From cfoster at oda.state.or.us Mon Mar 3 22:57:52 2008 From: cfoster at oda.state.or.us (Chris Foster) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 13:57:52 -0800 Subject: [python-advocacy] writer(s) for infoq.com? Message-ID: On Mar 3, 2008, at 11:56 AM, Floyd Marinescu wrote: > Thanks for the note, we are discussing this internally. One of the > problems is finding people to write about it (Python). Perhaps if > you'd be willing to > be a weekly writer, that could make things easier? :) > > Floyd > > -----Original Message----- > Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 2:23 PM > To: editors at infoq.com > Subject: Jython > > So Sun hires two guys to work on Jython and the Jruby guys are > thrilled. When are you going to start giving Python first class > coverage? From wescpy at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 21:38:07 2008 From: wescpy at gmail.com (wesley chun) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 12:38:07 -0800 Subject: [python-advocacy] [PyCON-Organizers] Fox News In-Reply-To: <3096c19d0803060942v37d348ccr7588c38b0fc3a60a@mail.gmail.com> References: <3096c19d0803060942v37d348ccr7588c38b0fc3a60a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <78b3a9580803061238r4ab79438icf1c653bf6f248f1@mail.gmail.com> > why Pycon would come to Chicago, how Python > affects the everyday person. > : > what Python is all about, with an emphasis on what these > sorts of conventions mean for the local job market. this might be a good opportunity for the advocacy folks to chime in. we know that Google is a heavy user of Python, and they have a chicago presence, and then globally, we know that Python is used at Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo!, Canonical/Ubuntu, Red Hat, VMware, NASA, Disney, LucasFilm, Eve-online.com, Zope, Disney, the OLPC project, etc., all use it. heck, we created Yahoo!Mail with Python over a decade ago when practically no one had heard of it yet! Python has changed the game significantly, at least for me. i had programmed in a bunch of languages (C/C++, Java, Tcl, Perl, *sh, BASIC, Pascal, ForTran, assembly, etc.) before Python, and not one of them made me excited enough to want to write a book on it. :-) cheers, -- wesley - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Core Python Programming", Prentice Hall, (c)2007,2001 http://corepython.com wesley.j.chun :: wescpy-at-gmail.com python training and technical consulting cyberweb.consulting : silicon valley, ca http://cyberwebconsulting.com From daniel at pageonepr.com Fri Mar 7 00:46:31 2008 From: daniel at pageonepr.com (Daniel Schneider) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 15:46:31 -0800 Subject: [python-advocacy] [PyCON-Organizers] Fox News In-Reply-To: <78b3a9580803061238r4ab79438icf1c653bf6f248f1@mail.gmail.com> References: <3096c19d0803060942v37d348ccr7588c38b0fc3a60a@mail.gmail.com> <78b3a9580803061238r4ab79438icf1c653bf6f248f1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I'm doing the PR for PyCon and set up the Fox opportunity. Upon speaking with Fox, it's apparent to me that they are interested more in how this helps Chicago than anything else. They are looking at the larger picture-- how it relates to technology, or a technological trend in Chicago. Or at least that's the angle I'm pushing because that's the one that seems to attract their attention. The big names are nice and help but we need to explain the importance of PyCon as it relates to technology in general and technology in Chicago. What value does it add to the city? Why even have it in Chicago? Just some things to consider. It would be great if a TV crew came out, and I'm working on that. Daniel Schneider Page One PR office: 415.321.2346 mobile: 818.903.0225 daniel at pageonepr.com www.pageonepr.com On Mar 6, 2008, at 12:38 PM, wesley chun wrote: >> why Pycon would come to Chicago, how Python >> affects the everyday person. >> : >> what Python is all about, with an emphasis on what these >> sorts of conventions mean for the local job market. > > this might be a good opportunity for the advocacy folks to chime in. > we know that Google is a heavy user of Python, and they have a chicago > presence, and then globally, we know that Python is used at Facebook, > YouTube, Yahoo!, Canonical/Ubuntu, Red Hat, VMware, NASA, Disney, > LucasFilm, Eve-online.com, Zope, Disney, the OLPC project, etc., all > use it. heck, we created Yahoo!Mail with Python over a decade ago when > practically no one had heard of it yet! > > Python has changed the game significantly, at least for me. i had > programmed in a bunch of languages (C/C++, Java, Tcl, Perl, *sh, > BASIC, Pascal, ForTran, assembly, etc.) before Python, and not one of > them made me excited enough to want to write a book on it. :-) > > cheers, > -- wesley > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > "Core Python Programming", Prentice Hall, (c)2007,2001 > http://corepython.com > > wesley.j.chun :: wescpy-at-gmail.com > python training and technical consulting > cyberweb.consulting : silicon valley, ca > http://cyberwebconsulting.com > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20080306/5f38ec27/attachment.htm From sdeibel at python.org Fri Mar 7 01:12:20 2008 From: sdeibel at python.org (Stephan Deibel (PSF)) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:12:20 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] [PyCON-Organizers] Fox News In-Reply-To: References: <3096c19d0803060942v37d348ccr7588c38b0fc3a60a@mail.gmail.com> <78b3a9580803061238r4ab79438icf1c653bf6f248f1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47D08864.9040101@python.org> Daniel Schneider wrote: > I'm doing the PR for PyCon and set up the Fox opportunity. Upon > speaking with Fox, it's apparent to me that they are interested more in > how this helps Chicago than anything else. They are looking at the > larger picture-- how it relates to technology, or a technological trend > in Chicago. Or at least that's the angle I'm pushing because that's the > one that seems to attract their attention. The big names are nice and > help but we need to explain the importance of PyCon as it relates to > technology in general and technology in Chicago. What value does it add > to the city? Why even have it in Chicago? Just some things to > consider. It would be great if a TV crew came out, and I'm working on that. Lots of places are trying to become centers for one kind of technology or another, because of the obvious economic benefits. Often, the strategy is to get as few big players to buy into the area. Other times, the goal is to get lots of small companies to cluster, and hope that one or a few grow into big economic engines. I suspect the latter is a much better strategy overall. It's cheaper than luring