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+date: "2006-01-26T03:55:35Z"
+title: Notes from the First NovaRug Meetup
+---
+
+<p>Tonight I went to the first Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group
+(<acronym title="Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group">NOVARUG</acronym>).  Here are my semi-distilled notes and commentary on the
+evening:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich Kilmer</a> spent most of the time giving a presentation on
+<a href="http://alph.rubyforge.org/" title="No, not the space muppet. Alph is a Ruby/ActionScript bridge.">Alph</a>, and talking about his experience doing a functional 
+prototype interface for mid-air plane refueling.  He also talked about 
+bridging <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript" title="Scripting language for Flash and ShockWave.">ActionScript</a>.  The <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a>-related content
+was similar to the presentation he gave at <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1380" title="My first (of several) posts about RubyConf 2004 in D.C..">RubyConf 2004</a>, so I
+didn't bother taking too many notes on the actual application.</li>
+<li>~44 people.  There were roughly 60 people at <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1122" title="My post about (and notes from) RubyConf 2002 in Seattle, WA.">RubyConf 2002</a>, and
+maybe 100 at <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1380" title="My first (of several) posts about RubyConf 2004 in D.C..">RubyConf 2004</a>.  40+ people in for a straight 
+<acronym title="Northern Virginia,">NOVA</acronym>/<acronym title="District of Columbia">DC</acronym> meetup kind of puts the recent exponential growth of
+<a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a> in perspective.  <a href="http://rubycentral.com/" title="The man with the plan behind RubyConf, who apparently has no web site (or at least not one that I can find).">David Black (dblack)</a> and I talked about
+that a few months ago on <acronym title="Internet Relay Chat">IRC</acronym>, but I didn't appreciate the magnitude
+of the increase until this evening.</li>
+<li>While fiddling around on my laptop without Internet, I just discovered
+that the never-released <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1384" title="My GTK+-based GUI for RubyGems.">Gemini</a> still works :D. <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1384" title="My GTK+-based GUI for RubyGems.">Gemini</a> is a 
+<a href="http://gtk.org/" title="Graphical widget library.  Foundation for GNOME, GIMP, XMMS, and more."><acronym title="Gimp ToolKit">GTK</acronym></a> package management <acronym title="Graphical User Interface">GUI</acronym> for <a href="http://docs.rubygems.org/" title="Ruby packaging application.">RubyGems</a>, written in
+(suprise!) <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a>.  Is anyone interested in this thing?  I could
+probably touch it up and have it release-ready in about a week if
+there's still a desire.</li>
+<li>Rich mentioned <a href="http://mtasc.org/" title="A fast, open source, Ocaml-based ActionScript 2 compiler."><acronym title="Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler">MTASC</acronym></a>, which is a fast, open source, 
+<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript" title="Scripting language for Flash and ShockWave.">ActionScript</a> to <acronym title="Macromedia ShockWave/Flash file (not really an acronym)">SWF</acronym> compiler written in <a href="http://caml.inria.fr/" title="General-purpose functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming language.">OCaml</a>.  Apparently
+it's noticably better than <a href="http://macromedia.com/">Macromedia</a>'s (now <a href="http://adobe.com/">Adobe</a>) tools</li>
+<li>Talked about <a href="http://actionstep.org/" title="Rich Kilmer's Flash GUI library based on OpenStep/Cocoa.">ActionStep</a>, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash</a>-based <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep" title="An open, object-oriented API, originally used in NeXTSTEP.">OpenStep</a>/<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_%28API%29" title="Apple's object-oriented MacOS X API.">Cocoa</a> 
+<acronym title="Application Programming Interface">API</acronym></li>
+<li><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> apparently didn't know what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebasing" title="Reference to smoking crack or heroin">freebasing</a> was when he named
+<a href="http://freeride.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?FreeBASE" title="The core for the FreeRIDE Ruby IDE.">FreeBase</a> (I wondered about that at <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1122" title="My post about (and notes from) RubyConf 2002 in Seattle, WA.">RubyConf 2002</a>).</li>
+<li><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> noted that he's using <code>camelCase</code> instead of underscores
+for method names in <a href="http://alph.rubyforge.org/" title="No, not the space muppet. Alph is a Ruby/ActionScript bridge.">Alph</a> because the methods are actually 
+<acronym title="Remote Method Invocation">RMI</acronym> calls from <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript" title="Scripting language for Flash and ShockWave.">ActionScript</a>.  He noted that
+underscores are generally the <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a> way, and that people outside
+the <acronym title="United States">US</acronym> (especially Japanese people) have a lot of trouble reading
+<code>camelCase</code> code because they don't recognize the case and, by
+extension, can't distinguish the words. If you think about it, it
+makes sense.  Can you tell two similar <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji" title="Japanese writing system derived from Chinese characters.">Kanji</a> glyphs apart?</li>
+<li><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a>'s presentation uses code like <code>60.days</code> and <code>24.hours</code>.
