From tom at aragne.com Wed Oct 1 05:57:32 2003 From: tom at aragne.com (tom@aragne.com) Date: Wed Oct 1 05:57:44 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] back Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20031001115323.00b4c7a0@poirot> Hi, Just to let you know I'm back from holidays. I had turned of my mailing lists becuase I receive too much SPAM lately. Yes, I filter it out, but I can't prevent it from floading my mailbox at a certain time, so I decided to turn it off. This means of course that I'm unaware of everything, so if there is something I should know or answer to, let me know and I'll reply as soon as possible. Regards, Tom. From jacob at strakt.com Fri Oct 3 11:52:06 2003 From: jacob at strakt.com (Jacob =?iso-8859-1?q?Hall=E9n?=) Date: Fri Oct 3 11:52:56 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Small update Message-ID: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> Lightning Talks, Open Space, Bofs Track champions: Anna Ravenscroft; Moshe Zadka Anna says ok Python Frameworks Track Track champions: Martijn Faassen OK Python Language Track Track champions: Michael Hudson OK Python in Business Track Track champions: Tim Couper; Marc-Andre Lemburg No response after private emails Python in Science & Industry Track Track champion: Nicolas Chauvat OK Zope Track Track champions: Paul Everitt; Heimo Laukkanen OK Website manager No response from Tom yet, but he probably has a lot of mail to catch up with. I also mailed Denis, who said that he and Aragne will be involved in some way. Dar?o has contacted Chalmers Conference Services. They will soon be back with information. Probably around mid-next-week. I'll be out of email range until Monday. Have a nice weekend Jacob From faassen at vet.uu.nl Mon Oct 6 12:40:03 2003 From: faassen at vet.uu.nl (Martijn Faassen) Date: Mon Oct 6 12:40:12 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Small update In-Reply-To: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> Message-ID: <20031006164003.GA20499@vet.uu.nl> Jacob Hall?n wrote: [summary of who is doing what] Perhaps good in this summary would to also list the 'stray volunteers'; people like Beatrice who offered to volunteer but haven't been put on a job yet. That way we won't forget about them. Repeating their role as active volunteer will hopefully also help in activating them personally. :) Regards, Martijn From lac at strakt.com Mon Oct 6 12:49:20 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Mon Oct 6 12:50:23 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Small update In-Reply-To: Message from Martijn Faassen of "Mon, 06 Oct 2003 18:40:03 +0200." <20031006164003.GA20499@vet.uu.nl> References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> <20031006164003.GA20499@vet.uu.nl> Message-ID: <200310061649.h96GnKh9010241@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Also what happened to the 'negotiating skills and whatnot' track? I forget what it was to be called, if that sounds disrespectful, it isn't intended that way. Laura From Andrew.Smart at smart-knowhow.de Tue Oct 7 04:25:48 2003 From: Andrew.Smart at smart-knowhow.de (Andrew Smart) Date: Tue Oct 7 04:28:35 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In-Reply-To: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> Message-ID: Hi, I would like to know if there is any interest on a follow up to my last talk on the EPC on teams and social skills and comparable stuff. Andrew From lac at strakt.com Tue Oct 7 04:43:08 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Tue Oct 7 04:44:11 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In-Reply-To: Message from "Andrew Smart" of "Tue, 07 Oct 2003 10:25:48 +0200." References: Message-ID: <200310070843.h978h8h9013839@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> In a message of Tue, 07 Oct 2003 10:25:48 +0200, "Andrew Smart" writes: >Hi, > >I would like to know if there is any interest on a follow >up to my last talk on the EPC on teams and social skills >and comparable stuff. > >Andrew > There's lots of interest. Do you want to chair this thing? Iknow 2 people who want to give talks in such a track. send them to you? (I don't think tehre is another chair already. if there is, sorry for stomping on your toes, whoever you are ....) Laura From bea at webwitches.com Tue Oct 7 06:57:17 2003 From: bea at webwitches.com (Beatrice) Date: Tue Oct 7 06:56:22 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Small update In-Reply-To: <20031006164003.GA20499@vet.uu.nl> References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> <20031006164003.GA20499@vet.uu.nl> Message-ID: <1065524237.2851.4.camel@snowblind.webwitches.com> On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 18:40, Martijn Faassen wrote: > Jacob Hall?n wrote: > [summary of who is doing what] > > Perhaps good in this summary would to also list the 'stray volunteers'; people > like Beatrice who offered to volunteer but haven't been put on a job yet. > That way we won't forget about them. Repeating their role as active volunteer > will hopefully also help in activating them personally. :) Thanks for volunteering me while I was astray ;) You are absolutely right. I am a bit snowed under at the moment but actually very eager to hop on board. I'm an organiser person, definitely. -- Beatrice From bea at webwitches.com Tue Oct 7 07:38:48 2003 From: bea at webwitches.com (Beatrice) Date: Tue Oct 7 07:37:48 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In-Reply-To: <200310070843.h978h8h9013839@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> References: <200310070843.h978h8h9013839@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Message-ID: <1065526728.2840.48.camel@snowblind.webwitches.com> On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 10:43, Laura Creighton wrote: > In a message of Tue, 07 Oct 2003 10:25:48 +0200, "Andrew Smart" writes: > >Hi, > > > >I would like to know if there is any interest on a follow > >up to my last talk on the EPC on teams and social skills > >and comparable stuff. YES! Now that Martijn has caught me by the nape of my neck, I have to butt in although I really have little time this particular week. Anyhow. What I am interested in is social skills, work organisation (schedules, deadlines, etc), business negotiation, business administration and sales arguments. Since I work together with a "real" geek in a two-person biz, I can