PyCon
Grok Headline matches for PyCon
PyCon DC 2004
PyCon DC 2004
04/21/2004 05:03 AMShowing off new software, planning for the future and running sprints
in DC.
PyCon observations
PyCon observations
03/28/2005 01:04 PMI'm back from my two week stint in the US, and currently suffering
from vicious jet-lag (my body wants me to go to sleep at 5am and wake
up just past noon). Herewith some observations on PyCon, SxSW and the
differences between the two.
PyCon 2005 was a
great conference, and a very different one from SxSW Interactive the week
before. While SxSW was one big social party with panels thrown in to
fill the gaps, the sessions in PyCon were the main event and the
social stuff (with the exception of the sprints, which I didn't really
experience) was much less prominent. For the first day of the
conference I actually found it quite hard to spark up conversations
with strangers, something I'd been doing for pretty much the whole of
SxSW. Things got better on the second and third days, but the lack of
any organised social events and more reserved atmosphere meant I
didn't have nearly as many random social experiences as at SxSW.
The PyCon sessions really were excellent: three great keynotes (the
IronPython keynote was my favourite), an excellent web track and a
whole smorgasbord of interesting topics spread over the three days. I
have only one big complaint: all sessions apart from the keynotes were
half an hour in length. For most sessions this worked fine, but some
of the more experienced presenters were obviously shackled by the half
hour requirement. Bruce Eckel's presentation was the most noticable in
this regard - I love the stuff he covered, but it's obvious he could
have gone on for a lot longer without losing the attention of the
crowd (he obviously thought the same).
My suggestion for next year would be to keep most of the sessions
at half an hour, but schedule a small number of 45 minute sessions for
presenters who are obvious candidates for longer talks. I talked to
Steve Holden (this year's organiser) briefly about this and he
mentioned that 45 minute sessions lead to scheduling difficulties,
particularly with respect to coordinating the different tracks. I
personally think that the benefits of longer sessions for certain key
topics would outweigh the scheduling disadvantages.
A few other PyCon observations:
- There were over 400 attendees, at least a hundred more than last
year. This slightly exceeded the capacity of the conference center,
and they'll be mobing to a larger (as yet undecided) venue for
2006.
- I only attended one of the two lightning talk sessions, but it
was great fun and a refreshing change from the regular panels. The
highlight for me was the guy who strapped a computer to the back of
his motorcycle and drove 7,000 miles across America... with Python to
coordinate all of the pieces. You can read more on his site, or
in this article on Py.
- The two (sometimes three) tracks were well arranged, with few
clashes between things that I wanted to see. This was in contrast to
SxSW's 5 tracks which had serious clashes pretty much all the
time.
- Everyone was hiring! The conference package we got was stacked
with job brochures from the conference sponsors, and the whiteboard by
the registration desk had new jobs added to it every day. Sure-fire
evidence that Python is finally starting to gain significance in the
job market.
- The lunches, included in the conference price, were excellent.
The price itself was great value too - early bird for students was
$125, and $175 for regular attendees. Even late registration was only
(from memory) $275.
- The largest venue at the center, used for the keynotes, had no
WiFi! Coverage throughout the rest of the conference was good
however.
- I finally got to join Ted Leung and friends in a SubEthaEdit
session during the Python at Google keynote. It was an electrifying
experience watching each slide transcribed in to the notes within
seconds of it appearing on screen, with multiple lines developing at
the same time. The results of our labour can be seen
here. Someone really needs to put together a screencast of this
kind of thing so the rest of the world knows what they're
missing.
- Despite my observations about the less social nature of the
conference above, I met some very interesting people and had a really
great time.
It seems to me that Python and SxSW could learn some tricks from
each other. Lightning talks and Birds-of-a-feather sessions would be a
great addition to the SxSW lineup, while PyCon really does need some
more thought put in to the social side of the conference. I hope to
attend both again next year.
Ted Leung: Chandler Sprint and BOF at
PyCon
Ted Leung: Chandler Sprint and BOF at
PyCon
03/14/2005 05:05 PM Ted Leung has posted an announcement about OSAF's upcoming activities
at PyCon. OSAF will be running a Chandler sprint at PyCon in about
three weeks. The focus of the sprint is going to be writing parcels
for Chandler. Chandler's end user functionality is built using
parcels, so the parcels...
PyCon 2004: Making Python Faster and
Better
PyCon 2004: Making Python Faster and
Better
04/09/2004 04:09 PMHighlights from the annual gathering of Python developers. Including
news of Python 2.4, Python on the .NET CLR, web programming and more.
PYCON 2003: 1st annual Python
developers' conference
PYCON 2003: 1st annual Python
developers' conference
02/13/2003 10:36 PMOver the past decade, Python has grown world-wide into a programming
language that is used in mission-critical applications by major
players such as Google ...
Grok Description matches for PyCon
GrokA matches for PyCon
McData 0.3.1
McData 0.3.1
05/22/2004 03:37 PMA tiny blog that uses PHP and MySQL.
McData 0.1 released
McData 0.1 released
07/09/2002 11:21 AM McData is a simple blog-style message posting system which uses PHP
and MySQL. To install it, one runs the setup.php and then includes the
mcdata.php file wherever McData is meant to appear.
McData offers SAN consolidation
McData offers SAN consolidation
09/27/2004 08:49 AMMcData plans to introduce a new SAN router this week designed to
connect the growing number of isolated SAN networks in corporations.
UK Lottery to Use McData Online Product
UK Lottery to Use McData Online Product
06/23/2004 08:33 PMBiz.yahoo.com - Mon Jun 21, 11:21 am GMT
McData blames weak IT spending for Q2
loss
McData blames weak IT spending for Q2
loss
08/20/2004 12:49 AMThe Register Aug 20 2004 4:52AM GMT
McData and Brocade puff patent peace
pipe
McData and Brocade puff patent peace
pipe
03/08/2004 11:03 PMLawsuit? What lawsuit?
McDATA, NetApp Combine IP, Fibre Channel
Storage
McDATA, NetApp Combine IP, Fibre Channel
Storage
07/02/2004 02:33 PMInternet News Jul 2 2004 5:42PM GMT
PyCon
