This is double-good news. I was bummed about missing the next CocoaHeads meeting. But the drive up to the city would be a little much for me to handle on a weeknight. So I'm thrilled to hear about the change of venue, and intrigued about the mystery guest!

Its Steve Jobs. :-)

If it's not Steve, or Bertrand, I don't see who it is... Anyway COUNT ON ME ! :)

The Woz !

Did I mention I'm not telling you who it is?

It's Santa. He's done with all his stuff for the year, so he thought he might as well stop by and show off his new ElfTracker software.

I'm not a programmer myself but have become really interested in checking out a CocoaHeads meeting after reading about them on this and other blogs. From what I can tell, it sounds like anyone who's interested is welcome to attend - but I just wanted to check in and make sure that I wouldn't be crashing the party if I were to drop in on one in the upcoming months (I live in San Francisco, so Infinite Loop isn't too much of a trek).

I'd probably categorize myself as an advanced user and am aware of at least the big-picture/generalized concepts of the stuff beyond me - so I'd probably be able to at least follow the conversation unless it becomes a nitty-gritty coding workshop (and even then I'm sure I'd enjoy just listening in). CocoaHeads sounds like a very cool gathering of talented, inspired folks interested in sharing their knowledge/experience with each other - and even just as an observer, I couldn't imagine not wanting to take advantage of being so close to this.

I'll cross my fingers and hope that Bill Atkinson is the mystery guest... I can definitely handle discussion of Photography or HyperCard!

thanks/Dustin

make sure that I wouldn't be crashing the party if I were to drop in on one in the upcoming months
Drop in on several. Everyone is welcome.

so I'd probably be able to at least follow the conversation unless it becomes a nitty-gritty coding workshop
If you're interesting in learning, the best way to do so is to get dropped right in the middle of it. It's the same principle as learning a spoken language. You may not get every single bit, but you can get the rhythm of the thing and see if it piques your curiosity.

inspired folks interested in sharing their knowledge/experience with each other
I think the last two talks would have been useful even if you don't write Cocoa. The talk I gave on TextMate was generally enough that anybody writing HTML, JavaScript, Ruby, and so on could see the value in it. Dan Wood's presentation on Sandvox had technical parts by design, but he did an amazing job of keeping it very accessible. He also talked about some of the stories behind Sandvox.

Scott,

I live in France so unfortunately I'm not coming, but I'm wondering if CocoaHeads are video recorded?

Regards,
Kamel

>> Did I mention I'm not telling you who it is?

But could you offer hints? Like is this a valley personality, or might they be coming in from parts elsewhere?

And should I bring a camera or something autograph-worthy?

P.s. - yeah, I'm gonna' make an effort to show up this time. I do wish my NDA wasn't so strict though... I can't show anybody anything current, cuz' it's all built for leopard only...

But could you offer hints?
Hmmm. Okay. I'll see what I can do.

And should I bring a camera or something autograph-worthy?
I have no idea what Apple thinks about people bringing cameras in, so I can't say. As for whether you'd want a camera -- I think some people would.

Would really be nice if you could manage to record this somehow. Audio, Video, whatever they let you do. For us poor furriners, you know? :-)

I believe we'll be able to do a video podcast (vidcast? vodcast? vpodcast?) sorta thing.

man, cupertino is just far enough away for me to never get up the oomph to get out there- I work in Livermore and Thursday is the day I have to pick my kid up in Oakland, then try to make it out there by 7. Maybe if I could get a neighbor to pick him up, I'd stand a chance of getting out there with time to spare.