[Chicago] [python-advocacy] Marketing Python - An Idea Whose Time Has Come

[Michael Tobis]

(cc: ChiPy. This follows on some discussion on the marketing-python list.)

Some thoughts:

THE MAIN ONE:

If the foundation has resources to put into this, I'd recommend
getting the services of a good design and promotion team. Our contacts
in the web business ought to serve us well in finding one. I think a
big part of the buzz that Ruby/Rails have picked up (let's face it,
largely at our expense) is due to the close interaction between the
core Ruby team and these people: http://www.coudal.com/ (wish we could
hire them!)

I would be willing to act on a search committee to find such a
company. I would request that members of the committee actually have
experience at a customer-driven web development company so that they
have developed some skills at identifying genuine design and marketing
talent. I think that will include sufficiently many pythoneers.

This pure marketing push is in my view necessary but not sufficient.
Progress on all fronts would be good. I like every one of Cameron's
suggestions. I think they are feasible but we have to energize the
community as a whole. This is also something that could benefit from a
marketing campaign of sorts.

Of course, the people who are interested in Python are exactly the
people who won't fall for meaningless hype. The hype has to be
attractive and meaningful and very very fun in a sort of sly sort of
way, because that's what suits our commnity and our language.

SOME OTHER THOUGHTS:

re: definition of success

The good/bad news is Ruby. The language is almost as nice as Python,
its user base is, while somewhat less broad, very enthusiastic, and
its community is extremely oriented toward a clean marketing package.
It is likely that many people are faced with the choice of Python or
Ruby, and like it or not we have to continue to win that decision over
half the time. That's my definition of success, and I suspect that
over the past year we may not have succeeded, at least in the
commercial sphere.

I don't think it will be the greatest catastrophe in history if we
fail; there are greater evils afoot in the world than Ruby. However,
ignoring the fact that there is a real competitor is not a good
approach.

> > Cameron Laird wrote:

> > 3. University people; seeding the college scene to get students to form
> > on-campus Python user groups, and lobbying the professors to give Python
> > airtime in classes.  Whether A -> B or B -> A is an open debate.  At PyCon it
> > was offered that until Python appears in the curriculum students won't use it
> > because they only want to learn skills with vocational value, and so
> > professors must drive the issue.  Others thought the students were in a good
> > position to lobby their school to teach Python, if not for credit then evening
> > talks and non-credit courses.

At Loyola University of Chicago, there are three Python advocates on a
small CS faculty and Python is used as the language of instruction on
a good fraction of the courses. And at the geophysics department at
the University of Chicago, Python is gaining ground on Matlab for
class-related computations. So locally the evidence is encouraging.

Also the following just appeared on the edu-sig list:

"""
Hello, my name is Christianna Lee and I am posting this e-mail on
behalf of Prentice Hall.  We are currently looking for qualified
professors to help us by reviewing proposals for textbook projects
using Python.  We are seeing a surge in the number of classes using
Python as a programming language and we are interested in creating
innovative and relevant texts to bolster this trend.

We would prefer professors who are currently teaching Python at a four
year college, but would be interested in hearing from anyone who feels
they are qualified to review Python-based pedagogical material.  If
you are interested, please e-mail me at this address with your name,
description of the classes you teach and/or your qualifications for
reviewing Python material.  Thank you so much and we look forward to
hearing from you!
"""

> > 4. This category got little coverage but I think it is key -- that of the
> > hobbyists or enthusiast.  Here at the Dallas Pythoneers, I run into a lot of
> > people who want to learn Python, are not professional programmers but still
> > skilled professionals in some field who want to learn something fun and
> > potentially useful.  This might also be the category for scientists and
> > (non-computer) engineers -- smart, professional but don't program for a
> > living.

I absolutely agree. Here again I have good news. The evidence is that
the pent-up desire to learn a dynamic language is very considerable.

I offerred a zero-fee ten-meeting course in Python for beginners. I
announced it on the main open source list in Chicago and the ChiPy
list exactly once each. I had so many people sign up I had to close
down the registration.

It's true you have to give up ten Saturdays to do something like this.
And it's true the Chicago metropolitan area has an enormous
population. But I put roughly zero effort into promoting this event!

mt