[python-advocacy] Penguin Day DC

[Brad Allen]

Very interesting read Andrew; thanks.

The need for a comparison with PHP seems to come up often; I think 
there are a lot of PHP programmers who are frustrated and looking for 
something better (I was one of those about 3-4 years ago).

At 10:26 AM -0400 4/8/07, A.M. Kuchling wrote:
>Today I went to <a
>href="http://penguinday.aspirationtech.org/index.php/Penguin_Day_Agenda">Penguin
>Day DC</a> wearing my Python Software Foundation outreach hat.  About
>80 people attended Penguin Day, which was held on the Saturday after
>the 3-day <a href="http://nten.org/ntc">Non-Profit Technology
>Conference</a>, and was organized by the
><a href="http://www.nosi.net/">NonProfit Open Source Initiative</a>,
>which encourages the use of open source software in the nonprofit sector.
>
>To some degree the PSF is at the wrong level for this audience.  The
>Penguin Day attendees are interested in using open source technology
>for their non-profit organization, but most of them are not developers
>and are not interested in programming but in applications that may
>happen to be written in Python.  They're often interested in CMSes so
>Plone was mentioned a lot, for example.
>
>Non-profits seem to care most about two areas:
>* Content management: Joomla and Drupal were the CMSes
>   mentioned most often.
>* Member management: discussion forums, mailing lists, member databases.
>   (Most commonly used database: MS Access.)
>
>A note on member management: lots of people recognized Mailman's name;
>non-profits use a lot of mailing lists and spend a lot of time
>gardening and moderating them.  Later I'll record some suggestions for
>Mailman.
>
>Non-profits are concerned about:
>* cost
>* ability to maintain applications and to keep them running reliably.
>* finding people to work on their applications (both paid consultants/staff
>   and to a lesser degree volunteers).
>
>Reasons for not using open source include:
>* Commercial software makes it very easy to get a non-profit price.
>   There's suspicion of free software; if it's free, how trustworthy can it be?
>* Fear that the software, or the organization/community surrounding it,
>   will vanish.  Companies are thought to be more stable.
>* Lack of knowledge about the open source alternatives.
>* Documentation not good enough; missing intermediate documentation
>   (between beginner & expert level) was mentioned.
>* Case studies are very helpful, not so much as a blueprint
>   but to reassure managers that the software is a safe choice.
>
>Case studies should:
>* Mention resulting cost.
>* Mention ancillary requirements such as training.
>* Should cover the whole life cycle from making the decision through
>   implementation, deployment, and lessons learned.
>* Should mention errors or problems that were encountered and solved.
>
>One interesting thing: few attendees seem to listen to podcasts (too
>time-consuming).  Webinars (presentations + audio) were preferred
>because you learn more and can use just the audio or just the slides.
>
>There was a reference to some Mark Shuttleworth-related group
>(Canonical?  Shuttleworth Foundation?) that made seven half-hour
>programs about open source.  Anyone know anything about this?
>
>Spectrograms
>-------------------
>
>As an initial getting-familiar step, all the attendees introduced
>themselves.  There were people from DC, California, New York, Boston,
>North Carolina, Texas, Toronto, Belgium, Kenya -- a pretty wide range.
>
>Alan Gunn, the facilitator, then did an interesting exercise called
>"spectrograms".
>
>Here's how it worked.  Tape out a line the length of the room.  One
>end is "strongly agree", the other is "strongly disagree".  The
>facilitator then reads a question, and everyone moves to the place on
>the line that represents their answer.  Some of the questions were:
>
>     * Non-profits should use open source not just out of practicality,
>       but also for philosophical reasons.
>
>     * Open source is too difficult to use for non-profits.
>
>     * It's not OK to use open source without also participating in the
>       community.  (The two negatives in this question confused people,
>       I think.)
>
>Everyone stands for a bit while the facilitator leads a discussion.
>In the discussion it's easy to represent both sides, because you can
>ask people at either end to explain their position, and you can also
>ask people in the middle.  This might be useful at PSF meetings:
>imagine asking "The PSF is too centered on North America", for
>example.
>
>
>Speedgeeking
>----------------------
>
><a
>href="http://www.facilitation.aspirationtech.org/index.php/Facilitation:SpeedGeeking">Speedgeeking</a>
>is like lightning talks in parallel.  You round up N speakers, who