+He mentioned that that's an extension to <code>Integer</code>, but I hope he
+misspoke, because that makes a whole lot more sense as an extension to
+<code>Numeric</code>, because that way it gets picked up by <code>Bignum</code>, <code>Fixnum</code>,
+and <code>Float</code> for free.</li>
+<li><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> showed off <a href="http://infoether.net/" title="Cross-platform Flash-based personal information manager.">Indi</a>, a cross-platform <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash</a>-based <acronym title="Personal Information Manager">PIM</acronym> 
+for <acronym title="Universal Serial Bus">USB</acronym> drives.  It requires <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash</a> 8, so by cross-platform he
+really means <a href="http://apple.com/macosx/" title="MacOS 10. The operating system by that bitten fruit company."><acronym title="MacOS 10">OSX</acronym></a> and <a href="http://microsoft.com/windows/" title="The Microsoft Windows operating system.">Windows</a>, at least until
+<a href="http://macromedia.com/">Macromedia</a>/<a href="http://adobe.com/">Adobe</a> release <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash</a> 8 for <a href="http://linux.com/" title="Free SysV/BSD hybrid Unix.">Linux</a>.</li>
+<li>Apparently the current <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash</a> runtime doesn't do <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_compilation" title="Technique for improving the performance of bytecode-compiled programming systems."><acronym title="Just In Time compilation">JIT</acronym></a> 
+internally (I asked about this, apparently it parses, then walks 
+the <acronym title="Abstract Syntax Tree">AST</acronym>, similar to <a href="http://ruby-lang.org/" title="A high-level, cross-platform, pure object-oriented programming language.">Ruby</a> 1.8.  If they're doing that, then
+they really shouldn't be calling <acronym title="Macromedia ShockWave/Flash file (not really an acronym)">SWF</acronym> files <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bytecode" title="Intermediate assembly-like code that is intended to increase speed and portability.">bytecode</a>).  According
+to <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a>, the upcoming runtime <em>will</em> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_compilation" title="Technique for improving the performance of bytecode-compiled programming systems."><acronym title="Just In Time compilation">JIT</acronym></a>, which means an
+approximate 10x speed boost at the cost of an upgrade and increased
+disk footprint of roughly 200k.  Not too shabby.</li>
+<li>Thought: <a href="http://infoether.net/" title="Cross-platform Flash-based personal information manager.">Indi</a> for <a href="http://linux.com/" title="Free SysV/BSD hybrid Unix.">Linux</a> could use the evil shell script stuff 
+to build an all-in-one equivalent to a <a href="http://apple.com/macosx/" title="MacOS 10. The operating system by that bitten fruit company."><acronym title="MacOS 10">OSX</acronym></a> <code>.app</code> (they'd need
+to statically compile stuff to make it truly portable).</li>
+<li>Some group conversation about <a href="http://www.openlaszlo.org/" title="An XML-based declarative language for creating user interfaces.">OpenLaszlo</a>), an <acronym title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym>-based platform
+(<acronym title="Interface Definition Language">IDL</acronym>, <acronym title="Integrated Development Environment">IDE</acronym>, etc), and how it compares to <a href="http://alph.rubyforge.org/" title="No, not the space muppet. Alph is a Ruby/ActionScript bridge.">Alph</a>.  The 
+difference between <a href="http://alph.rubyforge.org/" title="No, not the space muppet. Alph is a Ruby/ActionScript bridge.">Alph</a> and <a href="http://www.openlaszlo.org/" title="An XML-based declarative language for creating user interfaces.">OpenLaszlo</a> is that the former 
+<em>parses</em> <acronym title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym> at runtime (similar to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XUL" title="Declarative XML-based language for describing user interfaces.">Mozilla's <acronym title="eXtensible User Interface Language">XUL</acronym></a> and
+<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XAML" title="Declarative XML-based language for describing user interfaces.">Microsoft's <acronym title="eXtensible Avalon Markup Language">XAML</acronym> (Avalon)</a>), while the latter compiles
+the <acronym title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym> <acronym title="Interface Definition Language">IDL</acronym> to a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_Flash" title="A popular media plugin for web browsers.">Flash <acronym title="Macromedia ShockWave/Flash file (not really an acronym)">SWF</acronym></a>.</li>
+<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActionScript" title="Scripting language for Flash and ShockWave.">ActionScript</a> 1 was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype-based_programming" title="A form of object-oriented programming without classes used by languages such as JavaScript and ActionScript 1.">prototype-based</a> language (e.g. like 