big companies where towns often pay out large sums in various ways, and avoids putting all the economic eggs in one basket. Python is a good example of a small concern that is turning big, or at least so it seems from the growth of the conference, among other things. Hmm, I suspect this is already way too complicated for a Fox sound bite. ;-) Another possible point to make is that PyCon came to Chicago because of the active local users, so it's an example of how one part of the technology economy is spawning another. Tho I don't know much about what companies/etc are involved. In any case, figuring just the hotel + food costs, the local economic benefit is certainly non-trivial. In this light, perhaps the fact that it's a volunteer-run convention could be of interest. It's an example of grass-roots economic growth. BTW, I seem to have never gone to Chicago except for one convention or another. In the city, they have Mc Cormick Place, which is quite huge (largest convention center in the US). So I've already got this idea that Chicago is a "convention city". Not sure if any of this is useful... just thought I'd comment. - Stephan From aahz at pythoncraft.com Fri Mar 7 02:13:03 2008 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 17:13:03 -0800 Subject: [python-advocacy] [PyCON-Organizers] Fox News In-Reply-To: <78b3a9580803061238r4ab79438icf1c653bf6f248f1@mail.gmail.com> References: <3096c19d0803060942v37d348ccr7588c38b0fc3a60a@mail.gmail.com> <78b3a9580803061238r4ab79438icf1c653bf6f248f1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080307011303.GB29816@panix.com> On Thu, Mar 06, 2008, wesley chun wrote: > > Python has changed the game significantly, at least for me. i had > programmed in a bunch of languages (C/C++, Java, Tcl, Perl, *sh, > BASIC, Pascal, ForTran, assembly, etc.) before Python, and not one of > them made me excited enough to want to write a book on it. :-) Ditto! Double-ditto, actually, since that's pretty close to my list of languages. signed, co-author, _Python for Dummies_ -- Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection." --Butler Lampson From amk at amk.ca Fri Mar 7 14:31:09 2008 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 08:31:09 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] [PyCON-Organizers] Fox News In-Reply-To: References: <3096c19d0803060942v37d348ccr7588c38b0fc3a60a@mail.gmail.com> <78b3a9580803061238r4ab79438icf1c653bf6f248f1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080307133109.GA26840@amk-desktop.matrixgroup.net> On Thu, Mar 06, 2008 at 03:46:31PM -0800, Daniel Schneider wrote: > I'm doing the PR for PyCon and set up the Fox opportunity. Upon > speaking with Fox, it's apparent to me that they are interested more > in how this helps Chicago than anything else. They are looking at > the larger picture-- how it relates to technology, or a technological > trend in Chicago. Or at least that's the angle I'm pushing because You probably already know this, but one of the keynote speakers, Brian Fitzpatrick, heads Google's Chicago offices; he'd surely be a good choice to talk about Chicago hiring. --amk From daniel at pageonepr.com Fri Mar 7 16:06:21 2008 From: daniel at pageonepr.com (Daniel Schneider) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 07:06:21 -0800 Subject: [python-advocacy] [PyCON-Organizers] Fox News In-Reply-To: <20080307133109.GA26840@amk-desktop.matrixgroup.net> References: <3096c19d0803060942v37d348ccr7588c38b0fc3a60a@mail.gmail.com> <78b3a9580803061238r4ab79438icf1c653bf6f248f1@mail.gmail.com> <20080307133109.GA26840@amk-desktop.matrixgroup.net> Message-ID: <990A5ADA-0AFC-42DA-915B-8F816A907732@pageonepr.com> Brian Fitzpatrick is the ideal candidate to talk to the press. I contacted him last week about this but he never got back to me. I'll try again. If you have an in, that would help. Probably best to have him and ChiPy talk to reporters. Chris McAvoy and Ted Pollari are already on board. Daniel Schneider Page One PR office: 415.321.2346 mobile: 818.903.0225 daniel at pageonepr.com www.pageonepr.com On Mar 7, 2008, at 5:31 AM, A.M. Kuchling wrote: > On Thu, Mar 06, 2008 at 03:46:31PM -0800, Daniel Schneider wrote: >> I'm doing the PR for PyCon and set up the Fox opportunity. Upon >> speaking with Fox, it's apparent to me that they are interested more >> in how this helps Chicago than anything else. They are looking at >> the larger picture-- how it relates to technology, or a technological >> trend in Chicago. Or at least that's the angle I'm pushing because > > You probably already know this, but one of the keynote speakers, Brian > Fitzpatrick, heads Google's Chicago offices; he'd surely be a good > choice to talk about Chicago hiring. > > --amk > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20080307/2340fb13/attachment.htm From fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk Mon Mar 10 14:00:15 2008 From: fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk (Michael Foord) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:00:15 +0000 Subject: [python-advocacy] [Fwd: Python article] Message-ID: <47D530DF.3010603@voidspace.org.uk> I've not been able to track this down - but it sounds good! -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Python article Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 18:53:00 -0000 From: Tony Foord Reply-To: Organization: 4-sight Consulting To: 'Michael Foord' Michael, you have probably already seen yesterday's Computer Weekly that has an article (page 46) entitled "Python is worth getting to grips with" and says it is "now the seventh most popular programming language." No idea whether what the article says is accurate and it did not mention IronPython. Dad From amk at amk.ca Tue Mar 11 14:03:21 2008 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:03:21 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] O'Reilly on computer book publishing Message-ID: <20080311130321.GA5714@amk-desktop.matrixgroup.net> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/03/state-of-the-computer-book-mar-23.html discusses the number of books sold for programming languages: D Mid-Minor Programming Languages -- 10,000 - 64,999 units in 2007 So the news in this category is that Python has swapped places with Perl as the leader of the category. Perl had seven fewer titles make it into the Top 3000 while Python saw an additional 8 make the list. Powershell came out of nowhere and surpassed all the other groupings to make this list. Before dancing too much, note that Ruby is in the next category up, mid-major languages (along with VB, SQL, ActionScript, and VBA). --amk From aahz at pythoncraft.com Wed Mar 12 02:52:33 2008 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:52:33 -0700 Subject: [python-advocacy] FWD: [Python-Dev] [OT] Python mentioned on OOPSLA 2008 postcard Message-ID: <20080312015233.GC3379@panix.com> ----- Forwarded message from Brett Cannon ----- > Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:34:57 -0700 > From: Brett Cannon > To: python-dev at python.org > Subject: [Python-Dev] [OT] Python mentioned on OOPSLA 2008 postcard > > I just got my postcard announcing OOPSLA 2008. Interesting thing is > that the postcard, which lists various things that will be at OOPSLA, > includes Python. It's actually listed in the first line and the thing > is not alphabetized. And even cooler, it is the first language listed > (ruby, Objective-C, C#, and Java are also listed). > > Anyway, thought other might get a kick out of this like I did. > > -Brett > _______________________________________________ > Python-Dev mailing list > Python-Dev at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev > Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/aahz%40pythoncraft.