February 2024 advisory board minutes

minutes/_posts/2024-02-07-february-7-2024.md

@@ -0,0 +1,167 @@
+---
+layout: contact
+---
+
+# Minutes of the 31st meeting of the Scala Center, Q4 2023
+
+Minutes are [archived](https://scala.epfl.ch/records.html) on the
+Scala Center website.
+
+## Summary
+
+The following agenda was distributed to attendees:
+[agenda](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/main/agendas/031-2023-q4.md).
+
+Center activities for the past quarter focused on Scala 3 features and
+compiler performance, Scala.js, the Scala Improvement Process, sbt 2,
+Scastie, Scala CLI, TASTy Query, Advent of Code, compiler sprees,
+Google Summer of Code, fundraising, and more.
+
+Details are below and in the Center's activity report:
+
+* [report](https://scala.epfl.ch/records/2023-Q4-activity-report.html)
+
+No new proposals were received this quarter.
+
+## Date, Time and Location
+
+The meeting took place virtually on Tuesday, February 7, 2024 at
+15:00 (UTC).
+
+Minutes were taken by Seth Tisue (secretary).
+
+## Attendees
+
+Officers:
+
+* Chris Kipp (chairperson)
+* Darja Jovanovic (executive director), EPFL
+* Sébastien Doeraene (interim technical director), EPFL
+* Martin Odersky (technical advisor), EPFL
+* Seth Tisue (secretary), Lightbend
+
+Board members:
+
+* Noel Markham, Xebia Functional
+* Paweł Marks, VirtusLab (subbing for Krzysztof Romanowski)
+* Claire McGinty, Spotify
+* Lukas Rytz, Lightbend
+* Daniela Sfregola, Morgan Stanley
+* Eugene Yokota, community representative
+
+## Technical report
+
+Seb, as interim technical director, summarized Scala Center activities
+since the last meeting.  His remarks mainly consisted of brief
+highlights taken from the Center's more detailed Q4 quarterly activity
+report:
+
+* [report](https://scala.epfl.ch/records/2023-Q4-activity-report.html)
+
+And the Center's Q4 roadmap:
+
+* [roadmap](https://scala.epfl.ch/records/2023-Q4-roadmap.html)
+
+The following notes do not repeat the contents of the report and
+roadmap, but only supplement them.
+
+Martin offered congratulations to Eugene and the Center on getting sbt
+2.x initially compiling on Scala 3. Eugene mentioned that a number of
+"hacks" in the sbt codebase were no longer necessary on Scala 3, and
+that the new macro implementations were "safer" thanks to Scala 3.
+
+The Center declined to issue a ruling on whether Scala CLI is
+pronounced "Scala C.L.I." or "Scala Clee" :-)
+
+Chris asked about broader Scalafix improvements, as previously
+discussed in 2021 when
+[SCP-027](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/main/proposals/027-refactoring.md)
+was submitted. Seb said that hasn't been revisited recently but
+they'll take a second look if there is sufficient engineering time
+available this year.
+
+Seth observed that Scalafix seems underused in the community, and
+although it's not clear why. It could be because it's not well
+integrated enough with tooling, and/or insufficient documentation and
+publicity? And do people know where to find rules?
+
+Branching off the Scalafix discussion, Eugene observed that we don't
+have good centralized documentation and recommendations on what
+compiler flags are available and which ones should be enabled (in
+general, and also in specific scenarios such as cross-building).
+
+Chris praised the successful recent work on "quickfixes" in Scala 2.
+"I'm amazed how easy it is to trigger a quickfix and it makes me so
+happy every time it works." This connects to the Scalafix discussion
+because quickfixes and Scalafix overlap in purpose, and the compiler
+has information about user code that Scalafix may not.
+
+## Scala 2 report
+
+This was presented by Seth.
+
+At the time of the meeting, 2.12.19 was at the release-candidate
+stage, 2.13.13 was almost there, and the following forum threads were
+open for discussing the contents and timing of the two impending
+releases:
+
+* [Scala 2.13.13](https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/scala-2-13-13-release-planning/6315)
+* [Scala 2.12.19](https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/scala-2-12-19-release-planning/6216)
+
+After the meeting, the following threads were opened to discuss the
+next releases:
+
+* [Scala 2.12.20](https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/scala-2-12-20-release-planning/6580)
+* [Scala 2.13.14](https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/scala-2-13-14-release-planning/6581)
+
+The technical highlight of 2.13.13 is the introduction of
+`-Xsource:3-cross` as an alternative to `-Xsource:3`; the former is
+for crossbuilding, the latter for migration.
+
+## Community report
+
+Eugene led some brief discussion about the health of various segments
+of the community (Spark users, Typelevel, ZIO, Akka, and so forth).
+
+He also noted that his experience with co-organizing Scala Matsuri is
+that times are currently tough for conference organizers, especially
+in seeking sponsorship, likely because the job market in IT generally
+is weak, and sponsorship money is often motivated by recruiting.
+
+Darja said that she's very encouraged by all the signs she's seeing
+that conference and meetup activity are reviving, post-pandemic.
+
+Eugene also updated us on the health of the sbt plugin ecosystem.
+Many plugins have changed owners, dormant plugins are being revived,
+and many are now publishing to Maven Central. The Play and Pekko
+projects are among the drivers of this work.
+
+Chris asked the Center if a second community representative has
+been found yet. Darja says that a strong candidate has emerged
+and will hopefully join next quarter.
+
+## Management and financial report
+
+This was presented by Darja. Her report centered on fundraising. The
+Center is in need of new money, as a number of board members bowed out
+in 2023. The Center is pursuing various potential funding
+prospects. It seems that times are tough all over for open source
+funding. As part of bringing new members on board, some adjustments to
+the charter may be proposed, for example, to flexibly accommodate
+different sizes of company. Details remain to be seen.
+
+For practical reasons, and to the Center's regret, there is little
+likelihood of Scala Days happening in 2024. The Center is highly
+optimistic that it can be revived in 2025; doing that is a high
+priority. (There was a long discussion about various ways this
+might hypothetically play out.)
+
+There was also some discussion of what online services the Center
+should be using for publicity. One theme that came up is that some
+venues are better suited for interaction with the community, others
+best used only to broadcast announcements.
+
+## Conclusion
+
+We talked about what upcoming conferences we might see each other at,
+otherwise, see you online!

records.md

@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ in the [Projects page]({% link projects.md %}).
 
 ### Board meeting minutes
 
+- [February 7, 2024 - Thirty-First SC Advisory Board Meeting](/minutes/2024/02/07/february-7-2024.html)
 - [October 17, 2023 - Thirtieth SC Advisory Board Meeting](/minutes/2023/10/17/october-17-2023.html)
 - [July 26, 2023 - Twenty-Ninth SC Advisory Board Meeting](/minutes/2023/07/26/july-26-2023.html)
 - [April 27, 2023 - Twenty-Eighth SC Advisory Board Meeting](/minutes/2023/04/27/april-27-2023.html)