From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 4 17:45:58 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 10:45:58 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Rackspace and PyTexas event In-Reply-To: References: <29655_1279658373_o6KKdQiu010446_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C63A6634B@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <5225_1280873805_o73MGeYL010082_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C648EA2C0@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: Folks, please chime in with your suggestions about a venue for a RackSpace hosted evening party at PyTexas. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Haley Baskin Date: Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 5:16 PM Subject: RE: Rackspace and PyTexas event I noticed the event runs late. We?re very excited about being a part of PyTexas. We would love to host a happy hour or after hours event for the developers attending to visit with our developers and recruiters about all the projects Rackspace has going on. Any suggestions? And I will be sure to bring plenty of goodies to give away during the day. J [image: Email Signature.php] *From:* Brad Allen [mailto:brad at allendev.com] *Sent:* Tuesday, July 20, 2010 4:26 PM *To:* Haley Baskin *Subject:* Re: Rackspace and PyTexas event Hi Haley, Thanks for contacting me. PyTexas is small regional conference for Python enthusiasts and professionals, as well as beginners interested in learning the language. The approach and content is inspired by the larger PyCon conferences, intended to be fun and build the local open source community. Unlike PyCon, we aren't charging any money for 'sponsorship'. Any organization with an interest in Python is welcome to send us their 'swag', usually promotional items like flyers, t-shirts, bags, mugs, toys, etc. If you want Python developers to send you their resume, you can produce a flyer, or post to our wiki page (see pytexas.org). In your case, RackSpace is likely to be popular, especially due to your recent open source announcements. T-shirts are often a favorite item, and shirts advertising OpenStack would probably be a hit. We'll be putting together the tentative schedule this weekend. Currently we're planning for about 70 attendees. On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 3:39 PM, Haley Baskin wrote: Afternoon, Brad! One of my devs, John Dickinson, just let me know several of them are attending this event. He mentioned you were wanting some sponsorship materials, swag, etc. Please let me know what you have in mind and I will work on making this all happen. Do you have an agenda or list of speakers/topics for this event yet? Thanks, Haley [image: Email Signature.php] Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. Your cooperation is appreciated. Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. Your cooperation is appreciated. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 18323 bytes Desc: not available URL: From gslindstrom at gmail.com Wed Aug 4 18:02:42 2010 From: gslindstrom at gmail.com (Greg Lindstrom) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 11:02:42 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Where's Greg? Message-ID: The company I work for has been purchased by another rather large corporation. We are spending a lot of time this month getting switched over to their systems and computers and I am worried that I will not be able to devote the time needed to put together an Intro to Python class. There is also an issue of whether I will even be able to attend, so it's best if I back out of my classes now. I can't apologize enough (having organized the tutorials for Pycon the last 3 years, I'm rather sensitive to this) but it's better you know sooner than later. If I cannot attend, I will pick up the shipping cost for the conference tee shirts. --greg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 4 18:17:48 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 11:17:48 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 needs swag Message-ID: Can anyone send me a list of PyCon sponsor contact email addresses? For this year's PyTexas (Aug 28), we are offering "free sponsorship" which amounts to distributing swag, but for next year's PyTexas I'd like to solicit financial contributions toward the PSF. I'd like to open a dialog between potential sponsors and PyTexas organizers. Also, is there any leftover PyCon swag which could be shipped to PyTexas? We could really use some swag bags, and leftover PyCon bags would be very welcome. Thanks! From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 4 18:24:02 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 11:24:02 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Where's Greg? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for letting us know, Greg. We'll look for someone else to handle the Intro to Python class. Since you organized those tutorials at PyCon, can you recommend anyone who has taught that class in the past? Also, we still keep you listed as a tentative instructor for the other class which you already prepared (the one you used for PyOhio?). We can plan for a fallback if you cannot attend. Good luck on your transition at work... On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Greg Lindstrom wrote: > The company I work for has been purchased by another rather large > corporation.? We are spending a lot of time this month getting switched over > to their systems and computers and I am worried that I will not be able to > devote the time needed to put together an Intro to Python class.? There is > also an issue of whether I will even be able to attend, so it's best if I > back out of my classes? now.? I can't apologize enough (having organized the > tutorials for Pycon the last 3 years, I'm rather sensitive to this) but it's > better you know sooner than later.? If I cannot attend, I will pick up the > shipping cost for the conference tee shirts. > > --greg > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > From sfreader at sbcglobal.net Wed Aug 4 23:55:13 2010 From: sfreader at sbcglobal.net (Ralph Green) Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:55:13 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Rackspace and PyTexas event In-Reply-To: References: <29655_1279658373_o6KKdQiu010446_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C63A6634B@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <5225_1280873805_o73MGeYL010082_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C648EA2C0@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: <1280958913.2275.2.camel@belinda> On Wed, 2010-08-04 at 10:45 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > Folks, please chime in with your suggestions about a venue for a > RackSpace hosted evening party at PyTexas. > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Haley Baskin > Date: Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 5:16 PM > Subject: RE: Rackspace and PyTexas event Howdy, There is one natural place to hold it. The Dr. Pepper Museum. People come from across the country to visit it. From jdickinson at racklabs.com Thu Aug 5 00:10:25 2010 From: jdickinson at racklabs.com (John Dickinson) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 17:10:25 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Rackspace and PyTexas event In-Reply-To: <1280958913.2275.2.camel@belinda> References: <29655_1279658373_o6KKdQiu010446_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C63A6634B@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <5225_1280873805_o73MGeYL010082_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C648EA2C0@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <1280958913.2275.2.camel@belinda> Message-ID: <5B4EE072-800E-448E-8251-C8AF00ABA0DD@racklabs.com> That would actually be really cool. On Aug 4, 2010, at 4:55 PM, Ralph Green wrote: > On Wed, 2010-08-04 at 10:45 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: >> Folks, please chime in with your suggestions about a venue for a >> RackSpace hosted evening party at PyTexas. >> >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Haley Baskin >> Date: Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 5:16 PM >> Subject: RE: Rackspace and PyTexas event > Howdy, > There is one natural place to hold it. The Dr. Pepper Museum. People > come from across the country to visit it. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 3686 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Thu Aug 5 04:58:12 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 21:58:12 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Rackspace and PyTexas event In-Reply-To: <1280958913.2275.2.camel@belinda> References: <29655_1279658373_o6KKdQiu010446_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C63A6634B@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <5225_1280873805_o73MGeYL010082_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C648EA2C0@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <1280958913.2275.2.camel@belinda> Message-ID: Oops, I forgot to cc Haley Raskin from RackSpace. The Dr. Pepper Museum sounds like a good idea, but does anyone here have a good idea of the cost involved or how to arrange it? On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 4:55 PM, Ralph Green wrote: > On Wed, 2010-08-04 at 10:45 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: >> Folks, please chime in with your suggestions about a venue for a >> RackSpace hosted evening party at PyTexas. >> >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Haley Baskin >> Date: Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 5:16 PM >> Subject: RE: Rackspace and PyTexas event > Howdy, > ?There is one natural place to hold it. ?The Dr. Pepper Museum. ?People > come from across the country to visit it. > > > > From jeff at taupro.com Thu Aug 5 08:13:12 2010 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:13:12 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Rackspace and PyTexas event In-Reply-To: References: <29655_1279658373_o6KKdQiu010446_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C63A6634B@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <5225_1280873805_o73MGeYL010082_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C648EA2C0@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <1280958913.2275.2.camel@belinda> Message-ID: <4C5A5678.6030309@taupro.com> On 08/04/2010 09:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > Oops, I forgot to cc Haley Raskin from RackSpace. > > The Dr. Pepper Museum sounds like a good idea, but does anyone here > have a good idea of the cost involved or how to arrange it? Because of Ralph's enthusiasm for Dr. Pepper (truly), I nominate him as event coordinator, to contact the museum re costs and availability. ;-) I agree it would be a cool place to hold it. -Jeff From bradallen137 at gmail.com Thu Aug 5 13:09:46 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 06:09:46 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: Rackspace and PyTexas event In-Reply-To: References: <29655_1279658373_o6KKdQiu010446_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C63A6634B@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <5225_1280873805_o73MGeYL010082_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C648EA2C0@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <1280958913.2275.2.camel@belinda> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kevin Horn Date: Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 10:46 PM Subject: Re: [Texas] Rackspace and PyTexas event To: Brad Allen There's info on their website...looks like someone would need to send them an email to get cost/availability, etc. http://drpeppermuseum.com/Visit-Us/Rent-The-Museum.aspx Kevin Horn On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 9:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > > Oops, I forgot to cc Haley Raskin from RackSpace. > > The Dr. Pepper Museum sounds like a good idea, but does anyone here > have a good idea of the cost involved or how to arrange it? > > On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 4:55 PM, Ralph Green wrote: > > On Wed, 2010-08-04 at 10:45 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > >> Folks, please chime in with your suggestions about a venue for a > >> RackSpace hosted evening party at PyTexas. > >> > >> > >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > >> From: Haley Baskin > >> Date: Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 5:16 PM > >> Subject: RE: Rackspace and PyTexas event > > Howdy, > > ?There is one natural place to hold it. ?The Dr. Pepper Museum. ?People > > come from across the country to visit it. > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas From bradallen137 at gmail.com Thu Aug 5 13:17:20 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 06:17:20 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Rackspace and PyTexas event In-Reply-To: <4C5A5678.6030309@taupro.com> References: <29655_1279658373_o6KKdQiu010446_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C63A6634B@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <5225_1280873805_o73MGeYL010082_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C648EA2C0@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <1280958913.2275.2.camel@belinda> <4C5A5678.6030309@taupro.com> Message-ID: I think Haley Raskin at Rackspace wanted to coordinate the event. Haley, what kind of support/assistance would you like from PyTexas volunteers? On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 1:13 AM, Jeff Rush wrote: > On 08/04/2010 09:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >> Oops, I forgot to cc Haley Raskin from RackSpace. >> >> The Dr. Pepper Museum sounds like a good idea, but does anyone here >> have a good idea of the cost involved or how to arrange it? > > Because of Ralph's enthusiasm for Dr. Pepper (truly), I nominate him as > event coordinator, to contact the museum re costs and availability. ;-) > > I agree it would be a cool place to hold it. > > -Jeff > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > From sfreader at sbcglobal.net Thu Aug 5 22:36:42 2010 From: sfreader at sbcglobal.net (Ralph Green) Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:36:42 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Rackspace and PyTexas event In-Reply-To: References: <29655_1279658373_o6KKdQiu010446_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C63A6634B@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <5225_1280873805_o73MGeYL010082_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C648EA2C0@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <1280958913.2275.2.camel@belinda> <4C5A5678.6030309@taupro.com> Message-ID: <1281040602.2287.8.camel@belinda> On Thu, 2010-08-05 at 06:17 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > I think Haley Raskin at Rackspace wanted to coordinate the event. > Haley, what kind of support/assistance would you like from PyTexas > volunteers? > That is what I expected. You can tell him I will help, if he wants it. Or, maybe I just told him. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Fri Aug 6 05:33:19 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 22:33:19 -0500 Subject: [Texas] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 Message-ID: A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can we avert disaster? Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of intentions. So why not risk trying something different? I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for consideration. Here goes: Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners. The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun. According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer specific student questions. Those who can't be bothered to volunteer can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to step up to the challenge. One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the student needs to know. Here's how it might go: 0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum. 1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections, etc.). 2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of each color for the part they needed to learn. 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that specific curriculum item. 4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough, the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy. 5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day can be found to resolve the remaining tickets. This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one. From kevin.horn at gmail.com Fri Aug 6 05:50:10 2010 From: kevin.horn at gmail.com (Kevin Horn) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 22:50:10 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:33 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach > Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't > have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to > prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can > we avert disaster? > > Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an > instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally > effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and > retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of > intentions. So why not risk trying something different? > > I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for > consideration. Here goes: > > Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's > schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all > attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners. > The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors > simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for > chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make > it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun. > > According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced > Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if > asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer > specific student questions. Those who can't be bothered to volunteer > can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to > step up to the challenge. > > One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for > pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the > student needs to know. Here's how it might go: > > 0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core > fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the > wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum. > 1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper > tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets > for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white > tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections, > etc.). > 2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of > each color for the part they needed to learn. > 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in > the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that > specific curriculum item. > 4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough, > the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy. > 5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the > students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day > can be found to resolve the remaining tickets. > > This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not > sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use > their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one. > I think a lot will depend on what the ratio of beginners to experienced pythoneers is. Did the survey tell us that? Kevin Horn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aguirre.arthur at gmail.com Fri Aug 6 17:00:58 2010 From: aguirre.arthur at gmail.com (Arthur Aguirre) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 09:00:58 -0600 Subject: [Texas] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I pulled the latest survey results - there are 41 confirmed attendees 28 of which are advanced/intermediate pythoneers - that is then 2:1 ratio. There are 35 folks who are a DK to show but the ratio is the same. Arthur On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 9:50 PM, Kevin Horn wrote: > On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:33 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > >> A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach >> Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't >> have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to >> prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can >> we avert disaster? >> >> Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an >> instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally >> effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and >> retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of >> intentions. So why not risk trying something different? >> >> I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for >> consideration. Here goes: >> >> Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's >> schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all >> attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners. >> The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors >> simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for >> chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make >> it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun. >> >> According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced >> Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if >> asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer >> specific student questions. Those who can't be bothered to volunteer >> can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to >> step up to the challenge. >> >> One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for >> pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the >> student needs to know. Here's how it might go: >> >> 0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core >> fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the >> wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum. >> 1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper >> tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets >> for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white >> tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections, >> etc.). >> 2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of >> each color for the part they needed to learn. >> 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in >> the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that >> specific curriculum item. >> 4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough, >> the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy. >> 5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the >> students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day >> can be found to resolve the remaining tickets. >> >> This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not >> sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use >> their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one. >> > > I think a lot will depend on what the ratio of beginners to experienced > pythoneers is. > > Did the survey tell us that? > > Kevin Horn > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Fri Aug 6 17:20:09 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 10:20:09 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: That ratio could change if we get the expected last minute student signups. Most of the students won't be finding out about the PyTexas till they return from summer vacation to see the flyers and (hopefully) receive email announcements from their profs. For those unfamiliar with the survey, "DK" is short for "don't know" at the time of the survey. I'll follow up with them this weekend to remind them to update their status on the wiki registration page. On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Arthur Aguirre wrote: > I pulled the latest survey results - there are 41 confirmed attendees 28 of > which are advanced/intermediate pythoneers - that is then 2:1 ratio.? There > are 35 folks who are a DK to show but the ratio is the same. > > Arthur > > On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 9:50 PM, Kevin Horn wrote: >> >> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:33 PM, Brad Allen >> wrote: >>> >>> A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach >>> Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't >>> have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to >>> prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can >>> we avert disaster? >>> >>> Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an >>> instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally >>> effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and >>> retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of >>> intentions. So why not risk trying something different? >>> >>> I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for >>> consideration. Here goes: >>> >>> Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's >>> schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all >>> attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners. >>> The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors >>> simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for >>> chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make >>> it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun. >>> >>> According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced >>> Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if >>> asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer >>> specific student questions. ?Those who can't be bothered to volunteer >>> can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to >>> step up to the challenge. >>> >>> One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for >>> pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the >>> student needs to know. Here's how it might go: >>> >>> 0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core >>> fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the >>> wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum. >>> 1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper >>> tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets >>> for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white >>> tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections, >>> etc.). >>> 2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of >>> each color for the part they needed to learn. >>> 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in >>> the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that >>> specific curriculum item. >>> 4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough, >>> the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy. >>> 5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the >>> students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day >>> can be found to resolve the remaining tickets. >>> >>> This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not >>> sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use >>> their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one. >> >> I think a lot will depend on what the ratio of beginners to experienced >> pythoneers is. >> >> Did the survey tell us that? >> >> Kevin Horn >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Texas mailing list >> Texas at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > From andre.roberge at gmail.com Fri Aug 6 12:07:00 2010 From: andre.roberge at gmail.com (Andre Roberge) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 07:07:00 -0300 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 12:33 AM, Brad Allen wrote: > A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach > Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't > have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to > prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can > we avert disaster? > > Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an > instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally > effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and > retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of > intentions. So why not risk trying something different? > > I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for > consideration. Here goes: > > Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's > schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all > attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners. > The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors > simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for > chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make > it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun. > > According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced > Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if > asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer > specific student questions. Those who can't be bothered to volunteer > can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to > step up to the challenge. > Here's a (biased) idea: have people install Crunchy ( http://code.google.com/p/crunchy) and have student go through the official Python tutorial in a pair-programming kind of environment. You still need to cover the installation process (Python & Crunchy) separately first - for those that have their laptops, but you then ensure that all tutors go through the same material with which they should be familiar. Andr? > > One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for > pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the > student needs to know. Here's how it might go: > > 0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core > fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the > wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum. > 1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper > tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets > for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white > tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections, > etc.). > 2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of > each color for the part they needed to learn. > 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in > the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that > specific curriculum item. > 4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough, > the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy. > 5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the > students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day > can be found to resolve the remaining tickets. > > This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not > sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use > their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one. > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Cameron at phaseit.net Fri Aug 6 15:03:07 2010 From: Cameron at phaseit.net (Cameron Laird) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 13:03:07 +0000 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20100806130307.GA24276@lairds.us> On Thu, Aug 05, 2010 at 10:33:19PM -0500, Brad Allen wrote: . . . > A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach > Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't > have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to > prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can > we avert disaster? > > Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an > instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally > effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and > retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of > intentions. So why not risk trying something different? > > I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for > consideration. Here goes: > > Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's > schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all > attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners. > The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors > simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for > chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make > it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun. > > According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced > Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if > asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer > specific student questions. Those who can't be bothered to volunteer > can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to > step up to the challenge. > > One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for > pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the > student needs to know. Here's how it might go: > > 0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core > fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the > wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum. > 1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper > tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets > for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white > tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections, > etc.). > 2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of > each color for the part they needed to learn. > 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in > the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that > specific curriculum item. > 4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough, > the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy. > 5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the > students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day > can be found to resolve the remaining tickets. > > This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not > sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use > their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one. . . . Good ideas. I could be available at the end of August, and it's not a long trip for me. From jdunck at gmail.com Fri Aug 6 17:54:37 2010 From: jdunck at gmail.com (Jeremy Dunck) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 10:54:37 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:33 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach > Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't > have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to > prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can > we avert disaster? ... I see that was Greg Lindstrom. Do we have any materials he'd prepared for that? Are there common 101 materials available from the PSF or similar? How many 101 people are expected? > According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced > Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if > asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer > specific student questions. ?Those who can't be bothered to volunteer > can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to > step up to the challenge. Where are the results of that survey? Sorry I've only been sporadicly paying attention to PyTexas. > One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for > pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the > student needs to know. Here's how it might go: This fits closely with a way of teaching I've been thinking about, but I agree the laptop coverage could be an issue. What about a start-of-class quiz to figure out who is more experienced of the group and have that person lead a pair of greener people? Don't need full coverage that way, and I think small groups of 2 or 3 would still be useful for collaborating. > 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in > the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that > specific curriculum item. One problem with this is that there will be a bunch of bootstrapping issues that can't be waited on -- installing and intro to REPL is one of them. I think front-of-class instruction for the starting stuff that can't be deferred would still be useful, with follow-on support for people that got lost in that intro. Otherwise I think the idea is pretty good. Perhaps an add-on would be if people are able to teach a topic, they safety-pin that ribbon to their shirt. Less waving, more hailing. From catherine.devlin at gmail.com Fri Aug 6 18:10:48 2010 From: catherine.devlin at gmail.com (Catherine Devlin) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 12:10:48 -0400 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sounds intriguing - if you do it, please report back on how it goes. Another possible approach: at PyOhio this year, Greg Malcolm led a session based on the Python Koans. Greg, do you have any comments about how that went? Since the Koans are already prepared and the students work through them on their own, you might be able to get somebody to lead it without too much advance work. The big thing (it seems to me) would be making sure students are getting help to get them over humps, which your circulating instructors could do as with your ticket system. On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 11:33 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach > Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't > have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to > prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can > we avert disaster? > > Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an > instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally > effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and > retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of > intentions. So why not risk trying something different? > > I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for > consideration. Here goes: > > Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's > schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all > attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners. > The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors > simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for > chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make > it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun. > > According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced > Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if > asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer > specific student questions. Those who can't be bothered to volunteer > can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to > step up to the challenge. > > One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for > pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the > student needs to know. Here's how it might go: > > 0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core > fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the > wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum. > 1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper > tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets > for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white > tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections, > etc.). > 2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of > each color for the part they needed to learn. > 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in > the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that > specific curriculum item. > 4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough, > the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy. > 5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the > students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day > can be found to resolve the remaining tickets. > > This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not > sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use > their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one. > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy mailing list > Advocacy at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy > -- - Catherine http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/ *** PyOhio 2010 * July 31 - Aug 1 * Columbus, OH * pyohio.org *** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From greg at gregmalcolm.com Sat Aug 7 05:37:15 2010 From: greg at gregmalcolm.com (Greg Malcolm) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 23:37:15 -0400 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi guys! Some info about Python Koans: Python Koans sessions are very easy to run. They come in the form of a suite of of unit tests that confirm the functionality of Python itself. It starts with the extreme basics: Asserts, None, strings, lists, eventually leading to more complex subjects such as Generators and Decorators. The tests are all initially in a state of not working, or need values filled out, so the process of fixing them teaches the student how Python behaves. The code for it is all available on both bitbucket and github: http://bitbucket.org/gregmalcolm/python_koans http://github.com/gregmalcolm/python_koans I've run this as a session a couple of times now, once at my local user group, and once at PyOhio. Both times it seems to go down pretty well, particularly among beginners. My approach is to give a very short talk/demo at the beginning explaining the concept of TDD, how it relates to the Koans, followed by a quick demo of solving the first couple of problems. From there on in most of the work is wondering around the room making sure everyone got set up ok and helping anyone who is stuck or has questions. I've brought an assistant with me on both occasions. As long as the assistant has at least spent a couple of hours working through the koans and knows their way around Python they should be good to go. Having more than one assistant for a large audience is not a terrible idea. It also helps to have the koans available on cd and flash disk if the wireless access cannot be relied on. On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Catherine Devlin < catherine.devlin at gmail.com> wrote: > Sounds intriguing - if you do it, please report back on how it goes. > > Another possible approach: at PyOhio this year, Greg Malcolm led a session > based on the Python Koans. Greg, do you have any comments about how that > went? Since the Koans are already prepared and the students work through > them on their own, you might be able to get somebody to lead it without too > much advance work. The big thing (it seems to me) would be making sure > students are getting help to get them over humps, which your circulating > instructors could do as with your ticket system. > > On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 11:33 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > >> A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach >> Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't >> have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to >> prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can >> we avert disaster? >> >> Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an >> instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally >> effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and >> retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of >> intentions. So why not risk trying something different? >> >> I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for >> consideration. Here goes: >> >> Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's >> schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all >> attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners. >> The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors >> simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for >> chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make >> it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun. >> >> According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced >> Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if >> asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer >> specific student questions. Those who can't be bothered to volunteer >> can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to >> step up to the challenge. >> >> One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for >> pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the >> student needs to know. Here's how it might go: >> >> 0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core >> fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the >> wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum. >> 1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper >> tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets >> for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white >> tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections, >> etc.). >> 2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of >> each color for the part they needed to learn. >> 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in >> the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that >> specific curriculum item. >> 4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough, >> the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy. >> 5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the >> students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day >> can be found to resolve the remaining tickets. >> >> This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not >> sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use >> their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one. >> _______________________________________________ >> Advocacy mailing list >> Advocacy at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy >> > > > > -- > - Catherine > http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/ > *** PyOhio 2010 * July 31 - Aug 1 * Columbus, OH * pyohio.org *** > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sat Aug 7 18:06:39 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2010 11:06:39 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Wow, thanks, Greg and Katherine. The Python Koans will make an excellent addition to our beginner track. Given the lightness of the preparation required, hopefully we won't have any difficulty getting volunteers to run it. I'm uncertain whether Python Koans could be the first class of the day for students having zero Python experience. Maybe we still need a Python 101 to provide a basic orientation. What do you think? Also, how much time do you recommend we allot to allow students pass all the koans? On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:37 PM, Greg Malcolm wrote: > Hi guys! > Some info about Python Koans: > Python Koans sessions are very easy to run. They come in the form of a suite > of of unit tests that confirm the functionality of Python itself. It starts > with the extreme basics: Asserts, None, strings, lists, eventually leading > to more complex subjects such as Generators and Decorators. The tests are > all initially in a state of not working, or need values filled out, so the > process of fixing them teaches the student how Python behaves. > The code for it is all available on both bitbucket and ?github: > ??http://bitbucket.org/gregmalcolm/python_koans > ??http://github.com/gregmalcolm/python_koans > I've run this as a session a couple of times now, once at my local user > group, and once at PyOhio. Both times it seems to go down pretty well, > particularly among beginners. My approach is to give a very short talk/demo > at the beginning explaining the concept of TDD, how it relates to the Koans, > followed by a quick demo of solving the first couple of problems. From there > on in most of the work is wondering around the room making sure everyone got > set up ok and helping anyone who is stuck or has questions. I've brought an > assistant with me on both?occasions. > As long as the assistant has at least spent a couple of ?hours working > through the koans and knows their way around Python they should be good to > go.?Having more than one assistant for a large audience is not a terrible > idea. > It also helps to have the koans available on cd and flash disk if the > wireless access cannot be relied on. > On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Catherine Devlin > wrote: >> >> Sounds intriguing - if you do it, please report back on how it goes. >> >> Another possible approach: at PyOhio this year, Greg Malcolm led a session >> based on the Python Koans.? Greg, do you have any comments about how that >> went?? Since the Koans are already prepared and the students work through >> them on their own, you might be able to get somebody to lead it without too >> much advance work.? The big thing (it seems to me) would be making sure >> students are getting help to get them over humps, which your circulating >> instructors could do as with your ticket system. >> >> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 11:33 PM, Brad Allen >> wrote: >>> >>> A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach >>> Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't >>> have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to >>> prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can >>> we avert disaster? >>> >>> Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an >>> instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally >>> effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and >>> retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of >>> intentions. So why not risk trying something different? >>> >>> I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for >>> consideration. Here goes: >>> >>> Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's >>> schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all >>> attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners. >>> The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors >>> simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for >>> chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make >>> it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun. >>> >>> According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced >>> Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if >>> asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer >>> specific student questions. ?Those who can't be bothered to volunteer >>> can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to >>> step up to the challenge. >>> >>> One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for >>> pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the >>> student needs to know. Here's how it might go: >>> >>> 0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core >>> fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the >>> wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum. >>> 1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper >>> tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets >>> for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white >>> tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections, >>> etc.). >>> 2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of >>> each color for the part they needed to learn. >>> 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in >>> the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that >>> specific curriculum item. >>> 4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough, >>> the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy. >>> 5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the >>> students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day >>> can be found to resolve the remaining tickets. >>> >>> This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not >>> sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use >>> their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one. >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Advocacy mailing list >>> Advocacy at python.org >>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy >> >> >> >> -- >> - Catherine >> http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/ >> *** PyOhio 2010 * July 31 - Aug 1 * Columbus, OH * pyohio.org *** > > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sat Aug 7 18:51:38 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2010 11:51:38 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Advanced Concepts in Python series Message-ID: We have some volunteer speakers for PyTexas who have expressed willingness and availability to teach about various advanced aspects of Python programming, and a very high percentage of PyTexas survey respondents voiced an interest in that area, but nothing specific has been proposed. I've left several slots open in the schedule for this, and created a wiki page as a starting point to provide some specific choices for attendees: http://pytexas.org/EventSchedule2010 http://pytexas.org/AdvancedConceptsInPython Jeff Rush in particular has a variety of presentations he can speak to, and he'll probably fill at least two of those slots. If you are interested in helping with this or in filling one of the three open slots, please let me know. Also, please feel free to buttress the wiki page with links to examples of advanced Python presentations. If we go down that route, this PyTexas is starting to look more oriented toward tutorial/training of core language aspects for not only beginners but also advanced users. The schedule does have a handful of talks offering some variety, including the RackSpace OpenStack talks, Fred Trotter's Open Source Healthcare IT talk, and Patrick Michaud's Understanding Open Source Licensing. And of course, the lighting talks will likely bring a lot of variety. But I think it's ok if we have a lot of talks strengthening programming skills using Python; a lot of people are interested in upgrading their skills. Of course, that may be a bias created by the way the survey questions were asked. Should we do another survey on the current schedule and the specific talks being considered? From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sat Aug 7 19:02:34 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2010 12:02:34 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule Message-ID: Haley, I've updated the PyTexas schedule to include the RackSpace party you proposed. Currently it's slotted for 7pm-9pm, replacing the evening presentation slot which had been under consideration. (In the process I extended the lighting talks to run 1.5 hours). http://pytexas.org/EventSchedule2010 Will 7pm-9pm work for you? Also, is there any news on the venue? The Dr. Pepper museum was proposed, but I don't know if that will be do-able for you. I would expect we need a place with room for 50-100 attendees. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sat Aug 7 19:16:44 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2010 12:16:44 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas undecideds: please update your PyTexas registration status Message-ID: PyTexas 2010 is coming on Aug 28, only three weekends away! The list of undecideds is still pretty long. Please make a decision soon and update the wiki page as soon as you can. http://pytexas.org/SignUp2010 If your decision is contingent upon the schedule, please take a look. It's still a work in progress, and we still have some flexibility about making changes. http://pytexas.org/EventSchedule2010 Some excellent speakers will be presenting, about which I'll be announcing details soon. However, you can find out more now by viewing the talk proposals: http://pytexas.org/TalkProposals2010 Also, there is serious talk about RackSpace hosting a party in the evening. Given the buzz about their recent announcement of open-sourcing their Python-based cloud technology, I think the RackSpace talks and party should generate a lot of interest in attending PyTexas 2010. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 8 17:30:24 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 10:30:24 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:54 AM, Jeremy Dunck wrote: > On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:33 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >> A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach >> Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't >> have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to >> prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can >> we avert disaster? > ... > > I see that was Greg Lindstrom. ?Do we have any materials he'd prepared > for that? No, he didn't have a chance to prepare any Python 101 materials. He had prepared for "So you just took Python 101; what next?", and I asked him if he also do the Python 101. He said he could do it if we couldn't find any other volunteers, but later, some major work-related issues came up and he had bow out due to lack of time to prepare. It's my fault for setting the CFPs date so late (July 15), and asking him at what amounted to the last minute. >Are there common 101 materials available from the PSF or > similar? I don't know. There are plenty of online Python tutorials which could be mined for source material (for example, see http://www.awaretek.com/tutorials.html ) Anyone want to volunteer to research that and help assemble the appropriate materials? Right now we don't have enough volunteers involved to make this a success, so anyone willing to help should step forward. If you are willing to help with this, add your name as an instructor or a lab assistant on this wiki page: http://pytexas.org/PyTexas2010Python101 I will try to rearrange the schedule so that Python 101 instructors and lab assistants don't have to miss the talks they are interested in (that probably means pushing the Rackspace OpenStack talks later...but let me know and I'll work with you on that). > How many 101 people are expected? Arthur answered that earlier in this thread, saying it's expected to be about 1/3 of attendees who are either beginners or have no Python experience. However, we don't know how many students will register at the last minute. We've sent out email announcements to profs asking them to notify students when they arrive from summer vacation, and we're planning to distribute flyers next weekend at Baylor. To help nail this down, I'll encourage people to start putting their names down on the wiki for the presentations they plan to attend. > Where are the results of that survey? ?Sorry I've only been sporadicly > paying attention to PyTexas. The survey results are here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=y_2bGUGjyJn9S3p2J1v0luoC16liVIRYiAzwnR3gwyPO8_3d Arthur's survey analysis is here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AscL5At5nr5FdFJXaTdnS2sxZl9hTDNZX2ZFOHpsbmc&output=html >> One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for >> pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the >> student needs to know. Here's how it might go: > > This fits closely with a way of teaching I've been thinking about, but > I agree the laptop coverage could be an issue. Use of a pair programming approach could help resolve that. We could bring some old PCs running Linux to help with that, if we can find wireless adapters. We have from 8am-10am on the schedule before any classes and presentations start, which should give people time to get situated and hopefully during that time we can also make sure everyone has a computer, network access, Python installed, etc. > What about a start-of-class quiz to figure out who is more experienced > of the group and have that person lead a pair of greener people? I don't know if a written quiz will make sense in the chaos of preparatory setup. Probably an informal hand raising will do the job. > Don't need full coverage that way, and I think small groups of 2 or 3 > would still be useful for collaborating. Sure, I agree. > One problem with this is that there will be a bunch of bootstrapping > issues that can't be waited on -- installing and intro to REPL is one > of them. ?I think front-of-class instruction for the starting stuff > that can't be deferred would still be useful, with follow-on support > for people that got lost in that intro. ?Otherwise I think the idea is > pretty good. ?Perhaps an add-on would be if people are able to teach a > topic, they safety-pin that ribbon to their shirt. ?Less waving, more > hailing. Yes, that sounds great...I'm having visions of our more experienced attendees covered in dozens of multi-colored ribbons and possibly medals. Maybe we can also come up with special stackable hats, with each color or pattern corresponding to an area of expertise. Whoever leads this session can do it however they want as far as I'm concerned :-) From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 8 17:32:13 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 10:32:13 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: <20100806130307.GA24276@lairds.us> References: <20100806130307.GA24276@lairds.us> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 8:03 AM, Cameron Laird wrote: > I could be available at the end of August, and it's not > a long trip for me. That would be great, Cameron, and vastly appreciated. What do we need to do to make that work for you? From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 8 19:16:43 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 12:16:43 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Carl Karsten wrote: > I have a 2 hour Python Syntax talk, which is really abou 150 things to enter > at the python prompt, with a few things to say about each. Cool, that sounds useful. Where can we find it? > When is the event?? What is th AV plan? Saturday, August 28 (see http://pytexas.org). Tim Freund volunteered to drive to Texas and help with AV. We're still waiting for other volunteers to step forward and assist, and I think we'll probably have some locals be forthcoming pretty soon. (My wife, Bonnie, will be on hand to help though she doesn't have any AV experience). Personally I'd enjoy having a video covering the event more like a news crew, rather than strictly one video per talk. Tim? Do you want to say anything about AV-related planning? From greg at gregmalcolm.com Sun Aug 8 04:47:41 2010 From: greg at gregmalcolm.com (Greg Malcolm) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2010 22:47:41 -0400 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have to admit that when I ran Python Koans at PyOhio I did have to spend a few minutes apiece helping a couple of complete beginners getting started. It was mostly environmental issues, such as getting Python installed, pathed, and running the test suite through the command line. Although I'm not really sure what you can do to get around that kind of thing. I guess my conclusion is whatever you run as the first Python 101 tutorial of the day, make sure you have lots of helpers at hand! That aside Python Koans has worked fairly well for beginners so far. It does have a bit of a stumbling block in one of the 'about_none' exercises where I have explain it on the projector, but the first few tests the user has to fix are as simple as stuff like changing Assert(False) to Assert(True). Regarding session size, I really doubt anyone will get even close to finishing them. Theres a lot of content! So far with Python Koans I have only ran the sessions in 2 hours timeslots but that actually seems to work really well. Many students will continue working on them at home. I kinda did the same thing with the Ruby equivalent that the Python version is based on. On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > Wow, thanks, Greg and Katherine. The Python Koans will make an > excellent addition to our beginner track. Given the lightness of the > preparation required, hopefully we won't have any difficulty getting > volunteers to run it. > > I'm uncertain whether Python Koans could be the first class of the day > for students having zero Python experience. Maybe we still need a > Python 101 to provide a basic orientation. What do you think? Also, > how much time do you recommend we allot to allow students pass all the > koans? > > On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:37 PM, Greg Malcolm > wrote: > > Hi guys! > > Some info about Python Koans: > > Python Koans sessions are very easy to run. They come in the form of a > suite > > of of unit tests that confirm the functionality of Python itself. It > starts > > with the extreme basics: Asserts, None, strings, lists, eventually > leading > > to more complex subjects such as Generators and Decorators. The tests are > > all initially in a state of not working, or need values filled out, so > the > > process of fixing them teaches the student how Python behaves. > > The code for it is all available on both bitbucket and github: > > http://bitbucket.org/gregmalcolm/python_koans > > http://github.com/gregmalcolm/python_koans > > I've run this as a session a couple of times now, once at my local user > > group, and once at PyOhio. Both times it seems to go down pretty well, > > particularly among beginners. My approach is to give a very short > talk/demo > > at the beginning explaining the concept of TDD, how it relates to the > Koans, > > followed by a quick demo of solving the first couple of problems. From > there > > on in most of the work is wondering around the room making sure everyone > got > > set up ok and helping anyone who is stuck or has questions. I've brought > an > > assistant with me on both occasions. > > As long as the assistant has at least spent a couple of hours working > > through the koans and knows their way around Python they should be good > to > > go. Having more than one assistant for a large audience is not a terrible > > idea. > > It also helps to have the koans available on cd and flash disk if the > > wireless access cannot be relied on. > > On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Catherine Devlin > > wrote: > >> > >> Sounds intriguing - if you do it, please report back on how it goes. > >> > >> Another possible approach: at PyOhio this year, Greg Malcolm led a > session > >> based on the Python Koans. Greg, do you have any comments about how > that > >> went? Since the Koans are already prepared and the students work > through > >> them on their own, you might be able to get somebody to lead it without > too > >> much advance work. The big thing (it seems to me) would be making sure > >> students are getting help to get them over humps, which your circulating > >> instructors could do as with your ticket system. > >> > >> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 11:33 PM, Brad Allen > >> wrote: > >>> > >>> A couple of days ago we learned that our PyTexas 2010 volunteer teach > >>> Python 101 had to drop out. Since the event is on Aug 28, we don't > >>> have much time to find an instructor, or for that instructor to > >>> prepare. We know students and other beginners are coming, so how can > >>> we avert disaster? > >>> > >>> Maybe it's time to come up with a different approach. Having an > >>> instructor speak in front of a class has never sensationally > >>> effective, anyway. Students often have trouble paying attention and > >>> retaining lecture material, even when starting class with the best of > >>> intentions. So why not risk trying something different? > >>> > >>> I'd like to call for some new ideas, and to offer one for > >>> consideration. Here goes: > >>> > >>> Instead of burdening one volunteer to be the single teacher, let's > >>> schedule one or two hours at the beginning of the day for *all > >>> attendees* to be involved in the Python introduction for beginners. > >>> The entire lot of experienced PyTexas attendees could act as tutors > >>> simultaneously in an ad-hoc arrangement. Sound crazy, a recipe for > >>> chaos? Maybe...but if we could figure out the right structure to make > >>> it effective, everyone would be challenged and have fun. > >>> > >>> According to our survey, over half of the respondents are experienced > >>> Python developers, most of whom I think are capable of teaching, if > >>> asked to explain a particular topic or faced with a chance to answer > >>> specific student questions. Those who can't be bothered to volunteer > >>> can just show up late, but I would expect most of the attendees to > >>> step up to the challenge. > >>> > >>> One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for > >>> pairing up the students with the teachers who can explain what the > >>> student needs to know. Here's how it might go: > >>> > >>> 0. We define a loose curricula in advance, listing all the core > >>> fundamentals a student needs to understand. We can reference the > >>> wealth of existing tutorials to build this curriculum. > >>> 1. This curriculum could be divided up into variously colored paper > >>> tickets, each representing important learning milestones (red tickets > >>> for installation basics, green tickets for how to run scripts, white > >>> tickets for language fundamentals, blue tickets for collections, > >>> etc.). > >>> 2. At the beginning of class, each student would pick up a ticket of > >>> each color for the part they needed to learn. > >>> 3. During class, students raise their hands waving a colored ticket in > >>> the air to attract a tutor to come by and help them learn that > >>> specific curriculum item. > >>> 4. When a student is satisfied they understand that item well enough, > >>> the ticket is given to the tutor to keep, like a trophy. > >>> 5. At the end of class, success is gauged by how many tickets the > >>> students still have. If any are left over, maybe time later in the day > >>> can be found to resolve the remaining tickets. > >>> > >>> This plan assumes that all the students bring a laptop, but I am not > >>> sure that is going to be possible. We might have to ask tutors to use > >>> their own laptops for teaching students who don't have one. > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Advocacy mailing list > >>> Advocacy at python.org > >>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy > >> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> - Catherine > >> http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/ > >> *** PyOhio 2010 * July 31 - Aug 1 * Columbus, OH * pyohio.org *** > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at personnelware.com Sun Aug 8 18:53:10 2010 From: carl at personnelware.com (Carl Karsten) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 11:53:10 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have a 2 hour Python Syntax talk, which is really abou 150 things to enter at the python prompt, with a few things to say about each. When is the event? What is th AV plan? On Aug 8, 2010 11:49 AM, "Brad Allen" wrote: On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:54 AM, Jeremy Dunck wrote: > On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:... > ... > > I see that was Greg Lindstrom. Do we have any materials he'd prepared > for that? No, he didn't have a chance to prepare any Python 101 materials. He had prepared for "So you just took Python 101; what next?", and I asked him if he also do the Python 101. He said he could do it if we couldn't find any other volunteers, but later, some major work-related issues came up and he had bow out due to lack of time to prepare. It's my fault for setting the CFPs date so late (July 15), and asking him at what amounted to the last minute. >Are there common 101 materials available from the PSF or > similar? I don't know. There are plenty of online Python tutorials which could be mined for source material (for example, see http://www.awaretek.com/tutorials.html ) Anyone want to volunteer to research that and help assemble the appropriate materials? Right now we don't have enough volunteers involved to make this a success, so anyone willing to help should step forward. If you are willing to help with this, add your name as an instructor or a lab assistant on this wiki page: http://pytexas.org/PyTexas2010Python101 I will try to rearrange the schedule so that Python 101 instructors and lab assistants don't have to miss the talks they are interested in (that probably means pushing the Rackspace OpenStack talks later...but let me know and I'll work with you on that). > How many 101 people are expected? Arthur answered that earlier in this thread, saying it's expected to be about 1/3 of attendees who are either beginners or have no Python experience. However, we don't know how many students will register at the last minute. We've sent out email announcements to profs asking them to notify students when they arrive from summer vacation, and we're planning to distribute flyers next weekend at Baylor. To help nail this down, I'll encourage people to start putting their names down on the wiki for the presentations they plan to attend. > Where are the results of that survey? Sorry I've only been sporadicly > paying attention to PyTexas. The survey results are here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=y_2bGUGjyJn9S3p2J1v0luoC16liVIRYiAzwnR3gwyPO8_3d Arthur's survey analysis is here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AscL5At5nr5FdFJXaTdnS2sxZl9hTDNZX2ZFOHpsbmc&output=html >> One idea for making this work would be to develop a strategy for >> pairing up the students wit... > This fits closely with a way of teaching I've been thinking about, but > I agree the laptop coverage could be an issue. Use of a pair programming approach could help resolve that. We could bring some old PCs running Linux to help with that, if we can find wireless adapters. We have from 8am-10am on the schedule before any classes and presentations start, which should give people time to get situated and hopefully during that time we can also make sure everyone has a computer, network access, Python installed, etc. > What about a start-of-class quiz to figure out who is more experienced > of the group and have that person lead a pair of greener people? I don't know if a written quiz will make sense in the chaos of preparatory setup. Probably an informal hand raising will do the job. > Don't need full coverage that way, and I think small groups of 2 or 3 > would still be useful for collaborating. Sure, I agree. > One problem with this is that there will be a bunch of bootstrapping > issues that can't be waited on -- installing and intro to REPL is one > of them. I think front-of-class instruction for the starting stuff > that can't be deferred would still be useful, with follow-on support > for people that got lost in that intro. Otherwise I think the idea is > pretty good. Perhaps an add-on would be if people are able to teach a > topic, they safety-pin that ribbon to their shirt. Less waving, more > hailing. Yes, that sounds great...I'm having visions of our more experienced attendees covered in dozens of multi-colored ribbons and possibly medals. Maybe we can also come up with special stackable hats, with each color or pattern corresponding to an area of expertise. Whoever leads this session can do it however they want as far as I'm concerned :-) _______________________________________________ Advocacy mailing list Advocacy at python.org http://mai... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tim at freunds.net Sun Aug 8 23:40:27 2010 From: tim at freunds.net (Tim Freund) Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:40:27 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4C5F244B.7020202@freunds.net> On 08/08/2010 12:16 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >> When is the event? What is th AV plan? > > Saturday, August 28 (see http://pytexas.org). > > Tim Freund volunteered to drive to Texas and help with AV. We're still > waiting for other volunteers to step forward and assist, and I think > we'll probably have some locals be forthcoming pretty soon. (My wife, > Bonnie, will be on hand to help though she doesn't have any AV > experience). > > Personally I'd enjoy having a video covering the event more like a > news crew, rather than strictly one video per talk. > > Tim? Do you want to say anything about AV-related planning? Sure -- ebay has been good to me, and I was able to pick up three DV video cameras and two mixers for very little cash. That plus the equipment I already owned should get us pretty far. I'm planning to do a few dry runs over the next week just to test the new equipment. I will also add some details to the recording page in the PyTexas wiki including: - what we have - what we may need - what volunteers can do to help. I'm new to video, so any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Tim -- Tim Freund 913-207-0983 | @timfreund http://achievewith.us | http://tim.freunds.net From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 9 01:31:45 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 18:31:45 -0500 Subject: [Texas] need help distributing flyers for PyTexas 2010 Message-ID: With PyTexas nearing on Aug 28, it would be a good idea to start distributing flyers are Baylor and surrounding universities. We could use the same flyer which Jeff distributed at SciPy a few weeks ago. Are there any volunteers will to help with this? From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 9 04:44:11 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 21:44:11 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 t-shirt confirmed...with a pocket Message-ID: Last week I forgot to mention the good news to everyone that the PSF approved funding for the PyTexas 2010 t-shirt designed by Kat. The shirts have been ordered from Elegant Stitches, the same company which makes the excellent PyCon shirts. We ran about $100 over the $750 approved by the PSF, but I wanted to kick in the extra add a front pocket in keeping with the nerdy theme of the t-shirt image. We rearranged the image slightly to make room for the pocket. I hope nobody despises pockets on t-shirts! I realize it's a bit unusual. :-) Part of the agreement to obtain PSF funding was based on the promise to seek paid corporate sponsorship for next year's PyTexas. As we grow to become a larger and more established event, we can hopefully build some revenue for the PSF in the future, in the same way that PyCon raises money for the PSF. From kippesp at gmail.com Mon Aug 9 06:28:54 2010 From: kippesp at gmail.com (Paul Kippes) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 23:28:54 -0500 Subject: [Texas] need help distributing flyers for PyTexas 2010 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I can tackle TCU and UT Arlington. On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 6:31 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > With PyTexas nearing on Aug 28, it would be a good idea to start > distributing flyers are Baylor and surrounding universities. We could > use the same flyer which Jeff distributed at SciPy a few weeks ago. > > Are there any volunteers will to help with this? > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > From kevin.horn at gmail.com Mon Aug 9 06:36:31 2010 From: kevin.horn at gmail.com (Kevin Horn) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 23:36:31 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 12:16 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Carl Karsten > wrote: > > I have a 2 hour Python Syntax talk, which is really abou 150 things to > enter > > at the python prompt, with a few things to say about each. > > Cool, that sounds useful. Where can we find it? > > > When is the event? What is th AV plan? > > Saturday, August 28 (see http://pytexas.org). > > Tim Freund volunteered to drive to Texas and help with AV. We're still > waiting for other volunteers to step forward and assist, and I think > we'll probably have some locals be forthcoming pretty soon. (My wife, > Bonnie, will be on hand to help though she doesn't have any AV > experience). > > Personally I'd enjoy having a video covering the event more like a > news crew, rather than strictly one video per talk. > This is a cool idea, but there's a lot to be said for having one video per talk as far as archival purposes are concerned. I often like to kick back and watch videos from conferences I wasn't able to attend (or for talks I missed) while waiting for long db builds or compilation sessions. Do we have the resources to do both? Also, do we know what that groovy video-mixing software they use at PyCon is called? Tim? Do you want to say anything about AV-related planning? > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at personnelware.com Mon Aug 9 16:42:21 2010 From: carl at personnelware.com (Carl Karsten) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 09:42:21 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 12:16 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Carl Karsten wrote: >> I have a 2 hour Python Syntax talk, which is really abou 150 things to enter >> at the python prompt, with a few things to say about each. > > Cool, that sounds useful. Where can we find it? good question. I think it is on a desktop box that I haven't unpacked yet. (just moved, may be a few weeks.) Why isn't it in a public repo?!? > >> When is the event?? What is th AV plan? > > Saturday, August 28 ?(see http://pytexas.org). > > Tim Freund volunteered to drive to Texas and help with AV. We're still > waiting for other volunteers to step forward and assist, and I think > we'll probably have some locals be forthcoming pretty soon. (My wife, > Bonnie, will be on hand to help though she doesn't have any AV > experience). > > Personally I'd enjoy having a video covering the event more like a > news crew, rather than strictly one video per talk. > > ?Tim? Do you want to say anything about AV-related planning? > Is there a pyTx list? maybe should move this there. but then again, py vids do help with advocacy. http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/ http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/conference/ I have also just discovered http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/TV/SltvProject but have only talked to one of the developers, have not looked at the code or anything. -- Carl K From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 05:01:19 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 22:01:19 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule In-Reply-To: <12354_1281391683_o79M7wMk012359_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C64AB2717@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> References: <12354_1281391683_o79M7wMk012359_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C64AB2717@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: Haley has not heard a response from the Dr. Pepper Museum. Any other ideas for venues? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Haley Baskin Date: Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 5:07 PM Subject: Re: RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule To: "bradallen137 at gmail.com" I tried calling the museum again today but still no response so I may need to look in to another location. We can provide food considering the time of day we'll be hosting the event. Thanks for the follow up. ----- Original Message ----- From: Brad Allen To: Haley Baskin Cc: Ralph Green ; Jeff Rush ; Langley, Jeremy I. Sent: Mon Aug 09 16:13:06 2010 Subject: Re: RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule I'm not sure about the distance and transport time required. Jeremy, how much time do recommend we allot in the schedule to give people time to make it from Baylor to the Dr. Pepper Museum, considering time for traffic and parking? ?I was expecting the lightning talks to end a 6:30, and the Rackspace party to start at 7pm. Does that seem reasonable? Haley, would attendees need to get dinner elsewhere, or will dinner be included at the Rackspace party? On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 2:51 PM, Haley Baskin wrote: > Those times sound good. I emailed the museum, but haven't heard back yet. I will try them again today. Thanks so much! > > How far is the museum from the conference? > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Brad Allen > To: Haley Baskin > Cc: Texas Python User Group > Sent: Sat Aug 07 12:02:34 2010 > Subject: RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule > > Haley, > > I've updated the PyTexas schedule to include the RackSpace party you > proposed. Currently it's slotted for 7pm-9pm, replacing the evening > presentation slot which had been under consideration. ?(In the process > I extended the lighting talks to run 1.5 hours). > > http://pytexas.org/EventSchedule2010 > > Will 7pm-9pm work for you? > > Also, is there any news on the venue? ?The Dr. Pepper museum was > proposed, but I don't know if that will be do-able for you. I would > expect we need a place with room for 50-100 attendees. > > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or > embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the > individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise > expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. > Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. > If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail > at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. > Your cooperation is appreciated. > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. Your cooperation is appreciated. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 05:19:55 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 22:19:55 -0500 Subject: [Texas] need help distributing flyers for PyTexas 2010 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Great! Thanks, Paul. Today I spoke with Sameer in Austin and he said he can print some flyers to give out at this weeks Austin Python User group meeting, and ask members to help with distributing the flyers. He also said he can make sure some flyers get posted at UT Austin. You can find the flyer here, along with the Inkscape source files in case anyone wishes to edit: http://pytexas.org/GraphicDesigns On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Paul Kippes wrote: > I can tackle TCU and UT Arlington. > > On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 6:31 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >> With PyTexas nearing on Aug 28, it would be a good idea to start >> distributing flyers are Baylor and surrounding universities. We could >> use the same flyer which Jeff distributed at SciPy a few weeks ago. >> >> Are there any volunteers will to help with this? >> _______________________________________________ >> Texas mailing list >> Texas at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > From kippesp at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 06:15:24 2010 From: kippesp at gmail.com (Paul Kippes) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 23:15:24 -0500 Subject: [Texas] need help distributing flyers for PyTexas 2010 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What is the encoding in the lower left corner and what do you use to read it? On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:19 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > Great! Thanks, Paul. > > Today I spoke with Sameer in Austin and he said he can print some > flyers to give out at this weeks Austin Python User group meeting, and > ask members to help with distributing the flyers. ?He also said he can > make sure some flyers get posted at UT Austin. > > You can find the flyer here, along with the Inkscape source files in > case anyone wishes to edit: > > ? ?http://pytexas.org/GraphicDesigns > > On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Paul Kippes wrote: >> I can tackle TCU and UT Arlington. >> >> On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 6:31 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >>> With PyTexas nearing on Aug 28, it would be a good idea to start >>> distributing flyers are Baylor and surrounding universities. We could >>> use the same flyer which Jeff distributed at SciPy a few weeks ago. >>> >>> Are there any volunteers will to help with this? >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Texas mailing list >>> Texas at python.org >>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Texas mailing list >> Texas at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> > From tim at freunds.net Tue Aug 10 06:59:58 2010 From: tim at freunds.net (Tim Freund) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:59:58 -0500 Subject: [Texas] need help distributing flyers for PyTexas 2010 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4C60DCCE.8010902@freunds.net> It is a QR Code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code Some mobile phones (including android phones and iphones) can read the code and extract information like URLs, contact information, event information, etc. The code on the flyer points to http://pytexas.org. Thanks, Tim On 08/09/2010 11:15 PM, Paul Kippes wrote: > What is the encoding in the lower left corner and what do you use to read it? > > On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:19 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >> Great! Thanks, Paul. >> >> Today I spoke with Sameer in Austin and he said he can print some >> flyers to give out at this weeks Austin Python User group meeting, and >> ask members to help with distributing the flyers. He also said he can >> make sure some flyers get posted at UT Austin. >> >> You can find the flyer here, along with the Inkscape source files in >> case anyone wishes to edit: >> >> http://pytexas.org/GraphicDesigns >> >> On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Paul Kippes wrote: >>> I can tackle TCU and UT Arlington. >>> >>> On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 6:31 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >>>> With PyTexas nearing on Aug 28, it would be a good idea to start >>>> distributing flyers are Baylor and surrounding universities. We could >>>> use the same flyer which Jeff distributed at SciPy a few weeks ago. >>>> >>>> Are there any volunteers will to help with this? >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Texas mailing list >>>> Texas at python.org >>>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Texas mailing list >>> Texas at python.org >>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >>> >> > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas -- Tim Freund 913-207-0983 | @timfreund http://achievewith.us | http://tim.freunds.net From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 22:58:26 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:58:26 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace party needs a venue Message-ID: Folks, the Dr. Pepper Museum is not going to work for hosting the Rackspace party (see Haley's comments below). We need some ideas for other venues with room for potentially 50 to 100 people. On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Haley Baskin wrote: > I just spoke w/ them and their outside facility is already rented for that day and time and the inside facility can only hold around 30-35 people. So back to the drawing board. Has anyone given you any other suggestions? On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Haley Baskin wrote: > I tried them again this morning, but this doesn't give me a great vibe on their follow up. > > Any other near by venues I could call on? > > Thanks again for all your help! > > Haley > From jdickinson at racklabs.com Tue Aug 10 23:08:51 2010 From: jdickinson at racklabs.com (John Dickinson) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:08:51 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace party needs a venue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Crickets has lots of beers on tap and is a pretty big place. It's also only about 2 miles from Baylor (down University Parks across 35). They have pool and other things too. They serve food (although it used to be better). --john On Aug 10, 2010, at 3:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > Folks, the Dr. Pepper Museum is not going to work for hosting the > Rackspace party (see Haley's comments below). We need some ideas for > other venues with room for potentially 50 to 100 people. > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Haley Baskin > wrote: >> I just spoke w/ them and their outside facility is already rented for that day and time and the inside facility can only hold around 30-35 people. So back to the drawing board. Has anyone given you any other suggestions? > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Haley Baskin > wrote: >> I tried them again this morning, but this doesn't give me a great vibe on their follow up. >> >> Any other near by venues I could call on? >> >> Thanks again for all your help! >> >> Haley >> > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 3686 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jslowery at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 23:35:55 2010 From: jslowery at gmail.com (Jeremy Lowery) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:35:55 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace party needs a venue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Poppa Rollo's Pizza is another candidate. I called them and they said they have a party coming in they believe earlier that day but may be free in the evening. Can also try the Elite Cafe. I don't know what type of venues you folks are looking at, but there are also some placed down near Austin Ave like The Palladium, used mostly for wedding receptions. On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:08 PM, John Dickinson wrote: > Crickets has lots of beers on tap and is a pretty big place. It's also only > about 2 miles from Baylor (down University Parks across 35). They have pool > and other things too. They serve food (although it used to be better). > > --john > > > On Aug 10, 2010, at 3:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > > > Folks, the Dr. Pepper Museum is not going to work for hosting the > > Rackspace party (see Haley's comments below). We need some ideas for > > other venues with room for potentially 50 to 100 people. > > > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Haley Baskin > > wrote: > >> I just spoke w/ them and their outside facility is already rented for > that day and time and the inside facility can only hold around 30-35 people. > So back to the drawing board. Has anyone given you any other suggestions? > > > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Haley Baskin > > wrote: > >> I tried them again this morning, but this doesn't give me a great vibe > on their follow up. > >> > >> Any other near by venues I could call on? > >> > >> Thanks again for all your help! > >> > >> Haley > >> > > _______________________________________________ > > Texas mailing list > > Texas at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jdickinson at racklabs.com Tue Aug 10 23:46:02 2010 From: jdickinson at racklabs.com (John Dickinson) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:46:02 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace party needs a venue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6BB16A86-E955-425A-A6E9-6A7673DE6B69@racklabs.com> I'd be a fan of Papa Rollo's too. It's worth noting that none of these ideas are in walking distance of Baylor. --John On Aug 10, 2010, at 4:35 PM, Jeremy Lowery wrote: > Poppa Rollo's Pizza is another candidate. I called them and they said they have a party coming in they believe earlier that day but may be free in the evening. > > Can also try the Elite Cafe. > > I don't know what type of venues you folks are looking at, but there are also some placed down near Austin Ave like The Palladium, used mostly for wedding receptions. > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:08 PM, John Dickinson wrote: > Crickets has lots of beers on tap and is a pretty big place. It's also only about 2 miles from Baylor (down University Parks across 35). They have pool and other things too. They serve food (although it used to be better). > > --john > > > On Aug 10, 2010, at 3:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > > > Folks, the Dr. Pepper Museum is not going to work for hosting the > > Rackspace party (see Haley's comments below). We need some ideas for > > other venues with room for potentially 50 to 100 people. > > > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Haley Baskin > > wrote: > >> I just spoke w/ them and their outside facility is already rented for that day and time and the inside facility can only hold around 30-35 people. So back to the drawing board. Has anyone given you any other suggestions? > > > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Haley Baskin > > wrote: > >> I tried them again this morning, but this doesn't give me a great vibe on their follow up. > >> > >> Any other near by venues I could call on? > >> > >> Thanks again for all your help! > >> > >> Haley > >> > > _______________________________________________ > > Texas mailing list > > Texas at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 3686 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jslowery at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 00:08:22 2010 From: jslowery at gmail.com (Jeremy Lowery) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 17:08:22 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace party needs a venue In-Reply-To: <6BB16A86-E955-425A-A6E9-6A7673DE6B69@racklabs.com> References: <6BB16A86-E955-425A-A6E9-6A7673DE6B69@racklabs.com> Message-ID: I'd be a fan of Crickets, the place with the Pool Tables if anyone else liked to play :) Jeremy On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:46 PM, John Dickinson wrote: > I'd be a fan of Papa Rollo's too. > > It's worth noting that none of these ideas are in walking distance of > Baylor. > > --John > > > On Aug 10, 2010, at 4:35 PM, Jeremy Lowery wrote: > > Poppa Rollo's Pizza is another candidate. I called them and they said they > have a party coming in they believe earlier that day but may be free in the > evening. > > Can also try the Elite Cafe. > > I don't know what type of venues you folks are looking at, but there are > also some placed down near Austin Ave like The Palladium, used mostly for > wedding receptions. > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:08 PM, John Dickinson wrote: > >> Crickets has lots of beers on tap and is a pretty big place. It's also >> only about 2 miles from Baylor (down University Parks across 35). They have >> pool and other things too. They serve food (although it used to be better). >> >> --john >> >> >> On Aug 10, 2010, at 3:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >> >> > Folks, the Dr. Pepper Museum is not going to work for hosting the >> > Rackspace party (see Haley's comments below). We need some ideas for >> > other venues with room for potentially 50 to 100 people. >> > >> > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Haley Baskin >> > wrote: >> >> I just spoke w/ them and their outside facility is already rented for >> that day and time and the inside facility can only hold around 30-35 people. >> So back to the drawing board. Has anyone given you any other suggestions? >> > >> > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Haley Baskin >> > wrote: >> >> I tried them again this morning, but this doesn't give me a great vibe >> on their follow up. >> >> >> >> Any other near by venues I could call on? >> >> >> >> Thanks again for all your help! >> >> >> >> Haley >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Texas mailing list >> > Texas at python.org >> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Texas mailing list >> Texas at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> >> > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 01:45:35 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:45:35 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace party needs a venue In-Reply-To: <20100810213137.GB20807@fe2o3.lonestar.org> References: <20100810213137.GB20807@fe2o3.lonestar.org> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rusty Haddock Date: Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:31 PM Subject: Re: [dfwPython] RackSpace party needs a venue To: Brad Allen Brad Allen wrote: ? ?>Folks, the Dr. Pepper Museum is not going to work for hosting the ? ?>Rackspace party (see Haley's comments below). ?We need some ideas for ? ?>other venues with room for potentially 50 to 100 people. I highly recommend a local firehouse -- the bigger the station the better. They usually have some sort of community hall/meeting room attached or close-by. ?Many times these rooms are free but with a deposit in case you don't clean up after yourself. :-) I rented space in a station up in McKinney for my radio club's chili supper. Maybe not as "classy" as some other places but the newer stations can be nicely done! ? ? ? ?-Rusty- -- ? _____ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?Rusty Haddock ?<=> ?AE5AE |\/ ? o \ ? o ? ? ? ? ? ? Way out yonder in the | ? ( ?-< ?O o ? ? ?Van Alstyne (TX) Metropolitan Area |/\__V__/ ? ? ? Math illiteracy affects 7 out of 5 people! From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 01:49:13 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:49:13 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-188] RackSpace party needs a venue In-Reply-To: References: <741320874.1281473913520.JavaMail.nobody@james2> Message-ID: Jacqueline, That would be a great offer, but the PyTexas is in Waco this year. I cc'd the Austin list because many PyTexas attendees are coming from Austin. On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:12 PM, jacqueline hughes wrote: > Hey, > I haven't been to one of the python meetups as of yet, but run a calendar > with a bunch of geeky groups so I am subscribed to this one and get the > emails. ?I work over at Texas Coworking and we would be happy to help you > guys plan. Depending on the type of meeting/party we are flexible with > letting people use our space. If someone wants to call and discuss feel > free. We host and have hosted several meetup groups, RISE, Javascript after > party, ect as well as a few of our own community happy hours. I personally > also have helped implement and organize several of these and would be happy > to help you guys as well. > Thanks, > Jacqueline Hughes > Texas Coworking > jacqueline at texascoworking.com > 512-775-8232 > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >> >> Folks, the Dr. Pepper Museum is not going to work for hosting the >> Rackspace party (see Haley's comments below). ?We need some ideas for >> other venues with room for potentially 50 to 100 people. >> >> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Haley Baskin >> ?wrote: >> > ?I just spoke w/ them and their outside facility is already rented for >> > that day and time and the inside facility can only hold around 30-35 people. >> > So back to the drawing board. Has anyone given you any other suggestions? >> >> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Haley Baskin >> wrote: >> > I tried them again this morning, but this doesn't give me a great vibe >> > on their follow up. >> > >> > Any other near by venues I could call on? >> > >> > Thanks again for all your help! >> > >> > Haley >> > >> >> >> >> -- >> Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on >> this mailing list (python-188 at meetup.com) >> http://www.meetup.com/python-188/ >> This message was sent by Brad Allen (bradallen137 at gmail.com) from The >> Austin Python Meetup. >> To learn more about Brad Allen, visit his/her member profile: >> http://www.meetup.com/python-188/members/1755741/ >> To unsubscribe or to update your mailing list settings, click here: >> http://www.meetup.com/python-188/settings/ >> Meetup, PO Box 4668 #37895 New York, New York 10163-4668 | >> support at meetup.com >> > > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 01:51:37 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:51:37 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace party needs a venue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Folks, please cc Haley Baskin on this discussion since she is planning the Rackspace party. I'll forward here all the current messages in this thread up till now. On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:35 PM, Jeremy Lowery wrote: > Poppa Rollo's Pizza is another candidate. I called them and they said they > have a party coming in they believe earlier that day but may be free in the > evening. > Can also try the Elite Cafe. > I don't know what type of venues you folks are looking at, but there are > also some placed down near Austin Ave like The Palladium, used mostly for > wedding receptions. > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:08 PM, John Dickinson > wrote: >> >> Crickets has lots of beers on tap and is a pretty big place. It's also >> only about 2 miles from Baylor (down University Parks across 35). They have >> pool and other things too. They serve food (although it used to be better). >> >> --john >> >> >> On Aug 10, 2010, at 3:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >> >> > Folks, the Dr. Pepper Museum is not going to work for hosting the >> > Rackspace party (see Haley's comments below). ?We need some ideas for >> > other venues with room for potentially 50 to 100 people. >> > >> > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Haley Baskin >> > ?wrote: >> >> I just spoke w/ them and their outside facility is already rented for >> >> that day and time and the inside facility can only hold around 30-35 people. >> >> So back to the drawing board. Has anyone given you any other suggestions? >> > >> > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Haley Baskin >> > wrote: >> >> I tried them again this morning, but this doesn't give me a great vibe >> >> on their follow up. >> >> >> >> Any other near by venues I could call on? >> >> >> >> Thanks again for all your help! >> >> >> >> Haley >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Texas mailing list >> > Texas at python.org >> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Texas mailing list >> Texas at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > From andrew.b.garner at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 04:23:24 2010 From: andrew.b.garner at gmail.com (Andrew Garner) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:23:24 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace party needs a venue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I mentioned this problem offhand to some Wacoans and they suggested Z's bar and grill. It's pretty close to Baylor: http://www.z-barandgrill.com/ I'm told they should be able to handle 50-100 people no problem. Just throwing it out there. ~Andrew On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 6:51 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > Folks, please cc Haley Baskin on this discussion since she is planning > the Rackspace party. I'll forward here all the current messages in > this thread up till now. > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:35 PM, Jeremy Lowery wrote: >> Poppa Rollo's Pizza is another candidate. I called them and they said they >> have a party coming in they believe earlier that day but may be free in the >> evening. >> Can also try the Elite Cafe. >> I don't know what type of venues you folks are looking at, but there are >> also some placed down near Austin Ave like The Palladium, used mostly for >> wedding receptions. >> >> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 4:08 PM, John Dickinson >> wrote: >>> >>> Crickets has lots of beers on tap and is a pretty big place. It's also >>> only about 2 miles from Baylor (down University Parks across 35). They have >>> pool and other things too. They serve food (although it used to be better). >>> >>> --john >>> >>> >>> On Aug 10, 2010, at 3:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >>> >>> > Folks, the Dr. Pepper Museum is not going to work for hosting the >>> > Rackspace party (see Haley's comments below). ?We need some ideas for >>> > other venues with room for potentially 50 to 100 people. >>> > >>> > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Haley Baskin >>> > ?wrote: >>> >> I just spoke w/ them and their outside facility is already rented for >>> >> that day and time and the inside facility can only hold around 30-35 people. >>> >> So back to the drawing board. Has anyone given you any other suggestions? >>> > >>> > On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Haley Baskin >>> > wrote: >>> >> I tried them again this morning, but this doesn't give me a great vibe >>> >> on their follow up. >>> >> >>> >> Any other near by venues I could call on? >>> >> >>> >> Thanks again for all your help! >>> >> >>> >> Haley >>> >> >>> > _______________________________________________ >>> > Texas mailing list >>> > Texas at python.org >>> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Texas mailing list >>> Texas at python.org >>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Texas mailing list >> Texas at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> >> > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 20:14:40 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:14:40 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas may need more capacity Message-ID: Jeremy, We're up to 49 confirmed attendees, and 26 maybes. We don't know how many students will be showing at the last minute...we could get a lot. Will any more rooms be available in case we need them? An auditorium would be great. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 01:35:53 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:35:53 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-188] RackSpace party needs a venue In-Reply-To: <91506926.1281506353046.JavaMail.nobody@james1> References: <91506926.1281506353046.JavaMail.nobody@james1> Message-ID: Please cc Haley at Rackspace as well as the PyTexas list on any suggestions. On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 12:59 AM, Ken Hoo wrote: > Have you looked into the Salt Lick? > > > > -- > Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list (python-188 at meetup.com) > http://www.meetup.com/python-188/ > This message was sent by Ken Hoo (kenhoo63 at gmail.com) from The Austin Python Meetup. > To learn more about Ken Hoo, visit his/her member profile: http://www.meetup.com/python-188/members/2562665/ > To unsubscribe or to update your mailing list settings, click here: http://www.meetup.com/python-188/settings/ > Meetup, PO Box 4668 #37895 New York, New York 10163-4668 | support at meetup.com > > From haley.baskin at rackspace.com Tue Aug 10 19:28:07 2010 From: haley.baskin at rackspace.com (Haley Baskin) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:28:07 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule Message-ID: <4504_1281461360_o7AHTENh016556_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C64AB2724@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> I tried them again this morning, but this doesn't give me a great vibe on their follow up. Any other near by venues I could call on? Thanks again for all your help! Haley ----- Original Message ----- From: Brad Allen To: Texas Python User Group Cc: Haley Baskin Sent: Mon Aug 09 22:01:19 2010 Subject: Fwd: RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule Haley has not heard a response from the Dr. Pepper Museum. Any other ideas for venues? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Haley Baskin Date: Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 5:07 PM Subject: Re: RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule To: "bradallen137 at gmail.com" I tried calling the museum again today but still no response so I may need to look in to another location. We can provide food considering the time of day we'll be hosting the event. Thanks for the follow up. ----- Original Message ----- From: Brad Allen To: Haley Baskin Cc: Ralph Green ; Jeff Rush ; Langley, Jeremy I. Sent: Mon Aug 09 16:13:06 2010 Subject: Re: RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule I'm not sure about the distance and transport time required. Jeremy, how much time do recommend we allot in the schedule to give people time to make it from Baylor to the Dr. Pepper Museum, considering time for traffic and parking? ?I was expecting the lightning talks to end a 6:30, and the Rackspace party to start at 7pm. Does that seem reasonable? Haley, would attendees need to get dinner elsewhere, or will dinner be included at the Rackspace party? On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 2:51 PM, Haley Baskin wrote: > Those times sound good. I emailed the museum, but haven't heard back yet. I will try them again today. Thanks so much! > > How far is the museum from the conference? > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Brad Allen > To: Haley Baskin > Cc: Texas Python User Group > Sent: Sat Aug 07 12:02:34 2010 > Subject: RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule > > Haley, > > I've updated the PyTexas schedule to include the RackSpace party you > proposed. Currently it's slotted for 7pm-9pm, replacing the evening > presentation slot which had been under consideration. ?(In the process > I extended the lighting talks to run 1.5 hours). > > http://pytexas.org/EventSchedule2010 > > Will 7pm-9pm work for you? > > Also, is there any news on the venue? ?The Dr. Pepper museum was > proposed, but I don't know if that will be do-able for you. I would > expect we need a place with room for 50-100 attendees. > > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or > embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the > individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise > expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. > Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. > If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail > at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. > Your cooperation is appreciated. > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. 