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection." --Butler Lampson From catherine.devlin at gmail.com Wed Mar 12 22:15:54 2008 From: catherine.devlin at gmail.com (Catherine Devlin) Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:15:54 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] Speakers' Bureau Message-ID: <6523e39a0803121415h23346fedx8cdc5a01eae7e3e2@mail.gmail.com> Pythonistas, As you may have heard, more than 1000 people have registered for PyCon. This is insanely cool, possibly with the emphasis on "insane". The PSF has long been wishing to see more regional Python conferences start up, and the growth in PyCon really shows that the time has come. Several steps are in the works to facilitate that; one of them, you can help with this very moment. There's a new list on the Python wiki of potential spakers - a "Speakers' Bureau". As this list fills up, it will help conference organizers find Python speakers to fill out their rosters. It can even help encourage people to organize regional conferences in the first place, by assuring them that the speakers they need are out there. So, if you are willing to consider speaking at a Python event, please sign yourself up at http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonSpeakers Signing up doesn't obligate you to anything; it simply helps event organizers make contact with you. You can note your geographical restrictions and any other requirements on the roster. I plan to repeat this pitch in a Saturday night Lightning Talk at PyCon. I'd love it if some of you sign up before then, so I won't feel silly showing a list containing only me. If you want to contribute to the lightning talk, flag me down at PyCon. I'm the one with the hair. Thanks, and hope to see many of you in Chicago! -- - Catherine http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/ *** PyCon 2008 * Chicago * March 13-20 * us.pycon.org *** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20080312/b39085e1/attachment.htm From facundobatista at gmail.com Wed Mar 19 20:11:47 2008 From: facundobatista at gmail.com (Facundo Batista) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:11:47 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] Communicating Python 3000 Message-ID: Hi everybody! For a big conference in Argentina, in September or October, I'm planning to make a talk about Python 3000. The idea is not to get into the nitty gritty details of Py3k, but communicate the general idea, the future, if you should start to look at it or not, etc. I think it's important to let people now what is this all about, so they don't get wrong messages. Furthermore, I think we should plan well what and how to communicate this. The point of this mail is to ask you if somebody already made some slides or documents about this. Thank you! Regards, -- . Facundo Blog: http://www.taniquetil.com.ar/plog/ PyAr: http://www.python.org/ar/ From rex.eastbourne at gmail.com Sat Mar 22 03:48:14 2008 From: rex.eastbourne at gmail.com (Rex Eastbourne) Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:48:14 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python Message-ID: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> Hello all, I am new to this list. I am a longtime Python user and like it quite a bit; I am interested in getting involved in advocacy. I've been thinking recently about the best way to increase the adoption rate of Python. I suppose one valuable thing to do would be to do research on the reasons -- real or imagined -- that people are *not* adopting it. For instance, I saw the following blog post yesterday: http://coffeeghost.net/2008/03/19/your-ignorance-does-not-make-a-programming-language-suck/ Has anyone done an analysis of the main practical issues holding Python back? Off the top of my head, here are two commonly cited obstacles: -Lack of a popular, mature add-on repository (I know there is PyPI, but it doesn't seem to be as mature as CPAN) -Documentation (I have no big problem with it, but many people feel the online Python documentation is not up to par with what other languages have, like perldoc) Specifically, it is "logistical" issues like the above that interest me more than the technical issues (execution speed, language syntax) that seem to be getting most of the attention. For one, these logistical issues can be more straightforward to implement. Does anyone have stuff to add to this list? Rex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20080321/c224c734/attachment.htm From jeffh at dundeemt.com Sat Mar 22 04:39:15 2008 From: jeffh at dundeemt.com (Jeff Hinrichs - DM&T) Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:39:15 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5aaed53f0803212039t2b8477abjebae6798afe16f97@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 9:48 PM, Rex Eastbourne wrote: > Hello all, > > I am new to this list. I am a longtime Python user and like it quite a bit; > I am interested in getting involved in advocacy. > > I've been thinking recently about the best way to increase the adoption rate > of Python. I suppose one valuable thing to do would be to do research on the > reasons -- real or imagined -- that people are *not* adopting it. For > instance, I saw the following blog post yesterday: > > http://coffeeghost.net/2008/03/19/your-ignorance-does-not-make-a-programming-language-suck/ I started reading the comments, and then remembered why I stopped reading slashdot comments > Has anyone done an analysis of the main practical issues holding Python > back? Off the top of my head, here are two commonly cited obstacles: > > -Lack of a popular, mature add-on repository (I know there is PyPI, but it > doesn't seem to be as mature as CPAN) I'm not sure of your exact point here, but bigger doesn't necessarily