+<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript" title="Prototype-based, object-oriented scripting language used in web browsers.">JavaScript</a>). apparently now it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_%28programming%29" title="Description of an object in an  object-oriented programming language.">class-based</a>.</li>
+<li>Question about why not <a href="http://alph.rubyforge.org/" title="No, not the space muppet. Alph is a Ruby/ActionScript bridge.">Alph</a> isn't using <acronym title="Scalable Vector Graphics">SVG</acronym> for the runtime, 
+especially since it has the advantage of being open.  <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a>
+explained that <acronym title="Scalable Vector Graphics">SVG</acronym> requires a plugin (which isn't quite true,
+<a href="http://mozilla.org/firefox/" title="The latest and greatest version of Mozilla Firefox.">Firefox 1.5</a> doesn't require a plugin to display <acronym title="Scalable Vector Graphics">SVG</acronym>, but
+it's implementation <a href="http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/SVG_in_Firefox_1.5" title="Firefox's SVG support is a subset of SVG 1.1.">needs some work</a>). Regarding
+licensing, <a href="http://macromedia.com/">Macromedia</a>/<a href="http://adobe.com/">Adobe</a> aren't likely to make any major
+licensing changes, since that would screw their established user base.</li>
+<li>Last year <a href="http://adobe.com/">Adobe</a> open-sourced <a href="http://opensource.adobe.com/group__asl__overview.html" title="Adobe's open source interface libraries.">Adam and Eve</a>, the C++-based core
+interface framework for <a href="http://adobe.com/products/photoshop/" title="The de-facto professional image editing application.">Photoshop</a> and several other <a href="http://adobe.com/">Adobe</a> 
+applications</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>And that's all I've got for <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich Kilmer</a>'s presentation.  Afterwards
+he gave the group an opportunity to talk about their projects.  I didn't
+catch anyones' names, and <a href="http://google.com/" title="Some search engine. Never heard of it">Google</a> failed me, so I couldn't find
+references to these projects online.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Guy who works at <a href="http://nist.gov/" title="U.S. government body that handles technology standards."><acronym title="National Institute of Standards and Technology">NIST</acronym></a>, demoing app to model <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_circuit_board" title="An insulated board with the circuit conductors etched in."><acronym title="Printed Circuit Board">PCB</acronym></a> standards,
+in <acronym title="Three-Dimentional">3D</acronym>.  You can zoom in and out and rotate the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_circuit_board" title="An insulated board with the circuit conductors etched in."><acronym title="Printed Circuit Board">PCB</acronym></a> around.
+Got oohs and aahs from the crowd :).</li>
+<li>"Pippen" apparently marshals data to <acronym title="eXtensible Markup Language">XML</acronym>, and there was another
+app called "Genie", but I didn't catch what it did.</li>
+<li>He made several references to  <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiducial" title="A fixed reference point to which objects can be related.">fiducials</a>, which I
+thought sounded neat, so I looked it up on <a href="http://wikipedia.org/" title="A free and open encyclopedia.">Wikipedia</a>.</li>
+<li>Everything his group at <a href="http://nist.gov/" title="U.S. government body that handles technology standards."><acronym title="National Institute of Standards and Technology">NIST</acronym></a> does is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain" title="The body of knowledge which no legal entity can establish or maintain proprietary interest.">public domain</a>, so 
+people are more than welcome to try this stuff out.</li>
+<li>Someone asked about the state of <a href="http://www2.giganet.net/~yoshi/" title="OpenGL bindings for RUby.">Ruby OpenGL</a>, since it's listed 
+as a prerequisite for his demo application.  Apparently it's working
+just fine for everything he's tried, except for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation" title="Collection of plane figures that fill a plane with no overlaps and no gaps.">tesselation</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>Someone else (again, no name, although he made a passing reference to
+the <acronym title="District of Columbia">DC</acronym> <acronym title="eXtreme Programming">XP</acronym> users group) talked briefly about a <a href="http://rubyonrails.org/" title="An MVC-based web framework,  written in Ruby.">Rails</a>-based
+social networking tool:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Allows animal rescue people to coordinate on a national level.</li>
