---
tags: living
---
# Scicloj Workplan
## Our Planning Values
**Dreams** and aspirations is where our future begins. We _must_ dream, otherwise we cannot change. It is through dream that we see and explore what lies ahead.
**Planning** is the act of bringing our dream of the future into the present. It is a tool for ensuring that our dreams will come true.
**Community** building is about people. Without people, there is no community. A community needs to be a good place to stay.
We envision a planning tool that can live in tandem with people. We do not seek alienation but warmth and inclusivity.
## Why a workplan?
The SciCloj community has grown organically out of an association of people interested in making doing data science in Clojure fun an easy. At this moment, however, we need to experiment a lot to determine what it means to do data science in Clojure? What does a dataset in Clojure look like?
We would like to develop a process where we make this experimentation fun, accessible, simple and efficient. To that end, this workplan describes key goals and projects that we currently believe are essential to this process.
## Scope: A Living Document & Thin Planning Layer
This workplan is a living document. The point is not to dictate what people do, but track and perhaps help bring focus and coherence to work that people are already doing. So we'll need to update it regularly. Therefore, one of the projects this documents decribes is itself: [Workplan Coordination](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?view#Workplan-coordination)
## Objectives
_These objectives describe the near- and long-term goals of our community. The projects below may serve to advance one or more of them._
**Engineering:**
- `Cohesive Grammar for Clj Data Science`: Use exercises and pedagogical workflow exeriments to define cohesive syntactical grammar/sugar that can bind Clojure libraries together.
- `Data Science Environment`: Create a coherent and simple Clojure data science environment in which it is fun and easy to work. This could take the form of a "framework" that leverages standard Clojure data science libraries, or, it could be a looser set of sane defaults for workflows with those libraries.
- `Dataset Definition`: Make progress on the question: what is a dataset in Clojure? Is it like a Pandas dataframe (a table)? Is is something with a more nested structure? What project(s) and grammar allow interaction with this dataset?
- `Experimentation`: Experiment with using libraries, workflows, testing datascience grammars, connecting tools, etc.
**Community:**
- `Diversity`: Building a diverse and inclusive community.
- `Communicate Values`: Communicate our values and goals to general interested public(s).
- `Simple First Contribution`: Make it easy to get involved and contribute.
- `Strong Community Bonds`: Build strong bonds between people in the scicloj community.
## Projects
_Projects are concrete efforts that people in this community are working on. They may be short-running or on-going, and one project may serve to advance multiple tasks._
### Ongoing
* [Workplan coordination](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?view#Workplan-coordination)
[`Communicate Values`, `Strong People Bonds`]
* [Inclusivity and Diversity Outreach](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?both#Inclusivity-Diversity-and-Community-Outreach)
[`Diversity`, `Strong People Bonds`, `Communicate Values`, `Simple First Contribution`]
* [Clojure Data Science Environment](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?view#Clojure-Data-Science-Environment)
[`Cohesive Grammar for Clj Data Science`, `Dataset Definition`, `Simple First Contribution`, `Strong People Bonds`]
* [Tutorials](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?view#Tutorials)
[`Cohesive Grammar for Clj Data Science`, `Simple First Contribution`, `Experimentation`]
* [Web Meetings](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?both#Web-Meetings)
[`Experimentation`, `Strong People Bonds`, `Diversity`]
* [SciCloj Website](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?view#SciCloj-website)
[`Communicate Values`, `Cohesive Grammar for Clj Data Science`]
### Time-Limited
* [ClojureD Meetup](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?view#International-Clojure-Data-Science-Meetup--ClojureD-2020)
[`Strong People Bonds`, `Experimentation`]
### Proposed
* [ClojureBridge 2020 event](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?view#ClojureBridge-event-in-2020)
[`Diversity`, `Strong People Bonds`]
* [RailsGirls Summer of Code 2020](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?view#RailsGirls-Summer-of-Code-2020)
[`Diversity`]
* Probprog study group
[`Diversity`]
* [Organizational knowledge management](https://hackmd.io/jJPlzA2eSPWOGH2eOgnyZw?view#Organizational-knowledge-management)
[`Strong People Bonds`, `Experimentation`, `Diversity`]