Installing Clojure stuff on Friday, learning Clojure basics on Saturday, then she's good to go to become a Clojure developer? Except for a very few cases, of course, the answer is no. As many of you suspect, just one weekend is not enough to start coding Clojure; moreover, it's not enough to keep coding Clojure. This document contains ideas for ClojureBridge volunteers to help workshop attendees further after the workshop.
Since a ClojureBridge workshop is driven by a community in the area, we can assume there is also a local Clojure community in the area. Give ClojureBridge attendees local community info, upcoming events or other resources they can take advantage of. When you give the info, it's a good idea to hand them a piece of paper. Many of the attendees are not familiar with meetup.com, github.com, etc. If you just show or say urls of those, they may miss the info.
Clojure developers you have not met yet may attend your ClojureBridge workshop. If that is the case, this is a chance to invite them to local Clojure events, such as meetups, and expose them to Clojure technology and community. If some of the attendees who are new to Clojure come to a local Clojure event, it means they have made a great first step to getting more involved with Clojure.
It is a good idea to organize a follow-up workshop or event. This may be a short - one or two hours - event like a meetup you do regularly. During the follow-up event, walking through the ClojureBridge curriculum or other introductory materials would be good. Either lecture style or hack night style will help attendees to keep learning. If some folks have been coding a little on their own, starting a project may be an idea - for example, a quil app of their own. Since this sort of short event is easy to organize, you can do more than one or even a recurring event.
- Durham NC - Intro to Clojure at a local Clojure meetup
- San Francisco -
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/clojurebridge-alumni
Every attendees, instructors and TAs can join this mailing list. Although the mailing is not local, it is a good place to announce upcoming events or meetups.
ClojureBridge has materials other than main curriculum, listed below.
- The second drawing app, https://github.com/ClojureBridge/drawing/blob/master/curriculum/create-something.md
- Global Growth app, https://github.com/ClojureBridge/global-growth
- Community-docs, http://clojurebridge.github.io/community-docs/
In addition to above, ClojureBridge is planning to add fun-to-try-out, small apps for after workshop events or self-study.
Lastly, don't forget to mention about LispCast. The attendees can watch it for free.