mean better -- especially with regards to the zen of python. > -Documentation (I have no big problem with it, but many people feel the > online Python documentation is not up to par with what other languages have, > like perldoc) http://perldoc.perl.org/ vs. http://docs.python.org/dev/ (the new 2.6 docs ala Sphinx) I will give you that perl.doc.org looks nicer than the old python (pre 2.6) docs and of course, docs could |always| be better. I will say that I like the community driven aspect of the php docs. It would be cools to get community editable comments in the python docs like php does. > Specifically, it is "logistical" issues like the above that interest me more > than the technical issues (execution speed, language syntax) that seem to be > getting most of the attention. For one, these logistical issues can be more > straightforward to implement. > > Does anyone have stuff to add to this list? > > Rex > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy > > -- From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Mar 22 05:49:26 2008 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:49:26 -0700 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080322044926.GA11808@panix.com> On Fri, Mar 21, 2008, Rex Eastbourne wrote: > > I am new to this list. I am a longtime Python user and like it quite a > bit; I am interested in getting involved in advocacy. Welcome! > I've been thinking recently about the best way to increase the > adoption rate of Python. Okay, time for me to play the curmudgeon: why? I mean, obviously I think some kind of advocacy is a Good Idea, or I wouldn't be here (nor would I have written a Python book), but I believe that thinking of advocacy in simple terms of increasing Python usage is the wrong approach. I believe that overall the right approach should focus on increasing the Python community. I think Python's merits are sufficient by themselves to increase Python's usage -- just look at Python's growth over the past few years. The long-term health of Python is dependent on drawing people into participating in the community and contributing to it. -- Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code." --Bill Harlan From jeff at taupro.com Sat Mar 22 08:36:10 2008 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:36:10 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: <20080322044926.GA11808@panix.com> References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> <20080322044926.GA11808@panix.com> Message-ID: <47E4B6EA.6060703@taupro.com> Aahz wrote: > >> I've been thinking recently about the best way to increase the >> adoption rate of Python. > > Okay, time for me to play the curmudgeon: why? My turn... ;-) > I mean, obviously I think some kind of advocacy is a Good Idea, or I > wouldn't be here (nor would I have written a Python book), but I believe > that thinking of advocacy in simple terms of increasing Python usage is > the wrong approach. > > I believe that overall the right approach should focus on increasing the > Python community. This is not clear - "increase the Python community "? For some, the community is the set of all programmers using Python, whether in IT departments, classrooms or in isolation. I get the feeling you mean something else, but fail to see why "increasing the adoption rate" does not map to "increasing the size of the community", at some conversion ratio. > I think Python's merits are sufficient by themselves > to increase Python's usage -- just look at Python's growth over the past > few years. The long-term health of Python is dependent on drawing people > into participating in the community and contributing to it. True, that participation is critical to maintaining the feel of community, but the tasks of improving the documentation and online repository can draw upon that community and perhaps challenge some to get involved in those aspects. People needs tasks, need to feel useful, to belong. I guess the question is how do you get others involved in -anything-, and one way is by expressing clearly the needs of the community, giving support and encouragement to those who step forward, and word praise for good results. Although Python is doing well, there are still unmet needs and a somewhat reduced rate of volunteerism, compared to say WorldCon or the SCA. -Jeff From lac at openend.se Sat Mar 22 09:40:49 2008 From: lac at openend.se (Laura Creighton) Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 09:40:49 +0100 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: Message from "Rex Eastbourne" of "Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:48:14 -0400." <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803220840.m2M8enWt032721@theraft.openend.se> Remember that most people don't change languages because they don't want to change languages -- they are happy, or happy enough, with what they are using. It's not the case that they 'would love to change except for XXX', but rather 'I don't want to change. And I am happy that there is reason XXX I can toss at the people who are hassling me about this, to make them go away.' This observation is broadly true about all change, not just changing which language you use for software development. Thus, if you want to get people to change, the way to do it is not by targetting the things they are listing as the reasons why they are not changing. You may want to go after some of these, just because they are good things to do, but you will quickly find that some of them cannot be changed. There is nothing that will make PyPI 'more mature' but time. Instead, what you need to do is to give people a reason to want to use Python. If the reason is good enough, they will suddenly not care about XXX any more. Over in the PyPy corner, we are trying to make a Python that runs at the speed of C. Should we succeed, I think that we will make scads of new converts who are now singing the 'Whitespace is significant? Bleah!!' song. It's suddenly not going to seem important to them any more. What I think Python's best strengths are its readability, and the closely related fact of its rapid development speed. But these are harder strengths to promote, first of all because the vast majority of the world is completely oblivious of the fact that the language you choose to develop in is a determining factor in how quickly you can develop code. You tell them that you developed this much faster than you could have had you used Java, and they out-and-out don't believe you. It would be nice to get some metrics on the lines of code to do certain tasks. When the Python Design Patterns book, which I hear is in the works, comes out I am hoping that you can use it in parallel with the Go4 C++ book, in the same way that you can use the Smalltalk companion. It