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By Paola Kathuria & Frank Wales

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The sunny lush campus of Brunel University, near London, was the venue of the 2002 PPIG workshop.

Despite precautions at the door, some delegates still succumbed to the incredible Shrinking Grins.

The workshop started with a talk by Maria Kutar, and the afternoon coffee break was full of discussion and catching up.

Kit Logan's talk was followed by papers given by delegates from Finland and Hawaii.

Evening dinner and discussions took place at a local Italian restaurant. Delegates were caught on camera, including some rarely seen, whilst others were just caught.

Day two of the workshop was eagerly awaited and PPIG regulars took the opportunity to catch up on some reading of papers.

The first invited talk was given by Françoise Détienne. Simon Lynch, from Botswana, was followed by second-time PPIGer, Enda Dunican from Ireland.

Mark Harman gave the second invited talk, in which questions were asked and answered. It was followed by talks from two PPIG regulars: Linda McIver from Australia and Jorma Sajaniemi from Finland.

Jan Erik Moström, from Sweden, returned to PPIG after a gap of a few years to juggle little ones.

That evening, dinner was followed by PPIG's traditional music-playing and dancing. We welcomed a regular from the PPIG discuss mailing list to the workshop.

Dancing was followed by much talking, listening and more music.

The third day began with a talk by Chris Douce, the PPIG newsletter editor, and David Hales. It was followed by an illustrated presentation by Lindsay Marshall, involving naked chefs. Alternative perspectives were proposed by the audience. Delegates took the opportunity to ponder and discuss the morning's talks during the break.

Sally Fincher and Chris Roast presented papers before lunch and the last invited talk was by Thomas Green, PPIG veteran.

Afternoon break was followed by talks by Alan Blackwell and Christian Holmboe, from Norway, who became one with technology.

The workshop dinner took place that evening and was the venue of the workshop prize-giving. Prizes were won for competitions announced (and unannounced) at the beginning of the workshop:

Christian Holmboe
Video Games: Space Invaders Award
Most confused - presentation looked so much like a video game that he claimed not to understand his own talk

Martha Crosby
Television: Tom Selleck Hairy Chest Award
For completely false implication that snorkelling is on the syllabus at Hawaii

Sally Fincher
Poetry: Sylvia Plath Surrealist Award
For digressions into poetry, the desert, fenceposts and the periodic table.

Lindsay Marshall
Culinary Arts: Naked Chef Award
For full frontal assault on all prize categories

Andrew Walenstein
Dance: Shirley Temple Award
For spawning a child process to take care of the folk dancing

Enda Dunican
Advertising: Victor Kiam Memorial Award
"He liked it so much that he came back (to present a paper) - and even liked cold showers"

Simon Lynch
Horticulture: Edward Scissorhands Over-Pruning Award
For finally removing CAR and CDR from Lisp, but accidentally removing recursion at the same time

Friday, 21st June 2002, was the day of the England vs. Brazil match. Delegates waited patiently for the workshop to resume with an animated talk by Alan Blackwell, followed by a talk from Andrew Walenstein, visiting PPIG from Canada.

The workshop ended with a meeting to discuss PPIG business. Under discussion was the PPIG web site, which would be taken over by Lindsay Marshall, and the next workshop, due to be co-located with EASE (Empirical Assessment in Software Engineering) at Keele in 2003. See you then!

Words and photos by Paola Kathuria and Frank Wales

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