Title: View from the Chair

Author: Bob Schmidt

Date: 01 September 2018 18:11:03 +01:00 or Sat, 01 September 2018 18:11:03 +01:00

Summary: Bob Schmidt, chair@accu.org

Body: 

YouTube

ACCU has a fair amount of content on YouTube, consisting of the recordings of ACCU conference sessions from this year [1], and going back to 2016. It is a tremendous resource for those who can’t make it to the conference, and for those who can’t be in five places at once during the conference. This year the videos were produced by Jim Roper. Please join me in thanking Jim for the fine work he has done on these videos.

While on the subject of the videos, it seems that some viewers are using the comments sections of the videos to ask questions. You should be aware that ACCU does not monitor the comments of any of the videos – it is up to the speakers to do so if they wish. In the future we may disable comments in order to not mislead viewers into believing they will always get an answer.

GDPR

ACCU’s Privacy Policy [2], our response to the EU’s GDPR, has continued to be refined over the past two months. The current version has been approved by the committee, and has been moved from draft to final status. While we don’t foresee any major changes to the policy, we may refine the document as we all gain experience with the GDPR and its mandates.

Once again, our thanks go out to Nigel Lester and everyone who assisted him in the drafting of our Privacy Policy.

ePub

We are slowly getting caught up on the production of ePub versions of ACCU’s magazines, thanks to the efforts of Daniel James. I didn’t prioritize generating the ePub versions when I started acting as web editor, since they had been labelled ‘experimental’. Through our conversations and correspondence, Daniel has educated me that ePubs are a favoured format for some of our membership, and I’m pleased he has picked up this portion of the web editing function.

We are slowing introducing changes to the way magazine content is presented through the website. Currently the ‘by cover’ index takes a user directly to the PDF version, or to the ePub version if there are two copies of the magazine cover. In the future the ‘by cover’ magazine indexes that will take the user to a page that will present all three versions of a magazine’s content – PDF, ePub, and HTML. Hopefully this will make it easier for you to find your preferred presentation type.

IncludeCPP

IncludeCPP is a “global, inclusive, and diverse community for developers interested in C++” [3]. Their goal is to help make the C++ community more inclusive. To that end, their website includes resources for employers and conference organizers. Their mission aligns nicely with ACCU’s core values, as expressed in our Diversity Statement [4].

If you look at the picture at the top of IncludeCPP’s Twitter page [5], you will recognize among the group several people who are members of ACCU and/or frequent contributors to our magazines and conferences. Please consider adding your voice to your colleagues’ in supporting diversity in the industry.

Finances

ACCU’s 2017 financial statement was finalized in May, and shows that our financial situation remains strong. Details can be found in the 2018 AGM Pack [6] (they are labelled ‘draft’, but the numbers didn’t change in the final version). Here are the major numbers for 2017, in British Pounds:

Revenue	40,902.00
Cost of Sales	(30,839.00)
Expenses	(1,191.00)
Interest	2.00
Surplus	8,874.00

As in the past several years, the cost of producing CVu and Overload is our major expense, and ACCU’s share of the income from the 2017 conference represents a large percentage of our operating surplus.

Call for volunteers

We still need volunteers. Are you up for the challenge? E-mail me at chair@accu.org.

• Web Editor
• Book Reviews
• Social Media
• Publicity
• Study Groups

References

[1] ACCU 2018 – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJhay24LTpO1s4bIZxuIqKw

[2] ACCU Privacy Policy – https://accu.org/index.php/privacy_policy

[3] IncludeCPP – http://www.includecpp.org/

[4] ACCU Diversity Statement – https://accu.org/index.php/aboutus/diversity_statement

[5] #include_cpp – https://twitter.com/include_cpp

[6] AGM Pack (members only) – https://accu.org/content/agm/AGM-2018-Pack.pdf

Members' News

Fran Buontempo’s book, Genetic Algorithms and Machine Learning for Programmers, aims to help the reader discover machine-learning algorithms using a handful of self-contained recipes to code your way out of a paper bag. It is available in beta here: https://pragprog.com/book/fbmach/genetic-algorithms-and-machine-learning-for-programmers. You can download three small samples through the link or buy a beta eBook. The final paper book should be available before Christmas.

Notes: 

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