Meetup - ecology in Julia

[mkborregaard]

@tpoisot @richardreeve @kescobo I'm currently planning the "VizCon" in Berlin, the second installment of a meeting to advance plotting (and networking) in Julia. Last time it was really successful.

I was thinking, maybe we could all really benefit from doing a 1-week meetup/hackathon to talk and code and get ecology in Julia to a place where it's well-integrated and generally useful? I wouldn't mind coming to Montreal for a week at some point after the summer, which should also be really convenient for Kevin (and Richard loves travelling :smile: ).

What do you say?

[tpoisot]

It would be great - at least locally, I know that @gabrieldansereau & @FrancisBanville are using Julia a lot for spatial ecology things, so we can also involve some grad students. We can also include a one hour seminar for one of you guys.

[mkborregaard]

Yeah great, would those students be willing to contribute to building up the ecosystem? That would be pretty awesome

[tpoisot]

I think so - @gabrieldansereau is using SimpleSDMLayers and moving into questions of endemism, using eBird data, so this is close to the goals of SpatialEcology. @francisbanville is working on network prediction in space, which also fits. I think that if we come up with a specific idea leading up to a deliverable (release + draft of the software note), this could be a very productive week.

[FrancisBanville]

I would be very happy to contribute to the ecosystem!

I started my PhD 5 months ago with @tpoisot and I think this project is a great opportunity for me to share and improve my developing expertise in Julia and spatial network ecology.

[gabrieldansereau]

I would be happy to contribute too!

As Timothee said, I am already using some of the packages for spatial ecology. A well-integrated ecosytem could be very useful, and I'd love to help develop it.

[mkborregaard]

Awesome! I'm in. Now we just need @kescobo and @richardreeve too and find a date :-)

[mkborregaard]

September and October are best for me - end August might work in a cinch

[kescobo]

Oh yeah - Montreal would be awesome. Need to check in with family about dates, but I think I could make it happen. I think Sept/Oct would be easier for me as well.

[mkborregaard]

Maybe also interesting for @rafaqz and @gabrielgellner

[rafaqz]

Thanks that sounds great, this has been something I've been meaning to get involved in for a while, seeing I'm working on a lot ecology/spatial packages.

I should be in Portugal for Juliacon, but not sure I could make another trip to Europe this year (I'm in Melbourne)

[kescobo]

I suppose from the perspective of an Aussie, Montreal could be considered Europe :-P

[rafaqz]

Oh I just read the first line about Berlin above, Motreal is worse lol

[richardreeve]

Sorry about missing this earlier - I'm certainly interested, and @claireh93 might be too. I'm not a mad keen traveller (thanks @mkborregaard!), so Berlin sounds a lot more tempting than Montreal, but I'm persuadable! October starts to get difficult for me, but September should be fine...

[richardreeve]

Could people potentially move on to somewhere else after JuliaCon if they were coming to that?

[claireh93]

Yes this sounds good, I'm interested too! I would probably be able to make it for some/most of this, especially if it's somewhere in Europe.

[mkborregaard]

Great! I'm not coming to JuliaCon. I've got a little bit of a hidden agenda on Montreal, because I'd like to spend a week collaborating with another good colleague who's at McGill and thought I could back-to-back them. I'm doing my best to not fly more than absolutely necessary

[richardreeve]

Ah, okay. We'll have to look into sources of funding for drifting across the Atlantic. The current work we're doing is climate change related, and we had to promise not to spend any of the money on bad things like flying! We're even carbon offsetting our simulations... once we work out how to :)

[richardreeve]

PS I should say, the reason I mentioned JuliaCon was not because we'd have the meeting there, but because a lot of people might be on the same continent, so if people were free the week before or after, we might be able to meet in Europe somewhere... obviously that doesn't help with the McGill plan though.

[tpoisot]

@mkborregaard there's also @eric-pedersen at Concordia, who from what I understand has some interest in using Julia for ecology as well. So we may have a critical mass of people locally to have a very produtive week.

[kescobo]

Well, I can't do Europe, which is one of the reasons Montreal appeals to me (if I can drive, my wife and son can come too and that makes it feasible).

[mkborregaard]

JuliaCon is smack in the middle of my family holiday. To a Dane it's an absolutely terrible idea to put a work-related conference in the middle of July...

[mkborregaard]

@tpoisot great!

[richardreeve]

Okay, we'll look into other funding sources... airbnb is suddenly looking v attractive!

