llvm dev - May 2018 - LLVM Developers/Users Meetup and Event Planning in Sydney (Update)

Hi llvm-dev,

I've been hosting and organising the LLVM Developers/Users meetup in
Sydney for the past few months now, and recently (May 2nd, 2018) we
met up to plan the next few meetups and start a discussion about a
larger event sometime around October 2018. Here's some high level
details (and some feedback that might be helpful for other Meetup
organisers):

- There's a lot of interest in learning about the LLVM infrastructure,
but very little local expertise that we know about. We'd like to fix
this by getting beginners and those interested to meet up more
regularly, to learn together to get more experience and exposure to
what can be done with LLVM.

- There's a good case for getting more "basic" or
"beginner-focused"
talks/demos about how to use a compiler in general. Note that's
"use"
in terms of "how do I use 'clang' instead of 'gcc' and why
should I",
more than "how do I use the LLVM APIs to implement my compiler". This
may be a Sydney-specific want, and could be a blind-spot for some of
the contributors that frequent the meetups and that have already been
working on compiler technology for a while.

- Once a month socials seem fine, but more frequent and
learning-focused meetups seemed to be in high demand, even in the
context of LLVM and compiler technology in general.

For what to expect going forward if you're in Sydney and/or are visiting:

* We'll be doing some workshop/study-group meetups on a fortnightly
(every two weeks) working our way up from "basic" topics (like how to
use clang, lld, etc.) up to "intermediate" topics like how read/write
LLVM passes.

* In the coming weeks/months we're looking to plan a one-day event
inviting speakers and attendees from academia and industry in
Australia/New Zealand (Oceania/Asia Pacific) sometime in October 2018.
We're looking specifically for presenters that can cover the spectrum
of topics from research efforts to industry experience with LLVM in
the region.

* Some of us are going to try getting a conversation going with some
of the local enterprises and universities working with/on LLVM and
fostering a more active community of developers and users in the
region.

If you're interested in contributing to any/all of these efforts,
please reach out to me directly and/or join us in the public meetup
group (https://www.meetup.com/LLVM-Developers-Users-Meetup/).

Thanks, and I look forward to providing more updates soon and along the way!

Cheers

-- 
Dean