sing songs of what it's like to coax customers (often of the end user type rather than of the fellow geek type) into trying out Open Source solutions - mostly Plone/Zope/Postgres, lately. > > > >Andrew > > > > There's lots of interest. Do you want to chair this thing? Iknow > 2 people who want to give talks in such a track. send them to you? > (I don't think tehre is another chair already. if there is, sorry > for stomping on your toes, whoever you are ....) > > Laura heh. I had mentioned that if there was a lot of interest and no precedent (i.e. no one else had staked a claim long before I came), I would offer to take the chair. My toes remain unhurt. I would like to have some certainty that a critical number of people want this one to happen. I am thinking of an interactive type of workshop, with discussions of critical incidents, maybe even role plays and such. It would be good to have people who dive in at the deep end (selling solutions that keep several people busy for a long time to a very tech-orientated customers) all the way up to those who paddle (just-in-time solutions for small customers). Martijn mentioned the track had to be related to Python specifically. That is a critical issue. Nowadays, I have to fight against PHP just as much as against ASP when I try to convince people to use Zope. If you fight that with geek arguments of the type "Guido is cool" or "PHP sucks", you drown. That may appear superbly polemic (be honest: hands up who didn't cringe...), but you need to have reasons that people can actually follow all the way, such as "the Brazilian government uses Plone now", as I recently read. You may think that that is too cheesy for words, but it gets people's attention much more than "why is Python good for education programmers" when it comes to actually trying to make a living with it. People want "standard" applications because they have been brainwashed into believing that they will be smitten by Thor if they don't. Try to convince an outsider (sitting on a chest full of gold) of the opposite without becoming insulting. You have 2 minutes to come up with a strategy. So. This is my angle, flippancy optional. Let me know if more than 5% made sense to any of you. I am ready to give parts of it, help to organise it, take the chair (or not), stay out of it entirely, whatever makes most sense. bea -- Beatrice From Andrew.Smart at smart-knowhow.de Tue Oct 7 08:00:58 2003 From: Andrew.Smart at smart-knowhow.de (Andrew Smart) Date: Tue Oct 7 08:03:45 2003 Subject: AW: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In-Reply-To: <200310070843.h978h8h9013839@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Message-ID: Hi, as I offered last year I'm willing to chair such a track. I should say: I would be happy to do so! :-) Andrew -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: Laura Creighton [mailto:lac@strakt.com] Gesendet: Dienstag, 7. Oktober 2003 10:43 An: Andrew Smart Cc: Jacob Hall?n; europython@python.org; lac@strakt.com Betreff: Re: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In a message of Tue, 07 Oct 2003 10:25:48 +0200, "Andrew Smart" writes: >Hi, > >I would like to know if there is any interest on a follow >up to my last talk on the EPC on teams and social skills >and comparable stuff. > >Andrew > There's lots of interest. Do you want to chair this thing? Iknow 2 people who want to give talks in such a track. send them to you? (I don't think tehre is another chair already. if there is, sorry for stomping on your toes, whoever you are ....) Laura From faassen at vet.uu.nl Tue Oct 7 08:35:57 2003 From: faassen at vet.uu.nl (Martijn Faassen) Date: Tue Oct 7 08:36:01 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In-Reply-To: References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> Message-ID: <20031007123556.GA23792@vet.uu.nl> Andrew Smart wrote: > I would like to know if there is any interest on a follow > up to my last talk on the EPC on teams and social skills > and comparable stuff. Is this the same as the track proposal? If so, I still would like to know how this differentiates itself from the business track. Regards, Martijn From faassen at vet.uu.nl Tue Oct 7 08:44:13 2003 From: faassen at vet.uu.nl (Martijn Faassen) Date: Tue Oct 7 08:44:13 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In-Reply-To: References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> Message-ID: <20031007124412.GA23823@vet.uu.nl> Hi there, Reading through the list, you and Beatrice both could track chair together. That's a good sign; you can work out who is going to be it (or both). Harald Armin Massa earlier on the list already offered to do a talk on the track. The two issues I brought up to bring this track into focus would be: * how does this differentiate itself from the business track? Lots of the issues mentioned seem very similar to the mandate of the business track. * how does this relate to Python technologies? Some concrete connection would be useful. I'm most worried about the first issue. I also understand that the business track organizers haven't answered Jacob's emails yet, so they're not in on this debate. Hoping I don't sound overly silly, an interesting topic on this track might also be something like 'Women in Python'. I saw Laura claim Python attracts women blah blah elselist in a discussion about EU funding applications. If you want to substantiate/encourage that this may be the ideal opportunity. Though actually the Python list where the most women seem to participate actively may be this one. :) Regards, Martijn From lac at strakt.com Tue Oct 7 09:02:26 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Tue Oct 7 09:03:00 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In-Reply-To: Message from Martijn Faassen of "Tue, 07 Oct 2003 14:35:57 +0200." <20031007123556.GA23792@vet.uu.nl> References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> <20031007123556.GA23792@vet.uu.nl> Message-ID: <200310071302.h97D2Rh9014727@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> In a message of Tue, 07 Oct 2003 14:35:57 +0200, Martijn Faassen writes: >Andrew Smart wrote: >> I would like to know if there is any interest on a follow >> up to my last talk on the EPC on teams and social skills >> and comparable stuff. > >Is this the same as the track proposal? If so, I still would like >to know how this differentiates itself from the business