>will have 4 minutes for their talk; each speaker is placed at a
>station.  The audience is divided into N groups, and the groups rotate
>around the room so that they see all the talks; when the four minutes
>are up, they *must* move on.  Speakers therefore deliver their talk N
>times; today N equalled 9.
>
>4 minutes is *hard*. I thought my talk was really short, but on the
>first iteration it only left about 30 seconds for questions.  So I
>began leaving stuff out, and finally got to have about 90 seconds for
>questions.
>
>The outline I spoke from is an appendix below, with a few comments
>about stuff people seemed particularly interested in.
>
>Most common question (3 times): "How does Python compare with PHP?"
>My answer was: "Python's language design aims at remaining readable.
>And Python is used in lots of different applications: web apps, but
>also GUI prototypes, education, scientific programming, etc."  How
>could I have answered this question better?  Only one person mentioned
>Ruby or Rails, IIRC.
>
>
>Mailman suggestions
>---------------------------
>
>Non-profits spend a lot of effort on their mailing lists and
>discussion forums.  They worry if lists aren't lively, prod people to
>write FAQs, actively move around postings and threads, and work to
>encourage frequent helpful posters.  For example, on web-based forums,
>frequent posters may get stars next to their name.
>
>Comments on Mailman:
>
>* attendees thought it *worked* fine...
>* ... but *looked* old...
>* ... and the HTML wasn't easily customizable.
>* Doesn't keep many admin statistics (# of posts sent, # bounced, #
>   of domains accessed, which lists are quiet and which are busy)
>* can't delete archived posts easily, or move threads into another list.
>
>
>Random ideas & action items
>------------------------------
>
>The PSF should talk to NOSI about collaborating where appropriate.
>For example, NOSI talks about using Linux and OpenOffice for desktops;
>perhaps the PSF could write a white paper about PyUno.
>
>Suggestion for python.org: write a page about the history of the
>software.  In one session there was a lengthy explanation of the early
>history of Joomla, and someone commented that this was interesting
>material.  I don't think we have such a page currently.
>
>Write a comparison of Python and PHP.
>
>The venue
>--------------------
>
>The conference was held at the <a
>href="http://www.washingtonparks.net/parkscenter.html">Josephine
>Butler Parks Center</a>, a mansion owned by the Washington DC Parks
>system.  A few pictures of the interior are in my Flickr photostream;
>see http://www.flickr.com/photos/44165698@N00/450081959/, for example.
>
>I talked to Heather, who organized the logistics.  The mansion cost
>$1000 to rent 3 rooms in it for the day.  The venue has wireless that
>was installed on Friday, so there were still some problems with it
>today (or maybe all the techies overwhelmed it).  If the PSF ever
>wants a DC-area sprint, it would be a nice location; maybe a sponsor
>could be found to cover the cost.
>
>--amk
>
>
>Appendix: talk outline
>-------------------------
>
>Intro:
>I'm from the PSF, responsible for the open-source Python programming language.
>This will be a high-level intro to the language & its community.
>
>Python:
>Was designed to be 1) easy-to-learn, 2) readable, 3) powerful.
>Applied in many different fields.
>
>Web applications:
>Various CMSes exists; Plone is the best-known.
>Also: the Mailman listserv software.
>       the MoinMoin wiki.
>Various web frameworks exist for writing new custom web apps.
>
>[[Lots of people knew Mailman.  Many people at the meeting use
>   'listserv' as a term for list management software, so I used it too,
>   even though it's actually a trademark.]]
>
>Educational uses:
>Because it's easy to learn, Python is making inroads in education:
>* high school level (example being Yorktown High School in Arlington)
>* college level (some schools use Python in their 101 CS intros)
>* MIT experimenting with an introductory course using Java & Python
>
>[[Mentioning MIT impressed people considerably.]]
>
>Also used for rapid development, prototyping, & adding scripts to 
>apps/systems:
>* Both Maya (commercial) and Blender (free software) use Python scripting.
>* Corporate usage: all of ILM, Pixar, DreamWorks use Python in their
>   animation workflows.
>
>[[This section was originally longer, but I dropped material to gain time.
>   The corporate usage impressed people.]]
>
>Active community:
>* Package index contains ~2200 entries
>* Have been holding annual conferences since 1994
>* Many local user groups; for more info, I suggest attending a user
>   group meeting.
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