Pycon disappointment

[Erich]

On Mar 20, 12:39 pm, Ed Leafe <e... at leafe.com> wrote:
> On Mar 20, 2008, at 11:54 AM, atom.ander... at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Number Three:  Too much code, not enough concept.
>
> > Presenters this one's for you.  I can't count the number of
> > presentations I attended where the presenter would click through three
> > slides of pycode just to show us a two or three-line snippet that
> > illustrated their point.  Worse yet, it was often at the bottom of the
> > screen so no one but the front row could see it.  This goes for text
> > two.  I saw some great presentations as well, and they had limited
> > text on each slide.  The last thing your audience wants to see is a
> > slide drenched in text of any kind.
>
>         This is good advice: simple slides serve as organization cues, but
> the content should come from the speaker. The worst case (only saw
> this twice at this year's PyCon) is when there is a text-heavy slide
> that the presenter simply reads. We can all read it ourselves! Your
> job is to elaborate on the topic.
>
>         I'd like to see two things regarding slides: first, if at all
> possible, set a limit on the percentage of the talk that can consist
> of slides. I would much rather see the presenter show actual
> demonstrations of what they're talking about than simply talking about
> it. If that's not possible, then in the session description, clearly
> state the % of the talk that will be slides. Perhaps there are people
> who like to sit in a room and watch long PowerPoint (-type)
> presentations, but I'm not one of them. Let's see some code! Let's see
> stuff working (and sometimes crashing!), and how changes affect the
> results. When I've presented at PyCon and other conferences, that's
> the part that I spend the most time on: preparing demonstrations. It's
> not easy to do; certainly much more difficult than creating a slide
> that sums up what the demo does. But it makes for a much more
> interesting session!
>
> -- Ed Leafe

I'd like to see code listings made available to download where
appropriate. That way the slides dont have much hard to read content,
and we can look at the bits of code we find tricky as we see fit. And
if we get bored with bits, we can play with code!

Erich.