would be nice to say 'Go4 C++ Abstract Factory Pattern -- 2,450 lines of code (or whatever it is), Python - 400 lines of code. Python, do more with less!' -- make up buttons for each of the Design Patterns and then wear them. But I am not sure what else we can to do to educate the public at large, not of Python's strengths, but that these strengths are real, and that the matter. To a certain extent we are up against, not simple ignorance, but willful, vested ignorance. One wonders how much effort one should make in making an outreach to such people. The last thing to remember, when reading blogs and the like, is that there is a certain sort of person, extremely common in the programming world, whose chief delight in life is despising others. They don't see themselves that way, but then I don't think that the racists and anti-semites of the world recognised that they (some of them, anyway) hate Blacks and Jews for the fun of hating them, and the fun of hanging out with 'the superior' people, who delightfully enough _know_ that they are superior. Instead, they think that their good feelings about the 'superiority of their race/religion/programming language' are all completely above the board, based on reason and science, logically so, believed by all reasonable people, like the ones I am surrounding myself with .... In short they have talked themselves into that happy fog where self-criticism doesn't penetrate, and they can have their sins and even feel proud of them. Many people who post 'I dislike Python because of XXX' rants are of this sort. I wouldn't waste a lot of time with them. Indeed, I am more worried about the Pythonistas in our midst who have these same bad attitudes, and who are so quick to claim their superiority because they use Python. My belief is that we are fortunate these days to have fewer of these people in our midst than other programming language groups -- but perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part. After all, my friends are all such caring, reasonable, and all round good folks and would never .... ooops. ;-) you take care, Laura From jeff at taupro.com Sat Mar 22 09:34:53 2008 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:34:53 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47E4C4AD.9030408@taupro.com> Rex Eastbourne wrote: > > I am new to this list. I am a longtime Python user and like it quite a > bit; I am interested in getting involved in advocacy. Welcome Rex! > I've been thinking recently about the best way to increase the adoption > rate of Python. I suppose one valuable thing to do would be to do > research on the reasons -- real or imagined -- that people are *not* > adopting it. For instance, I saw the following blog post yesterday: > > http://coffeeghost.net/2008/03/19/your-ignorance-does-not-make-a-programming-language-suck/ > > Has anyone done an analysis of the main practical issues holding Python > back? Not that I know of, in a rigorous way. As an advocate of Python, I have in my head one high-level map of its strengths and weaknesses. > Off the top of my head, here are two commonly cited obstacles: > > -Lack of a popular, mature add-on repository (I know there is PyPI, but > it doesn't seem to be as mature as CPAN) At PyCon that wrapped up this week, this issue has been elevated and I and others with experience in repositories outside the Python community are just starting to lay the groundwork for major improvements. I agree that the ease of identifying cool software, of grabbing it, along with the necessary dependencies and installing with minimal hassle is an important factor for language adoption. If you want to get involved, join the distutils-sig mailing list: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig > -Documentation (I have no big problem with it, but many people feel the > online Python documentation is not up to par with what other languages > have, like perldoc) Documentation could use work in a variety of areas. We're moving from 2.5 LaTeX based docs to 2.6 ReST based docs, with a much nicer website. Compare: http://docs.python.org/ to the newer: http://docs.python.org/dev/ However, there are still modules that are undocumented or underdocumented. There are many pages that need actual examples that people can clip and use. You can see here, the raw content, http://svn.python.org/view/python/trunk/Doc/ suitable for grabbing, patching and submitting for review, here: http://bugs.python.org if you don't have commit privileges directly. We need high-level guides to help in choosing the correct module for the job at hand. Having ten tools that do something slightly different is great for the expert who knows why, but the novices need explanations of how to choose. We need guides on testing methodologies, web and GUI framework selection, monetary currency issues (decimal + locale + Python cookbook), concurrent programming tradeoffs (threads, processes, event-based, GIL discussion), database tradeoffs (RDBMS, ZODB/Durus, pickle/shelf). Some aspects of it are at: http://www.python.org/about/apps/ It'd be cool if the docs were is such a form that, when installed onto a local machine, the act of installing packages caused additional chapters to appear in the manuals. This is an interplay between Python packaging and Python documentation projects. There is no agreement in the markup to use within docstrings, although there are several competing styles, with most people not using any, hindering the automatic generation of common docs beyond basic introspection metadata. > Specifically, it is "logistical" issues like the above that interest me > more than the technical issues (execution speed, language syntax) that > seem to be getting most of the attention. For one, these logistical > issues can be more straightforward to implement. More straightforward... ;-) the logistical ones have more politics and are less objective, making it harder to move forward. But often there is not resistance so much as a lack of volunteer energy and "coming together". Python's popularity means so many of us are very busy. > Does anyone have stuff to add to this list? A confusing array of multimedia options, both in the standard library and outside, with varying qualities of cross-platform integration and unclear tradeoffs in realtime performance, flexibility and licensing. A need for a well-written guide on how to debug and profile your Python programs - one of the most common requests from newbies on various lists and screencast sites. Bug of the Week, Find the Ten Bugs in This Program. A lack of a security sandbox, similar to Java. It prevents the use of Python as a first-class scripting language in browsers, makes difficult the use of Crunchy teaching software and drags some on thru-the-web webframeworks. There is a prototype capability-based solution that is cool, but it needs community involvement. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-September/068673.html No searchable, maintained place, w/reviews, where to buy, in/out print, for someone to locate a book about Python appropriate to their skill level and area of use. Bonus if it can be sub-queried such that various Python teams like Django and Zope can embed it on their websites and provide bracketed book location service for just their interests. No geocoded, searchable registry of Python usergroups, speakers or consultants. See anything you'd like to get involved in? ;-) -Jeff From david at boddie.org.uk Sat Mar 22 14:47:12 2008 From: david at boddie.org.uk (David Boddie) Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:47:12 +0100 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200803221447.12781.david@boddie.org.uk> On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:36:10 -0500, Jeff Rush wrote: > Aahz wrote: > > I believe that overall the right approach should focus on increasing the > > Python community. > > This is not clear - "increase the Python community "? I understand "the Python community" as meaning the collection of people who * actively participate in public forums, * develop Python implementations or maintain the infrastructure for them, * improve the resources available for learning Python, * write packages and modules to increase the applicability of the language, and so on. Basically, those who participate in the public ecosystem around the language. Increasing Python usage by simply getting more people to use it doesn't sound so great if all the new people are just "consumers" who are only using Python for the benefits it gives them. Obviously, it's nice if people see those benefits, even if they never give anything back to "the community", but are those people worth chasing? David From aahz at pythoncraft.com Sat Mar 22 16:58:45 2008 From: aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 08:58:45 -0700 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: <47E4B6EA.6060703@taupro.com> References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> <20080322044926.GA11808@panix.com> <47E4B6EA.6060703@taupro.com> Message-ID: <20080322155845.GA3398@panix.com> On Sat, Mar 22, 2008, Jeff Rush wrote: > Aahz wrote: >> >>I mean, obviously I think some kind of advocacy is a Good Idea, or I >>wouldn't be here (nor would I have written a Python book), but I believe >>that thinking of advocacy in simple terms of increasing Python usage is >>the wrong approach. >> >>I believe that overall the right approach should focus on increasing the >>Python community. > > This is not clear - "increase the Python community "? [...] >>I think Python's merits are sufficient by themselves >>to increase Python's usage -- just look at Python's growth over the past >>few years. The long-term health of Python is dependent on drawing people >>into participating in the community and contributing to it. > > True, that participation is critical to maintaining the feel of > community, but the tasks of improving the documentation and online > repository can draw upon that community and perhaps challenge some > to get involved in those aspects. People needs tasks, need to feel > useful, to belong. > > I guess the question is how do you get others involved in -anything-, > and one way is by expressing clearly the needs of the community, > giving support and encouragement to those who step forward, and > word praise for good results. Although Python is doing well, there > are still unmet needs and a somewhat reduced rate of volunteerism, > compared to say WorldCon or the SCA. You're answering your own question, right here. ;-) -- Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/ "It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code." --Bill Harlan From Cameron at phaseit.net Sun Mar 23 15:27:06 2008 From: Cameron at phaseit.net (Cameron Laird) Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:27:06 +0000 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080323142706.GA23791@lairds.us> On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 10:48:14PM -0400, Rex Eastbourne wrote: . . . > -Lack of a popular, mature add-on repository (I know there is PyPI, but it > doesn't seem to be as mature as CPAN) > -Documentation (I have no big problem with it, but many people feel the > online Python documentation is not up to par with what other languages have, > like perldoc) . . . PyPI and Python documentation are certainly different from CPAN and perldoc. Moreover, there certainly are people who prefer the latter pair. I'm unable to con- clude, though, that CPAN and perldoc are, in the year 2008, *superior*. From roy at panix.com Sun Mar 23 15:53:53 2008 From: roy at panix.com (Roy Smith) Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:53:53 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: <20080323142706.GA23791@lairds.us> References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> <20080323142706.GA23791@lairds.us> Message-ID: As much as I hate Perl, I do have to admit that CPAN has one nice feature. If you tell it to, it will recursively fetch all the prerequisites for a package and install them for you. On Mar 23, 2008, at 10:27 AM, Cameron Laird wrote: > On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 10:48:14PM -0400, Rex Eastbourne wrote: > . > . > . >> -Lack of a popular, mature add-on repository (I know there is >> PyPI, but it >> doesn't seem to be as mature as CPAN) >> -Documentation (I have no big problem with it, but many people >> feel the >> online Python documentation is not up to par with what other >> languages have, >> like perldoc) > . > . > . > PyPI and Python documentation are certainly different > from CPAN and perldoc. Moreover, there certainly are > people who prefer the latter pair. I'm unable to con- > clude, though, that CPAN and perldoc are, in the year > 2008, *superior*. > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy > -- roy at panix.com From Cameron at phaseit.net Sun Mar 23 16:08:45 2008 From: Cameron at phaseit.net (Cameron Laird) Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 15:08:45 +0000 Subject: [python-advocacy] Yet another package-repository thread (was: Obstacles to the adoption of Python) In-Reply-To: References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> <20080323142706.GA23791@lairds.us> Message-ID: <20080323150845.GA31905@lairds.us> On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 10:53:53AM -0400, Roy Smith wrote: . . . > As much as I hate Perl, I do have to admit that CPAN has one nice > feature. If you tell it to, it will recursively fetch all the > prerequisites for a package and install them for