One relationship at a time
Cultivating a local scene.
“Oh nice, it’s like a little pub night.”
One of my new bar night regulars spoke an unprompted testimonial last week.
I introduced one new person to another relatively new person, and then introduced them both to the bartender.
I chuckled realizing I met them both at the same place. Not on the same day, but at the same recurring volunteer opportunity.
Bar night began after my experiment in Leeds last summer, but it’s played out differently than I expected.
I thought it would only feel real if we successfully assimilated with an existing scene of regulars. I’ve met a small handful of people in this category, but that’s actually not how it’s played out.
What’s happened is we’re building a small web of relationships which are downstream of other local events. I don’t have to invite people I meet to coffee anymore, I just tell them when they can stop by the bar.
Among our recent arrivals, one heard about my bar gathering and came the following week, another followed up months later and then stopped by. Hopefully we can keep adding to the local fabric one stitch at a time.
I’ve spent a long time assuming that code spreads differently than local relationships because it lives on the internet. For example, I used to think the only way to share Memphis with people was through intimidating posts in large, and oddly aggressive, Reddit communities.
Perhaps there’s another way: turning a budding online relationship into one real user. If you’re looking for an unfinished Python interpreter, I hope you’ll reach out.
Elsewhere
I split Memphis into two crates to isolate a dependency and begin molding its public API. The API is still messy, but it’s exciting to have one at all.
And one of my students used the Memphis Playground to build a small function, the first time I’ve observed it being used as more than a glorified snippet sharer. It “worked,” but was a reminder that my error messages, especially for syntax/whitespace issues, are severely lacking. That’s an area I’ll have to spend some time on if I want my users to not dislike Memphis and by extension not hate me personally.
That’s all for this week.
I think you’ve essentially discovered the secret of building your own local community... it only takes one charged particle to create a nucleus. When YOU show up energized as hydrogen all by yourself, you attract orbiting electrons. But to maintain the fabric you may need to be on the lookout for other needed neutrons before adding too many other charged particles. The regular pub meetup is a great “neutron” setting to get from the basic existence of Hydrogen to the structural complexity, multi-layered depth, and stable connection of Helium. Now I’m wondering if your Leeds pub experience was Neon or even further down the periodic table 8-) Cheers!