovim…

Neovim is a project that seeks to aggressively refactor Vim in order to:

• Simplify maintenance and encourage contributions
• Split the work between multiple developers
• Enable the implementation of new/modern user interfaces without any modifications to the core source
• Improve extensibility with a new plugin architecture

It all sounds promising, but is it really going to happen? And is it even a good idea?

Kyle Pointer’s going to bring us up to speed on all things NeoVim, including:

• Why?
• What’s new?
• Who’s doing it?
• What works?
• What doesn’t?
• How can I help?

It promises to be interesting (and maybe even a little controversial).

Drinks and Food and Stuff

RSVP by replying to this message (either on the list, or privately to me), and we’ll be sure to have enough food and drinks for everybody.

When and Where

We’ll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, March 28th, in the usual place:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology) Classroom 24 5 N. Jackson Ave St. Louis, Missouri 63105

Map: http://goo.gl/maps/b8r9

Forsyth MetroLink Station: http://bit.ly/PuOJ6a

CAIT provides detailed driving directions and parking information here:

http://www.cait.wustl.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37

(Don’t worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn’t apply to us.)

Make sure you reply to this message to RSVP!

See you there, Bill

Wednesday 4/23 - Vim and Emacs: Indistinguishable From Magic

WHAT:
  The Very First Official Joint Meeting of the
  St. Louis Emacs User Group and St. Louis Vim Geeks

WHEN:
  Wednesday, April 23rd, at 6:30pm

WHERE:
  Joyia Tapas <http://www.joyiatapas.com>

RSVP:
  <http://www.meetup.com/St-Louis-Emacs-User-Group/events/176643292/>

Arthur C. Clarke once said that "Any sufficiently-advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic," and those of us that spend our days
contending with code and configuration know that we need all the magic
we can get. Text is a hostile environment, and demands powerful tools to
tame it.

For the first time, the St. Louis Vim Geeks and the St. Louis Emacs User
Group are joining forces to talk about two of the most powerful
text-editing tools available. We'll compare, contrast, and generally
celebrate the strengths (and speak delicately of the weaknesses) of
these two titans of text editing, Emacs and Vim.

Join us Wednesday, April 23rd, at Joyia Tapas. We'll get started around
6:30pm, but feel free to show up a little earlier if you'd like to grab
a bite or have a drink beforehand.

Come find out what a "sufficiently-advanced" text editor looks like, and
how to unleash a little more magic on your text-editing tasks!

Please RSVP at this link, so we can tell Joyia how many to expect:

  <http://www.meetup.com/St-Louis-Emacs-User-Group/events/176643292/>

Also, please forward this invitation to any other people or groups that would
find it useful.

See you there!

Wednesday, 3/26 - Vim + Ruby + tmux

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Vim + Ruby + tmux by Matt Follett

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, March 26th, at 6:30pm

---

Vim + Ruby + tmux

Remember waaaaaay back, like, a year ago, when a few of us took over Vim Geeks to pump Charlie Sanders for tips on using Vim with Ruby?

  http://www.vimgeeks.org/2013/02/wednesday-227-vim-ruby-and-visual-mode.html

Ah... good times, good times.

Well, in the months since then, Matt Follett took Charlie's good advice to heart, and then ran with it, writing more Ruby than is healthy for a man his age. He's going to show us the environment he's crafted from Vim and tmux to build, debug, and maintain the Ruby backend for a large application (and he may even have a little to say about the not-so-Ruby-based frontend, too). It'll definitely be a trip.

Drinks and Food and Stuff

Just reply to this message (either on the mailing list, in a comment below, or privately to me if you're the shy type) to RSVP, and we'll be sure to have enough food to eat and drinks to drink. We'll also have an O'Reilly freebie or two to give away, because Marsee Henon loves us.

When and Where

We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, March 26th, in the usual place:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station

CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

Bill

Wednesday, 2/26 - Vim Q&A

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Vim Q&A

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, February 26th, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/

---

Vim Q&A

Do you find yourself trying to use Vim and tripping over a problem regularly?  Want some help?  Ask your questions at this month's meeting, and the group will do our best to answer them.

As an example, Lee asked for some help interacting with the system clipboard from Vim recently.  As a fellow Linux user, I can go into dealing with that in some detail.  :-)

When and Where

We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, February 26th, where we usually do:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station

CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

See you this Wednesday!