you. . . . This aspect of CPAN has indeed been not only "nice", but, I'd argue, a real milestone in the history of open source. PyPI *must* respond to this particular reality. I haven't kept up with PyPI. If PyPI's mechanism for management of "chaining" is not buildout, someone please correct me. From rex.eastbourne at gmail.com Sun Mar 23 19:03:06 2008 From: rex.eastbourne at gmail.com (Rex C. Eastbourne) Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:03:06 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: <47E4C4AD.9030408@taupro.com> References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> <47E4C4AD.9030408@taupro.com> Message-ID: <81cec7380803231103r5220a968jc59a2ceb400701d0@mail.gmail.com> Thanks for the great replies, everyone! Jeff, that was really insightful. Is there a page on the Python wiki that contains all those things you outlined? I feel it would be useful if all the things people mentioned were compiled and put into a wiki page so that newcomers could identify where help is needed most. What do you guys think? Rex On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 4:34 AM, Jeff Rush wrote: > Rex Eastbourne wrote: > > > > I am new to this list. I am a longtime Python user and like it quite a > > bit; I am interested in getting involved in advocacy. > > Welcome Rex! > > > > > I've been thinking recently about the best way to increase the adoption > > rate of Python. I suppose one valuable thing to do would be to do > > research on the reasons -- real or imagined -- that people are *not* > > adopting it. For instance, I saw the following blog post yesterday: > > > > http://coffeeghost.net/2008/03/19/your-ignorance-does-not-make-a-programming-language-suck/ > > > > Has anyone done an analysis of the main practical issues holding Python > > back? > > Not that I know of, in a rigorous way. As an advocate of Python, I have in my > head one high-level map of its strengths and weaknesses. > > > > > Off the top of my head, here are two commonly cited obstacles: > > > > -Lack of a popular, mature add-on repository (I know there is PyPI, but > > it doesn't seem to be as mature as CPAN) > > At PyCon that wrapped up this week, this issue has been elevated and I and > others with experience in repositories outside the Python community are just > starting to lay the groundwork for major improvements. I agree that the ease > of identifying cool software, of grabbing it, along with the necessary > dependencies and installing with minimal hassle is an important factor for > language adoption. If you want to get involved, join the distutils-sig > mailing list: > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig > > > > -Documentation (I have no big problem with it, but many people feel the > > online Python documentation is not up to par with what other languages > > have, like perldoc) > > Documentation could use work in a variety of areas. We're moving from 2.5 > LaTeX based docs to 2.6 ReST based docs, with a much nicer website. Compare: > > http://docs.python.org/ > > to the newer: > > > http://docs.python.org/dev/ > > However, there are still modules that are undocumented or underdocumented. > There are many pages that need actual examples that people can clip and use. > > You can see here, the raw content, > > http://svn.python.org/view/python/trunk/Doc/ > > suitable for grabbing, patching and submitting for review, here: > > http://bugs.python.org > > if you don't have commit privileges directly. > > We need high-level guides to help in choosing the correct module for the job > at hand. Having ten tools that do something slightly different is great for > the expert who knows why, but the novices need explanations of how to choose. > We need guides on testing methodologies, web and GUI framework selection, > monetary currency issues (decimal + locale + Python cookbook), concurrent > programming tradeoffs (threads, processes, event-based, GIL discussion), > database tradeoffs (RDBMS, ZODB/Durus, pickle/shelf). > > Some aspects of it are at: > > http://www.python.org/about/apps/ > > It'd be cool if the docs were is such a form that, when installed onto a local > machine, the act of installing packages caused additional chapters to appear > in the manuals. This is an interplay between Python packaging and Python > documentation projects. > > There is no agreement in the markup to use within docstrings, although there > are several competing styles, with most people not using any, hindering the > automatic generation of common docs beyond basic introspection metadata. > > > > Specifically, it is "logistical" issues like the above that interest me > > more than the technical issues (execution speed, language syntax) that > > seem to be getting most of the attention. For one, these logistical > > issues can be more straightforward to implement. > > More straightforward... ;-) the logistical ones have more politics and are > less objective, making it harder to move forward. But often there is not > resistance so much as a lack of volunteer energy and "coming together". > Python's popularity means so many of us are very busy. > > > > > Does anyone have stuff to add to this list? > > A confusing array of multimedia options, both in the standard library and > outside, with varying qualities of cross-platform integration and unclear > tradeoffs in realtime performance, flexibility and licensing. > > A need for a well-written guide on how to debug and profile your Python > programs - one of the most common requests from newbies on various lists and > screencast sites. Bug of the Week, Find the Ten Bugs in This Program. > > A lack of a security sandbox, similar to Java. It prevents the use of Python > as a first-class scripting language in browsers, makes difficult the use of > Crunchy teaching software and drags some on thru-the-web webframeworks. There > is a prototype capability-based solution that is cool, but it needs community > involvement. > > http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-September/068673.html > > No searchable, maintained place, w/reviews, where to buy, in/out print, for > someone to locate a book about Python appropriate to their skill level and > area of use. Bonus if it can be sub-queried such that various Python teams > like Django and Zope can embed it on their websites and provide bracketed book > location service for just their interests. > > No geocoded, searchable registry of Python usergroups, speakers or consultants. > > See anything you'd like to get involved in? ;-) > > -Jeff > From sdeibel at python.org Sat Mar 22 17:04:30 2008 From: sdeibel at python.org (Stephan Deibel (PSF)) Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:04:30 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] Obstacles to the adoption