[Python Edinburgh] Talks!

Wed Sep 3 12:22:05 CEST 2014

Both pyladies and railsgirls started not so long ago (~2010) and have made
waves of change.

The community is changing towards more inclusive one, most recent pycon
being a good example - half of the speakers were female.
While for me personally there are just two types of people - me and not me,
and the gender topic bores me (just from your surprise i'd figure you are
on similar standing), the problem unfortunately is there, and organisations
like these are vital to make the change happen.

On your side what you can do, is minor educating yourself on the topic
http://www.pyladies.com/locations/
http://railsgirls.com/

Just like in other cases, the IT industry is perfect for pioneering such
change as the community is inherently open to change.

And yes, there is obviously a certain imbalance in the community. If i'd be
a girl, i'd have hard time hanging out in a pub with 30 guys, however
inclusive they are. Meeting a half-half balance would be ideal. Same goes
for knitting meetups that i hear are riddled with lack of male
representatives.

Toms

On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 11:00 AM, Bald, Glenn <Glenn.Bald at forestry.gsi.gov.uk
> wrote:

> The existence or need for a separate female focused group would suggest
> that there is a need for a slight culture change? I work for an
> organisation where half the development staff are female and in a
> speciality where around half of users and developers are female I see
> inclusion as a positive thing. I have never seen separate woman's groups
> like this and thought it was odd. But this could just be my background.
> Is it a normal thing? The 1st thing I noticed at the one time I came to
> the meetup was there was only one woman and about 30 males.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Edinburgh
> [mailto:edinburgh-bounces+glenn.bald=forestry.gsi.gov.uk at python.org] On
> Behalf Of John Sutherland
> Sent: 03 September 2014 10:41
> To: Python Edinburgh
> Subject: Re: [Python Edinburgh] Talks!
>
> I don't think anyone is talking about splitting the group, I assume that
> all talks, and informal pub-meetups will continue to be organised, and
> announced on this mailing list.
>
> I think PyLadies (and other female focused groups) is an amazing
> initiative, it's well organised, and does something that 20 men in the
> pub will never achieve: making women feel welcome, and at ease.
>
> Python Edinburgh should be as welcoming as possible, but we have to
> accept that regardless of anything we do, that people may still feel
> intimidated.
>
> John.
>
>
> --
> http://sneeu.com/
>
> On 3 Sep 2014, at 10:05, Bald, Glenn <Glenn.Bald at forestry.gsi.gov.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I think I have lost track. I am either with the people front of Judea
> or the Judean people front.  I don't think another meetup would do
> anything other than split the group? I already think having a seperate
> womans group is counter productive.  If women feel uncomfortable or
> intimidated then this should be discussed so we can change the culture
> to welcome everyone.
> >
> > I do think there is a space for Educational/Presentational effents
> that could have pizza and beer/coffee after. So yes if someone comes
> along and wishes to organise its a good thing. BUT should not clash with
> the timing of the pub meetup.
> >
> > Since I am emailing everyone Does anyone use Python in a GIS context?
> >
> > Cheers
> > Glenn
> >
> > From: Edinburgh
> > [mailto:edinburgh-bounces+glenn.bald=forestry.gsi.gov.uk at python.org]
> > On Behalf Of Mark Smith
> > Sent: 02 September 2014 16:59
> > To: Python Edinburgh
> > Subject: Re: [Python Edinburgh] Talks!
> >
> > Hi everybody,
> >
> > In the past when I've asked around, there's been a general feeling
> that we'd like to keep the pub meetups as they are and run talks
> separately. Before Toms unilaterally changes the format of our main
> function can anybody who has an opinion reply to this thread stating
> their preference.
> >
> > I think the options are:
> >
> > * Keep pub meetups as they are and run talks separately on a different
> day.
> > * Start each meetup in a suitable venue (probably a local Python
> > shop's office) with a short talk, followed by a move to the pub
> > * Hold each meetup in suitable venue (see above) with a short talk and
> (possibly free) beer and pizza.
> >
> > If anyone has any other suggestions, please also feel free to post
> them.
> >
> > --Mark
> >
> >
> > On 2 September 2014 11:12, Toms <toms.baugis at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello again, this is the third and final email from me today :)
> >
> > I ran a quick survey last time and was extremely happy to see that as
> well as there are people who have been coding in python for 5+ years,
> there were also plenty who had just started or even are considering
> learning python as their first programming language!
> > Apart from that, there was not a single person using the same stack -
> > there was so much diversity between 20 people, that there is enough
> > fuel for talks for a decade :)
> >
> > As such, I would like to tilt the format of the meetups by blending in
> talks as the first part of the meetup.
> > Not just every now and then, but rather *each* time we meet.
> > Ideally we should be looking for 5-15 minute long talks, where no
> > topic is too big or too small. And they will be exciting as for the
> > beginners, so for the experts that might find a gap in their knowledge
> >
> > I'll give a few examples that i hope will spark your imagination as to
> what kind of talk could you give:
> >
> > * lists, dicts, sets, tuples, namedtuples, frozensets - when to pick
> tuple and when to pick list?
> > * decorators - how to write one and how and when to use one
> > * packing it up and shipping to PyPI with setuptools
> > * virtualenv, virtualenvwrapper, workon and other handy bits to make
> > managing python dependencies a breeze
> > * flask and writing a web app in 30 lines
> >
> > These are talks anyone experienced a bit in python could give - and
> there are tons of others. I'm quite certain that it would spark
> discussions beyond what any of us could imagine.
> >
> > During the last meetup I also asked a few of you as to what talk could
> you give if they would be given these 5-15 minutes, here are some of
> results:
> >
> > * Thomas wrote a quizz web app in python and has open sourced it and
> > it has picked up - so it's most certainly worth checking it out
> > * John - interprocess communication
> > * Alistair - conda
> > * The gentleman who's name is now escaping me (sorry!) - how the new
> > buzzy Go compares to python
> > * Manuel - "plone" - turns out that despite the rumors, plone is still
>
> > very much alive
> > * Ross - a full stack trace of a request - from browser down to where
> > it all began (some ruby might be involved)
> >
> > Here are few i can think myself from the top of the head, i could be
> willing to present:
> > * docopt - the awesome self-documenting CLI lib
> > * adding autocomplete to your application in linux
> > * writing a desktop application in 100 lines on linux with GTK3
> > * automating deployment with fab
> > * forget httplib/urrlib and embrace requests
> >
> >
> > What's your stack like?
> > What's your favourite or most often used feature, library or framework
> is?
> > What makes your head hurt and what excites you every time you get to
> use it?
> >
> > Mail me privately with your talk ideas at toms.baugis at gmail.com!
> >
> > Toms
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Edinburgh mailing list
> > Edinburgh at python.org
> > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edinburgh
> >
> >
> >
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