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From bradallen137 at gmail.com Fri Aug 13 04:59:04 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 21:59:04 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas2010 room count += 1 Message-ID: Jeremy at Baylor has scored us another room reservation, this one with a capacity for 70 people. That means we won't have to split up the lighting talks into two room. Thanks, Jeremy! Speaking of lightning talks...those of you with that fine ambition of performing a 5 minute dynamo of a talk...should really think about preparing it pretty soon. :-) From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 15 22:58:14 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:58:14 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas sponsorship Message-ID: I've updated the wiki page describing sponsorship opportunities for PyTexas. http://pytexas.org/Sponsorship2010 There is now a statement of intent for accepting paid corporate sponsorships for PyTexas 2011, since the PSF will presumably be willing to act as the recipient for PyTexas sponsorship donations. I've cc'd the PSF to begin the discussion on how this might work. For this year's sponsorship, we could still use more swag. Right now, we only have swag coming from GSOC, ZeOmega, Rackspace, and of course the PyTexas shirts. Email has been sent to NoStarchPress, ZenOSS, Wingware, and a few others. I'd really like attendees, especially students new to Python, to see the diversity of companies with an interest in Python, but unfortunately we haven't done a great job about getting the word out to potential sponsors. This is a good low cost opportunity for companies to distribute any leftover promotional materials they may have stored in a box somewhere :-) So if you have contact addresses for potential sponsors, please let them know about PyTexas, or send me their contact info and I'll contact them. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 02:54:25 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 19:54:25 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: <4C5F244B.7020202@freunds.net> Message-ID: After having a discussion with a friend who ran a university tutoring center, I'm convinced that an coordinated tutoring approach is worth a try for PyTexas. Let's call it the "Python Teach-In", unless anyone has a better name. The benefits include: * Beginners experience an engaged and helpful Python community * Beginners can be routed to tutorials relevant to their individual skill level and interests * Beginners can seek help in specific areas of need * Tutors can help beginners get setup for the Python Koans lab exercises later in the day * "Breaking the Ice" -- Forming social connection between beginners and veterans early in the day will break the ice for the "hallway track" and the RackSpace party in the evening * One-on-one tutoring is generally more effective than a lecture format, and I'm convinced that the result will create a lot of interest in Python at local universities. * Tutors who understand a subject well will find that they understand it better after tutoring * Tutoring greatly enhances your ability to communicate what you understand. * Tutoring volunteers experience the satisfaction of helping make PyTexas a success, and of building the local Python community. Of course, this effort requires a lot of volunteer tutors and a few volunteer tutorial coordinators. I won't ask them to do a lot of advance preparation, especially with only two weeks notice. Instead, let's put together a plan which will allow tutors to rely upon their existing knowledge and set an expectation that tutors are merely designated knowledgeable individuals with a willingness to help. Here's the plan I have in mind: * During the next two weeks, we'll select a repertoire of suggested tutorials, including the Python Koans. As the tutorial selection develops, we'll setup a wiki page to create links to the content. Any tutor volunteer will be free to add a favorite tutorial to the list. * The day before PyTexas, I'll burn a handful of CDs containing the tutorial content, to be given to tutorial coordinators. The plan for distibution will be to copy the content to flash drives and pass them around. There will also be an easily type-able download link. * Tutor volunteer preparion can be minimal; they will mainly draw upon their existing knowledge and briefly familiarize themselves with the content of one or more of the suggested tutorials. On the wiki they will register their name as a tutor volunteer, expected arrival time, and summarize any areas of special interest or expertise. * At the registration desk, attendees will be asked if they are beginners, tutors, or neither. Tutors will be given a badge with a distinctive color, and directed to the see the tutorial coordinators. Beginners will also be given a distinctive badge color, and be asked to go to the tutorial room and start getting setup. If they don't have a laptop, Baylor students will be told they can check one out at the library. * At least one tutorial coordinators will handle receiving beginners into the tutorial room and interviewing them about what kind of tutorial they need. * Outside the tutorial room, a different tutorial coordinator will initially meet with tutors briefly discuss which tutorials or subject areas each tutor has the experience. * As new beginners and tutors arrive, the coordinators will move back and forth between areas handling introductions and assisting in getting people situated in the right places. * The tutorial coordinators will attempt to arrange one-on-one tutoring as much as possible, but will keep tabs on what is happening and may be able to adjust if several students all want the same basic tutorial. * The main tutorial room will probably be the large 70 seat room; that should ensure everyone is mostly in the same place at by 11am for the main part of the conference to be kicked off. However, we need to do some analysis on this; other rooms may be better suited for rearranging desks along the walls into a formation which better encourages collaboration. * By 11am, most tutors will be released from tutoring, while a few hardy tutors remain to help students as they progress on additional lab exercises over the next hour or two. Some tutors may find the experience of tutoring so rewarding and interesting that they have more than enough energy to carry on additional tutoring through the day. Of course, they'll get a break as the various beginner talks start up. Now that this is forming into a specific plan, we can take this discussion back to the main PyTexas mailing list into a new topic thread to facilitate the details of this effort and round up volunteers. Anyone outside the Texas region interested in following the progress of this effort should stay tuned to the PyCon blog, where we'll occasionally post status updates. And of course, those of you in Texas not signed up to the PyTexas list...should register here: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas%20mailing%20list From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 05:08:37 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:08:37 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: <4C5F244B.7020202@freunds.net> Message-ID: I've gotten the relevant wiki pages for this posted, including outgoing links for tutorial selection and volunteer registration. http://pytexas.org/PythonTeachIn2010 On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > After having a discussion with a friend who ran a university tutoring > center, I'm convinced that an coordinated tutoring approach is worth a > try for PyTexas. Let's call it the "Python Teach-In", unless anyone > has a better name. The benefits include: > > * Beginners experience an engaged and helpful Python community > * Beginners can be routed to tutorials relevant to their individual > skill level and interests > * Beginners can seek help in specific areas of need > * Tutors can help beginners get setup for the Python Koans lab > exercises later in the day > * "Breaking the Ice" -- Forming social connection between beginners > and veterans early in the day will break the ice for the "hallway > track" and the RackSpace party in the evening > * One-on-one tutoring is generally more effective than a lecture > format, and I'm convinced that the result will create a lot of > interest in Python at local universities. > * Tutors who understand a subject well will find that they understand > it better after tutoring > * Tutoring greatly enhances your ability to communicate what you understand. > * Tutoring volunteers experience the satisfaction of helping make > PyTexas a success, and of building the local Python community. > > Of course, this effort requires a lot of volunteer tutors and a few > volunteer tutorial coordinators. I won't ask them to do a lot of > advance preparation, especially with only two weeks notice. Instead, > let's put together a plan which will allow tutors to rely upon their > existing knowledge and set an expectation that tutors are merely > designated knowledgeable individuals with a willingness to help. > > Here's the plan I have in mind: > > * During the next two weeks, we'll select a repertoire of suggested > tutorials, including the Python Koans. As the tutorial selection > develops, we'll setup a wiki page to create links to the content. Any > tutor volunteer will be free to add a favorite tutorial to the list. > * The day before PyTexas, I'll burn a handful of CDs containing the > tutorial content, to be given to tutorial coordinators. The plan for > distibution will be to copy the content to flash drives and pass them > around. There will also be an easily type-able download link. > * Tutor volunteer preparion can be minimal; they will mainly draw upon > their existing knowledge and briefly familiarize themselves with the > content of one or more of the suggested tutorials. On the wiki they > will register their name as a tutor volunteer, expected arrival time, > and summarize any areas of special interest or expertise. > * At the registration desk, attendees will be asked if they are > beginners, tutors, or neither. ?Tutors will be given a badge with a > distinctive color, and directed to the see the tutorial coordinators. > Beginners will also be given a distinctive badge color, and be asked > to go to the tutorial room and start getting setup. If they don't have > a laptop, Baylor students will be told they can check one out at the > library. > * At least one tutorial coordinators will handle receiving beginners > into the tutorial room and interviewing them about what kind of > tutorial they need. > * Outside the tutorial room, a different tutorial coordinator will > initially meet with tutors briefly discuss which tutorials or subject > areas each tutor has the experience. > * As new beginners and tutors arrive, the coordinators will move back > and forth between areas handling introductions and assisting in > getting people situated in the right places. > * The tutorial coordinators will attempt to arrange one-on-one > tutoring as much as possible, but will keep tabs on what is happening > and may be able to adjust if several students all want the same basic > tutorial. > * The main tutorial room will probably be the large 70 seat room; that > should ensure everyone is mostly in the same place at by 11am for the > main part of the conference to be kicked off. However, we need to do > some analysis on this; other rooms may be better suited for > rearranging desks along the walls into a formation which better > encourages collaboration. > * By 11am, most tutors will be released from tutoring, while a few > hardy tutors remain to help students as they progress on additional > lab exercises over the next hour or two. Some tutors may find the > experience of tutoring so rewarding and interesting that they have > more than enough energy to carry on additional tutoring through the > day. Of course, they'll get a break as the various beginner talks > start up. > > Now that this is forming into a specific plan, we can take this > discussion back to the main PyTexas mailing list into a new topic > thread to facilitate the details of this effort and round up > volunteers. Anyone outside the Texas region interested in following > the progress of this effort should stay tuned to the PyCon blog, where > we'll occasionally post status updates. And of course, those of you in > Texas not signed up to the PyTexas list...should register here: > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas%20mailing%20list > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 06:25:16 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:25:16 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: <4C5F244B.7020202@freunds.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 10:22 PM, Michael Tobis wrote: > I'm game, I suppose, but where are the students coming from that make > this level of effort justified? > Is there any indication that more than a handful of people will show > up to learn? Thanks for that opening for me to crow about our attendance and outreach efforts. :-) Also, it points out that we need a section on the registration page for attendees to indicate their interest in tutorials. I've added a "Learners" registration section to . Right now, that page is pretty bare, so let's fill it up! We have reason to expect over 70 attendees, and possibly over 100. The registration page has no indication of which are beginners coming to learn Python, but it provides a hint about baseline attendance (58 confirmed and 28 maybes); see . The survey indicated a 2:1 ratio of experienced (intermediate or advanced) to beginners (zero or beginning Python experience). However, the current registration page and survey won't be able to capture the last minute effect of our faculty/student outreach efforts. We have responses from two professors at Baylor who indicated they will promote the event to their students, who are arriving the Monday before PyTexas. In addition, professors at several area universities have been notified, and they may respond at the last minute. Flyers are being distributed at local universities, and we're planning to send out a PyTexas promotional announcement soon to be widely forwarded, tweeted, etc. Also, let's not forget that the TeachIn will also hold some appeal intermediate Python developers. The tutorials don't have to be only for beginners. Lots of intermediate Python developers would appreciate help with things like generators, itertools, decorators, descriptors, etc. If you're willing to register to teach advanced tutorials, that would surely garner some interest! From carl at personnelware.com Sun Aug 15 20:14:40 2010 From: carl at personnelware.com (Carl Karsten) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:14:40 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Ripley: py101 Syntax talk for PyTexas Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 12:16 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Carl Karsten wrote: >> I have a 2 hour Python Syntax talk, which is really abou 150 things to enter >> at the python prompt, with a few things to say about each. > > Cool, that sounds useful. Where can we find it? http://github.com/CarlFK/Ripley -- Carl K From carl at personnelware.com Sun Aug 15 20:30:09 2010 From: carl at personnelware.com (Carl Karsten) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:30:09 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: <4C5F244B.7020202@freunds.net> References: <4C5F244B.7020202@freunds.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 4:40 PM, Tim Freund wrote: > On 08/08/2010 12:16 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >>> >>> When is the event? ?What is th AV plan? >> >> Saturday, August 28 ?(see http://pytexas.org). >> >> Tim Freund volunteered to drive to Texas and help with AV. We're still >> waiting for other volunteers to step forward and assist, and I think >> we'll probably have some locals be forthcoming pretty soon. (My wife, >> Bonnie, will be on hand to help though she doesn't have any AV >> experience). >> >> Personally I'd enjoy having a video covering the event more like a >> news crew, rather than strictly one video per talk. >> >> ?Tim? Do you want to say anything about AV-related planning? > > > Sure -- ebay has been good to me, and I was able to pick up three DV video > cameras and two mixers for very little cash. ?That plus the equipment I > already owned should get us pretty far. ?I'm planning to do a few dry runs > over the next week just to test the new equipment. > > I will also add some details to the recording page in the PyTexas wiki > including: > - what we have > - what we may need > - what volunteers can do to help. > > I'm new to video, so any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. ? Thanks! http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/docs/ -- Carl K From mtobis at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 05:22:12 2010 From: mtobis at gmail.com (Michael Tobis) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:22:12 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [python-advocacy] [dfwPython] brainstorming new ways to teach Python 101 In-Reply-To: References: <4C5F244B.7020202@freunds.net> Message-ID: I'm game, I suppose, but where are the students coming from that make this level of effort justified? Is there any indication that more than a handful of people will show up to learn? mt From jtgalyon at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 23:19:59 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Choice of 12 O'Reilly books Message-ID: <1281993599.8261.12.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Howdy, O'Reilly is going to send 12 print books or ebooks to us. Please sound off with what you folks would like. Here are some of my ideas in my personal library that I recommend: * Python Cookbook * Beautiful Code * Restful Web Services the rest are out on loan and I can't find my sheet of them, but here are some off the top of my head I want to see myself: * Beautiful Data * Beautiful Architecture * Beautiful Testing A good place for viewing available books is http://oreilly.com/python/index.html I will pick the 12 most popular print books and send an email Thursday afternoon. Please sound off in the mean time. Pythonically yours, Jason From jtgalyon at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 23:27:29 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:27:29 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [Fwd: Re: PyTexas (PyCon Texas) is imminent, is it too late to get some books and schtuff from you folks?] Message-ID: <1281994049.8261.16.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Great opportunity for n00b to crusty ol' veterans alike... lets talk about this and see if we can't collaborate on some recipes, I will give a lightning talk about this and then meet with folks afterwards. Send me some ideas and I will include in talk (slides help too, rst format please) Pythonically yours, Jason -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Julie Steele Subject: Re: PyTexas (PyCon Texas) is imminent, is it too late to get some books and schtuff from you folks? Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:10:18 -0400 (EDT) Size: 4890 URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 23:28:06 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:28:06 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Choice of 12 O'Reilly books In-Reply-To: <1281993599.8261.12.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> References: <1281993599.8261.12.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Message-ID: Wow, that is great, Jason! Thanks for arranging that. E-Books are an interesting idea for giveaways. Will they give us download codes? Could we have a physical card picturing the book which could be placed next to the ticket basket, so people can see the prizes and drop tickets in the associated basket? On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Jason Galyon wrote: > Howdy, O'Reilly is going to send 12 print books or ebooks to us. > > Please sound off with what you folks would like. ?Here are some of my > ideas in my personal library that I recommend: > ?* Python Cookbook > ?* Beautiful Code > ?* Restful Web Services > > the rest are out on loan and I can't find my sheet of them, but here are > some off the top of my head I want to see myself: > ?* Beautiful Data > ?* Beautiful Architecture > ?* Beautiful Testing > > A good place for viewing available books is > http://oreilly.com/python/index.html > > I will pick the 12 most popular print books and send an email Thursday > afternoon. ?Please sound off in the mean time. > > Pythonically yours, > Jason > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > From jtgalyon at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 23:33:44 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:33:44 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Choice of 12 O'Reilly books In-Reply-To: References: <1281993599.8261.12.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Message-ID: <1281994424.8261.18.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> On Mon, 2010-08-16 at 16:28 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > Wow, that is great, Jason! Thanks for arranging that. > > E-Books are an interesting idea for giveaways. Will they give us > download codes? Could we have a physical card picturing the book which > could be placed next to the ticket basket, so people can see the > prizes and drop tickets in the associated basket? > > > On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Jason Galyon wrote: > > Howdy, O'Reilly is going to send 12 print books or ebooks to us. > > > > Please sound off with what you folks would like. Here are some of my > > ideas in my personal library that I recommend: > > * Python Cookbook > > * Beautiful Code > > * Restful Web Services > > > > the rest are out on loan and I can't find my sheet of them, but here are > > some off the top of my head I want to see myself: > > * Beautiful Data > > * Beautiful Architecture > > * Beautiful Testing > > > > A good place for viewing available books is > > http://oreilly.com/python/index.html > > > > I will pick the 12 most popular print books and send an email Thursday > > afternoon. Please sound off in the mean time. > > > > Pythonically yours, > > Jason > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Texas mailing list > > Texas at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > I would argue the print books are more physical, yet your idea of cards makes that seem a moot point (you can search ebooks after all). Lets discuss this more... I will ask Julie. J From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 22:39:21 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:39:21 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer Message-ID: Today both Wingware and No Starch Press volunteered to donate prizes to PyTexas. We'll be getting an assortment of technical books for No Starch Press as well as The Mug of Vi. WingWare is donating two full WingIDE Professional cross-platform licenses. I like the way PyArkansas 2009 handled prize drawings, with every attendee getting multiple ticket stubs, to be dropped into the prize baskets most interested. For example, we could give each attendee 20 tickets. One attendee may decide to that they most want the Mug of Vi, and put all her tickets into that one basket. Another attendee might have an interest in various books, and spread his tickets across various baskets. The Wing IDE licenses have a higher dollar value than anything else, so they could be referred to as grand prizes if we want to handle them differently somehow. So...does anyone want to volunteer to coordinate the prize drawing? We also need a volunteer to buy tickets and bring baskets. From pmichaud at pobox.com Tue Aug 17 00:14:27 2010 From: pmichaud at pobox.com (Patrick R. Michaud) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:14:27 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20100816221427.GA2276@pmichaud.com> On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 03:39:21PM -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > I like the way PyArkansas 2009 handled prize drawings, with every > attendee getting multiple ticket stubs, to be dropped into the prize > baskets most interested. +1 Pm From carl at personnelware.com Tue Aug 17 01:03:19 2010 From: carl at personnelware.com (Carl Karsten) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:03:19 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Ripley: py101 Syntax talk for PyTexas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Carl Karsten wrote: > On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 12:16 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >> On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Carl Karsten wrote: >>> I have a 2 hour Python Syntax talk, which is really abou 150 things to enter >>> at the python prompt, with a few things to say about each. >> >> Cool, that sounds useful. Where can we find it? > > http://github.com/CarlFK/Ripley > > Can someone review http://github.com/CarlFK/Ripley/blob/master/ripley.txt It all makes sense to me, but I wrote it. having a 2nd person look it over now would be better than in front of a class full of people. I may be giving it in a week or so. -- Carl K From jdunck at gmail.com Tue Aug 17 01:09:49 2010 From: jdunck at gmail.com (Jeremy Dunck) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:09:49 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Ripley: py101 Syntax talk for PyTexas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 6:03 PM, Carl Karsten wrote: > Can someone review > > http://github.com/CarlFK/Ripley/blob/master/ripley.txt Will do. > I may be giving it in a week or so. At PyTexas, or elsewhere? :-) From carl at personnelware.com Tue Aug 17 01:15:06 2010 From: carl at personnelware.com (Carl Karsten) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:15:06 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Ripley: py101 Syntax talk for PyTexas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 6:09 PM, Jeremy Dunck wrote: > On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 6:03 PM, Carl Karsten wrote: >> Can someone review >> >> http://github.com/CarlFK/Ripley/blob/master/ripley.txt > > Will do. > Thanks. >> I may be giving it in a week or so. > > At PyTexas, or elsewhere? :-) > Here in Chicago. Chance of me making it to TX are slim to none. -- Carl K From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 17 04:04:45 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:04:45 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 event schedule updated Message-ID: I've updated the schedule to reflect the additional room, Jeff's introductory keynote, prize drawings, and the Python Teach-In http://pytexas.org/EventSchedule2010 Please let me know what you think. From gslindstrom at gmail.com Tue Aug 17 13:32:31 2010 From: gslindstrom at gmail.com (Greg Lindstrom) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:32:31 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Opening up regional conferences Message-ID: Good job on pyOhio 2010, everyone. I'm looking forward to pyTexas at the end of next week. pyArkansas will by on October 16, once again at the University of Central Arkansas but I have had an idea in my head for a few years now and wanted to get you thinking about it, too. What do you think about webcasting some of your classes/talks next year? On the simple end, I think if would be way cool (tm) to get one of the Universities in Conway (we have 3 of 'em!) to open up one of their multi-media centers for people to come watch/participate in a class. On the more extravagant end, I thought it might be cool to coordinate some of the regional conferences to run on the same weekend and have talks originating from different places. I have no idea of what's involved technically or financially, but thought it might be worth considering. I spoke with Gloria about it at pyOhio and she said that it's common in Europe and that there is some pretty good open source software for it. The motivation for me is to save money; it's expensive to bring in experts to Arkansas for our conference each year (though video conferencing may be more expensive). What do you think? Too over-the-top? --greg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sfreader at sbcglobal.net Tue Aug 17 19:25:25 2010 From: sfreader at sbcglobal.net (Ralph Green) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:25:25 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> Howdy, ActiveState responded to my email request and they are donating a license for Komodo IDE 5. We need to list them as a sponsor. I asked them what image they want us to use and I'll update the wiki when I find out. The ActiveState rep gave me a redemption code, but I don't think I should post that to the list. If no one has volunteered to coordinate prizes, I can do that. I have a random drawing program I used a Pycon a couple of years ago. I'll design our own ticket and print them at CompanyDallas. Let me know if someone else is already doing this. I won't start until I know if I should do it. Good day, Ralph On Mon, 2010-08-16 at 15:39 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > Today both Wingware and No Starch Press volunteered to donate prizes > to PyTexas. > > We'll be getting an assortment of technical books for No Starch Press > as well as The Mug of Vi. > > WingWare is donating two full WingIDE Professional cross-platform licenses. > > I like the way PyArkansas 2009 handled prize drawings, with every > attendee getting multiple ticket stubs, to be dropped into the prize > baskets most interested. For example, we could give each attendee 20 > tickets. One attendee may decide to that they most want the Mug of Vi, > and put all her tickets into that one basket. Another attendee might > have an interest in various books, and spread his tickets across > various baskets. > > The Wing IDE licenses have a higher dollar value than anything else, > so they could be referred to as grand prizes if we want to handle them > differently somehow. > > So...does anyone want to volunteer to coordinate the prize drawing? We > also need a volunteer to buy tickets and bring baskets. > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 17 20:07:04 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:07:04 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> References: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Ralph Green wrote: > Howdy, > ?ActiveState responded to my email request and they are donating a > license for Komodo IDE 5. Great! > We need to list them as a sponsor. ?I asked > them what image they want us to use and I'll update the wiki when I find > out. I haven't investigated how create the sponsor sidebar similar to the one in PyOhio, and am not sure if I'll have time to get that done quickly. Next year we'll have paid sponsorships and offer to advertise them on the wiki. Currently our only offer to sponsors is to distribute their physical promo materials (swag). > ?If no one has volunteered to coordinate prizes, I can do that. ?I have > a random drawing program I used a Pycon a couple of years ago. ?I'll > design our own ticket and print them at CompanyDallas. ?Let me know if > someone else is already doing this. ?I won't start until I know if I > should do it. Jason G. mentioned over IRC that he might buy some tickets, so you'll need to check with him to make sure he has not done that already. Ralph, you attended PyArkansas, so you're familiar with the benefits of that approach, such as allowing attendees to weight the prizes they prefer. However, it sounds as if you are proposing something different which would not have the same benefit. That said, your efforts to coordinate the prizes would be appreciated, so your preference in how to handle it carries extra weight. Could you go into more detail about the approach you suggest? For example, what kind of printed tickets are you talking about? How many would be given out per attendee (that might be continent on the number of prizes, which is still indeterminate). From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 17 20:10:55 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:10:55 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: Bar Camp Dallas this Saturday In-Reply-To: <1851024121.1282062445545.JavaMail.nobody@web7.meetup.com> References: <1851024121.1282062445545.JavaMail.nobody@web7.meetup.com> Message-ID: Jake Smith contacted me via Meetup about Bar Camp Dallas this weekend. This might be a good chance to practice your PyTexas presentations! What Jake Smith wrote: ---------------------------------------------------------------- Hey guys I'm a co-organizer of the Dallas PHP group and Dallas Bar Camp. ?I'm actively trying to get the word out to different development groups about the upcoming Bar Camp. ?We would love to have some python developers there to share knowledge and interact with everyone. ?Below is the email we sent out for Bar Camp Dallas, and would love for you to join us. ?Feel free to contact me about more information. What is a bar camp? BarCamps are ad-hoc gatherings of people that desire to share and learn in an open environment. Giving a presentation, on anything, is free, open to anyone, and encouraged! Schedules are made up the day of the conference by choosing a time-slot and room. Food and drinks will be provided by Triton Media and Microsoft! Please forward this on to any other tech groups or individuals that you believe would like to participate. Hope to see you all there! Links and Information Event Registration: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/709172153 BarCampDallas Page: http://barcamp.org/BarCampDallas5 Email List: barcampdallas at googlegroups.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/dallasbarcamp ---------------------------------------------------------------- * If you'd like to see the Meetup profile for Jake Smith, visit: http://www.meetup.com/members/119873/ -- Add info at meetup.com to your address book to receive all Meetup emails To manage your email settings, go to: http://www.meetup.com/account/comm/ Meetup, PO Box 4668 #37895 New York, New York 10163-4668 Meetup HQ in NYC is hiring! ?http://www.meetup.com/jobs/ From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 17 20:25:40 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:25:40 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Choice of 12 O'Reilly books In-Reply-To: <1281993599.8261.12.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> References: <1281993599.8261.12.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Message-ID: Here are the books I'd vote for: Python Cookbook Python in a Nutshell (dated but still great) Learning Python 4th Ed. (I liked the fourth edition better than previous editions, and it covers Python 3) Beautiful Code Beautiful Architecture Practical Python Programming: Callbacks by Alex Martelli (Video) Masterminds of Programming Bioinformatics Programming Using Python (for the SciPy attendees) 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know Cloud Application Architectures The Art of Agile Development Beautiful Data On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Jason Galyon wrote: > Howdy, O'Reilly is going to send 12 print books or ebooks to us. > > Please sound off with what you folks would like. ?Here are some of my > ideas in my personal library that I recommend: > ?* Python Cookbook > ?* Beautiful Code > ?* Restful Web Services > > the rest are out on loan and I can't find my sheet of them, but here are > some off the top of my head I want to see myself: > ?* Beautiful Data > ?* Beautiful Architecture > ?* Beautiful Testing > > A good place for viewing available books is > http://oreilly.com/python/index.html > > I will pick the 12 most popular print books and send an email Thursday > afternoon. ?Please sound off in the mean time. > > Pythonically yours, > Jason > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 04:12:48 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:12:48 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas hotel option Message-ID: My wife and I sifted through the reviews we found for hotels near Baylor University, and selected Quality Inn & Suites based on the number of positive reviews and reasonable price. The cheapest hotels were $45-60, but all suffered from abundant negative reviews. The best hotels seemed to be in the $150 price range. Quality Inn & Suites had excellent reviews and quoted us a price of $95 a nonsmoking room with a king-sized bed, but the price went down to $85 after I mentioned AAA. I mentioned PyTexas and they agreed to provide the same discount to others who mentioned PyTexas. http://www.qualityinnwaco.com/ Here is where we found the reviews: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=10784418291674271055&q=Embassy+Suites&hl=en&cd=2&cad=src:pplink&ei=NjxrTMDwJIiwyQX8gr3ZBw From carl at personnelware.com Wed Aug 18 04:22:09 2010 From: carl at personnelware.com (Carl Karsten) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:22:09 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [PyOhio-organizers] Opening up regional conferences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Greg Lindstrom wrote: > Good job on pyOhio 2010, everyone.? I'm looking forward to pyTexas at the > end of next week. > > pyArkansas will by on October 16, once again at the University of Central > Arkansas but I have had an idea in my head for a few years now and wanted to > get you thinking about it, too.? What do you think about webcasting some of > your classes/talks next year?? On the simple end, I think if would be way > cool (tm) to get one of the Universities in Conway (we have 3 of 'em!) to > open up one of their multi-media centers for people to come > watch/participate in a class.? On the more extravagant end, I thought it > might be cool to coordinate some of the regional conferences to run on the > same weekend and have talks originating from different places.? I have no > idea of what's involved technically or financially, but thought it might be > worth considering.? I spoke with Gloria about it at pyOhio and she said that > it's common in Europe and that there is some pretty good open source > software for it.? The motivation for me is to save money; it's expensive to > bring in experts to Arkansas for our conference each year (though video > conferencing may be more expensive). > > What do you think?? Too over-the-top DebConf (what I went to straight after PyOhio) has been doing it for... I think this was the 5th year. for recording I use a subset of the system they use. The basic idea is: a lower quality version of what is being recorded is also streamed. audio is kept pretty high quality, fps is dropped to about 5, which makes movement very jerky, but the slides are still readable. people watch the stream in a browser and send feedback via IRC. someone in the room will relay the question from IRC. It adds a fair bit of work to the pre-show setup, a little bit to on-site setup, and hopefully 0 to the operations during talks. If a problem does come up during a talk, I think it is just fine to ignore it until the talk ends and address it during the break. trying to address during drops the quality of the recording, which to me is 10x more important. -- Carl K From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 04:41:56 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:41:56 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas Eve activities Message-ID: My wife, Bonnie, plan to arrive in Waco by mid-afternoon the Friday before PyTexas for organizational activities and perhaps a dinner get-together afterward for anyone who wants to join us. Jeremy explained that we can meet in the Science Building on Friday and make use of tables in the lobby. This would allow for bag-stuffing if we have any swag bags. There will be much swag for attendees to contend with...and swag bags are, after all, traditional...maybe we should just bring grocery bags. The science building has no storage space, so all our swag and gear has to be taken back our hotel rooms for overnight storage. Those of you bringing gear, prizes, swag, and other supplies, please let me know when you'll be arriving what what you're bringing, using this wiki page: http://pytexas.org/SuppliesNeeded2010 Some of you will find that I've already added your name to the page, but please add detail. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 05:53:17 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 22:53:17 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: please register for free PyTexas tutorials ASAP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I just sent this out to survey respondents who indicated they are new to Python. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Brad Allen Date: Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 10:50 PM Subject: please register for free PyTexas tutorials ASAP To: Brad Allen Hello, In the PyTexas survey, you indicated that you are new to programming in Python. I wanted to remind you that PyTexas is less than two weeks away (Aug 28), and we'd like you to register for the "Python Teach-In" tutorials. The "Python Teach-In" takes place from 9am-11am, which involves pairing up beginner and intermediate Python users with experienced Python programmers to work through tutorials and lab exercises. In order to get this plan off the ground, we need beginners to register their names on this wiki page: ? ?http://pytexas.org/TeachInRegistration2010 ? ? ? ? ? (registration is free!) It's important for you to register if you want to participate in the Teach-In, because this is planned as a one-on-one tutor encounter. Beginner registration will drive tutor registration. The tutors are volunteers, and if you show up without registering, you may find that the experienced Python developers made plans to do something else. These one-on-one "Teach-In" tutorials provide you an opportunity to spend time with experienced Python developers capable of answering a wide range of questions. If you tell our tutorial coordinators what you want to learn, we'll connect you with a volunteer tutor who should be able to help you. If you don't have any specific questions or areas you want help, then our tutors will probably help you get started on the Python Koans exercises. These are a set of automated tests which are broken and need to be fixed; learning to fix these tests will help you learn both the Python language and test driven development ("TDD"). The Python Koans are suitable for both beginners and intermediate levels. If we get overloaded with an unexpectedly large rush of beginners, we may have to adjust the ratio of tutors to students. However, at the moment, our survey indicates that over half of the attendees are experienced; 47% are professional Python developers. The remainder of the day at PyTexas will include additional presentations and lab exercises of interest to beginners; the tentative schedule is here. ? ?http://pytexas.org/EventSchedule2010 I hope you'll join us and get a taste of the genuine geek enthusiasm which drives conferences like these. Brad Allen PyTexas Chairman From wam at wamber.net Wed Aug 18 05:43:22 2010 From: wam at wamber.net (William McVey) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 23:43:22 -0400 Subject: [Texas] [PyOhio-organizers] Opening up regional conferences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At work, we use WebEx for internal training sessions and large distributed meetings. It handles things like moderated remote questions, and can also record what gets broadcast out for immediate (although lower quality) recordings of slides, audio, and a/v feeds. I'll check into whether I might be able to snag us a good rate (ideally free) for the service. -- William From chris at sydneysys.com Wed Aug 18 08:10:28 2010 From: chris at sydneysys.com (Chris Austin) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:10:28 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Choice of 12 O'Reilly books In-Reply-To: References: <1281993599.8261.12.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Message-ID: Cookbook(I am a big fan of this one ) Beautiful Code Beautiful Data Cloud Application Architectures Learning Python 4th Ed. On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > Here are the books I'd vote for: > > Python Cookbook > Python in a Nutshell (dated but still great) > Learning Python 4th Ed. (I liked the fourth edition better than > previous editions, and it covers Python 3) > Beautiful Code > Beautiful Architecture > Practical Python Programming: Callbacks by Alex Martelli (Video) > Masterminds of Programming > Bioinformatics Programming Using Python (for the SciPy attendees) > 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know > Cloud Application Architectures > The Art of Agile Development > Beautiful Data > > > On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Jason Galyon wrote: > > Howdy, O'Reilly is going to send 12 print books or ebooks to us. > > > > Please sound off with what you folks would like. Here are some of my > > ideas in my personal library that I recommend: > > * Python Cookbook > > * Beautiful Code > > * Restful Web Services > > > > the rest are out on loan and I can't find my sheet of them, but here are > > some off the top of my head I want to see myself: > > * Beautiful Data > > * Beautiful Architecture > > * Beautiful Testing > > > > A good place for viewing available books is > > http://oreilly.com/python/index.html > > > > I will pick the 12 most popular print books and send an email Thursday > > afternoon. Please sound off in the mean time. > > > > Pythonically yours, > > Jason > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Texas mailing list > > Texas at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at personnelware.com Wed Aug 18 14:51:56 2010 From: carl at personnelware.com (Carl Karsten) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:51:56 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [PyOhio-organizers] Opening up regional conferences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 10:43 PM, William McVey wrote: > At work, we use WebEx for internal training sessions and large > distributed meetings. It handles things like moderated remote > questions, and can also record what gets broadcast out for immediate > (although lower quality) recordings of slides, audio, and a/v feeds. > I'll check into whether I might be able to snag us a good rate > (ideally free) for the service. Does WebEx require the presenter to install something? Does the presenter need to do anything other than present their talk? (like start something, click something...) Pretty sure it will require the presenter to connect to the local network. -- Carl K From jtgalyon at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 15:53:09 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:53:09 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Choice of 12 O'Reilly books In-Reply-To: References: <1281993599.8261.12.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Message-ID: <1282139589.4107.51.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Awesome guys... keep em coming :) Thanks, Jason On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 01:10 -0500, Chris Austin wrote: > Cookbook(I am a big fan of this one ) > Beautiful Code > Beautiful Data > Cloud Application Architectures > Learning Python 4th Ed. > > On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Brad Allen > wrote: > Here are the books I'd vote for: > > Python Cookbook > Python in a Nutshell (dated but still great) > Learning Python 4th Ed. (I liked the fourth edition better > than > previous editions, and it covers Python 3) > Beautiful Code > Beautiful Architecture > Practical Python Programming: Callbacks by Alex Martelli > (Video) > Masterminds of Programming > Bioinformatics Programming Using Python (for the SciPy > attendees) > 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know > Cloud Application Architectures > The Art of Agile Development > Beautiful Data > > > On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Jason Galyon > wrote: > > > > Howdy, O'Reilly is going to send 12 print books or ebooks to > us. > > > > Please sound off with what you folks would like. Here are > some of my > > ideas in my personal library that I recommend: > > * Python Cookbook > > * Beautiful Code > > * Restful Web Services > > > > the rest are out on loan and I can't find my sheet of them, > but here are > > some off the top of my head I want to see myself: > > * Beautiful Data > > * Beautiful Architecture > > * Beautiful Testing > > > > A good place for viewing available books is > > http://oreilly.com/python/index.html > > > > I will pick the 12 most popular print books and send an > email Thursday > > afternoon. Please sound off in the mean time. > > > > Pythonically yours, > > Jason > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Texas mailing list > > Texas at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 18:13:24 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:13:24 -0500 Subject: [Texas] opinions of the Teach-In approach Message-ID: I haven't gotten much feedback on the Python Teach-In concept. A few experienced Pythonistas I spoke with seemed excited about and think it could work, but Ralph mentioned that he thought I was overoptimistic in thinking we could get enough tutor volunteers for one-on-one tutorials with beginners. However, most of our local Python community has not spoken up about it. All along in organizing PyTexas, I've been advertising that we will teach beginners at PyTexas, acting on faith that our community could rise to that challenge. However, most of our community members have proven too busy to prepare for that in the traditional Python 101 style, so I wanted to devise an approach that would minimize the required preparation time, based on the assumption that most of our skilled Python community members would be generous enough to donate two hours of their time at PyTexas helping newbies get started. Is that too presumptous on my part? I'd like to hear some community feedback. Please feel free to respond to this thread with your opinions, or email me directly. Please bear in mind that I don't expect every last attendee to participate in the Teach-In. Many will be driving to Waco in the morning, and the drive from Houston takes several hours. I wanted the main part of the conference to start late in the morning (11am keynote) to give everyone time to arrive. P.S. We have currently have six beginners registered for the Teach-In, and four tutor volunteers. When university students find out about PyTexas next week, via their professors and flyers around the campuses, I expect those beginner numbers to rise. From jdunck at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 19:17:55 2010 From: jdunck at gmail.com (Jeremy Dunck) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:17:55 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [dfwPython] opinions of the Teach-In approach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Brad Allen wrote: ... > skilled Python community members would be generous enough to donate > two hours of their time at PyTexas helping newbies get started. I spent some time yesterday reviewing Carl's Ripley text. I think as far as syntax goes, it's a solid foundation. He thinks covering more will lead to fatigue; I haven't taught a 101, so have no I don't have an informed opinion. I'd like to think Ripley could be covered in an hour, but I think he said it was 2 hours, and it's been a long time since I learned to program. I see you've updated the schedule to feature koans; I haven't looked at those yet. > Is that too presumptous on my part? I'd like to hear some community > feedback. Please feel free to respond to this thread with your > opinions, or email me directly. I'm happy to do it, though I think 1-on-1 is not a useful goal. I imagine some peer instruction and some floating would be effective and easier to achieve. > P.S. We have currently have six beginners registered for the Teach-In, > and four tutor volunteers. When university students find out about > PyTexas next week, via their professors and flyers around the > campuses, I expect those beginner numbers to rise. I had considered offering to lead a 101 lecture class, but liked the idea of peer instruction. If the numbers stay low, it should be fine. I think the ideas we discussed before, with ribbons and teachers wearing ribbons indicating which topics they can teach would be a good way to scale beyond 1-1. I know time is short; I'm coming and plan to be one of the Teach-in teachers, but will try to manage a more standard 101 class if there's a pinch. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 19:44:28 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:44:28 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [dfwPython] opinions of the Teach-In approach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Jeremy Dunck wrote: > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Brad Allen wrote: > ... >> skilled Python community members would be generous enough to donate >> two hours of their time at PyTexas helping newbies get started. > > I spent some time yesterday reviewing Carl's Ripley text. Wow, thanks. I see that link has been posted on http://www.pytexas.org/TeachInTutorials2010 > ?I think as far as syntax goes, it's a solid foundation. ?He thinks covering more > will lead to fatigue; I haven't taught a 101, so have no I don't have > an informed opinion. ?I'd like to think Ripley could be covered in an > hour, but I think he said it was 2 hours, and it's been a long time > since I learned to program. It looks like a fairly practical choice; I think > I see you've updated the schedule to feature koans; I haven't looked > at those yet. Jeff tried those at the DFW Python meeting last Saturday, with two beginners and one intermediate level Python user. It went over well and left them in a position to progress further, given the large number of exercises available. I'd like to suggest that we plan the after lunch lab exercises to be "More fun with Python Koans", by which time the students should be able to operate without a lot of tutor assistance. We can ask one or two volunteers to stay in that room in case students get stuck and need help. >> Is that too presumptous on my part? I'd like to hear some community >> feedback. Please feel free to respond to this thread with your >> opinions, or email me directly. > > I'm happy to do it, though I think 1-on-1 is not a useful goal. ?I > imagine some peer instruction and some floating would be effective and > easier to achieve. Sure; I just want to make sure every beginner gets a chance to socialize with experienced Python developers, ask questions about specific uncertainties, get help installing Python and the tutorials exercises such as Python Koans. Right, those tutors who feel they can handle more than one learner can feel free to help out more than one; we just want to make sure all the beginners each get adequate attention to help them feel comfortable working with Python. >> P.S. We have currently have six beginners registered for the Teach-In, >> and four tutor volunteers. When university students find out about >> PyTexas next week, via their professors and flyers around the >> campuses, I expect those beginner numbers to rise. > > I had considered offering to lead a 101 lecture class, but liked the > idea of peer instruction. ?If the numbers stay low, it should be fine. > ?I think the ideas we discussed before, with ribbons and teachers > wearing ribbons indicating which topics they can teach would be a good > way to scale beyond 1-1. Either ribbons or an alternate colored badge. > I know time is short; I'm coming and plan to be one of the Teach-in > teachers, but will try to manage a more standard 101 class if there's > a pinch. Thanks; it's great to have a fallback plan if we get inundated with dozens of Baylor students at the last minute. From jdunck at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 19:48:48 2010 From: jdunck at gmail.com (Jeremy Dunck) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:48:48 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [dfwPython] opinions of the Teach-In approach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Jeremy Dunck wrote: >> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Brad Allen wrote: >> ... >>> skilled Python community members would be generous enough to donate >>> two hours of their time at PyTexas helping newbies get started. >> >> I spent some time yesterday reviewing Carl's Ripley text. > > Wow, thanks. I see that link has been posted on > http://www.pytexas.org/TeachInTutorials2010 FWIW, I did some edits here; Carl may choose to incorporate: http://github.com/jdunck/Ripley/tree/pytexas-review From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 19:53:29 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:53:29 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [dfwPython] opinions of the Teach-In approach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Jeremy Dunck wrote: >> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Brad Allen wrote: >> ... >>> skilled Python community members would be generous enough to donate >>> two hours of their time at PyTexas helping newbies get started. >> >> I spent some time yesterday reviewing Carl's Ripley text. > > Wow, thanks. I see that link has been posted on > http://www.pytexas.org/TeachInTutorials2010 > >> ?I think as far as syntax goes, it's a solid foundation. ?He thinks covering more >> will lead to fatigue; I haven't taught a 101, so have no I don't have >> an informed opinion. ?I'd like to think Ripley could be covered in an >> hour, but I think he said it was 2 hours, and it's been a long time >> since I learned to program. I hope the other tutor volunteers will take a little time to look at the Ripley tutorial and try running it. These kind of interactive tutorials seem like a good fit for...what we are now calling "peer instruction" scenarios, right? From sfreader at sbcglobal.net Wed Aug 18 21:56:23 2010 From: sfreader at sbcglobal.net (Ralph Green) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:56:23 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: References: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> Message-ID: <1282161383.3359.15.camel@belinda> Howdy, I was going to generate a series of numbers with checksums. These numbers would be encoded as barcodes and printed with a graphic. I don't know how many exactly, but roughly 500 tickets should be about enough. Then, we will decide how many to give to each person. If we think we have almost 100 people, we might give 5 tickets to each person. It sounds like people wanted a setup like PyArkansas, so we will have 10 to 20 cannisters labeled with 1 for each prize. People will drop their tickets in the cannister of the prizes they most want. The registration desk will note who got which tickets, or something similar. Then we just pull the prize winners and scan the bar codes to find the winners. I am still working on the ticket generation. Good day, Ralph On Tue, 2010-08-17 at 13:07 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 12:25 PM, Ralph Green wrote: > > Howdy, > > ActiveState responded to my email request and they are donating a > > license for Komodo IDE 5. > > Great! > > > We need to list them as a sponsor. I asked > > them what image they want us to use and I'll update the wiki when I find > > out. > > I haven't investigated how create the sponsor sidebar similar to the > one in PyOhio, and am not sure if I'll have time to get that done > quickly. > > Next year we'll have paid sponsorships and offer to advertise them on > the wiki. Currently our only offer to sponsors is to distribute their > physical promo materials (swag). > > > If no one has volunteered to coordinate prizes, I can do that. I have > > a random drawing program I used a Pycon a couple of years ago. I'll > > design our own ticket and print them at CompanyDallas. Let me know if > > someone else is already doing this. I won't start until I know if I > > should do it. > > Jason G. mentioned over IRC that he might buy some tickets, so you'll > need to check with him to make sure he has not done that already. > > Ralph, you attended PyArkansas, so you're familiar with the benefits > of that approach, such as allowing attendees to weight the prizes they > prefer. However, it sounds as if you are proposing something different > which would not have the same benefit. > > That said, your efforts to coordinate the prizes would be appreciated, > so your preference in how to handle it carries extra weight. Could you > go into more detail about the approach you suggest? For example, what > kind of printed tickets are you talking about? How many would be given > out per attendee (that might be continent on the number of prizes, > which is still indeterminate). From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 22:09:48 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:09:48 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: <1282161383.3359.15.camel@belinda> References: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> <1282161383.3359.15.camel@belinda> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Ralph Green wrote: > tickets in the cannister of the prizes they most want. ?The registration > desk will note who got which tickets, or something similar. That aspect sounds rather labor intensive and potentially error prone. At PyArkansas, each ticket had a corresponding receipt which the attendee kept, with a human readable number. I would expect such tickets could be purchased at an office supply store for a relatively low cost. From jtgalyon at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 22:19:08 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:19:08 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: References: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> <1282161383.3359.15.camel@belinda> Message-ID: <1282162748.4107.67.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 15:09 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Ralph Green wrote: > > tickets in the cannister of the prizes they most want. The registration > > desk will note who got which tickets, or something similar. > > That aspect sounds rather labor intensive and potentially error prone. > At PyArkansas, each ticket had a corresponding receipt which the > attendee kept, with a human readable number. I would expect such > tickets could be purchased at an office supply store for a relatively > low cost. > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas Well, I am planning on buying tickets at my local office depot or such this week, so please let me know if that is needed soon. J From kevin.horn at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 22:22:16 2010 From: kevin.horn at gmail.com (Kevin Horn) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:22:16 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: References: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> <1282161383.3359.15.camel@belinda> Message-ID: That was supposed to go to the list of course... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kevin Horn Date: Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 3:21 PM Subject: Re: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer To: Brad Allen On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Ralph Green > wrote: > > tickets in the cannister of the prizes they most want. The registration > > desk will note who got which tickets, or something similar. > > That aspect sounds rather labor intensive and potentially error prone. > At PyArkansas, each ticket had a corresponding receipt which the > attendee kept, with a human readable number. I would expect such > tickets could be purchased at an office supply store for a relatively > low cost. > > You can also get them at party stores (e.g. Party City), and educational toy stores (e.g. US Toy). Kevin Horn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jtgalyon at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 22:36:26 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:36:26 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: References: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> <1282161383.3359.15.camel@belinda> Message-ID: <1282163787.4107.68.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> true, also I have seen them at Costco (where i will shop tomorrow initially in hopes of finding them again) and Sams On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 15:22 -0500, Kevin Horn wrote: > That was supposed to go to the list of course... > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Kevin Horn > Date: Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 3:21 PM > Subject: Re: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer > To: Brad Allen > > > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Brad Allen > wrote: > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Ralph Green > wrote: > > tickets in the cannister of the prizes they most want. The > registration > > desk will note who got which tickets, or something similar. > > > That aspect sounds rather labor intensive and potentially > error prone. > At PyArkansas, each ticket had a corresponding receipt which > the > attendee kept, with a human readable number. I would expect > such > tickets could be purchased at an office supply store for a > relatively > low cost. > > > > > > You can also get them at party stores (e.g. Party City), and > educational toy stores (e.g. US Toy). > > Kevin Horn > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas From sfreader at sbcglobal.net Wed Aug 18 22:41:20 2010 From: sfreader at sbcglobal.net (Ralph Green) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:41:20 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: References: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> <1282161383.3359.15.camel@belinda> Message-ID: <1282164080.2263.1.camel@belinda> Brad, If by labor intensive, you mean simple and easy, then I agree. Yes, there are ticket you can buy like that. That solution is boring and uninteresting, though. Ralph On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 15:09 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Ralph Green wrote: > > tickets in the cannister of the prizes they most want. The registration > > desk will note who got which tickets, or something similar. > > That aspect sounds rather labor intensive and potentially error prone. > At PyArkansas, each ticket had a corresponding receipt which the > attendee kept, with a human readable number. I would expect such > tickets could be purchased at an office supply store for a relatively > low cost. From jtgalyon at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 22:43:50 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:43:50 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: <1282164080.2263.1.camel@belinda> References: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> <1282161383.3359.15.camel@belinda> <1282164080.2263.1.camel@belinda> Message-ID: <1282164230.4107.70.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 15:41 -0500, Ralph Green wrote: > Brad, > If by labor intensive, you mean simple and easy, then I agree. Yes, > there are ticket you can buy like that. That solution is boring and > uninteresting, though. > Ralph > > On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 15:09 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Ralph Green wrote: > > > tickets in the cannister of the prizes they most want. The registration > > > desk will note who got which tickets, or something similar. > > > > That aspect sounds rather labor intensive and potentially error prone. > > At PyArkansas, each ticket had a corresponding receipt which the > > attendee kept, with a human readable number. I would expect such > > tickets could be purchased at an office supply store for a relatively > > low cost. > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas if by 'boring and uninteresting' you are implying time proven and turn-key simple, then yes... the buying of tickets with stubs is great ;) lolol... ball's in your court now From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 23:12:01 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:12:01 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: <1282164080.2263.1.camel@belinda> References: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> <1282161383.3359.15.camel@belinda> <1282164080.2263.1.camel@belinda> Message-ID: Ralph, making a note of each and every attendee's ticket numbers (plural) will slow down the registration process. It's also a wasted effort given the ease of using ticket stubs. If you can print tickets with stubs to create more interesting or less costly tickets, that is ok with me. However it seems like a lot of effort to go through unless the custom tickets are *really* interesting; Jason's suggestion of buy normal tickets seems more sensible to me. If you are looking for more tasks to work on, let me know because there is still plenty to do. On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Ralph Green wrote: > Brad, > ?If by labor intensive, you mean simple and easy, then I agree. ?Yes, > there are ticket you can buy like that. ?That solution is boring and > uninteresting, though. > Ralph > > On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 15:09 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: >> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Ralph Green wrote: >> > tickets in the cannister of the prizes they most want. ?The registration >> > desk will note who got which tickets, or something similar. >> >> That aspect sounds rather labor intensive and potentially error prone. >> At PyArkansas, each ticket had a corresponding receipt which the >> attendee kept, with a human readable number. I would expect such >> tickets could be purchased at an office supply store for a relatively >> low cost. > > > From chris at sydneysys.com Thu Aug 19 03:32:48 2010 From: chris at sydneysys.com (Chris Austin) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:32:48 -0500 Subject: [Texas] opinions of the Teach-In approach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1282181568.21782.28.camel@discordia> I thought that the Koans was pretty effective with the beginners at the meeting last weekend. I don't know if an hour or even two would be enough to cover it all especially if 'off track' questions come up or if there is a person or two that really want to delve into things. I am a little concerned about having a 'traffic jam' since most likely the learners will not be coming in all at once and most likely in small groups. Any ideas on how long we should spend with these folks? On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 11:13 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > I haven't gotten much feedback on the Python Teach-In concept. A few > experienced Pythonistas I spoke with seemed excited about and think it > could work, but Ralph mentioned that he thought I was overoptimistic > in thinking we could get enough tutor volunteers for one-on-one > tutorials with beginners. > > However, most of our local Python community has not spoken up about > it. All along in organizing PyTexas, I've been advertising that we > will teach beginners at PyTexas, acting on faith that our community > could rise to that challenge. However, most of our community members > have proven too busy to prepare for that in the traditional Python 101 > style, so I wanted to devise an approach that would minimize the > required preparation time, based on the assumption that most of our > skilled Python community members would be generous enough to donate > two hours of their time at PyTexas helping newbies get started. > > Is that too presumptous on my part? I'd like to hear some community > feedback. Please feel free to respond to this thread with your > opinions, or email me directly. > > Please bear in mind that I don't expect every last attendee to > participate in the Teach-In. Many will be driving to Waco in the > morning, and the drive from Houston takes several hours. I wanted the > main part of the conference to start late in the morning (11am > keynote) to give everyone time to arrive. > > P.S. We have currently have six beginners registered for the Teach-In, > and four tutor volunteers. When university students find out about > PyTexas next week, via their professors and flyers around the > campuses, I expect those beginner numbers to rise. > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas From bradallen137 at gmail.com Thu Aug 19 04:03:17 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:03:17 -0500 Subject: [Texas] opinions of the Teach-In approach In-Reply-To: <1282181568.21782.28.camel@discordia> References: <1282181568.21782.28.camel@discordia> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Chris Austin wrote: > I thought that the Koans was pretty effective with the beginners at the > meeting last weekend. ?I don't know if an hour or even two would be > enough to cover it all especially if 'off track' questions come up or if > there is a person or two that really want to delve into things. > > I am a little concerned about having a 'traffic jam' since most likely > the learners will not be coming in all at once and most likely in small > groups. ?Any ideas on how long we should spend with these folks? 9am - 11am for the main Teach-In; hopefully by the end of that they are at least started on the Koans, even if they start off working through a different tutorial. That way, they can continue the Koans in the 1:30-2:30 lab session, but with only one or two tutors around to help them (they may be helping each other by that time). From sfreader at sbcglobal.net Thu Aug 19 10:50:45 2010 From: sfreader at sbcglobal.net (Ralph Green) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 03:50:45 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 prize drawings -- need a volunteer In-Reply-To: <1282164230.4107.70.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> References: <1282065925.2277.29.camel@belinda> <1282161383.3359.15.camel@belinda> <1282164080.2263.1.camel@belinda> <1282164230.4107.70.