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. |
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Despite precautions at the door, |
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some delegates still succumbed to the incredible Shrinking Grins. |
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The workshop started with a talk by Maria Kutar, |
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and the afternoon coffee break was full of discussion |
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and catching up. |
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Kit Logan’s talk was followed by papers given by delegates |
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from Finland |
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and Hawaii. |
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Evening dinner and discussions took place at a local Italian restaurant. |
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Delegates were caught on camera, |
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including some rarely seen, |
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whilst others were just caught. |
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Day two of the workshop was eagerly awaited |
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and PPIG regulars took the opportunity to catch up |
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on some reading of papers. |
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The first invited talk was given by Françoise Détienne. |
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Simon Lynch, from Botswana, |
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was followed by second-time PPIGer Enda Dunican, from Ireland. |
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Mark Harman gave the second invited talk, in which questions were asked |
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and answered. |
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It was followed by talks from two PPIG regulars: Linda McIver from Australia |
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and Jorma Sajaniemi from Finland. |
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Jan Erik Moström, from Sweden, returned to PPIG after a gap of a few years |
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to juggle little ones. |
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That evening, dinner was followed by PPIG’s traditional music-playing |
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and |
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dancing. |
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We welcomed a regular from the PPIG discuss mailing list to the workshop. |
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Dancing was followed by much talking, listening |
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and more |
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music. |
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The third day began with a talk by Chris Douce, the PPIG newsletter editor, and David Hales. |
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It was followed by an illustrated presentation by Lindsay Marshall, involving naked |
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chefs. |
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Alternative perspectives were proposed by the audience. |
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Delegates took the opportunity to ponder and discuss |
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the morning’s talks during the break. |
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Sally Fincher and Chris Roast presented papers before lunch. |
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The the last invited talk was by Thomas Green, |
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PPIG veteran. |
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Afternoon break |
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was followed by a talk by Alan Blackwell |
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and Christian Holmboe, from Norway, |
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who became one |
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with technology. |
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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
For: “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
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Friday, 21st June 2002, was the day of the England vs. Brazil match. |
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Delegates waited patiently for the workshop to resume |
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with an animated talk by Alan Blackwell, |
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followed by a talk from Andrew Walenstein, |
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visiting PPIG from Canada. |
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The workshop ended with a meeting to discuss PPIG business. |
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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