of Python In-Reply-To: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> References: <81cec7380803211948x35defbbjea1d54c4c9e14458@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47E52E0E.3050101@python.org> Rex Eastbourne wrote: > I am new to this list. I am a longtime Python user and like it quite a > bit; I am interested in getting involved in advocacy. Great! Without getting into too much depth, I just want to encourage you. There are lots of forms of advocacy, although I think the best include (1) telling friends and colleagues about Python and showing them how it solves a problem that's of interest to them, and (2) identifying something you think blocks people from picking up Python and fixing it (as you sort of already have). The latter can of course require a lot of research, a lot of persistence, and depends on getting into and working with whatever community is already working on that (if any). But it's fun and worth it. Anyway, thanks for getting involved! - Stephan From ziade.tarek at gmail.com Tue Mar 25 09:21:34 2008 From: ziade.tarek at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Tarek_Ziad=E9?=) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:21:34 +0100 Subject: [python-advocacy] Packaging usage survey ? Message-ID: <94bdd2610803250121w12e0f19bwcbe720de5835ff02@mail.gmail.com> Hello, The threads in packaging-related topics that were going on in the last few days in python-dev, catalog-sig and distutils-sig, made me feel like think there's a lack of shared knowledge about how people work out there. I think a community survey could be interesting to know how people work, how they distribute their Python code, what works well for them and what is painful. I mean, we know and see that PyPI is used, and we understand that there are several strategies to deploy an application composed of many extensions, but we don't have imho a clear picture on how the crowd out there works really. And this survey would need to be wider than the developers that reads the python mailing lists, if possible. My 2 eurocents Tarek -- Tarek Ziad? | Association AfPy | www.afpy.org Blog FR | http://programmation-python.org Blog EN | http://tarekziade.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20080325/f6a3c652/attachment.htm From amk at amk.ca Tue Mar 25 13:49:56 2008 From: amk at amk.ca (A.M. Kuchling) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:49:56 -0400 Subject: [python-advocacy] Packaging usage survey ? In-Reply-To: <94bdd2610803250121w12e0f19bwcbe720de5835ff02@mail.gmail.com> References: <94bdd2610803250121w12e0f19bwcbe720de5835ff02@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080325124956.GA7357@amk-desktop.matrixgroup.net> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 09:21:34AM +0100, Tarek Ziad? wrote: > And this survey would need to be wider than the developers that reads the > python mailing lists, For PyCon we have a paid account on http://www.surveymonkey.com/, which lets you create hosted surveys and then collect the results. So we can readily do this, if you can draw up a list of questions. --amk From jeff at taupro.com Wed Mar 26 11:37:04 2008 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:37:04 -0500 Subject: [python-advocacy] Packaging usage survey ? In-Reply-To: <94bdd2610803250121w12e0f19bwcbe720de5835ff02@mail.gmail.com> References: <94bdd2610803250121w12e0f19bwcbe720de5835ff02@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47EA2750.3060406@taupro.com> Tarek Ziad? wrote: > > The threads in packaging-related topics that were going on in the last > few days in python-dev, catalog-sig and distutils-sig, made me feel > like think there's a lack of shared knowledge about how people work > out there. I definitely agree with you - we can't design a solution when we don't even know the exact problem. It's amazing the different perspectives I'm reading. I'm working on summarizing them down into a meaningful set, finding the common elements. > I think a community survey could be interesting to know how people work, > how they distribute their Python code, what works well for them and what > is painful. Coming up with a meaningful set of questions will be some effort. > And this survey would need to be wider than the developers that reads > the python mailing lists, Reaching those not on the core mailing lists is also very difficult - so many people don't read any lists or join any usergroups. The survey would need to be open for some time, to collect those inputs. But it is an interesting idea. -Jeff From ziade.tarek at gmail.com Wed Mar 26 11:55:21 2008 From: ziade.tarek at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Tarek_Ziad=E9?=) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:55:21 +0100 Subject: [python-advocacy] Packaging usage survey ? In-Reply-To: <47EA2750.3060406@taupro.com> References: <94bdd2610803250121w12e0f19bwcbe720de5835ff02@mail.gmail.com> <47EA2750.3060406@taupro.com> Message-ID: <94bdd2610803260355pbb72f70j3dbed24fb14aa8d@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Jeff Rush wrote: > I definitely agree with you - we can't design a solution when we don't > even > know the exact problem. It's amazing the different perspectives I'm > reading. > I'm working on summarizing them down into a meaningful set, finding the > common elements. > cool, I think many people quit following those threads at this time > Coming up with a meaningful set of questions will be some effort. > > Reaching those not on the core mailing lists is also very difficult - so > many > people don't read any lists or join any usergroups. The survey would need > to > be open for some time, to collect those inputs. But it is an interesting > idea. > Yes it is hard indeed. Both creating the survey, and reaching people. To make it better, maybe we can point some people that are able to reach "sub communities" For instance, I could be a "plone representative" and help on the survey from a Plone point of view, since I know how we build and distribute Plone, Zope apps, on the top of distutils, etc.. on Linux, windows, etc.. Then I can help spreading the survey in the Plone community. But I am certainly not able to make sure the questions fit from, let's say.. a Twisted or a Django point of view.. or even an Ubuntu one.. So maybe we could create a working group that gathers those people, and try to see if we can come up with a global survey, that would be a base for Phillip Eby and al to work on a global solution. ++ Tarek > -Jeff > > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy > -- Tarek Ziad? | Association AfPy | www.afpy.org Blog FR | http://programmation-python.org Blog EN | http://tarekziade.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/advocacy/attachments/20080326/8230b3bb/attachment.htm