Code is Art: no genAI programming meetups

Programming computers is awesome but the generative AI bubble has sucked most of the air out of the room and now a major part of the tech industry tries very hard to convince everyone else that code does not matter and we should all learn to manage and review artificial interns while ignoring all the problems they bring, from environmental to societal to political. At the same time the software we have to use daily keeps getting worse, slower, less reliable, sometimes because of the increasing reliance on LLMs (remember when Duolingo had high-quality content? remember when GitHub was dependable?), sometimes on purpose (remember how good Google was just a decade ago?) while we lose an important creative outlet.

We did not get into this to end up arguing with a language model.

I am looking for people who would be interested in meetings to learn and share skills, knowledge, and news on building stuff with computers. Any language, any platform, as long as you have something interesting to share and don't use genAI.

The plan:

• meet once a month in a place with a projector and a space to socialize,
• 2-4 talks per meet,
• up to 15 minutes each: an overview rather than a deep dive,
• presentations must have something to do with coding,
• can be given in French or English, either works,
• stay after presentations to follow up with people,
• no generative AI: code, images, text, music -- type things yourself, draw stick figures, take photos, and copy+paste memes like it's 2010,
• open to all: we will not tolerate elitism, sexism, or bullying; be excellent to each other.

Suggested topics:

• I started using language X after years of Y, here is what I learned!
• I coded this game/animation/music, or found this great tool to do so!
• I switched to this operating system.
• There is this interesting architectural pattern that lets you design more robust systems.
• I read about this algorithm, here is why it's cool!
• I made this!

Please reach out if you have any ideas on the organization, places, or talks!

Who am I:

I'm Marcin and I have been a software engineer since the 20th century. I have had enough of pushing back against the damage being done by generative AI and being forced to concede so much of software and shared spaces to it.

I moved to Lyon after falling in love with the city 3 years ago.

Why is this all in English?

I keep getting better but I promise that you don't want to hear me give a talk in French (yet). Let's try a dual-language event: French, English, use whichever works for you, we will understand each other.

Code is art: by humans for humans.