+<li>Someone suggested that he use <a href="http://maps.google.com/" title="You already know what this is.  If you don't, where have you been?">Google Maps</a>, and he said he
+is thinking about it, but the more important aspect of the application
+is route-planning and commentary (he doesn't want to stop at the wrong
+<a href="http://mcdonalds.com/" title="Fast food.  Don't eat here.  Seriously.">McDonalds</a> and meet up with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy" title="Not someone you want to meet at a truck stop.">Ted Bundy</a>).</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>Finally, one person to the right of me (hiding in the back, along with
+all the other <em>real</em> introverts.  Either that or he was late like me
+:D) mentioned an abstract <a href="http://rubyonrails.org/" title="An MVC-based web framework,  written in Ruby.">Rails</a> authentication plugin he was working
+on.  No name, and no project name (he didn't provide either), so that's
+the most information I can give you.</p>
+
+<p>After that, there was some miscellaneous conversation about future
+<a href="http://novarug.org/" title="Blog for the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group."><acronym title="Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group">NOVARUG</acronym></a>, specifically times and frequency.  It sounds like they're
+going to be monthly, on Thursday evenings (because otherwise it
+conflicts with my poker night!), and start at 7:00 (or 6:30 if you want
+the free pizza).  There was one comment about starting earlier, but the
+general consensus seems to be that 7:00 is just fine; any earlier and
+traffic becomes a serious problem.  Personally, I'm hoping we can find a
+venue that's closer to the Fairfax area, mainly because I'm selfish
+and lazy, but also because that would make <a href="http://novarug.org/" title="Blog for the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group."><acronym title="Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group">NOVARUG</acronym></a> more <acronym title="District of Columbia">DC</acronym> and
+Maryland accessible.  Also, the <a href="http://www.wmata.com/" title="Subway system for the greater Washinton D.C area.">Metro</a> doesn't run out to Reston,
+which means people <em>have</em> to drive or carpool.  </p>
+
+<p>(Of course, when I say "drive", I mean "sitting in stopped traffic on
+495 for 30 minutes, staring at the silhouette mudflaps on the semi in
+front of you and hoping the drivers on both sides don't notice you
+picking the gunk out of your eyes or hear you jamming out to
+<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_%28entertainer%29" title="Madonna, the queen of pop.">Madonna</a>").</p>
+
+<p>There was some talk about setting up a <a href="http://novarug.org/" title="Blog for the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group."><acronym title="Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group">NOVARUG</acronym></a> mailing list.
+Apparently there are already a couple <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/" title="Yahoo collaberative tool that provides mailing lists and more.">Yahoo groups</a>, but both 
+are essentially dead, and the owner of one is <acronym title="Missing In Action">MIA</acronym>.  <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> and
+<a href="http://tomcopeland.blogs.com/" title="Brains and the brawn behind RubyForge.">Tom</a> are going to set something up on the <code>novarug.org</code> domain, and
+provide the details on <a href="http://novarug.org/" title="Blog for the Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group.">the <acronym title="Northern Virginia Ruby Users Group">NOVARUG</acronym> blog</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> mentioned something about <a href="http://paulgraham.com/" title="Popular Lisp programmer and geek writer.">Paul Graham</a> speaking at the
+upcoming <a href="http://railsconf.com/" title="The upcoming conference for Ruby on Rails.">RailsConf</a> in Chicago.  Personally, I have no real interest
+in <a href="http://rubyonrails.org/" title="An MVC-based web framework,  written in Ruby.">Rails</a> &mdash; I think it's a great, I just don't use it personally
+&mdash; so I can't justify the cost of the conference.  I like 
+<a href="http://paulgraham.com/" title="Popular Lisp programmer and geek writer.">Paul Graham's</a> writing (although I'm only aware of 
+<a href="http://paulgraham.com/college.html" title="Paul Graham's one reference to Ruby.">one Ruby reference</a>), so I'd love to hear him speak.  Hopefully
+that'll go better than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Cox" title="Author of Objective C.">Brad Cox</a> at <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1380" title="My first (of several) posts about RubyConf 2004 in D.C..">RubyConf 2004</a> (which was
+actually really interesting, until he tried to talk about his new
+proprietary <acronym title="Digital Rights Management">DRM</acronym> system...to an all open source crowd).</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, a couple of 3-5 person groups coalesced and talked for