track. > >Regards, > >Martijn Right now we don't have a business track, since Marc Andre Lemburg and Tim Cooper do not appear to want it, but when it gets reconstituted, I expect it to be about Business development, business practices, and the like. Andrew and Bea are talking about something different -- how to run a project, get the forms done -- lots of stuff the PyPy project had to learn the hard way when we sedt out to get EU funding. its useful in business, yes, but its useful for running any distributed open source project -- its more widely applicable. I would think talks on Test Driven Development might belong in with it, for a more nerdy sounding thing ... make sense? laura From lac at strakt.com Tue Oct 7 09:13:56 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Tue Oct 7 09:14:30 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In-Reply-To: Message from Martijn Faassen of "Tue, 07 Oct 2003 14:44:13 +0200." <20031007124412.GA23823@vet.uu.nl> References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> <20031007124412.GA23823@vet.uu.nl> Message-ID: <200310071313.h97DDuh9014789@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> In a message of Tue, 07 Oct 2003 14:44:13 +0200, Martijn Faassen writes: >Hi there, > >Reading through the list, you and Beatrice both could track chair >together. That's a good sign; you can work out who is going to be >it (or both). > >Harald Armin Massa earlier on the list already offered to do a talk >on the track. > >The two issues I brought up to bring this track into focus would be: > > * how does this differentiate itself from the business track? Lots of > the issues mentioned seem very similar to the mandate of the > business track. > > * how does this relate to Python technologies? Some concrete connection > would be useful. > >I'm most worried about the first issue. I also understand that the >business track organizers haven't answered Jacob's emails yet, so >they're not in on this debate. > >Hoping I don't sound overly silly, an interesting topic on this track mig >ht >also be something like 'Women in Python'. I saw Laura claim Python attrac >ts >women blah blah elselist in a discussion about EU funding applications. >If you want to substantiate/encourage that this may be the ideal opportun >ity. >Though actually the Python list where the most women seem to participate >actively may be this one. :) > >Regards, > >Martijn > > >_______________________________________________ >EuroPython mailing list >EuroPython@python.org >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython I think you are talking about this: >n) Gender issues are important. That Python has been sucessfully taught to > girls is great. Getting references about that would be a _major_ plus. > But we are pretty safe. Compilers are not better used by men or > women ... Mark Gudzial has tried an experimental course in computing and media manipulation (for non-CS students), he used Jython as programming language taught, 2/3 of the students were women, and the preliminary results were very promising Abstract Computing may well become considered an essential part of a liberal education, but introductory programming courses will not look like the way that they do today. Current CS1 course are failing dramatically. We are developing a new course, to be taught starting in Spring 2003, which uses com- putation for communication as a guiding principle. Students learn to program by writing Python programs for manipu- lating sound, images, and movies. This paper describes the course development and the tools developed for the course. http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-plan/uploads/37/ITICSE-mediacomp2.pdf also http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/mediaComp-plan/ and an article http://www.cc.gatech.edu/news/cat.html ---------- Samuele Pedroni actually sent me that. Laura From dario at ita.chalmers.se Tue Oct 7 09:51:57 2003 From: dario at ita.chalmers.se (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Dario_Lopez-K=E4sten?=) Date: Tue Oct 7 09:52:46 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com><20031007123556.GA23792@vet.uu.nl> <200310071302.h97D2Rh9014727@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Message-ID: <00c101c38cda$2cb8bed0$e0f61081@WALTER> From: "Laura Creighton" > > Andrew and Bea are talking about something different -- how to run > a project, get the forms done -- lots of stuff the PyPy project > had to learn the hard way when we sedt out to get EU funding. its > useful in business, yes, but its useful for running any distributed > open source project -- its more widely applicable. I would think > talks on Test Driven Development might belong in with it, for a > more nerdy sounding thing ... > > make sense? > +2^31415275 - I know I could use this right now... Actually, come to think of it, such a track could attract people that are not into python at all... /dario - -------------------------------------------------------------------- Dario Lopez-K?sten, IT Systems & Services Chalmers University of Tech. From faassen at vet.uu.nl Tue Oct 7 10:06:18 2003 From: faassen at vet.uu.nl (Martijn Faassen) Date: Tue Oct 7 10:06:19 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In-Reply-To: <200310071313.h97DDuh9014789@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> <20031007124412.GA23823@vet.uu.nl> <200310071313.h97DDuh9014789@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Message-ID: <20031007140618.GA24216@vet.uu.nl> Laura Creighton wrote: > In a message of Tue, 07 Oct 2003 14:44:13 +0200, Martijn Faassen writes: > >Hoping I don't sound overly silly, an interesting topic on this track mig > >ht > >also be something like 'Women in Python'. I saw Laura claim Python attrac > >ts > >women blah blah elselist in a discussion about EU funding applications. > >If you want to substantiate/encourage that this may be the ideal opportun > >ity. > >Though actually the Python list where the most women seem to participate > >actively may be this one. :) > I think you are talking about this: > >n) Gender issues are important. That Python has been sucessfully taught to > > girls is great. Getting references about that would be a _major_ plus. > > But we are pretty safe. Compilers are not better used by men or > > women ... [snip interesting reference] That's correct. I'm interested in the education topic, and the gender topic as well, so thanks for the reference! Regards, Martijn From jacob at strakt.com Tue Oct 7 14:31:59 2003 From: jacob at strakt.com (Jacob =?iso-8859-1?q?Hall=E9n?