[Baypiggies] BayPIGgies name [was: April agenda?]

[Walter Vannini]

Hi Deirdre,

 > About ACCU, iirc, that's the first time Guido spoke there.

Actually, that was Guido's second presentation. He gave his first
presentation way back in December 2003.

We've actually had quite a few Python presentations over the years:
June 2000 - Python for Beginners - Wes Chun
January 14, 2003 - Video Editing in Python - Drew Pertulla
June 10, 2003 - Introduction to Python - Reg Charney
December 9, 2003 - What's new in Python? - Guido van Rossum
May 10, 2005 - Python Hacking - Alex Martelli
April 5, 2006 - A Look At Python's Future - Guido van Rossum

And, of course, we're looking forward to the June presentation:
June 14, 2006 - Python at Google - Greg Stein

And yes, we've had presentations on a number of other languages
besides C and C++: Forth, Lisp, Ruby, PHP, Ada, and Java
immediately come to mind.

Dennis Reinhardt asked "Why aren't these talks being given
to BayPiggies?". I don't know what BayPiggies does to get
speakers, but I can certainly share what the local ACCU
chapter has been doing.

We (the Silicon Valley chapter of the ACCU) have always
had one person whose primary responsibility has been to find
speakers. That person was Reg Charney until May 2005, and it's
been me ever since June 2005.

We contact the potential speaker, usually by email
(eg. Guido van Rossum) or face to face (eg. Greg Stein) and
ask them (very nicely) if they'd like to speak to our group.
Usually I make the initial contact, but certainly not always.
Regardless of who makes the initial contact, I follow up by
firming up dates, sending reminders, providing a tentative
schedule, exchanging cell phone numbers, and generally trying
to make the event happen.

Hope that helps.

All the best,

Walter

Walter Vannini
President, Silicon Valley ACCU
<http://www.accu-usa.org/>
<http://www.gbbservices.com/>

--- Deirdre Saoirse Moen wrote:
> About ACCU, iirc, that's the first time Guido spoke there. He's  
> spoken at BayPIGgies several times, starting in 1999. ACCU, while  
> focused on C/C++, does have interesting talks about other languages  
> from time to time.