Because of the progressive.net workshops happening and the June event happing earlier in the month (and me not preparing early enough), I’m postponing the April edition to the second week of May.

Will announce the details as soon as I get all the dates secured.

We’ve now had quite a few very successful events with the alt.net London beers. One thing that strikes me every single time in this event is how much people are interested in discussing the why and the how of our profession, and not so much the actual tools or platform we use.

Our little community has been talking about DDD, SOLID, legacy code and many other side conversations that have, in the end, had very little to do with .net, and everything to do with being a professional developer.

We’re about practices and continuous (and documented) improvement, and the attendants have made that event mostly technology agnostic. It’s something I always wanted to see happen and never had the need to push for. The name change reflects the reality of the nature of our group, rather than my personal will. Those just happen to be in sync at the moment.

So the event is now the AltNet London Beers, the event of the Alternative Network of software professionals. Let’s expand our horizon beyond what we’re comfortable with, and see if it sticks. If not I’ll put the dot back in.

On to the schedule:

• The April edition is postponed to the second week of May (watch this space)
• The May edition is postponed
• The June edition will happen on the 16th June (keeping on the Tuesday schedule, but doing it a bit earlier, as Kyle Bailey is coming to London)
• The July edition will be at the end of July, details to be announced later on.

And the good news is that we’re trying an enhanced format for the next edition. All will be revealed at the next event. See you there!

One of the most surprising thing for me has always been an impression by many LGBT geeks that they were alone, especially around the younger crowd out there. And indeed, the tech world is always very reserved about revealing what is a very personal thing.

A group of us have been thinking for a while that it’d be nice to organize a social event to meet fellow gay geeks, have a pizza and some booze to go with it. Thanks to Ben’s effort, we’re now all set for our first event.

It will all be happening on the 24th of April.

To get the details, go to http://www.gaygeekdinner.com

To register, simply send an email to attend@gaygeekdinner.com. Registration is anonymous for those that feel more comfortable keeping things that way.

Rules are fairly simple (and stolen from the GirlGeekDinner): it’s open to any LGBT, and straights are allowed as long as they’re invited by an LGBT (only one per person people :) )

Hope to see many of you there!