=) Date: Tue Oct 7 14:32:49 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] The new volunteers Message-ID: <200310071832.h97IWieS021634@theraft.strakt.com> It was not my intention to leave out the new people, I was just counting in the old ones before embarking on new things. I should have been clearer about that, sorry. I think we have a strong voice for a Social Skills / Management track. This brings up the question of the Business track, where I think we have 3 options: 1. Find a new track chair. 2. Merge it with the Social Skills track, they are in some ways similar, and will probably attract the same sort of people. 3. Not run a Business track. All options are possible. I have a name or two in mind for alternative 1. Jacob From ghum at gmx.net Tue Oct 7 15:26:12 2003 From: ghum at gmx.net (Harald Armin Massa) Date: Tue Oct 7 15:22:01 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com><20031007124412.GA23823@vet.uu.nl> <200310071313.h97DDuh9014789@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Message-ID: <004101c38d08$df0d6e40$642aa8c0@tog2> Hi, > > * how does this relate to Python technologies? Some concrete connection > > would be useful. is this REALLY necessary? I offered to do a workshop concerning presentation skills - of course, they should help the participants to present Python (projects). When I teach these kinds of skills, they are not really connected to anything - when I teach sales skills, you could even sell Perl with them :-))) My question is: Don't we have room for some knowledge that can be connected to Python, but is not bound to Python by itself? I was very (postitively!) surprised about the big interest in my totally untechnical talk at Europython 2003 - my feeling was that many members of the Python community are interested in knowledge which may help them to promote Python or get consent to do a project in Python. Harald From ghum at gmx.net Tue Oct 7 15:29:13 2003 From: ghum at gmx.net (Harald Armin Massa) Date: Tue Oct 7 15:24:56 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Small update References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com><20031006164003.GA20499@vet.uu.nl> <1065524237.2851.4.camel@snowblind.webwitches.com> Message-ID: <004d01c38d09$4af702b0$642aa8c0@tog2> My stomach tells me, that Bea would be a good selection for the chairman of a social skills track. I read her proposal the first time on the list and got the impression, that she would really be a valuable asset for EuroPython 2004. I also think it's a good idea to have female chair(wo)men to attract more ladies to Python / EuroPython. Harald From lac at strakt.com Tue Oct 7 15:33:08 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Tue Oct 7 15:34:11 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] The new volunteers In-Reply-To: Message from Jacob =?iso-8859-1?q?Hall=E9n?= of "Tue, 07 Oct 2003 20:31:59 +0200." <200310071832.h97IWieS021634@theraft.strakt.com> References: <200310071832.h97IWieS021634@theraft.strakt.com> Message-ID: <200310071933.h97JX8h9016571@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> In a message of Tue, 07 Oct 2003 20:31:59 +0200, Jacob Hall?n writes: >It was not my intention to leave out the new people, I was just counting >in >the old ones before embarking on new things. I should have been clearer a >bout >that, sorry. > >I think we have a strong voice for a Social Skills / Management track. > >This brings up the question of the Business track, where I think we have >3 >options: > >1. Find a new track chair. > >2. Merge it with the Social Skills track, they are in some ways similar, >and >will probably attract the same sort of people. > >3. Not run a Business track. > >All options are possible. I have a name or two in mind for alternative 1. > >Jacob > How about run a business track that isn't aimed at 'hackers who want to have a business', but rather business opportunities, commecial partnerships, financial whatnot instead. Then there won't be as much overlap, and I can go invite businesses so we can impress them as to why they should switch to Python? Laura From ghum at gmx.net Wed Oct 8 01:04:47 2003 From: ghum at gmx.net (Harald Armin Massa) Date: Wed Oct 8 01:00:30 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] The new volunteers References: <200310071832.h97IWieS021634@theraft.strakt.com> <200310071933.h97JX8h9016571@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Message-ID: <005301c38d59$b2fb5f50$642aa8c0@tog2> > > How about run a business track that isn't aimed at 'hackers who want > to have a business', but rather business opportunities, commecial > partnerships, financial whatnot instead. Then there won't be as > much overlap, and I can go invite businesses so we can impress them > as to why they should switch to Python? > +1 this could also attract non-software companies. "Learn, how Python developers can improve your beerselling-process" ... From dario at ita.chalmers.se Wed Oct 8 01:33:01 2003 From: dario at ita.chalmers.se (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Dario_Lopez-K=E4sten?=) Date: Wed Oct 8 01:33:23 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Proposal for possible conference topic Message-ID: <01b101c38d5d$a3db7790$e0f61081@WALTER> Hello, yesterday I had a an interesting IRC conversation on #zope@freenode on how to optimise site development for speed. We soon got into the general desing how-to for building highly optimised stuff which, i think, is interesting for python apps in general, and perhaps for python-based www-apps/framworks in particular. Interesting things that were mentioned were psyco and techniques for designing objects "the proper way" for optimised rendering and execution. Is this a topic that would be interesting to have for the Conference? I know I would be interested in attending to that kind of talk... :) Cheers, /dario - -------------------------------------------------------------------- Dario Lopez-K?sten, IT Systems & Services Chalmers University of Tech. From lac at strakt.com Wed Oct 8 04:01:25 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Wed Oct 8 04:01:58 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Proposal for possible conference topic In-Reply-To: Message from =?iso-8859-1?Q?Dario_Lopez-K=E4sten?