Pycon disappointment

[Ed Leafe]

On Mar 20, 2008, at 11:54 AM, atom.anderson 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