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Message-ID: <1282207845.2281.10.camel@belinda> On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 15:43 -0500, Jason Galyon wrote: > if by 'boring and uninteresting' you are implying time proven and > turn-key simple, then yes... the buying of tickets with stubs is > great ;) > lolol... > > ball's in your court now > > Jason, Were you trying to set me up with an easy one? Your statement is like the old one about the automobile. "The horse is here today, but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad." ? President of Michigan Savings Bank advising against investing in the Ford Motor Company I don't remember seeing you arrive at a meeting on a horse. Good day, Ralph From sfreader at sbcglobal.net Thu Aug 19 11:27:28 2010 From: sfreader at sbcglobal.net (Ralph Green) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:27:28 -0500 Subject: [Texas] [dfwPython] opinions of the Teach-In approach In-Reply-To: <1282181568.21782.28.camel@discordia> References: <1282181568.21782.28.camel@discordia> Message-ID: <1282210048.2281.46.camel@belinda> On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 20:32 -0500, Chris Austin wrote: > I am a little concerned about having a 'traffic jam' since most likely > the learners will not be coming in all at once and most likely in small > groups. Any ideas on how long we should spend with these folks? > Howdy, One advantage to the optimistic suggestion of Brad is that we could handle people as they arrive. Brad wanted one tutor per student. I don't think we will get that many tutors, but the more we have, the closer to such personal attention we can give. So, please, let us have a lot of volunteers. Good day, Ralph From chris at sydneysys.com Thu Aug 19 15:48:34 2010 From: chris at sydneysys.com (Chris Austin) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:48:34 -0500 Subject: [Texas] JetBrains Willing to give PyCharm Licenses for the drawing In-Reply-To: References: <4C6BBF7D.8090903@jetbrains.com> Message-ID: <1282225714.2493.19.camel@discordia> Hey Folks, It looks like the good guys JetBrains will throw their IDE PyCharm into our Drawings as well. Brad, can you give me a rough estimate on the number of expected attendees and what we need from them to list them as a unpaid sponsor. Cheers Chris On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 13:19 +0400, Eugene Toporov wrote: > Hello Chris, > > > Thanks a lot for contacting us. > > > We would be glad to donate PyCharm IDE licenses for the drawing. > What number of attendees to you envisage? It will help me decide the > number of licenses to give away. > > > Let me know what you need from us to be listed as a sponsor. > > > Looking forward to hearing from you. > > > -Eugene > > > --- > Eugene Toporov > Product Line Marketing Manager > JetBrains, s.r.o. > http://www.jetbrains.com > eugene.toporov at jetbrains.com > > > > > -------- Original-Nachricht -------- > > Betreff: PyTexas (PyCon Texas) > > Datum: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:01:04 -0500 > > Von: Chris Austin > > An: sales at jetbrains.com > > > > > > > > Greetings, > > > > PyTexas(http://pytexas.org/), a regional Python Programming > > Conference > > is happening in just a couple of weeks on August 28th, 2010. We are > > currently looking for sponsors. This year, Sponsorship is "unpaid" > > and > > so far we have sponsorship commitments from O'Reilly, ActiveState, > > RackSpace & a few others. > > This conference is has an entire track geared toward python > > new-comers > > and university students. This could be an opportunity to introduce > > them > > to your new product PyDev. Would you consider donating a PyDev > > license > > or two for the drawings we will be having at the conference? We'd > > be > > willing to display promotional material for you and list you as a > > sponsor. > > > > Cheers > > Chris Austin > > > > > > > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Thu Aug 19 18:30:41 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:30:41 -0500 Subject: [Texas] JetBrains Willing to give PyCharm Licenses for the drawing In-Reply-To: <1282225714.2493.19.camel@discordia> References: <4C6BBF7D.8090903@jetbrains.com> <1282225714.2493.19.camel@discordia> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Chris Austin wrote: > Hey Folks, > > It looks like the good guys JetBrains will throw their IDE PyCharm into > our Drawings as well. Great! Thanks for setting that up. All swag should be sent to my home address; if they are sending anything physical, I'll give you my home address. > Brad, can you give me a rough estimate on the number of expected > attendees I expect about 100, based on 66 confirmed, 29 unconfirmed, and an unknown number of students signing up next week as they see our flyers and receive a message from the professors about PyTexas. You can track the registration numbers here: http://pytexas.org/SignUp2010 > and what we need from them to list them as a unpaid sponsor. I haven't really been offering to list them anywhere, just to distribute their swag. However, Ralph did add a section on the sponsor page listing ActiveState: http://pytexas.org/Sponsorship2010 This is a bit unfair to the other sponsors if we don't display their logos, so if we are going to do that, we should probably round up logos for Rackspace, O'Reilly, Tummy.com, Wingware, No Starch Press, ZeOmega, Jetbrains, and GSOC. Maybe to save time we could copy those logos from the PyOhio or PyCon sites. Does anyone have time to do that? From bradallen137 at gmail.com Thu Aug 19 20:00:35 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:00:35 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: status on RackSpace party for PyTexas In-Reply-To: <25233_1282157514_o7IIpmt8026997_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C654C4B70@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> References: <25233_1282157514_o7IIpmt8026997_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C654C4B70@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: Haley has confirmed an event location for the RackSpace party which can host up to 150 people. I am going to be travelling and extremely busy for the next few days. Could one of our volunteers work with Haley to get this promoted and update on the wiki? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Haley Baskin Date: Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 1:51 PM Subject: RE: status on RackSpace party for PyTexas To: Brad Allen Ok, event location has been secured. Z-Bar & Grill 723 S. 6th St. Waco, TX (Across from campus on other side of I-35) Food (sliders, wings, dips, veggie tray, etc) and drinks (Budlight, Coors Light and Miller Light draft beers, Well drinks and wine) will be provided. We'll have the upstairs bar and patio from 7-9p that night. -----Original Message----- From: Brad Allen [mailto:bradallen137 at gmail.com] Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 5:23 PM To: Haley Baskin Subject: status on RackSpace party for PyTexas Haley, How are things going in relation to planning the PyTexas RackSpace party? Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. Your cooperation is appreciated. From chris at sydneysys.com Thu Aug 19 21:57:58 2010 From: chris at sydneysys.com (Chris Austin) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:57:58 -0500 Subject: [Texas] JetBrains Willing to give PyCharm Licenses for the drawing In-Reply-To: References: <4C6BBF7D.8090903@jetbrains.com> <1282225714.2493.19.camel@discordia> Message-ID: <1282247878.3273.22.camel@discordia> On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 11:30 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Chris Austin wrote: > > Hey Folks, > > > > It looks like the good guys JetBrains will throw their IDE PyCharm into > > our Drawings as well. > > Great! Thanks for setting that up. All swag should be sent to my home > address; if they are sending anything physical, I'll give you my home > address. > > > Brad, can you give me a rough estimate on the number of expected > > attendees > > I expect about 100, based on 66 confirmed, 29 unconfirmed, and an > unknown number of students signing up next week as they see our flyers > and receive a message from the professors about PyTexas. You can track > the registration numbers here: > > http://pytexas.org/SignUp2010 > > > and what we need from them to list them as a unpaid sponsor. > > I haven't really been offering to list them anywhere, just to > distribute their swag. However, Ralph did add a section on the sponsor > page listing ActiveState: > > http://pytexas.org/Sponsorship2010 > > This is a bit unfair to the other sponsors if we don't display their > logos, so if we are going to do that, we should probably round up > logos for Rackspace, O'Reilly, Tummy.com, Wingware, No Starch Press, > ZeOmega, Jetbrains, and GSOC. Maybe to save time we could copy those > logos from the PyOhio or PyCon sites. Does anyone have time to do > that? I can certainly help with this since most of it should be straight forward. I'll just need any marketing links & logos that the sponsors prefer otherwise I'll point to their homepage. From opritche at gmail.com Thu Aug 19 22:35:29 2010 From: opritche at gmail.com (Osye Pritchett) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:35:29 -0500 Subject: [Texas] JetBrains Willing to give PyCharm Licenses for the drawing In-Reply-To: <1282247878.3273.22.camel@discordia> References: <4C6BBF7D.8090903@jetbrains.com> <1282225714.2493.19.camel@discordia> <1282247878.3273.22.camel@discordia> Message-ID: I just put most of the images on the Wiki now but have no links set. The images I am missing are for GSOC and Jetbrains. On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Chris Austin wrote: > On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 11:30 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Chris Austin > wrote: > > > Hey Folks, > > > > > > It looks like the good guys JetBrains will throw their IDE PyCharm into > > > our Drawings as well. > > > > Great! Thanks for setting that up. All swag should be sent to my home > > address; if they are sending anything physical, I'll give you my home > > address. > > > > > Brad, can you give me a rough estimate on the number of expected > > > attendees > > > > I expect about 100, based on 66 confirmed, 29 unconfirmed, and an > > unknown number of students signing up next week as they see our flyers > > and receive a message from the professors about PyTexas. You can track > > the registration numbers here: > > > > http://pytexas.org/SignUp2010 > > > > > and what we need from them to list them as a unpaid sponsor. > > > > I haven't really been offering to list them anywhere, just to > > distribute their swag. However, Ralph did add a section on the sponsor > > page listing ActiveState: > > > > http://pytexas.org/Sponsorship2010 > > > > This is a bit unfair to the other sponsors if we don't display their > > logos, so if we are going to do that, we should probably round up > > logos for Rackspace, O'Reilly, Tummy.com, Wingware, No Starch Press, > > ZeOmega, Jetbrains, and GSOC. Maybe to save time we could copy those > > logos from the PyOhio or PyCon sites. Does anyone have time to do > > that? > > I can certainly help with this since most of it should be straight > forward. I'll just need any marketing links & logos that the sponsors > prefer otherwise I'll point to their homepage. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From opritche at gmail.com Thu Aug 19 22:41:40 2010 From: opritche at gmail.com (Osye Pritchett) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:41:40 -0500 Subject: [Texas] JetBrains Willing to give PyCharm Licenses for the drawing In-Reply-To: References: <4C6BBF7D.8090903@jetbrains.com> <1282225714.2493.19.camel@discordia> <1282247878.3273.22.camel@discordia> Message-ID: On their website JetBrains has the following quote: "Logos Please note that these images are for use by the press and registered JetBrains affiliates only and may not be modified in any way without permission." Do you think it would be ok to go ahead and use their logo? http://www.jetbrains.com/company/press/logos.html On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:35 PM, Osye Pritchett wrote: > I just put most of the images on the Wiki now but have no links set. The > images I am missing are for GSOC and Jetbrains. > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Chris Austin wrote: > >> On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 11:30 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: >> > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Chris Austin >> wrote: >> > > Hey Folks, >> > > >> > > It looks like the good guys JetBrains will throw their IDE PyCharm >> into >> > > our Drawings as well. >> > >> > Great! Thanks for setting that up. All swag should be sent to my home >> > address; if they are sending anything physical, I'll give you my home >> > address. >> > >> > > Brad, can you give me a rough estimate on the number of expected >> > > attendees >> > >> > I expect about 100, based on 66 confirmed, 29 unconfirmed, and an >> > unknown number of students signing up next week as they see our flyers >> > and receive a message from the professors about PyTexas. You can track >> > the registration numbers here: >> > >> > http://pytexas.org/SignUp2010 >> > >> > > and what we need from them to list them as a unpaid sponsor. >> > >> > I haven't really been offering to list them anywhere, just to >> > distribute their swag. However, Ralph did add a section on the sponsor >> > page listing ActiveState: >> > >> > http://pytexas.org/Sponsorship2010 >> > >> > This is a bit unfair to the other sponsors if we don't display their >> > logos, so if we are going to do that, we should probably round up >> > logos for Rackspace, O'Reilly, Tummy.com, Wingware, No Starch Press, >> > ZeOmega, Jetbrains, and GSOC. Maybe to save time we could copy those >> > logos from the PyOhio or PyCon sites. Does anyone have time to do >> > that? >> >> I can certainly help with this since most of it should be straight >> forward. I'll just need any marketing links & logos that the sponsors >> prefer otherwise I'll point to their homepage. >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Texas mailing list >> Texas at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chris at sydneysys.com Thu Aug 19 22:51:00 2010 From: chris at sydneysys.com (Chris Austin) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:51:00 -0500 Subject: [Texas] JetBrains Willing to give PyCharm Licenses for the drawing In-Reply-To: References: <4C6BBF7D.8090903@jetbrains.com> <1282225714.2493.19.camel@discordia> <1282247878.3273.22.camel@discordia> Message-ID: <1282251060.3273.26.camel@discordia> I don't think it would be an issue. I've asked them if they have a preferred logo and I haven't gotten a response just yet. Thank you for working on this. On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 15:41 -0500, Osye Pritchett wrote: > On their website JetBrains has the following quote: > > > "Logos > Please note that these images are for use by the press and registered > JetBrains affiliates only and may not be modified in any way without > permission." > > Do you think it would be ok to go ahead and use their logo? > > http://www.jetbrains.com/company/press/logos.html > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:35 PM, Osye Pritchett > wrote: > I just put most of the images on the Wiki now but have no > links set. The images I am missing are for GSOC and > Jetbrains. > > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Chris Austin > wrote: > > On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 11:30 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Chris Austin > wrote: > > > Hey Folks, > > > > > > It looks like the good guys JetBrains will throw > their IDE PyCharm into > > > our Drawings as well. > > > > Great! Thanks for setting that up. All swag should > be sent to my home > > address; if they are sending anything physical, I'll > give you my home > > address. > > > > > Brad, can you give me a rough estimate on the > number of expected > > > attendees > > > > I expect about 100, based on 66 confirmed, 29 > unconfirmed, and an > > unknown number of students signing up next week as > they see our flyers > > and receive a message from the professors about > PyTexas. You can track > > the registration numbers here: > > > > http://pytexas.org/SignUp2010 > > > > > and what we need from them to list them as a > unpaid sponsor. > > > > I haven't really been offering to list them > anywhere, just to > > distribute their swag. However, Ralph did add a > section on the sponsor > > page listing ActiveState: > > > > http://pytexas.org/Sponsorship2010 > > > > This is a bit unfair to the other sponsors if we > don't display their > > logos, so if we are going to do that, we should > probably round up > > logos for Rackspace, O'Reilly, Tummy.com, Wingware, > No Starch Press, > > ZeOmega, Jetbrains, and GSOC. Maybe to save time we > could copy those > > logos from the PyOhio or PyCon sites. Does anyone > have time to do > > that? > > > I can certainly help with this since most of it should > be straight > forward. I'll just need any marketing links & logos > that the sponsors > prefer otherwise I'll point to their homepage. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > > From opritche at gmail.com Thu Aug 19 22:56:00 2010 From: opritche at gmail.com (Osye Pritchett) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:56:00 -0500 Subject: [Texas] JetBrains Willing to give PyCharm Licenses for the drawing In-Reply-To: <1282251060.3273.26.camel@discordia> References: <4C6BBF7D.8090903@jetbrains.com> <1282225714.2493.19.camel@discordia> <1282247878.3273.22.camel@discordia> <1282251060.3273.26.camel@discordia> Message-ID: Well it's nice to actually contribute something since I have just been lurking this whole time :) On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Chris Austin wrote: > I don't think it would be an issue. I've asked them if they have a > preferred logo and I haven't gotten a response just yet. > > Thank you for working on this. > > > > On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 15:41 -0500, Osye Pritchett wrote: > > On their website JetBrains has the following quote: > > > > > > "Logos > > Please note that these images are for use by the press and registered > > JetBrains affiliates only and may not be modified in any way without > > permission." > > > > Do you think it would be ok to go ahead and use their logo? > > > > http://www.jetbrains.com/company/press/logos.html > > > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:35 PM, Osye Pritchett > > wrote: > > I just put most of the images on the Wiki now but have no > > links set. The images I am missing are for GSOC and > > Jetbrains. > > > > > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Chris Austin > > wrote: > > > > On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 11:30 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Chris Austin > > wrote: > > > > Hey Folks, > > > > > > > > It looks like the good guys JetBrains will throw > > their IDE PyCharm into > > > > our Drawings as well. > > > > > > Great! Thanks for setting that up. All swag should > > be sent to my home > > > address; if they are sending anything physical, I'll > > give you my home > > > address. > > > > > > > Brad, can you give me a rough estimate on the > > number of expected > > > > attendees > > > > > > I expect about 100, based on 66 confirmed, 29 > > unconfirmed, and an > > > unknown number of students signing up next week as > > they see our flyers > > > and receive a message from the professors about > > PyTexas. You can track > > > the registration numbers here: > > > > > > http://pytexas.org/SignUp2010 > > > > > > > and what we need from them to list them as a > > unpaid sponsor. > > > > > > I haven't really been offering to list them > > anywhere, just to > > > distribute their swag. However, Ralph did add a > > section on the sponsor > > > page listing ActiveState: > > > > > > http://pytexas.org/Sponsorship2010 > > > > > > This is a bit unfair to the other sponsors if we > > don't display their > > > logos, so if we are going to do that, we should > > probably round up > > > logos for Rackspace, O'Reilly, Tummy.com, Wingware, > > No Starch Press, > > > ZeOmega, Jetbrains, and GSOC. Maybe to save time we > > could copy those > > > logos from the PyOhio or PyCon sites. Does anyone > > have time to do > > > that? > > > > > > I can certainly help with this since most of it should > > be straight > > forward. I'll just need any marketing links & logos > > that the sponsors > > prefer otherwise I'll point to their homepage. > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Texas mailing list > > Texas at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > > > > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From opritche at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 00:25:57 2010 From: opritche at gmail.com (Osye Pritchett) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:25:57 -0500 Subject: [Texas] JetBrains Willing to give PyCharm Licenses for the drawing In-Reply-To: References: <4C6BBF7D.8090903@jetbrains.com> <1282225714.2493.19.camel@discordia> <1282247878.3273.22.camel@discordia> <1282251060.3273.26.camel@discordia> Message-ID: I think I have logos for everyone now, with links to their websites. If someone wants to check it out to make sure I have the correct logos and links I'd appreciate it. Thanks, Osye Pritchett On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Osye Pritchett wrote: > Well it's nice to actually contribute something since I have just been > lurking this whole time :) > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Chris Austin wrote: > >> I don't think it would be an issue. I've asked them if they have a >> preferred logo and I haven't gotten a response just yet. >> >> Thank you for working on this. >> >> >> >> On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 15:41 -0500, Osye Pritchett wrote: >> > On their website JetBrains has the following quote: >> > >> > >> > "Logos >> > Please note that these images are for use by the press and registered >> > JetBrains affiliates only and may not be modified in any way without >> > permission." >> > >> > Do you think it would be ok to go ahead and use their logo? >> > >> > http://www.jetbrains.com/company/press/logos.html >> > >> > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:35 PM, Osye Pritchett >> > wrote: >> > I just put most of the images on the Wiki now but have no >> > links set. The images I am missing are for GSOC and >> > Jetbrains. >> > >> > >> > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Chris Austin >> > wrote: >> > >> > On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 11:30 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: >> > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Chris Austin >> > wrote: >> > > > Hey Folks, >> > > > >> > > > It looks like the good guys JetBrains will throw >> > their IDE PyCharm into >> > > > our Drawings as well. >> > > >> > > Great! Thanks for setting that up. All swag should >> > be sent to my home >> > > address; if they are sending anything physical, I'll >> > give you my home >> > > address. >> > > >> > > > Brad, can you give me a rough estimate on the >> > number of expected >> > > > attendees >> > > >> > > I expect about 100, based on 66 confirmed, 29 >> > unconfirmed, and an >> > > unknown number of students signing up next week as >> > they see our flyers >> > > and receive a message from the professors about >> > PyTexas. You can track >> > > the registration numbers here: >> > > >> > > http://pytexas.org/SignUp2010 >> > > >> > > > and what we need from them to list them as a >> > unpaid sponsor. >> > > >> > > I haven't really been offering to list them >> > anywhere, just to >> > > distribute their swag. However, Ralph did add a >> > section on the sponsor >> > > page listing ActiveState: >> > > >> > > http://pytexas.org/Sponsorship2010 >> > > >> > > This is a bit unfair to the other sponsors if we >> > don't display their >> > > logos, so if we are going to do that, we should >> > probably round up >> > > logos for Rackspace, O'Reilly, Tummy.com, Wingware, >> > No Starch Press, >> > > ZeOmega, Jetbrains, and GSOC. Maybe to save time we >> > could copy those >> > > logos from the PyOhio or PyCon sites. Does anyone >> > have time to do >> > > that? >> > >> > >> > I can certainly help with this since most of it should >> > be straight >> > forward. I'll just need any marketing links & logos >> > that the sponsors >> > prefer otherwise I'll point to their homepage. >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Texas mailing list >> > Texas at python.org >> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> > >> > >> > >> > >> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gslindstrom at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 00:35:02 2010 From: gslindstrom at gmail.com (Greg Lindstrom) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:35:02 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Vehicle Pass Message-ID: I just signed up (officially) and I see people signing up for a vehicle pass. What is that and will I need one? I'm driving in from Conway, AR (with the tee shirts). --greg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 22 00:40:27 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:40:27 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Vehicle Pass In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Jeremy at Baylor will email us a URL which allows us to print a parking pass, sometime in the coming week. He wanted to wait a few days because all the students are arriving this weekend to start on Monday, and those who manage the parking passes are very busy. On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Greg Lindstrom wrote: > I just signed up (officially) and I see people signing up for a vehicle > pass.? What is that and will I need one?? I'm driving in from Conway, AR > (with the tee shirts). > --greg > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 22 00:43:10 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:43:10 -0500 Subject: [Texas] session chair volunteers needed Message-ID: For our scheduled talks, it would be helpful if we some volunteers to act as session chairs. This involves introducing speakers and giving the speaker a 5 minute warning, 1 minute warning, and 0 minute warning. If you're willing to volunteer as a session chair, please let me know which sessions you wish to chair. Thanks! From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 22 00:50:32 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:50:32 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace party added to the PyTexas schedule In-Reply-To: <10853_1282245374_o7JJG89r020609_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D216FE@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> References: <10853_1282245374_o7JJG89r020609_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D216FE@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 2:16 PM, Haley Baskin wrote: > Do you have the exact address, building, etc you can give me as I want to make sure my team knows and so I can get good directions from there to the event. Thanks, Brad! Haley, so far I have not located the exact address of the Science Building at Baylor. There is a web page devoted to that building, but it seems not to list the address. http://www.baylor.edu/bsb/index.php?id=30263 Jeremy, could you help us out on this? From jason at brucetek.net Wed Aug 18 18:20:08 2010 From: jason at brucetek.net (Jason Galyon) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:20:08 -0500 Subject: [Texas] opinions of the Teach-In approach In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1282148408.4107.57.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 11:13 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > I haven't gotten much feedback on the Python Teach-In concept. A few > experienced Pythonistas I spoke with seemed excited about and think it > could work, but Ralph mentioned that he thought I was overoptimistic > in thinking we could get enough tutor volunteers for one-on-one > tutorials with beginners. > > However, most of our local Python community has not spoken up about > it. All along in organizing PyTexas, I've been advertising that we > will teach beginners at PyTexas, acting on faith that our community > could rise to that challenge. However, most of our community members > have proven too busy to prepare for that in the traditional Python 101 > style, so I wanted to devise an approach that would minimize the > required preparation time, based on the assumption that most of our > skilled Python community members would be generous enough to donate > two hours of their time at PyTexas helping newbies get started. > > Is that too presumptous on my part? I'd like to hear some community > feedback. Please feel free to respond to this thread with your > opinions, or email me directly. > > Please bear in mind that I don't expect every last attendee to > participate in the Teach-In. Many will be driving to Waco in the > morning, and the drive from Houston takes several hours. I wanted the > main part of the conference to start late in the morning (11am > keynote) to give everyone time to arrive. > > P.S. We have currently have six beginners registered for the Teach-In, > and four tutor volunteers. When university students find out about > PyTexas next week, via their professors and flyers around the > campuses, I expect those beginner numbers to rise. > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas As I mentioned on IRC, I am a big fan of this approach. I do wonder if it is possible to decrease the ratio of teachers to students... Jason From wam at wamber.net Wed Aug 18 21:43:43 2010 From: wam at wamber.net (William McVey) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:43:43 -0400 Subject: [Texas] [PyOhio-organizers] Opening up regional conferences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Actually, I don't think it does require the presenter to do anything other than present. I've given "nerd lunches" which were broadcast out over our webex feed. We had a dedicated A/V team though for those talks though, so it was video feed from camera that was broadcast out. -- William On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 8:51 AM, Carl Karsten wrote: > On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 10:43 PM, William McVey wrote: >> At work, we use WebEx for internal training sessions and large >> distributed meetings. It handles things like moderated remote >> questions, and can also record what gets broadcast out for immediate >> (although lower quality) recordings of slides, audio, and a/v feeds. >> I'll check into whether I might be able to snag us a good rate >> (ideally free) for the service. > > Does WebEx require the presenter to install something? > > Does the presenter need to do anything other than present their talk? > (like start something, click something...) > > Pretty sure it will require the presenter to connect to the local network. > > -- > Carl K > From jtgalyon at gmail.com Sun Aug 22 11:53:13 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 04:53:13 -0500 Subject: [Texas] session chair volunteers needed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1282470793.3654.4.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> On Sat, 2010-08-21 at 17:43 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > For our scheduled talks, it would be helpful if we some volunteers to > act as session chairs. This involves introducing speakers and giving > the speaker a 5 minute warning, 1 minute warning, and 0 minute > warning. > > If you're willing to volunteer as a session chair, please let me know > which sessions you wish to chair. > > Thanks! > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas I'm game, I'll take the 'Swift Exposed' and 'What does this code do?' if not taken now. What is the latest on the time tracking mechanism(s)? J From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 22 21:35:39 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:35:39 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend Message-ID: I've added a posting to the PyCon blog explaining what's happening at PyTexas. I have not yet sent this link to python-announce, area user groups, or anywhere else because I want to give our other organizers time to respond in case they find errors or anything significant missing. I can still edit this blog posting if necessary. http://pycon.blogspot.com/2010/08/pytexas-2010-breaks-out-this-weekend.html So please let me know about any feedback you have ASAP before I start promoting this to the world at large. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 03:53:51 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 20:53:51 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Choice of 12 O'Reilly books In-Reply-To: <1282139589.4107.51.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> References: <1281993599.8261.12.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> <1282139589.4107.51.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Message-ID: Jason, do we have any news on which O'Reilly books are arriving, and where and when they are being shipped? I've started a wiki page listing the prize giveaways : http://pytexas.org/PrizeGiveaways2010 Please add the O'Reilly books to that page. The sponsor page was updated today so that sponsor logos are at the top, and the link to prize giveaways are linked under the Special Thanks section. On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 8:53 AM, Jason Galyon wrote: > Awesome guys... keep em coming :) > > Thanks, > Jason > > On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 01:10 -0500, Chris Austin wrote: >> Cookbook(I am a big fan of this one ) >> Beautiful Code >> Beautiful Data >> Cloud Application Architectures >> Learning Python 4th Ed. >> >> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Brad Allen >> wrote: >> ? ? ? ? Here are the books I'd vote for: >> >> ? ? ? ? Python Cookbook >> ? ? ? ? Python in a Nutshell (dated but still great) >> ? ? ? ? Learning Python 4th Ed. (I liked the fourth edition better >> ? ? ? ? than >> ? ? ? ? previous editions, and it covers Python 3) >> ? ? ? ? Beautiful Code >> ? ? ? ? Beautiful Architecture >> ? ? ? ? Practical Python Programming: Callbacks ?by Alex Martelli >> ? ? ? ? (Video) >> ? ? ? ? Masterminds of Programming >> ? ? ? ? Bioinformatics Programming Using Python (for the SciPy >> ? ? ? ? attendees) >> ? ? ? ? 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know >> ? ? ? ? Cloud Application Architectures >> ? ? ? ? The Art of Agile Development >> ? ? ? ? Beautiful Data >> >> >> ? ? ? ? On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Jason Galyon >> ? ? ? ? wrote: >> >> >> ? ? ? ? > Howdy, O'Reilly is going to send 12 print books or ebooks to >> ? ? ? ? us. >> ? ? ? ? > >> ? ? ? ? > Please sound off with what you folks would like. ?Here are >> ? ? ? ? some of my >> ? ? ? ? > ideas in my personal library that I recommend: >> ? ? ? ? > ?* Python Cookbook >> ? ? ? ? > ?* Beautiful Code >> ? ? ? ? > ?* Restful Web Services >> ? ? ? ? > >> ? ? ? ? > the rest are out on loan and I can't find my sheet of them, >> ? ? ? ? but here are >> ? ? ? ? > some off the top of my head I want to see myself: >> ? ? ? ? > ?* Beautiful Data >> ? ? ? ? > ?* Beautiful Architecture >> ? ? ? ? > ?* Beautiful Testing >> ? ? ? ? > >> ? ? ? ? > A good place for viewing available books is >> ? ? ? ? > http://oreilly.com/python/index.html >> ? ? ? ? > >> ? ? ? ? > I will pick the 12 most popular print books and send an >> ? ? ? ? email Thursday >> ? ? ? ? > afternoon. ?Please sound off in the mean time. >> ? ? ? ? > >> ? ? ? ? > Pythonically yours, >> ? ? ? ? > Jason >> ? ? ? ? > >> ? ? ? ? > _______________________________________________ >> ? ? ? ? > Texas mailing list >> ? ? ? ? > Texas at python.org >> ? ? ? ? > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> ? ? ? ? > >> ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ >> ? ? ? ? Texas mailing list >> ? ? ? ? Texas at python.org >> ? ? ? ? http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >> >> > > > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 04:05:08 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 21:05:08 -0500 Subject: [Texas] JetBrains Willing to give PyCharm Licenses for the drawing In-Reply-To: References: <4C6BBF7D.8090903@jetbrains.com> <1282225714.2493.19.camel@discordia> <1282247878.3273.22.camel@discordia> <1282251060.3273.26.camel@discordia> Message-ID: Thanks for the help on this Osye. I've moved the sponsor logos to the top and arranged them horizontally so they're all viewable without scrolling. There is also a "Special Thanks" section listing the contributions from our sponsors, including a link to a page listing the prize giveaways : http://pytexas.org/PrizeGiveaways2010 On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 5:25 PM, Osye Pritchett wrote: > I think I have logos for everyone now, with links to their websites.? If > someone wants to check it out to make sure I have the correct logos and > links I'd appreciate it. > > Thanks, > Osye Pritchett > > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Osye Pritchett wrote: >> >> Well it's nice to actually contribute something since I have just been >> lurking this whole time? :) >> >> On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Chris Austin wrote: >>> >>> I don't think it would be an issue. ?I've asked them if they have a >>> preferred logo and I haven't gotten a response just yet. >>> >>> Thank you for working on this. >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 15:41 -0500, Osye Pritchett wrote: >>> > On their website JetBrains has the following quote: >>> > >>> > >>> > "Logos >>> > Please note that these images are for use by the press and registered >>> > JetBrains affiliates only and may not be modified in any way without >>> > permission." >>> > >>> > Do you think it would be ok to go ahead and use their logo? >>> > >>> > http://www.jetbrains.com/company/press/logos.html >>> > >>> > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:35 PM, Osye Pritchett >>> > wrote: >>> > ? ? ? ? I just put most of the images on the Wiki now but have no >>> > ? ? ? ? links set. ?The images I am missing are for GSOC and >>> > ? ? ? ? Jetbrains. >>> > >>> > >>> > ? ? ? ? On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Chris Austin >>> > ? ? ? ? wrote: >>> > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? On Thu, 2010-08-19 at 11:30 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Chris Austin >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? wrote: >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > > Hey Folks, >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > > It looks like the good guys JetBrains will throw >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? their IDE PyCharm into >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > > our Drawings as well. >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > Great! Thanks for setting that up. All swag should >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? be sent to my home >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > address; if they are sending anything physical, I'll >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? give you my home >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > address. >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > > Brad, can you give me a rough estimate on the >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? number of expected >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > > attendees >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > I expect about 100, based on 66 confirmed, 29 >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? unconfirmed, and an >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > unknown number of students signing up next week as >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? they see our flyers >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > and receive a message from the professors about >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? PyTexas. You can track >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > the registration numbers here: >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > http://pytexas.org/SignUp2010 >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > > and what we need from them to list them as a >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? unpaid sponsor. >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > I haven't really been offering to list them >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? anywhere, just to >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > distribute their swag. However, Ralph did add a >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? section on the sponsor >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > page listing ActiveState: >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > http://pytexas.org/Sponsorship2010 >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > This is a bit unfair to the other sponsors if we >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? don't display their >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > logos, so if we are going to do that, we should >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? probably round up >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > logos for Rackspace, O'Reilly, Tummy.com, Wingware, >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? No Starch Press, >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > ZeOmega, Jetbrains, and GSOC. Maybe to save time we >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? could copy those >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > logos from the PyOhio or PyCon sites. Does anyone >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? have time to do >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > that? >>> > >>> > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? I can certainly help with this since most of it should >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? be straight >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? forward. ?I'll just need any marketing links & logos >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? that the sponsors >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? prefer otherwise I'll point to their homepage. >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? _______________________________________________ >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Texas mailing list >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Texas at python.org >>> > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> >>> >> > > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 04:23:56 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 21:23:56 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyCon 2010 Breaks Out This Coming Weekend Message-ID: Hello Folks, Please check out this status update on what's happening at PyTexas, which is less than a week away. http://pycon.blogspot.com/2010/08/pytexas-2010-breaks-out-this-weekend.html The short URL is http://goo.gl/fb/azddA This is written as a general announcement as well, so please forward the link to anyone you might think be interested. For those of you using Twitter and Google Buzz, I'm tweeting updates for PyTexas under the account name bradallen137 tagged with #PyTexas. From jtgalyon at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 14:33:55 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:33:55 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Choice of 12 O'Reilly books In-Reply-To: References: <1281993599.8261.12.