= of "Wed, 08 Oct 2003 07:33:01 +0200." <01b101c38d5d$a3db7790$e0f61081@WALTER> References: <01b101c38d5d$a3db7790$e0f61081@WALTER> Message-ID: <200310080801.h9881Ph9019550@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> In a message of Wed, 08 Oct 2003 07:33:01 +0200, Dario Lopez-K?sten writes: >Hello, > >yesterday I had a an interesting IRC conversation on #zope@freenode on how >to optimise site development for speed. We soon got into the general desing >how-to for building highly optimised stuff which, i think, is interesting >for python apps in general, and perhaps for python-based www-apps/framworks >in particular. > >Interesting things that were mentioned were psyco and techniques for >designing objects "the proper way" for optimised rendering and execution. > >Is this a topic that would be interesting to have for the Conference? I know >I would be interested in attending to that kind of talk... :) > >Cheers, > >/dario > >- -------------------------------------------------------------------- >Dario Lopez-K?sten, IT Systems & Services Chalmers University of Tech. Well, the whole PyPy gang will be there. We're going to have a Sprint as well. See www.codespeak.net/pypy By June, we can write _lots_ of talks .... Laura From andy at reportlab.com Thu Oct 9 18:51:37 2003 From: andy at reportlab.com (Andy Robinson) Date: Thu Oct 9 18:51:22 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Proposal for possible conference topic In-Reply-To: <01b101c38d5d$a3db7790$e0f61081@WALTER> Message-ID: > Interesting things that were mentioned were psyco and techniques for > designing objects "the proper way" for optimised rendering and execution. > > Is this a topic that would be interesting to have for the > Conference? I know > I would be interested in attending to that kind of talk... :) I'd love to hear this. I could contribute some information to anyone giving this, maybe even do part of a talk. we have been working for years on optimizing systems for varuous kinds of output generation. Often these involve code generation, precompilation and caching. - Andy Robinson From bea at webwitches.com Fri Oct 10 08:05:04 2003 From: bea at webwitches.com (Beatrice) Date: Fri Oct 10 08:04:13 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Small update In-Reply-To: <004d01c38d09$4af702b0$642aa8c0@tog2> References: <200310031552.h93FqqeS023650@theraft.strakt.com> <20031006164003.GA20499@vet.uu.nl> <1065524237.2851.4.camel@snowblind.webwitches.com> <004d01c38d09$4af702b0$642aa8c0@tog2> Message-ID: <1065787504.25150.33.camel@snowblind.webwitches.com> On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 21:29, Harald Armin Massa wrote: > My stomach tells me, that Bea would be a good selection for the chairman of > a social skills track. Well I guess I'll have to apply for a sex change first then :D > I read her proposal the first time on the list and > got the impression, that she would really be a valuable asset for EuroPython > 2004. Thank you - I will definitely participate and then we can see if I was an asset with the wisdom of hindsight. > I also think it's a good idea to have female chair(wo)men to attract more > ladies to Python / EuroPython. I'll have to think about that one a bit. I get the impression that the few females hanging around in the community are fairly outspoken once they've bothered participating at all, but I am actually not aware of how many are present but silent. You may be right that some may pop up if encouraged. There is a certain stereotypical irony to the idea of putting a chick in charge of the social skills track, but I think it may level things out a bit. If you're looking for a token woman, you know where to find me :) bea -- Beatrice From Andrew.Smart at smart-knowhow.de Fri Oct 10 08:27:21 2003 From: Andrew.Smart at smart-knowhow.de (Andrew Smart) Date: Fri Oct 10 08:30:12 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skills, Business Track In-Reply-To: <1065787504.25150.33.camel@snowblind.webwitches.com> Message-ID: <000001c38f29$db0d9f40$0301a8c0@adsmobil> Hi folks, have been focused on other stuff during the, so I'm jumping now back to our discussion. First question: how does a social skill track connect to Python? Python programmers are, surprisingly, human beeings. So maybe they are interested to learn something about "that stuff" while beeing on the EPC. Social skills are important for team work. EXtreme Programming for example is also a concept of working together in a certain way, not just a technique. So, I would say, we can broaden the views of our fellow Pythoniasts with such a track. On a deeper level I think the idea behind Python is influencing the way Python programming teams are working, as well as the "Python way" influences the way programmer solves problems. But that is just an unprooven theory of mine :-) There are other topics on "social skill" like project management, workflow and stuff like that. Here it is possible to talk about tools made with Python, experiences made with Python projects, and about the topics in general. Second question: this is business stuff, what's the difference to the business track? I see the business track more focused on "Pyton as a programming language for commercial products" and "Products build with Python". Project management could be seen as a topic for the business track, but PM is also needed for non-commercial projects :-) At least you should do to some basic PM in nc-projects. To add a little "bite": not everything which is NOT programming is business :-)) Third question: what topics do you think of in the "social skill" track? For my person I would see following topics: - team work (what does "teamwork" mean) - social interaction (talking to people, what can go wrong...) - cooperation strategies for open source companies / teams (Maybe even with some figures: what could pay of, what not...) - working in international teams (culture differences) - business processes in software development: how to organize the work, starting from the idea over programming to support Especially for Python projects: differences, short cuts... - project management (old style, new style e.g. XP) - best practice: let project managers tell their "style" and how they get the projects/teams to fly Andrew From ghum at gmx.net Fri Oct 10 09:15:10 2003 From: ghum at gmx.net (Harald Armin Massa) Date: Fri Oct 10 09:10:48 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skills, Business