- E04 - Leadership! Google, Guido van Rossum, PSF

[Alex Martelli]

Anton Vredegoor <anton.vredegoor at gmail.com> wrote:
   ...
> > Europython is cheap to attend, and has been held twice in Charleroi,
> > Belgium, for example -- if you're in the Netherlands, you could have
   ...
> The gist of it is that for me a few hundred euros is and was a *lot* of
> money, and that this talk about 'cheap to attend' irritates me a lot.

I just don't understand, always assuming you're in the Netherlands, how
attending Europython in Belgium (as opposed to Pycon in the US) could
have cost hundreds of euros.  Conference registration is free to
speakers, bicycling NL->BE not costly (many were driving from NL, so
bumming a ride was far from impossible either), many attendants arranged
to "crash" for free thanks to the hospitality of others, food costs in
Belgium aren't much different from those in NL.

I'm not saying a few hundred euros is 'cheap' -- it obviously isn't, if
your income is low to nonexistent; rather, I'm wondering where that
"hundreds" amount comes from.  You originally mentioned only pycon
(where the need to fly to the US, for people living in Europe, can
obviously account for "hundreds of euros" already); Europython is
specifically held in Europe to be cheaper and more convenient to attend
for Europeans, and I've always met many people there who fell in the
"income low to nonexistent" bracket for one reason or another.


Alex