Steve

Wednesday, 1/22 - A Vim Environment Tour

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - A Vim Environment Tour

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, January 22nd, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/

---

A Vim Environment Tour

We're going to continue our series of Vim environment tours, but this time we're going to look at some celebrity .vimrcs.  We'll start with Damian Conway's.  Time permitting, we'll see what else we can find on GitHub.

When and Where

We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, January 22nd, where we usually do:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station

CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

See you this Wednesday!

Steve

Wednesday, 10/23 - Come geek out about Vim!

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Come geek out about Vim!

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, October 23rd, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/

---

Come geek out about Vim!

We don't have a specific topic, so let's just talk about whatever comes up.  Maybe that will be some basics, a cool trick, somebody's favorite plugin, or some combination of those.  Join us and be surprised.  :-)

Drinks and Food and Stuff

I know it is late notice, but if you RSVP, we'll try to make sure there is pizza and drinks for everybody.

When and Where

We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, October 23rd, where we usually do:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station

CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

See you this Wednesday!

Steve

Wednesday, 9/25 - Beer!

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Beer!

WHERE: Schlafly Bottleworks
       7260 Southwest Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63143

WHEN:  Wednesday, September 25th, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/

---

Beer!

Our regular meeting room at CAIT isn't available this month, so we're going to have an informal meeting at the Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood instead.  If you've never been there, they have good food and great beer.  And don't worry, we'll still talk about Vim.  :-)

Please RSVP so we can try to have a table ready at 6:30.

See you this Wednesday!

Steve

Wednesday, 8/28 - Top 10 (or so) Reasons to Use Vim

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Top 10 (or so) Reasons to Use Vim

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, August 28th, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/

---

Top 10 (or so) Reasons to Use Vim

We all know Vim is great. At this month's meeting, I'd like to detail a few of the many reasons why.

As I mentioned at the last meeting, I'm teaching a class on Vim in a couple of weeks, and I'm using this material in my class, so thanks in advance for being guinea pigs.  ;-)

Drinks and Food and Stuff

I know it is late notice, but if you RSVP, we'll try to make sure there is pizza and drinks for everybody.

When and Where

We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, August 28th, where we usually do:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station

CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

See you this Wednesday!

Steve

Wednesday 7/31 - Just Enough Vim Scripting to be Dangerous

WHAT:  St. Louis Vim Geeks
       - Just Enough Vim Scripting to be Dangerous

WHERE: CAIT - The Center for the Application of Information Technology
       Classroom 24
       5 N. Jackson Ave, St. Louis, Missouri 63105

WHEN:  Wednesday, July 31st, at 6:30pm

RSVP:  http://www.meetup.com/vimgeeks/

---

Just Enough Vim Scripting to be Dangerous

There's a lot you can do to customize Vim to your particular idiosyncrasies without having to grapple with Vim's scripting features. If you're a dedicated Vim power user, though, you'll eventually reach a point where you simply must do something that tweaking a setting or two won't handle. That's when you decide "I'll learn Vim scripting!"

It's about three minutes later that the realization kicks in: Vim scripting is its own brand of weird. Sure, it seems a lot like other scripting languages — until it really, really doesn't. It's hard to know where to start, and all too easy to do things that break Vim in exciting and unexpected ways.

This talk will get you over that initial this-is-too-bizarre / how-hard-can-LISP-be-anyway hump. We won't try to cover everything Vim scripting can do, but a little knowledge will go a long way, especially if you know where to begin and the pitfalls to avoid.

Drinks and Food and Stuff

Ever been to a meeting that couldn't be improved with some free food? Me neither, so RSVP to let us know how much to get. O'Reilly has also provided us with some free stuff to give away, but you probably shouldn't eat it. It's a little... paper-y.

When and Where

We'll be meeting at 6:30pm on Wednesday, July 31st, where we usually do:

CAIT (The Center for the Application of Information Technology)
Classroom 24
5 N. Jackson Ave
St. Louis, Missouri 63105

CAIT on Google Maps

Forsyth MetroLink Station

CAIT also provides detailed driving directions and parking information . (Don't worry about the parking permit stuff. It doesn't apply to us.)

Make sure you RSVP!

See you this Wednesday!
Bill