Track References: <000001c38f29$db0d9f40$0301a8c0@adsmobil> Message-ID: <003601c38f30$890f2860$642aa8c0@tog2> Hey Andrew, > First question: how does a social skill track connect to Python? What I do remember.... There is import this in Python. Playing with Zen. If a language deals with Zen, it surely is connected to the whole now and here. "In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess." 11th line of The Zen of Python - If I will be allowed to talk about communcation skills, I think I'll take this as a headline. In addition to the topics you mentioned: - presentation skills - how to make your listeners enjoy and have fun - sales skills - we all have to sell. Either to customers out of the company, or in the company, or at home the idea of going to Europython Harald From janko at need-brain.de Fri Oct 10 09:19:41 2003 From: janko at need-brain.de (Janko Hauser) Date: Fri Oct 10 09:19:54 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skills, Business Track In-Reply-To: <000001c38f29$db0d9f40$0301a8c0@adsmobil> References: <1065787504.25150.33.camel@snowblind.webwitches.com> <000001c38f29$db0d9f40$0301a8c0@adsmobil> Message-ID: <20031010151941.709aff45.janko@need-brain.de> On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 14:27:21 +0200 "Andrew Smart" wrote: [good discussion snipped] > Third question: what topics do you think of in the "social skill" > track? > > For my person I would see following topics: > - team work (what does "teamwork" mean) > - social interaction (talking to people, what can go wrong...) > - cooperation strategies for open source companies / teams > (Maybe even with some figures: what could pay of, what not...) > - working in international teams (culture differences) > - business processes in software development: how to organize > the work, starting from the idea over programming to support > Especially for Python projects: differences, short cuts... > - project management (old style, new style e.g. XP) > - best practice: let project managers tell their "style" and > how they get the projects/teams to fly > I think a talk about organizing events like conferences, workshops and sprints with special focus on different python communities, open-source and the possible goals of such events would also interest me. Part of the "networked working" is actually the coming together in person, and this in a effective way, in short time with only virtually known people. One can say it's the reflection of the effects of europython itself on our work. __Janko From noelle.quemener at edf.fr Mon Oct 13 08:54:56 2003 From: noelle.quemener at edf.fr (Noelle QUEMENER) Date: Mon Oct 13 09:01:50 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Python and Database Message-ID: Hi, I am working on a new project which aim is - to centralise data in an Oracle Database, - to do some calculations (based on models), - to visualize these data on diverse client PC (heavy clients). The OS environnement is Unix. The context of the system is - in case of crash the user mustn't lose his context and can work in a degraded mode - high transparency to failures - high availability of the system (10 minutes allowed between 7h and 14h - 1 minute allowed between 14h and 15h30 and less than 1minute between 15h30 and 16h30) The techical architecture is not yet chosen but experts advise us to use a Cluster Weblogic application server combined to a Cluster version of Oracle and java developement on the clients (heavy clients) What I know is that java is not a performant tehnology in terms of speed of execution and Cluster softwares are extremely expensive. I discovered Python not so long ago and to what I saw it is surprising how compact/performant it is and how easy it is to use. I would like to propose Python by I have no argument to support my suggestion. Can someone help me? My further questions are: - we don't want users to connect directy to the database but we want them to use an interface. Can such an interface be deployed in Python, knowing our time constraints? - as we want a high availability of the whole system what kind of solution could we use? Thanks, Noelle Quemener From jacob at strakt.com Tue Oct 14 13:56:09 2003 From: jacob at strakt.com (Jacob =?iso-8859-1?q?Hall=E9n?=) Date: Tue Oct 14 13:57:01 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Venue and first attempt at budget Message-ID: <200310141756.h9EHuteS020759@theraft.strakt.com> Hi everyone. I received information about rental prices for our venue space from Dar?o today and I have made a quick budget, which is enclosed. It is in SEK (~9 SEK/Euro), From this it looks as if we can have an early-bird fee of ~170 Euro, including lunches and a conference dinner. This is calculated on 200 paying participants and 4 lecture halls. We may be able to get a better deal on the rent by a bit of haggling. Renting the space during the planned days seems to be no problem. Now we can start making press releases. Jacob -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: EP_budget.sxc Type: application/x-zip Size: 6372 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/europython/attachments/20031014/b334d105/EP_budget.bin From magnus at thinkware.se Tue Oct 14 15:28:00 2003 From: magnus at thinkware.se (Magnus Lycka) Date: Tue Oct 14 15:28:11 2003 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?B?UmU6IFtFdXJvUHl0aG9uXSBQeXRob24gYW5kIERhdGFiYXNl?= Message-ID: Noelle QUEMENER wrote about Python and Database: > I am working on a new project which aim is > - to centralise data in an Oracle Database, > - to do some calculations (based on models), > - to visualize these data on diverse client PC (heavy clients). ... Hi Noelle! I'd say that Python is a good tool for such a job, but this mailing list is mainly used for the planning of the EuroPython Conference, not for technical discussions regarding Python programming. (Actually, the information in the mailing list web page http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython might be a bit misleading.) Some better suited fora for your questions might be: - The newsgroup comp.lang.python (high volume) - The mailing list for the Python Database Special Interest Group: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/db-sig - The Python Tutor mailing list (for less volume than comp.lang.python) http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor I hope you find good answers to your