+about 30 minutes.  I eavesdropped in on the group around <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich Kilmer</a>
+and even offered a bit of commentary. <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich Kilmer</a> said <a href="http://fox-toolkit.org/" title="An open source, cross-platform, C++-based graphical widget toolkit.">Fox</a> is ugly on
+some platforms, and I said "no, <a href="http://fox-toolkit.org/" title="An open source, cross-platform, C++-based graphical widget toolkit.">Fox</a> is ugly on every platform" (it
+is.  I've seen stuff I've written on themed XP systems, and it basically
+looks like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tk_%28computing%29" title="An ugly open source, cross-platform widget toolkit.">Tk</a>-based app does on every platform: teeth-gnashingly
+ugly).   <a href="http://docs.rubygems.org/" title="Ruby packaging application.">RubyGems</a> and <a href="http://rubyforge.org/" title="Home for Ruby open source projects.">RubyForge</a> both came up a couple of times
+in conversation, so I'll mention them here: <a href="http://docs.rubygems.org/" title="Ruby packaging application.">RubyGems</a> and
+<a href="http://rubyforge.org/" title="Home for Ruby open source projects.">RubyForge</a>.  And don't forget 
+<a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1440" title="Never trust crypto from a guy in clown suit.">this amusing <acronym title="Internet Relay Chat">IRC</acronym> quote</a> about <a href="http://docs.rubygems.org/" title="Ruby packaging application.">RubyGems</a>.</p>
+
+<p>On the way out I got a chance to talk to <a href="http://tomcopeland.blogs.com/" title="Brains and the brawn behind RubyForge.">Tom Copeland</a>, who I haven't
+seen since he made me feel like a celebrity by recognizing me as "the
+Pablotron guy!" at <a href="http://bajafresh.com/">Baja Fresh</a>.  He liked the excessively
+verbose description of <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1475" title="My recent patch to add XHTML output support to Ruby CGI.">my <acronym title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</acronym> patch</a> on <code>ruby-core</code>,
+and also noticed how it's difficult to get patches through on
+<code>ruby-core</code>. I realize that's mainly a language/cultural barrier and
+not any sort of malice,, but it's still frustrating to be on the short
+side of the stick.  <a href="http://richkilmer.blogs.com/" title="Well-known Ruby hacker.">Rich</a> suggested I send <a href="http://rdoc.sourceforge.net/" title="Ruby documentation generation program.">RDoc</a> patches directly
+to <a href="http://blogs.pragprog.com/cgi-bin/pragdave.cgi" title="Author of Programming Ruby, one of the Pragmatic Programmers.">Dave Thomas</a> (those particular patches have already been silently
+accepted into 1.9, but not <a href="http://pablotron.org/?cid=1475" title="My recent patch to add XHTML output support to Ruby CGI.">the <acronym title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</acronym> ones</a>).</p>
+
+<p>That's it for my notes.  You know the drill: let me know if you see any
+gratuitous errors. I'll definitely be at the next schindig; maybe I'll
+even have something to present!</p>
+
+<p><b>Update:</b> The colorful language about <a href="http://fox-toolkit.org/" title="An open source, cross-platform, C++-based graphical widget toolkit.">Fox</a> isn't meant to downplay the usefulness of the library; I think the <acronym title="Application Programming Interface">API</acronym> is really straightforward, and that it looks and feels nicer than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tk_%28computing%29" title="An ugly open source, cross-platform widget toolkit.">Tk</a> and a slew of other non-native widget libraries.  That said, non-native widget toolkits don't mimic the look and feel of the native system, and that almost always looks terrible to me.  That goes for <a href='http://mozilla.org/'>Mozilla</a> under, well, pretty much everything, <a href='http://gimp.org/'>Gimp</a> and <a href='http://gaim.sf.net/'>Gaim</a> in Windows and, of course, <a href="http://fox-toolkit.org/" title="An open source, cross-platform, C++-based graphical widget toolkit.">Fox</a>.  <a href='http://mozilla.org/firefox/'>Firefox</a> seems to look okay to me for some reason, except under MacOS.  Go figure.  Anyway, my comment above was intended less as an to insult the <a href="http://fox-toolkit.org/" title="An open source, cross-platform, C++-based graphical widget toolkit.">Fox</a> developers, and more as a light-hearted jab from someone at 10,000 feet who hasn't taken the time and effort required to design, create, and maintain a cross-platform widget toolkit.  
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Even Later Update (2006-02-27):</b> The "anonymous guy talking
+about an authorization plugin" was <a href='http://billkatz.com/'>Bill
+Katz</a>, and his <a href='http://rubyonrails.com/'>Rails</a>
+authorization plugin is available <a
+href='http://www.billkatz.com/authorization'>here</a>.  
+</p>
+