[eric-pedersen]

I would definitely be interested in a meetup in Montreal; I'm only a Julia novice currently (my expertise is in R), but I'm investing time in getting up to speed, since tools like DifferentialEquations.jl and now SpatialEcology.jl are really at the cutting edge for modelling tools. One of my long-term goals for the lab is to develop a simulation suite for metapopulation and metacommunity dynamics, and Julia seems like the ideal platform for that.

I'd only be able to make Montreal though. . . I'm also trying to reduce long-distance travel, and I teach in the fall, which makes travel for that long very difficult.

[richardreeve]

Okay, I can find money to come over, but the sooner we set dates (and the better they are aligned with cheap days to fly!) the better as far as I and @claireh93 the better...

[rafaqz]

Montreal is probably out for me. I might see some of you at JuliaCon - I should be talking about DynamicGrids.jl and Dispersal.jl there, which are also looking like cutting edge ecological modelling tools now, and may be of interest to some of you.

[mkborregaard]

What days would be good for you guys then?

[kescobo]

Generally for me/my family would be Sunday-Wednesday, and absolutely ideal would be 10/11-10/14. Only exception to that in Sept/Oct is 9/28.

[kescobo]

I also have a colleague here at Wellesley (Jakie Matthes) that's julia-curious, and I might be able to get her to come along. In any case, it would be awesome to come back with some concrete suggestions for her to get started.

[mkborregaard]

Great - I can do almost any time during those two months at the moment, except for... 10th-18th October, sorry.

[tpoisot]

I can't do week-ends, but mostly I will be able to find the time during any week of the fall term (plus or minus one half day of teaching)

[richardreeve]

I can’t realistically make after late September unfortunately - I manage our graduate students and most arrive end of September / beginning of October - and there wouldn’t be enough free days to cross the Atlantic and back. Early sept would be best for me...

[mkborregaard]

sounds like the first or second week of sept could work for everyone?

[eric-pedersen]

The first week of September would work best for me, as classes start here in the second week. I could probably do the 2nd week as well, though.

On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 at 09:19, Michael Krabbe Borregaard < notifications@github.com> wrote:

sounds like the first or second week of sept could work for everyone?

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[kescobo]

First week of September is best for me too - should we lock it in? Sept 6-8?

[tpoisot]

yes let's

[mkborregaard]

Sunday to Tuesday - why those days? If I go to Montreal I'd like to spend two weeks - I only fly once a year. I could spend a week with another colleague at Concordia (let me double-check he has time), but it would be nice to have a little more time for this project too (like 4 days?). How much time could people spare?

[kescobo]

Sunday to Tuesday - why those days?

That's just what works for my schedule (my wife sees clients and any time she takes off is lost income). We'd probably come up Saturday evening and leave Wednesday morning, but I'm totally happy if all y'all go longer in either direction.

[mkborregaard]

Ah, OK, great, I thought it might have been a mistake because of the match with the weekend, I'd forgotten about that comment. Sounds good if we can fill in a couple of days around it too as it best fits the others (either direction is fine with me too)

[tpoisot]

We can have a longer overall time where not everyone attends all the days as well

[richardreeve]

Yes, I definitely wouldn't come for just 3 days, but I could work around 6-8. It'll depend on what's cheapest I imagine... probably mid-week to mid-week?

[mkborregaard]

Prices don't vary across the week from CPH - I can fly direct for like 300£ return

[richardreeve]

Hmm. I don't live in a transport hub, so there are no direct flights and the prices vary a lot!

[mkborregaard]

Well then you suggest the dates :-)

[richardreeve]

At the moment Wed-Wed looks good? I'm on strike for most of the next several weeks in a massive dispute on pay and working conditions, so it'll be a while before I get this all booked though and everything could change (hey, I could even be better paid!). Anyway, I'm not too fussed.

[kescobo]

So Sept 2nd- Sept 9th?

[mkborregaard]

For me and my colleague in Montreal Sun-Sat would work a lot better, i.e. 6-12. That would also put Kevin at the beginning to participate in design decisions. Richard, is there a significant expense difference for you with that?

[mkborregaard]

@richardreeve if you're not striking - what's your reaction to that suggestion? Or could be Fri-Fri (4-11) as a compromise?

[richardreeve]

Anything is fine tbh. I’ll work around it. I’m on strike for the next 2 weeks and then away the following week, so if you want to sort something out, just go for it!

[kescobo]

It looks like my wife might actually be able to take that Saturday (the 4th) off, since it's a holiday weekend in the US, in which case we might be able to come up Friday. But I'm also happy to have a day in Montreal to sight-see... I think if Sunday-Sat works best for @mkborregaard Let's just do that.

Julia ecology meet up Sept 6th-Sept 12th... going once...