questions, and perhaps we will see you at the EuroPython conference in G?teborg, Sweden, next summer. -- Magnus Lycka, Thinkware AB Alvans vag 99, SE-907 50 UMEA, SWEDEN phone: int+46 70 582 80 65, fax: int+46 70 612 80 65 http://www.thinkware.se/ mailto:magnus@thinkware.se From faassen at vet.uu.nl Thu Oct 16 07:14:51 2003 From: faassen at vet.uu.nl (Martijn Faassen) Date: Thu Oct 16 07:14:52 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks In-Reply-To: <004101c38d08$df0d6e40$642aa8c0@tog2> References: <200310071313.h97DDuh9014789@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> <004101c38d08$df0d6e40$642aa8c0@tog2> Message-ID: <20031016111451.GA29913@vet.uu.nl> Harald Armin Massa wrote: > > > * how does this relate to Python technologies? Some concrete connection > > > would be useful. > > is this REALLY necessary? I offered to do a workshop concerning presentation > skills - of course, they should help the participants to present Python > (projects). I just think it shouldn't become a platform completely dissociated from Python. It can be a very tenuous concrete connection though. :) Regards, Martijn From faassen at vet.uu.nl Thu Oct 16 07:16:48 2003 From: faassen at vet.uu.nl (Martijn Faassen) Date: Thu Oct 16 07:16:48 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] The new volunteers In-Reply-To: <200310071933.h97JX8h9016571@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> References: <200310071832.h97IWieS021634@theraft.strakt.com> <200310071933.h97JX8h9016571@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> Message-ID: <20031016111648.GB29913@vet.uu.nl> Laura Creighton wrote: > How about run a business track that isn't aimed at 'hackers who want > to have a business', but rather business opportunities, commecial > partnerships, financial whatnot instead. Then there won't be as > much overlap, and I can go invite businesses so we can impress them > as to why they should switch to Python? What we need are a few examples of talks on each track. And of course motivated track chairs for each track. Then we should be able to determine whether each track is viable. It might be useful to study the talks on particularly the business track as well as the lightning talks of the two previous conferences, to see how they would be split up into two tracks. Regards, Martijn From faassen at vet.uu.nl Thu Oct 16 07:18:19 2003 From: faassen at vet.uu.nl (Martijn Faassen) Date: Thu Oct 16 07:18:17 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Proposal for possible conference topic In-Reply-To: <01b101c38d5d$a3db7790$e0f61081@WALTER> References: <01b101c38d5d$a3db7790$e0f61081@WALTER> Message-ID: <20031016111819.GC29913@vet.uu.nl> Dario Lopez-K?sten wrote: > Is this a topic that would be interesting to have for the Conference? I know > I would be interested in attending to that kind of talk... :) Sure -- do you intend to give this talk or are you asking for someone else to give it? It's definitely an interesting topic that I think about frequently. (in the context of Silva, Infrae's flagship piece of software) Regards, Martijn From faassen at vet.uu.nl Thu Oct 16 07:19:50 2003 From: faassen at vet.uu.nl (Martijn Faassen) Date: Thu Oct 16 07:19:49 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Venue and first attempt at budget In-Reply-To: <200310141756.h9EHuteS020759@theraft.strakt.com> References: <200310141756.h9EHuteS020759@theraft.strakt.com> Message-ID: <20031016111950.GD29913@vet.uu.nl> Jacob Hall?n wrote: > I received information about rental prices for our venue space from Dar?o > today and I have made a quick budget, which is enclosed. It is in SEK (~9 > SEK/Euro), From this it looks as if we can have an early-bird fee of ~170 > Euro, including lunches and a conference dinner. This is calculated on 200 > paying participants and 4 lecture halls. Sounds great! 200 participants should definitely be feasible too. Okay, press release time.. Regards, Martijn From lac at strakt.com Thu Oct 16 07:46:38 2003 From: lac at strakt.com (Laura Creighton) Date: Thu Oct 16 07:46:48 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] The new volunteers In-Reply-To: Message from Martijn Faassen of "Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:16:48 +0200." <20031016111648.GB29913@vet.uu.nl> References: <200310071832.h97IWieS021634@theraft.strakt.com> <200310071933.h97JX8h9016571@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> <20031016111648.GB29913@vet.uu.nl> Message-ID: <200310161146.h9GBkcj3011270@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> In a message of Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:16:48 +0200, Martijn Faassen writes: >Laura Creighton wrote: >> How about run a business track that isn't aimed at 'hackers who want >> to have a business', but rather business opportunities, commecial >> partnerships, financial whatnot instead. Then there won't be as >> much overlap, and I can go invite businesses so we can impress them >> as to why they should switch to Python? > >What we need are a few examples of talks on each track. And of course >motivated track chairs for each track. Then we should be able to determin >e >whether each track is viable. > >It might be useful to study the talks on particularly the business >track as well as the lightning talks of the two previous conferences, to >see how they would be split up into two tracks. > >Regards, > >Martijn I didn't envision doing talks so much like we had at past EuroPython, but rather like talks I gave years ago at Open Source conferences in the USA. What we would do is to invite a bunch of people from government and business to our 2 day conference. (this was only for them, so, clearly we would have to make some changes to suit EP). On day 1, we would take some requests from the audience. things that they wanted solved in their lives. We claimed that we could give them an open source solution. We'd post this up in the first talk, and let the people with problems explain a bit about what they wanted. Then a bunch of hackers would get on it, and code away for the 2 days long. The rest of us would give talks on the benefits of open source, and the philosophy of open source, and short presentations of Python, Perl, Apache, GCC ... whatever we thought they would find useful. Why Open source is good for government security. Why having the code available ends your dependence on your software vendor. yap yap yap, all the good stuff. And we would keep posting the progress of the hacker teams who were making the stuff ordered. At the end of the 2 days we would hand them their solution. This impressed the heck out of them, and make them take Open Source seriously, which is what we wanted. Some of the hackers got contracts, too, which is what they wanted. Now clearly we cannot structure EP that way -- for one thing, the hackers would have to miss the con to write code, but maybe we invite such business people to a day before the con meeting and proselytising effort? Just thinking out loud, here... Laura From magnus at thinkware.se Sun Oct 19 09:53:19 2003 From: magnus at thinkware.se (Magnus =?iso-8859-1?Q?Lyck=E5?=) Date: Sun Oct 19 09:41:50 2003 Subject: Business track (was Re: [EuroPython] The new volunteers ) In-Reply-To: <200310161146.h9GBkcj3011270@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> References: <20031016111648.GB29913@vet.uu.nl> <200310071832.h97IWieS021634@theraft.strakt.com> <200310071933.h97JX8h9016571@ratthing-b246.strakt.com> <20031016111648.GB29913@vet.uu.nl> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20031019150424.022ec2e8@www.thinkware.se> At 13:46 2003-10-16 +0200, Laura Creighton wrote: >I didn't envision doing talks so much like we had at past EuroPython, but >rather like talks I gave years ago at Open Source conferences in the USA. >What we would do is to invite a bunch of people from government and >business to our 2 day conference. (this was only for them, so, clearly >we would have to make some changes to suit EP). On day 1, we would >take some requests from the audience. things that they wanted solved >in their lives. We claimed that we could give them an open source solution. ... >Now clearly we cannot structure EP that way -- for one thing, the hackers >would have to miss the con to write code, but maybe we invite such business >people to a day before the con meeting and proselytising effort? This is a really interesting idea. Maybe we could think about how to accomplish something along these lines after all... I have an idea for a talk that would fit the same kind of audience, and I'd really like to see people who aren't already Python users at EPC. I'm now involved in a medium sized development project for a Swedish government agency, and I've quickly developed a number of fairly simple Python programs that have saved a considerable amount of time for people working with DBA, SCM and testing. Initially I asked people about repetetinve and boring tasks that they would like to get automated, but I got very vague responses on such questions. It seems most people aren't aware of how much time they spend doing repetetive and boring stuff that a machine could do much faster and more reliably. The tools are made in such a way that they are kept busy, and they don't see the waste. I've seen it myself when I've been strolling around, seeing what people work with, and when I've tried to figure out why some things take a lot of time. It still surprises me to see how large development projects put 100% of the programming effort into coding the final deliverables, and 0% of their programming effort on creating tools that will make the project run faster and more reliably. This is not the first time... Inluding Python in the toolbox, assigning a "tool smith" who helps the developers, tester, and other team members with tools that reduce repetetive work can boost productivity and reduce risk quite a lot. -- Magnus Lycka (It's really Lyckå), magnus@thinkware.se Thinkware AB, Sweden, www.thinkware.se I code Python ~ The Agile Programming Language From ghum at gmx.net Mon Oct 20 05:04:44 2003 From: ghum at gmx.net (Harald Armin Massa) Date: Mon Oct 20 04:59:58 2003 Subject: Business track (was Re: [EuroPython] The new volunteers ) References: <20031016111648.GB29913@vet.uu.nl><200310071832.h97IWieS021634@theraft.strakt.com><200310071933.h97JX8h9016571@ratthing-b246.strakt.com><20031016111648.GB29913@vet.uu.nl> <5.2.1.1.0.20031019150424.022ec2e8@www.thinkware.se> Message-ID: <003101c396e9$35279a00$642aa8c0@tog2> Markus, > It seems most people aren't aware of how much time they spend > doing repetetive and boring stuff that a machine could do much faster > and more reliably. The tools are made in such a way that they are kept > busy, and they don't see the waste. I was trained in a classical "Computer Center" (German Word "Rechenzentrum"); with lots of big iron. (IBM MVS / VM / VSE) That's some years ago; but IBM allready had REXX, an excellent scripting language. People worked to prepare the operators work ... that work consisted partially of planning the work schedules; but: there were also lots of daily / weekly run scripts, which were HAND EDITED with the correct date. Sometimes also the machine where this script was supposed to run was "punched in". REXX had more than the capabilities to do these jobs ... I'm not exactly sure if the JCL that was used there could not also have done that. But out of some reason nobody thought about it - it was explained to the trainees how to use the editor, the better ones learned the search-function, other just scrolled down (not so easy on a VT3270 terminal) There has to be a deeper reason, WHY it is that way. Maybe job security? Maybe the Zen of doing simple, stupid, repetetive work? Harald From tom at aragne.com Tue Oct 21 09:05:48 2003 From: tom at aragne.com (tom@aragne.com) Date: Tue Oct 21 09:06:11 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] News Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20031021150355.00b7f970@poirot> Hi, Just to let you know (I'm not sure if my message was correctly interpreted): If have news which needs to be placed on the website, then just let me know! Also location, accomodation, transport issues etc are welcome so I can update it. Regards, Tom. From bh at udev.org Thu Oct 23 05:01:45 2003 From: bh at udev.org (Henrion Benjamin) Date: Thu Oct 23 05:02:57 2003 Subject: [EuroPython] Vote for Python projects at Comdex! Message-ID: <20031023090145.GA7900@localhost> Please forward this to your Zope/Plone/Python friends: You can vote for the Python projetcs at the following location: http://www.oreillynet.com/contest/comdex/ You should do like me, not starting the day before having voted for your favorites projets (3 max); you can vote max one time per day... My choices goes to Zope/Plone/MoinMoin. -- Benjamin Henrion http://bh.udev.org