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> <1282139589.4107.51.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Message-ID: <1282566835.3522.0.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Nothing yet, but they are very responsive thus I expect to hear in a few hours. I will add the appropriate info when confirmed ;) Jason On Sun, 2010-08-22 at 20:53 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > Jason, do we have any news on which O'Reilly books are arriving, and > where and when they are being shipped? > > I've started a wiki page listing the prize giveaways : > http://pytexas.org/PrizeGiveaways2010 > > Please add the O'Reilly books to that page. > > The sponsor page was updated today so that sponsor logos are at the > top, and the link to prize giveaways are linked under the Special > Thanks section. > > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 8:53 AM, Jason Galyon wrote: > > Awesome guys... keep em coming :) > > > > Thanks, > > Jason > > > > On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 01:10 -0500, Chris Austin wrote: > >> Cookbook(I am a big fan of this one ) > >> Beautiful Code > >> Beautiful Data > >> Cloud Application Architectures > >> Learning Python 4th Ed. > >> > >> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Brad Allen > >> wrote: > >> Here are the books I'd vote for: > >> > >> Python Cookbook > >> Python in a Nutshell (dated but still great) > >> Learning Python 4th Ed. (I liked the fourth edition better > >> than > >> previous editions, and it covers Python 3) > >> Beautiful Code > >> Beautiful Architecture > >> Practical Python Programming: Callbacks by Alex Martelli > >> (Video) > >> Masterminds of Programming > >> Bioinformatics Programming Using Python (for the SciPy > >> attendees) > >> 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know > >> Cloud Application Architectures > >> The Art of Agile Development > >> Beautiful Data > >> > >> > >> On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Jason Galyon > >> wrote: > >> > >> > >> > Howdy, O'Reilly is going to send 12 print books or ebooks to > >> us. > >> > > >> > Please sound off with what you folks would like. Here are > >> some of my > >> > ideas in my personal library that I recommend: > >> > * Python Cookbook > >> > * Beautiful Code > >> > * Restful Web Services > >> > > >> > the rest are out on loan and I can't find my sheet of them, > >> but here are > >> > some off the top of my head I want to see myself: > >> > * Beautiful Data > >> > * Beautiful Architecture > >> > * Beautiful Testing > >> > > >> > A good place for viewing available books is > >> > http://oreilly.com/python/index.html > >> > > >> > I will pick the 12 most popular print books and send an > >> email Thursday > >> > afternoon. Please sound off in the mean time. > >> > > >> > Pythonically yours, > >> > Jason > >> > > >> > _______________________________________________ > >> > Texas mailing list > >> > Texas at python.org > >> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Texas mailing list > >> Texas at python.org > >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > >> > >> > > > > > > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 17:13:25 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:13:25 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend In-Reply-To: <14568_1282573613_o7NEQlJj017293_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D21CE7@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> References: <14568_1282573613_o7NEQlJj017293_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D21CE7@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Haley Baskin wrote: > Attached is flyer/banner for our party. Is there any way we can distribute to attendees? I'll distribute it this evening after work (stuck in a day long client meeting, so it will have to wait till tonight) > Also, any luck on the address? Not yet. Can anyone help Haley get the exact address of the Science Building? Jeremy? From tim at freunds.net Mon Aug 23 20:08:38 2010 From: tim at freunds.net (Tim Freund) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:08:38 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend In-Reply-To: References: <14568_1282573613_o7NEQlJj017293_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D21CE7@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: <4C72B926.9010405@freunds.net> I found the following address: 101 Bagby Avenue Waco, Texas 76706 That is listed as the shipping address on the BSB web page: http://www.baylor.edu/bsb/index.php?id=30262 Google Maps shows that as the South East corner of the Science building, so that looks correct unless any Waco natives say otherwise. Thanks! Tim Brad Allen wrote: > On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Haley Baskin > wrote: >> Attached is flyer/banner for our party. Is there any way we can distribute to attendees? > > I'll distribute it this evening after work (stuck in a day long client > meeting, so it will have to wait till tonight) > >> Also, any luck on the address? > > Not yet. Can anyone help Haley get the exact address of the Science > Building? Jeremy? > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas -- Tim Freund 913-207-0983 http://achievewith.us http://tim.freunds.net From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 21:35:33 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:35:33 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for those of you who sent corrections; last night I went ahead and forwarded that URL to all the relevant lists, posted on Twitter, etc. Early this morning I corrected a few small typos which Ralph identified in the blog posting. Everyone, please help out by fowarding this URL to your friends, especially technical contacts who might want to learn Python. Also, those of you who sent an email to university professors should probably email this link so they'll have the latest info, and to remind them to tell their new students about PyTexas. On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 2:35 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > I've added a posting to the PyCon blog explaining what's happening at > PyTexas. I have not yet sent this link to python-announce, area user > groups, or anywhere else because I want to give our other organizers > time to respond in case they find errors or anything significant > missing. I can still edit this blog posting if necessary. > > http://pycon.blogspot.com/2010/08/pytexas-2010-breaks-out-this-weekend.html > > So please let me know about any feedback you have ASAP before I start > promoting this to the world at large. > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 21:45:38 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:45:38 -0500 Subject: [Texas] need help distributing flyers for PyTexas 2010 In-Reply-To: <4C60DCCE.8010902@freunds.net> References: <4C60DCCE.8010902@freunds.net> Message-ID: I'd like to hear about where flyers have been distributed, i.e., which universities, work places, public places. Several people have mentioned they are distributing flyers at universities and user groups, but I have not heard back confirmation on where this was done. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 22:01:09 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:01:09 -0500 Subject: [Texas] RackSpace Meet & Geek party flyer Message-ID: Haley from Rackspace has sent us a flyer to advertise the Rackspace party. I have posted that on the PyTexas wiki at somewhat reduced resolution. http://pytexas.org/RackspaceParty This URL is now linked from the PyCon blog posting. Everyone, please feel free to distribute the attached PDF flyer and the wiki URL showing the image. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: MeetGeekPyTexasLarge.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 5341570 bytes Desc: not available URL: From haley.baskin at rackspace.com Mon Aug 23 22:40:16 2010 From: haley.baskin at rackspace.com (Haley Baskin) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:40:16 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend In-Reply-To: <4C72B926.9010405@freunds.net> References: <14568_1282573613_o7NEQlJj017293_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D21CE7@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <4C72B926.9010405@freunds.net> Message-ID: <30845_1282596022_o7NKeGu7015516_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D2207C@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> I guess I'm confused as I see this address listed for the Baylor Sciences Building, but then there's also the Sid Richardson Science Bldg (Paul L. Foster Success Center) on 3rd st. Can we confirm which building it is. Thanks! -----Original Message----- From: Tim Freund [mailto:tim at freunds.net] Sent: Monday, August 23, 2010 1:09 PM To: Haley Baskin; texas at python.org Subject: Re: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend I found the following address: 101 Bagby Avenue Waco, Texas 76706 That is listed as the shipping address on the BSB web page: http://www.baylor.edu/bsb/index.php?id=30262 Google Maps shows that as the South East corner of the Science building, so that looks correct unless any Waco natives say otherwise. Thanks! Tim Brad Allen wrote: > On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Haley Baskin > wrote: >> Attached is flyer/banner for our party. Is there any way we can distribute to attendees? > > I'll distribute it this evening after work (stuck in a day long client > meeting, so it will have to wait till tonight) > >> Also, any luck on the address? > > Not yet. Can anyone help Haley get the exact address of the Science > Building? Jeremy? > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas -- Tim Freund 913-207-0983 http://achievewith.us http://tim.freunds.net Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. Your cooperation is appreciated. From robinfriedrich at mac.com Tue Aug 24 00:24:46 2010 From: robinfriedrich at mac.com (Robin Friedrich) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:24:46 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend In-Reply-To: <30845_1282596022_o7NKeGu7015516_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D2207C@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> References: <14568_1282573613_o7NEQlJj017293_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D21CE7@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <4C72B926.9010405@freunds.net> <30845_1282596022_o7NKeGu7015516_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D2207C@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: <05EFDB1A-8DDB-4ED4-9012-2D4BA67CFE0B@mac.com> I think it's the large three wing building at 31.547682, -97.113132 (lat/lon) On Aug 23, 2010, at 3:40PM, Haley Baskin wrote: > I guess I'm confused as I see this address listed for the Baylor Sciences Building, but then there's also the Sid Richardson Science Bldg (Paul L. Foster Success Center) on 3rd st. Can we confirm which building it is. Thanks! > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tim Freund [mailto:tim at freunds.net] > Sent: Monday, August 23, 2010 1:09 PM > To: Haley Baskin; texas at python.org > Subject: Re: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend > > I found the following address: > > 101 Bagby Avenue > Waco, Texas 76706 > > That is listed as the shipping address on the BSB web page: > http://www.baylor.edu/bsb/index.php?id=30262 > > Google Maps shows that as the South East corner of the Science building, > so that looks correct unless any Waco natives say otherwise. > > Thanks! > > Tim > > > Brad Allen wrote: >> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Haley Baskin >> wrote: >>> Attached is flyer/banner for our party. Is there any way we can distribute to attendees? >> >> I'll distribute it this evening after work (stuck in a day long client >> meeting, so it will have to wait till tonight) >> >>> Also, any luck on the address? >> >> Not yet. Can anyone help Haley get the exact address of the Science >> Building? Jeremy? >> _______________________________________________ >> Texas mailing list >> Texas at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > -- > Tim Freund > 913-207-0983 > http://achievewith.us > http://tim.freunds.net > > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or > embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the > individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise > expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. > Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. > If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail > at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. > Your cooperation is appreciated. > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 24 02:14:05 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:14:05 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Have you prepared a Lightning Talk for PyTexas? Message-ID: Lightning Talks are traditionally not announced in advance, at least at PyCon. However, I want to make sure we have enough of these 5 minute talks to fill the time available. If you are planning to give a Lightning Talk, please email me directly (off list) so I can get a sense of how many we'll have. For those unfamiliar with the Lightning Talk format, see: http://pytexas.org/AboutLightningTalks From jdickinson at racklabs.com Tue Aug 24 04:38:12 2010 From: jdickinson at racklabs.com (John Dickinson) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:38:12 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend In-Reply-To: <30845_1282596022_o7NKeGu7015516_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D2207C@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> References: <14568_1282573613_o7NEQlJj017293_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D21CE7@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <4C72B926.9010405@freunds.net> <30845_1282596022_o7NKeGu7015516_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D2207C@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: <3C39BDB1-4320-49ED-BBC1-21D9D3690EBE@racklabs.com> it's the baylor sciences building. On Aug 23, 2010, at 3:40 PM, Haley Baskin wrote: > I guess I'm confused as I see this address listed for the Baylor Sciences Building, but then there's also the Sid Richardson Science Bldg (Paul L. Foster Success Center) on 3rd st. Can we confirm which building it is. Thanks! > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tim Freund [mailto:tim at freunds.net] > Sent: Monday, August 23, 2010 1:09 PM > To: Haley Baskin; texas at python.org > Subject: Re: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend > > I found the following address: > > 101 Bagby Avenue > Waco, Texas 76706 > > That is listed as the shipping address on the BSB web page: > http://www.baylor.edu/bsb/index.php?id=30262 > > Google Maps shows that as the South East corner of the Science building, > so that looks correct unless any Waco natives say otherwise. > > Thanks! > > Tim > > > Brad Allen wrote: >> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Haley Baskin >> wrote: >>> Attached is flyer/banner for our party. Is there any way we can distribute to attendees? >> >> I'll distribute it this evening after work (stuck in a day long client >> meeting, so it will have to wait till tonight) >> >>> Also, any luck on the address? >> >> Not yet. Can anyone help Haley get the exact address of the Science >> Building? Jeremy? >> _______________________________________________ >> Texas mailing list >> Texas at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > -- > Tim Freund > 913-207-0983 > http://achievewith.us > http://tim.freunds.net > > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or > embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the > individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise > expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. > Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. > If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail > at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. > Your cooperation is appreciated. > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 3686 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 24 08:25:13 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:25:13 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas eve dinner and other activities Message-ID: I've started a wiki page to help coordinate volunteer activities the day before PyTexas, including a dinner (which is open to all attendees, not just organizers). If you are interested in attending the dinner or other activities listed on this page, please add your name and contact me with your mobile phone info so we can get in touch. http://pytexas.org/VolunteerCoordination2010 There was a good Cajun restaurant to which Jeremy Langley took me when I scoped out Baylor Science Building for PyTexas last spring...it may have been called Buzzard Billy's. So that's one restaurant idea. Any others? From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 24 18:14:07 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:14:07 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Have you prepared a Lightning Talk for PyTexas? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Not many have responded to this as of yet (so far two maybes). I'd like to suggest that you consider lighting talks to be a rule-free zone within the hard 5 minute time limit. You don't need to restrict your subject matter to Python; my experience at PyCon I've seen lighting talk topics running rampant all over the map. They are so entertaining because they express the wide range of personality in our community, and because the Python community is about more than just Python. It's about what Python lets us do, and how we can help each other get to where we want to go. And when a lightning talk fails to entertain...so what? Just wait 5 minutes for the next talk. There's no dishonor in giving a horribly bad or uninteresting talk; at least you tried :-). It we can adopt that philosophy, we're more free to experiment with different talk ideas. The result is the kind of crazy diversity which make PyCon lightning talks so interesting (and sometimes boring!). Last year at PyTexas I tried to give a lightning talk about the Expando class with zero preparation...and guess what? Stink bomb. I learned that lightning talks actually do require some preparation; with only five minutes available, every word, keystroke and mouse gesture counts. At BarCamp Bangalore 2007 I gave some ad-hoc nontechnical lightning talks which involved blathering about ideas. Those are easier and require less preparation, but may not be as interesting. By the way, if nobody offers to give lightning talks at PyTexas 2010, I'm going to ask Patrick Michaud to fill the time giving Perl 6 lightning talks. He is a charismatic and energetic speaker who would probably converted half of us into Perl adherents after five or six lightning talks. Heed my words, for this is no idle threat! :-) From jtgalyon at gmail.com Tue Aug 24 18:40:00 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:40:00 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Have you prepared a Lightning Talk for PyTexas? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1282668000.3522.13.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> On Tue, 2010-08-24 at 11:14 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > Not many have responded to this as of yet (so far two maybes). I am one definite and one more maybe... if there is space, but while I won't plan until friday be prepared for a lot of evil 'uhh' and 'umm' and other evil things that toastmasters says never to do, lol > > I'd like to suggest that you consider lighting talks to be a rule-free > zone within the hard 5 minute time limit. You don't need to restrict > your subject matter to Python; my experience at PyCon I've seen > lighting talk topics running rampant all over the map. They are so > entertaining because they express the wide range of personality in our > community, and because the Python community is about more than just > Python. It's about what Python lets us do, and how we can help each > other get to where we want to go. > > And when a lightning talk fails to entertain...so what? Just wait 5 > minutes for the next talk. There's no dishonor in giving a horribly > bad or uninteresting talk; at least you tried :-). It we can adopt > that philosophy, we're more free to experiment with different talk > ideas. The result is the kind of crazy diversity which make PyCon > lightning talks so interesting (and sometimes boring!). > > Last year at PyTexas I tried to give a lightning talk about the > Expando class with zero preparation...and guess what? Stink bomb. I > learned that lightning talks actually do require some preparation; > with only five minutes available, every word, keystroke and mouse > gesture counts. > > At BarCamp Bangalore 2007 I gave some ad-hoc nontechnical lightning > talks which involved blathering about ideas. Those are easier and > require less preparation, but may not be as interesting. > > By the way, if nobody offers to give lightning talks at PyTexas 2010, > I'm going to ask Patrick Michaud to fill the time giving Perl 6 > lightning talks. He is a charismatic and energetic speaker who would > probably converted half of us into Perl adherents after five or six > lightning talks. Heed my words, for this is no idle threat! :-) rofl... major rofl... full of win even ;) > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas From michael.barton at rackspace.com Tue Aug 24 19:59:39 2010 From: michael.barton at rackspace.com (Mike) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:59:39 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Have you prepared a Lightning Talk for PyTexas? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9525_1282672780_o7OHxeY9025151_93FE8F06-A872-4F2A-8D22-FDBA1757A597@rackspace.com> I'd like to do a lightning talk. On Aug 23, 2010, at 7:14 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > Lightning Talks are traditionally not announced in advance, at least > at PyCon. However, I want to make sure we have enough of these 5 > minute talks to fill the time available. If you are planning to give a > Lightning Talk, please email me directly (off list) so I can get a > sense of how many we'll have. > > For those unfamiliar with the Lightning Talk format, see: > > http://pytexas.org/AboutLightningTalks > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. Your cooperation is appreciated. From pmichaud at pobox.com Tue Aug 24 21:02:45 2010 From: pmichaud at pobox.com (Patrick R. Michaud) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:02:45 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Have you prepared a Lightning Talk for PyTexas? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20100824190245.GA2978@pmichaud.com> On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 11:14:07AM -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > By the way, if nobody offers to give lightning talks at PyTexas 2010, > I'm going to ask Patrick Michaud to fill the time giving Perl 6 > lightning talks. Undoubtedly I can fill the time with Perl 6 talks. :-) I'd like to give at least one (not-directly-Perl6-related) talk, and I've also got a budding talk about "similarities I've noticed between Perl 6 and Python" that might be good as a lightning talk. Beyond that, I'll *gladly* make good on Brad's threat for any other open lightning talk slots. :-) :-) Pm From Jeremy_Langley at baylor.edu Tue Aug 24 22:17:44 2010 From: Jeremy_Langley at baylor.edu (Langley, Jeremy I.) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:17:44 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyCon blog posting: PyTexas Breaks Out This Weekend In-Reply-To: References: <14568_1282573613_o7NEQlJj017293_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C65D21CE7@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: <9B4BFE29-9892-496E-A94B-67E34E2CFB3F@baylor.edu> Baylor Science Building 101 Bagby ST. Waco, TX 76798 On Aug 23, 2010, at 10:13 AM, Brad Allen wrote: > On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 9:26 AM, Haley Baskin > wrote: >> Attached is flyer/banner for our party. Is there any way we can distribute to attendees? > > I'll distribute it this evening after work (stuck in a day long client > meeting, so it will have to wait till tonight) > >> Also, any luck on the address? > > Not yet. Can anyone help Haley get the exact address of the Science > Building? Jeremy? From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Aug 24 23:46:42 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:46:42 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas parking changes Message-ID: Great, that simplifies things. So attendees won't need a parking pass, only the few organizers who are planning to come to Baylor on the Friday before. On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Langley, Jeremy I. wrote: > Policy has changed since last I checked. ?Weekend parking doesn't require a pass. > > But Friday you will. ?I called to get it set up and they should be getting back with me today. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 01:44:57 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:44:57 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Teach-In needs more tutors Message-ID: We have 9 tutors and 17 learners, so it would be great if we could get more volunteer tutors. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 01:47:17 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:47:17 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Have you prepared a Lightning Talk for PyTexas? In-Reply-To: <20100824190245.GA2978@pmichaud.com> References: <20100824190245.GA2978@pmichaud.com> Message-ID: Some lightning talk commitments are starting to trickle in...I think it may be working, Patrick. On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 2:02 PM, Patrick R. Michaud wrote: > On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 11:14:07AM -0500, Brad Allen wrote: >> By the way, if nobody offers to give lightning talks at PyTexas 2010, >> I'm going to ask Patrick Michaud to fill the time giving Perl 6 >> lightning talks. > > Undoubtedly I can fill the time with Perl 6 talks. ?:-) > > I'd like to give at least one (not-directly-Perl6-related) talk, > and I've also got a budding talk about "similarities I've noticed > between Perl 6 and Python" that might be good as a lightning talk. > Beyond that, I'll *gladly* make good on Brad's threat for any other > open lightning talk slots. ?:-) :-) > > Pm > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Thu Aug 26 20:25:56 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:25:56 -0500 Subject: [Texas] HELP! PyTexas 2010 Teach-In needs more tutors Message-ID: The number of Python Teach-In learners keeps going up; if you're an experienced Python developer, please volunteer to help out by registering to volunteer at the Teach-In! No significant preparation is required; you can just show up and help students figure out how to run the Python Koans. I'd like to see at least 30 tutor volunteers, and it would be nice for at least one or two to show up at 8am. http://pytexas.org/TeachInRegistration2010 We are also going to see a rush of students who did not register on the wiki! This is highly likely given that the flyer and the Baylor campus screens do not emphasize the need to pre-register. The Baylor screens just say "Registration at 8am" and "Improve your programming skills with 1 on 1 tutoring and in-depth discussions in this one day Free Python conference." At least one Baylor compsci professor has also registered for PyTexas, so that's another reason we're likely to see students showing up. On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 6:44 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > We have 9 tutors and 17 learners, so it would be great if we could get > more volunteer tutors. > From bradallen137 at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 01:43:36 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:43:36 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two Message-ID: It might help if someone could bring an extra folding table or two. Baylor provides one folding table, and I'm bringing one long and one short folding tables. That's 2.5 tables. We need tables in the hallway for displaying prizes, swag, and registration. Tables needed: * Registration desk * Prize tables (need 2 because we have 27 prizes to spread out) * Swag Table I think we're one table short of that goal. Haley from Rackspace may also set up a table in the hallway, but I think she is bringing her own. Haley, please let us know if you have that taken care of. From haley.baskin at rackspace.com Fri Aug 27 01:59:46 2010 From: haley.baskin at rackspace.com (Haley Baskin) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:59:46 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two Message-ID: <12286_1282867192_o7QNxlU2019597_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C660B6B47@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Yes, we're bringing our own. ----- Original Message ----- From: Brad Allen To: Texas Python User Group Cc: Haley Baskin Sent: Thu Aug 26 18:43:36 2010 Subject: PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two It might help if someone could bring an extra folding table or two. Baylor provides one folding table, and I'm bringing one long and one short folding tables. That's 2.5 tables. We need tables in the hallway for displaying prizes, swag, and registration. Tables needed: * Registration desk * Prize tables (need 2 because we have 27 prizes to spread out) * Swag Table I think we're one table short of that goal. Haley from Rackspace may also set up a table in the hallway, but I think she is bringing her own. Haley, please let us know if you have that taken care of. Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of the individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless otherwise expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of Rackspace. Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is prohibited. If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. Your cooperation is appreciated. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 15:15:54 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:15:54 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: PyTexas parking changes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Those of you not on the Python Texas mailing list may not have seen the notice that parking passes will not be required for PyTexas on Saturday. I've updated the info and directions here to improve clarity about how to get to PyTexas: http://pytexas.org/VenueInfo2010 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Brad Allen Date: Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 4:46 PM Subject: PyTexas parking changes To: "Langley, Jeremy I." Cc: Texas Python User Group , Haley Baskin Great, that simplifies things. So attendees won't need a parking pass, only the few organizers who are planning to come to Baylor on the Friday before. On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Langley, Jeremy I. wrote: > Policy has changed since last I checked. ?Weekend parking doesn't require a pass. > > But Friday you will. ?I called to get it set up and they should be getting back with me today. From opritche at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 15:27:58 2010 From: opritche at gmail.com (Osye Pritchett) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:27:58 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two In-Reply-To: <12286_1282867192_o7QNxlU2019597_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C660B6B47@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> References: <12286_1282867192_o7QNxlU2019597_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C660B6B47@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: I have a folding 6' table that I might be able to bring Saturday morning. On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Haley Baskin wrote: > Yes, we're bringing our own. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Brad Allen > To: Texas Python User Group > Cc: Haley Baskin > Sent: Thu Aug 26 18:43:36 2010 > Subject: PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two > > It might help if someone could bring an extra folding table or two. > > Baylor provides one folding table, and I'm bringing one long and one > short folding tables. That's 2.5 tables. > > We need tables in the hallway for displaying prizes, swag, and > registration. > > Tables needed: > > * Registration desk > * Prize tables (need 2 because we have 27 prizes to spread out) > * Swag Table > > I think we're one table short of that goal. > > Haley from Rackspace may also set up a table in the hallway, but I > think she is bringing her own. Haley, please let us know if you have > that taken care of. > > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or > embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of > the > individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless > otherwise > expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of > Rackspace. > Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is > prohibited. > If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by > e-mail > at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. > Your cooperation is appreciated. > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 16:00:22 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:00:22 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two In-Reply-To: References: <12286_1282867192_o7QNxlU2019597_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C660B6B47@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: That could prove helpful depending on what time you arrive and what other tables people bring beforehand. Could you pack it just in case we need it? Since food and drinks are not allowed in the classrooms, we might also want a table for people to set down any snacks or drinks they have before entering the rooms. On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 8:27 AM, Osye Pritchett wrote: > I have a folding 6' table that I might be able to bring Saturday morning. > > On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Haley Baskin > wrote: >> >> Yes, we're bringing our own. >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: Brad Allen >> To: Texas Python User Group >> Cc: Haley Baskin >> Sent: Thu Aug 26 18:43:36 2010 >> Subject: PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two >> >> It might help if someone could bring an extra folding table or two. >> >> Baylor provides one folding table, and I'm bringing one long and one >> short folding tables. That's 2.5 tables. >> >> We need tables in the hallway for displaying prizes, swag, and >> registration. >> >> Tables needed: >> >> * Registration desk >> * Prize tables (need 2 because we have 27 prizes to spread out) >> * Swag Table >> >> I think we're one table short of that goal. >> >> Haley from Rackspace may also set up a table in the hallway, but I >> think she is bringing her own. Haley, please let us know if you have >> that taken care of. >> >> >> Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or >> embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of >> the >> individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless >> otherwise >> expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of >> Rackspace. >> Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is >> prohibited. >> If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by >> e-mail >> at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. >> Your cooperation is appreciated. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Texas mailing list >> Texas at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > From jtgalyon at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 16:10:09 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:10:09 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two In-Reply-To: References: <12286_1282867192_o7QNxlU2019597_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C660B6B47@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> Message-ID: <1282918209.5582.1.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> I will bring my cooler then On Fri, 2010-08-27 at 09:00 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > That could prove helpful depending on what time you arrive and what > other tables people bring beforehand. Could you pack it just in case > we need it? > > Since food and drinks are not allowed in the classrooms, we might also > want a table for people to set down any snacks or drinks they have > before entering the rooms. > > On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 8:27 AM, Osye Pritchett wrote: > > I have a folding 6' table that I might be able to bring Saturday morning. > > > > On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Haley Baskin > > wrote: > >> > >> Yes, we're bringing our own. > >> > >> ----- Original Message ----- > >> From: Brad Allen > >> To: Texas Python User Group > >> Cc: Haley Baskin > >> Sent: Thu Aug 26 18:43:36 2010 > >> Subject: PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two > >> > >> It might help if someone could bring an extra folding table or two. > >> > >> Baylor provides one folding table, and I'm bringing one long and one > >> short folding tables. That's 2.5 tables. > >> > >> We need tables in the hallway for displaying prizes, swag, and > >> registration. > >> > >> Tables needed: > >> > >> * Registration desk > >> * Prize tables (need 2 because we have 27 prizes to spread out) > >> * Swag Table > >> > >> I think we're one table short of that goal. > >> > >> Haley from Rackspace may also set up a table in the hallway, but I > >> think she is bringing her own. Haley, please let us know if you have > >> that taken care of. > >> > >> > >> Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or > >> embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use of > >> the > >> individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless > >> otherwise > >> expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of > >> Rackspace. > >> Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is > >> prohibited. > >> If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by > >> e-mail > >> at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. > >> Your cooperation is appreciated. > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Texas mailing list > >> Texas at python.org > >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas From opritche at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 16:57:07 2010 From: opritche at gmail.com (Osye Pritchett) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:57:07 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two In-Reply-To: <1282918209.5582.1.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> References: <12286_1282867192_o7QNxlU2019597_08BC2B049969604181C9EC8BD8A0DE712C660B6B47@DFW1MXM01.RACKSPACE.CORP> <1282918209.5582.1.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Message-ID: My table is a 6' folding that folds in the middle when the legs are broken down, so I should be able to fit it in the trunk of the car we are using. I believe that our plan is to leave the Addison area around 5:30 to 6. so we should be getting to Waco between 7 and 8. I will plan on bringing it just in case. On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 9:10 AM, Jason Galyon wrote: > I will bring my cooler then > > On Fri, 2010-08-27 at 09:00 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > > That could prove helpful depending on what time you arrive and what > > other tables people bring beforehand. Could you pack it just in case > > we need it? > > > > Since food and drinks are not allowed in the classrooms, we might also > > want a table for people to set down any snacks or drinks they have > > before entering the rooms. > > > > On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 8:27 AM, Osye Pritchett > wrote: > > > I have a folding 6' table that I might be able to bring Saturday > morning. > > > > > > On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Haley Baskin < > haley.baskin at rackspace.com> > > > wrote: > > >> > > >> Yes, we're bringing our own. > > >> > > >> ----- Original Message ----- > > >> From: Brad Allen > > >> To: Texas Python User Group > > >> Cc: Haley Baskin > > >> Sent: Thu Aug 26 18:43:36 2010 > > >> Subject: PyTexas needs an extra folding table or two > > >> > > >> It might help if someone could bring an extra folding table or two. > > >> > > >> Baylor provides one folding table, and I'm bringing one long and one > > >> short folding tables. That's 2.5 tables. > > >> > > >> We need tables in the hallway for displaying prizes, swag, and > > >> registration. > > >> > > >> Tables needed: > > >> > > >> * Registration desk > > >> * Prize tables (need 2 because we have 27 prizes to spread out) > > >> * Swag Table > > >> > > >> I think we're one table short of that goal. > > >> > > >> Haley from Rackspace may also set up a table in the hallway, but I > > >> think she is bringing her own. Haley, please let us know if you have > > >> that taken care of. > > >> > > >> > > >> Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message (including any attached or > > >> embedded documents) is intended for the exclusive and confidential use > of > > >> the > > >> individual or entity to which this message is addressed, and unless > > >> otherwise > > >> expressly indicated, is confidential and privileged information of > > >> Rackspace. > > >> Any dissemination, distribution or copying of the enclosed material is > > >> prohibited. > > >> If you receive this transmission in error, please notify us > immediately by > > >> e-mail > > >> at abuse at rackspace.com, and delete the original message. > > >> Your cooperation is appreciated. > > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > > >> Texas mailing list > > >> Texas at python.org > > >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Texas mailing list > > Texas at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 17:54:30 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:54:30 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 has power strips Message-ID: We may not need everyone to bring power strips, though we do still need a few. Jeff Rush had a lot more power strips than I realized, leftover from PyCon 2006 and 2007. We have nine of those, each supporting eleven outlets. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 18:47:53 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:47:53 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Swag of PyCons Bygone Message-ID: Some among us have retained swag from PyCons past, for reasons unclear...until now. If you are one of those, heed these words: Finally, the meaning of these swagpiles has become apparent, as if in a vision: the building of a swag memorial mosaic at PyTexas, that youngsters may behold the glory of the past. So, delve into your basements, garages and file cabinets; brave the brazen dustbunnies, rustle dusty papers and rifle through clutter boxes; summon the swag squirrelled away for this moment, the impending PyTexas. Bring on your PyCon period art, your stickers, and promotional flyers, pages of program guides. For the largish PyCon Swag Memorial Board awaits your contribution. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 20:05:54 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:05:54 -0500 Subject: [Texas] may need extra badges Message-ID: We picked up a pack of badges at Staples back when 100 badges seemed like enough. Can anyone buy some additional badges in case we run over 100 (very likely). It won't be a disaster if we run out of badges but they would be nice to have. From protonicamit at gmail.com Sat Aug 28 01:39:46 2010 From: protonicamit at gmail.com (amit rane) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:39:46 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Need transportation Message-ID: Dear All, I am Amit Rane. I am currently in San Antonio. I wish to attend the event tomorrow, however since I do not have a car as of yet I am facing transportation issues. I probably could get to Waco by Greyhound tomorrow morning however I am having issues while returning back from Waco later in the day. So if possible , if anybody of you can help me out with the same, it would be greatly appreciated. Please email me back or even better id since time is a factor, if anybody of you could call me at 2814679680 that would be great. Again, to remind. I would need transportation only while getting back from Waco to San Antonio. Thanks in advance. Regards amit -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sat Aug 28 05:44:24 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 22:44:24 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Need transportation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Amit, Sorry I was delayed approving your mailing list membership, which caused a 3 hour delay in the message getting posted to the list; I just took administration of the PyTexas list and after I spoke with you on the phone, I had forgotten that the mailing list requires approval to join. Several people are driving from San Antonio so hopefully you can catch a ride with someone on the return trip. However, you didn't specify what time of day you want to return; some may stay for the RackSpace party, and some may not, and some may be returning on Sunday. One way or another I hope you can make it... On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 6:39 PM, amit rane wrote: > Dear All, > ?? ?I am Amit Rane. I am currently in San Antonio. > ?? ?I wish to attend the event tomorrow, however since I do not have a car > as of yet I am facing transportation issues. > ?? ?I probably could get to Waco by Greyhound tomorrow morning however I am > having issues while returning back from Waco later in the day. > ?? ?So if possible , if anybody of you can help me out with the same, it > would be greatly appreciated. > ?? ?Please email me back or even better id since time is a factor, if > anybody of you could call me at 2814679680 that would be great. > > ?? ?Again, to remind. I would need transportation only while getting back > from Waco to San Antonio. > ?? ?Thanks in advance. > Regards > ??amit > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > From protonicamit at gmail.com Sat Aug 28 10:38:47 2010 From: protonicamit at gmail.com (amit rane) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 03:38:47 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Need transportation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear All, I am fine staying late for the Rackspace mixer or even leaving early. It entirely depends on the ride I get, if any. Anyways I shall be beginning for my trip in some time from now. Thanks. Regards amit On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 10:44 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > Amit, > > Sorry I was delayed approving your mailing list membership, which > caused a 3 hour delay in the message getting posted to the list; I > just took administration of the PyTexas list and after I spoke with > you on the phone, I had forgotten that the mailing list requires > approval to join. > > Several people are driving from San Antonio so hopefully you can catch > a ride with someone on the return trip. However, you didn't specify > what time of day you want to return; some may stay for the RackSpace > party, and some may not, and some may be returning on Sunday. > > One way or another I hope you can make it... > > On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 6:39 PM, amit rane wrote: > > Dear All, > > I am Amit Rane. I am currently in San Antonio. > > I wish to attend the event tomorrow, however since I do not have a > car > > as of yet I am facing transportation issues. > > I probably could get to Waco by Greyhound tomorrow morning however I > am > > having issues while returning back from Waco later in the day. > > So if possible , if anybody of you can help me out with the same, it > > would be greatly appreciated. > > Please email me back or even better id since time is a factor, if > > anybody of you could call me at 2814679680 that would be great. > > > > Again, to remind. I would need transportation only while getting back > > from Waco to San Antonio. > > Thanks in advance. > > Regards > > amit > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Texas mailing list > > Texas at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > > > -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will do ONE thing for India, this holiday season... I will visit http://www.runforindia.org & find out how. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't forget to select HOUSTON chapter ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 29 04:46:16 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:46:16 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Teach-In Message-ID: While the experience is fresh in everyone's minds, I'd like to hear feedback and ideas for future Python Teach-Ins. Also, what did you learn during the Teach-In, either as a tutor or a learner? From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 29 05:21:35 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:21:35 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility Message-ID: Let's discuss how well our venue worked out this time, at the Baylor University Science Building in Waco. Should we plan to use the same venue next year? My default is to prefer the same location for next year, because we now have experience with this venue and know how to make it work. However, it may be worth exploring alternatives. One important question will be whether we can secure a large auditorium room. This year we had ~92 attendees and our keynote room was past capacity. I have some ideas about how to increase turnout for next year, and want plan to support up to 200 attendees. Getting everyone into one room is critical for certain moments in the conference. Some notes: * Wireless was down till about 9:30am(?). Thanks to Jeremy Langley for getting IT support to fix it! * One hour was not long enough for lunch, due to the long walk to the cafeteria. * The food in the cafeteria seemed pretty good ($8 all you can eat buffet). Do you agree? How many of you missed going to the cafeteria because of the earlier misdirection of the food court with Quizno's and Chick-Fillet ? * We had some technical issues with one of the projectors; I heard that one talk had to be given with no projector (Intro to Version Control). I'm not sure what happened there. * The security paperwork to support wireless access is a bit cumbersome at Baylor, but I think it was acceptable and we can live with doing it again next year. What do you think? * There was a lot of walking required, both to and from the parking garage, and to and from the cafeteria. We got lucky with the weather, which could have been much hotter or much rainier. That is a big risk for future events at the same place. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 29 05:32:13 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:32:13 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Swag of PyCons Bygone In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ok, this was worded in a rather silly way which I thought was fund but it seems that most didn't "get it". However, we did have a pretty decent "Swag of PyCons Bygone" shrine at PyTexas today. After people saw it it made sense, and we should have some photos of it up on the wiki within the next few days. (Please upload your photos to the wiki! Somebody needs to create a page.) Greg's idea was to make it a kind of travelling swag museum, so I'll take it to PyArkansas next October where Greg can add in some of his really vintage PyCon swag. Then it will probably end up at the next PyCon where it will grow to monster proportions, before making the rounds to next PyOhio and PyTexas. On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 11:47 AM, Brad Allen wrote: > Some among us have retained swag from PyCons past, for reasons > unclear...until now. > > If you are one of those, heed these words: > > Finally, the meaning of these swagpiles has become apparent, as if in > a vision: the building of a swag memorial mosaic at PyTexas, that > youngsters may behold the glory of the past. > > So, delve into your basements, garages and file cabinets; brave the > brazen dustbunnies, rustle dusty papers and rifle through clutter > boxes; summon the swag squirrelled away for this moment, the impending > PyTexas. > > Bring on your PyCon period art, your stickers, and promotional flyers, > pages of program guides. For the largish PyCon Swag Memorial Board > awaits your contribution. > From jeff at taupro.com Sun Aug 29 11:29:01 2010 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 04:29:01 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Two Requested Source Fragments From My Talks Message-ID: <4C7A285D.7090207@taupro.com> Under the description of my "What Does This Code Do?" talk, I've added two links to source I showed and folks asked for copies of: http://pytexas.org/2010/TalksAgenda#talk8 * Using Control-C to Drop into Debugger of a Running Program * Dropping a Logging Aspect over All Methods of a Class Have fun with them, and thanks for a wonderful pyTexas event everyone! -Jeff From jeremy at 33ad.org Sun Aug 29 06:25:03 2010 From: jeremy at 33ad.org (Jeremy Kelley) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:25:03 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > Let's discuss how well our venue worked out this time, at the Baylor > University Science Building in Waco. Should we plan to use the same > venue next year? The facilities were quite nice. ?My only complaint would be the lack of coffee. ?:) Otherwise, it really was a great venue. -j -- The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried ? G. K. Chesterton From jtgalyon at gmail.com Sun Aug 29 17:28:16 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:28:16 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1283095696.26257.15.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> On Sat, 2010-08-28 at 23:25 -0500, Jeremy Kelley wrote: > On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > > Let's discuss how well our venue worked out this time, at the Baylor > > University Science Building in Waco. Should we plan to use the same > > venue next year? > > The facilities were quite nice. My only complaint would be the lack > of coffee. :) > > Otherwise, it really was a great venue. > > -j > > > I agree... that day I thought, 'hmmm, should go to chick-fil-a or somewhere to get loads of coffee' well live and learn for next year... glad to hear I am not the only coffee fanatic ;) Brad, shall we start a google doc or wiki page for 'lessons learned'? I want to start working on that continuity folder (site/pages) soon and such a doc would be invaluable to get me started. Is there a post con and pre-con planning meeting (like pycon has) planned already? Jason From jtgalyon at gmail.com Sun Aug 29 17:33:56 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:33:56 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Teach-In In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1283096036.26257.20.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> On Sat, 2010-08-28 at 21:46 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > While the experience is fresh in everyone's minds, I'd like to hear > feedback and ideas for future Python Teach-Ins. Also, what did you > learn during the Teach-In, either as a tutor or a learner? > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas It was very tiring and rewarding. I enjoyed helping others blossom into pythonistas and zealots ;) I made a point to NOT do the koans except for just spot checking that they were working on my compy... that seemed to go well and helped me understand their perspective better. I was glad to see learners help others and it took on a life of its own. Next time I want to burn CDs (and use usb keys) that have a full set of 'get started with python from scratch'. For example, an editor like Bluefish along with its requisite GTK libs package for windows... and for ubuntu and maybe redhat as well. J From lewis.franklin at gmail.com Sun Aug 29 15:40:15 2010 From: lewis.franklin at gmail.com (Lewis Franklin) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:40:15 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Let me begin by saying that am (the lone) from Waco and so my response might be a bit biased. I thought that Waco and Baylor made for a nice location. I had heard about PyTexas from a friend and never really got involved, in spite of my presence, and really didn't have much expectation for the conference, to be honest. However, I must say that this conference exceeded all my expectations. >From talking with others, it seems that Waco makes a great location because of its central location. A number of attendees were able to come down for the day without needing to stay over night at all. Recognizing the benefit of the location of Waco, I would also like to volunteer to help out next year more, especially if we decide to meet in Waco again. I would be happy to be a point-man in the town and to work with Baylor to get better facilities. I might even be able to swing some coffee. Also, in relation to transportation concerns, a close friend of mine works for Waco Transit as the route planner and Waco Transit has several trolleys and buses used for public transportation around Baylor and Waco. Their load is lighter on the weekend and I would be happy to talk with him to see if we could work out something to keep people from walking. It could also open up the possibility of going to off-campus locations for lunch. I think that the overall format worked well. I agree that lunch should be longer. I have always found at conferences like this that while the sessions are a great part of the conference, I find the social aspect to be equally beneficial. For me personally, while I love the idea of lightning talks, I think that at a smaller conference they area bit trickier to pull off. We may only need about 30 minutes for the talks. Also, having a large signup on the wall might encourage more people to sign up. Another idea that I thought about with our diverse attendees is that we might want to look at having themed tracks throughout the day. Maybe one targeting beginners, one targeting intermediate/advanced users, and one targeting "Get It Done" talks like "How to Make a Package" and "Lessons Learned From Trying X In Python". We may not be able to get enough speakers for all three tracks, but I think that if we make our request for proposals targeted like that we could possibly have a better turnout of speakers. To me, its the difference of writing an essay about a specific topic versus "whatever you want". I always found the former easier because I at least knew a direction to head. I know that I have said quite a bit and for that I apologize. I think that PyTexas was great and that we can all make it even better next year. Lewis Franklin On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Jeremy Kelley wrote: > On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Brad Allen > wrote: > > Let's discuss how well our venue worked out this time, at the Baylor > > University Science Building in Waco. Should we plan to use the same > > venue next year? > > The facilities were quite nice. My only complaint would be the lack > of coffee. :) > > Otherwise, it really was a great venue. > > -j > > > > -- > The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; > it has been found difficult and left untried ? G. K. Chesterton > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 29 19:51:36 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 12:51:36 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility In-Reply-To: <20100829110208.GB5775@pmichaud.com> References: <20100829110208.GB5775@pmichaud.com> Message-ID: Patrick replied privately but said it's ok to foward to the list, so here's his reply. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Patrick R. Michaud Date: Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 6:02 AM Subject: Re: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility To: Brad Allen On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 10:21:35PM -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > Let's discuss how well our venue worked out this time, at the Baylor > University Science Building in Waco. Should we plan to use the same > venue next year? I think the venue was fine. > One important question will be whether we can secure a large > auditorium room. This year we had ~92 attendees and our keynote room > was past capacity. ?I have some ideas about how to increase turnout > for next year, and want plan to support up to 200 attendees. Getting > everyone into one room is critical for certain moments in the > conference. Yes, you definitely want at least one room that can hold everyone for the plenary sessions. > * One hour was not long enough for lunch, due to the long walk > to the cafeteria. Agreed. ?However, you managed to adjust the schedule quite nicely. > * The food in the cafeteria seemed pretty good ($8 all you can eat > buffet). The food was fine; and it was great to have at least some variety in the available food selection. > * The security paperwork to support wireless access is a bit > cumbersome at Baylor, but I think it was acceptable and we can live > with doing it again next year. What do you think? I didn't find the wireless security to be at all a burden; and I suspect it'll be similar in any (low-cost) venue with comparable facilities. > * There was a lot of walking required, both to and from the parking > garage, and to and from the cafeteria. We got lucky with the weather, > which could have been much hotter or much rainier. That is a big risk > for future events at the same place. I didn't find the walk to/from the parking garage to be significantly different from what I experience at other conferences/events I attend. The walk to/from lunch wasn't ideal, but to me it didn't count as a significant negative either. ?To me, the ability to have shorter drives for a larger number of attendees far outweighs any possible negative of walking a bit to get our food. ?:-) That's probably a good summary -- to me, the advantages of a location central to many attendees far outweigh the relatively minor disadvantages we experienced at the venue. ?Indeed, I'm now wondering if Waco/Baylor would make sense for staging a Texas Perl Workshop. ?:-) I've sent this reply privately (off-list), but you're welcome to share it with others or the list as appropriate. Pm From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 29 19:53:59 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 12:53:59 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Jeremy Kelley wrote: > On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Brad Allen wrote: >> Let's discuss how well our venue worked out this time, at the Baylor >> University Science Building in Waco. Should we plan to use the same >> venue next year? > > The facilities were quite nice. ?My only complaint would be the lack > of coffee. ?:) Yeah, maybe next year if we're still at Baylor we can set up refreshments on the lower level ( away from the classrooms), or even better find a way to get them to open the cafe on that day. From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 29 20:55:31 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:55:31 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 8:40 AM, Lewis Franklin wrote: > Let me begin by saying that am (the lone) from Waco and so my response might > be a bit biased. Biased or not, your opinion carries a lot of weight given that you mentioned you'll help volunteer for next year's event. However, you're not the lone attendee from Waco--there were quite a few others. Maybe I didn't do a good enough job of publicly thanking Jeremy Langley for everything he did to make PyTexas possible this year at Baylor. He works in the Baylor IT dept, and knew who to talk to about arranging the rooms, parking garage, and wireless access. He helped in innumerable ways and was my single point of contact for Baylor. He and I cooked up the idea for PyTexas at Baylor sometime last year when he attended a DFW Python meeting. > I thought that Waco and Baylor made for a nice location. I had heard about > PyTexas from a friend and never really got involved, in spite of my > presence, and really didn't have much expectation for the conference, to be > honest. However, I must say that this conference exceeded all my > expectations. Thanks! That's the kind of result I had hoped for; this community can surprise itself which how much we can learn from each other, and how much fun we can have doing so. > From talking with others, it seems that Waco makes a great location because > of its central location. A number of attendees were able to come down for > the day without needing to stay over night at all. Yes, making it a "day trip" was the intent. We started the keynote at 11am to give everyone time to arrive, including the keynote speaker! > Recognizing the benefit of the location of Waco, I would also like to > volunteer to help out next year more, especially if we decide to meet in > Waco again. I would be happy to be a point-man in the town and to work with > Baylor to get better facilities. I might even be able to swing some coffee. Great, Lewis! That will be much appreciated. Please give me a call sometime so we can discuss it (my phone number is on the wiki BradAllen page). > Also, in relation to transportation concerns, a close friend of mine works > for Waco Transit as the route planner and Waco Transit has several trolleys > and buses used for public transportation around Baylor and Waco. Their load > is lighter on the weekend and I would be happy to talk with him to see if we > could work out something to keep people from walking. It could also open up > the possibility of going to off-campus locations for lunch. I don't know about that...the cafeteria seemed like a great solution given the price and diverse food selection. I'm not hearing that people mind the walk; in fact, that's another opportunity to socialize. Also, getting a little exercise helps fight off the post-lunch sleepies. My only concern about the cafeteria is the possibility of bad weather. I don't want to ask people to walk 10-15 minutes through a thunderstorm, or withering heat for that matter. We got lucky this year on the weather. Maybe we should investigate the possibility of selecting a building closer to the cafeteria. > I think that the overall format worked well. I agree that lunch should be > longer. I have always found at conferences like this that while the sessions > are a great part of the conference, I find the social aspect to be equally > beneficial. > > For me personally, while I love the idea of lightning talks, I think that at > a smaller conference they area bit trickier to pull off. We may only need > about 30 minutes for the talks. Also, having a large signup on the wall > might encourage more people to sign up. Yes, I'm guilty of not appointing a lightning talk coordinator of taking charge of that. We should have had a signup sheet posted early in the day, and someone actively recruiting. We can do better on that next year. > Another idea that I thought about with our diverse attendees is that we > might want to look at having themed tracks throughout the day. Maybe one > targeting beginners, one targeting intermediate/advanced users, and one > targeting "Get It Done" talks like "How to Make a Package" and "Lessons > Learned From Trying X In Python". It may not have been obvious from the schedule, but there were supposed to be two tracks, a "beginner track" and an "experienced track". We probably didn't do a good enough job of marking those on the board even though they were documented on the wiki schedule. Having a "Get it Done" track sounds interesting. That kind of a track might work well short talks; maybe four talks in one hour. For example, 12 minutes of virtualenv, 12 minutes of pip, 12 minutes of testing with nose, 12 minutes to understand closures, etc. > We may not be able to get enough speakers > for all three tracks, but I think that if we make our request for proposals > targeted like that we could possibly have a better turnout of speakers. To > me, its the difference of writing an essay about a specific topic versus > "whatever you want". I always found the former easier because I at least > knew a direction to head. That's a good point. I've noticed some of the O'Reilly conferences specifically list topics they want covered. We did have some suggestions and ideas for topics, but not a lot. Do you have any interest in helping with speaker recruiting and coordination? > I know that I have said quite a bit and for that I apologize. I think that > PyTexas was great and that we can all make it even better next year. Apology not accepted :-) You are going to have to send more long postings to make up for it. Hey, we need some traffic on this list so let's not be afraid to chat it up! From bradallen137 at gmail.com Sun Aug 29 21:20:55 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:20:55 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Two Requested Source Fragments From My Talks In-Reply-To: <4C7A285D.7090207@taupro.com> References: <4C7A285D.7090207@taupro.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 4:29 AM, Jeff Rush wrote: > Under the description of my "What Does This Code Do?" talk, I've added > two links to source I showed and folks asked for copies of: > > http://pytexas.org/2010/TalksAgenda#talk8 > > * Using Control-C to Drop into Debugger of a Running Program > * Dropping a Logging Aspect over All Methods of a Class > > Have fun with them, and thanks for a wonderful pyTexas event everyone! Thanks, Jeff. That was a really fun talk, and I especially enjoyed the interactive aspect of querying the audience. It probably could have been a little more interactive if you hadn't been short on time due to the room switch. It was interesting to sort of romp around through a range of interesting coding tricks, mindbenders, and examples designed to show off Python idioms. Also, you showed some examples of problems for which there is no elegant, clear coding solution. This approach to talk content could be extended into many more examples; it would be hard to imagine any talk in that format being truly comprehensive, so I'd like to propose we do more talks in that format, but with other code examples. What would be a good name for talks in this format? From bradallen137 at gmail.com Mon Aug 30 01:18:37 2010 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:18:37 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: pyArkansas 2010 Call For Papers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm planning to go to pyArkansas; is anyone else from the Texas group planning to go? There is a call for proposals out right now, so if you want to give a talk, this would be a good time to start thinking about it. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Greg Lindstrom Date: Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 3:33 PM Subject: pyArkansas 2010 Call For Papers To: pyar2-organizers at python.org, python-announce-list at python.org, pyar2 The 3rd annual pyArkansas conference, a gathering of Python programming enthusiasts, will be held on Saturday, October 16th, on the campus of the University of Central Arkansas (Conway) and we would like you to present a talk. ?We are accepting proposals for 30 or 60 minute talks (25 and 55 minutes, actually) on anything Python. ?Do you want to present on a particular topic (Python 3? Web? Database? Objects? Packages? Images? GIS? Sphinx?)? ?How about telling us about that cool program you just wrote? This is a conference run by enthusiasts for enthusiasts; you will never find a better audience. Last year we had 78 people attend including students/teachers from at least 5 Arkansas Colleges/Universities as well as High School and home school students. ?Professionals from 5 different states were on hand as well. We will have a wiki up in the next week but, if you are interested, please send your name and a brief description of the topic you would like to present (a paragraph would be just fine). ?Tell us if you would like a 30 or 60-minute slot and anything else we should know. ?We'll select talks by October 1st, so you'll know a couple weeks in advance if you were selected (and there will be open space so even if you are not selected you still can give it a go). Send you proposal to . -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-announce-list ? ? ? ?Support the Python Software Foundation: ? ? ? ?http://www.python.org/psf/donations/ From jtgalyon at gmail.com Mon Aug 30 02:40:42 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:40:42 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: pyArkansas 2010 Call For Papers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1283128842.26257.23.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> I marked that time on my calendar already, so I am going ;) Jason On Sun, 2010-08-29 at 18:18 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > I'm planning to go to pyArkansas; is anyone else from the Texas group > planning to go? There is a call for proposals out right now, so if you > want to give a talk, this would be a good time to start thinking about > it. > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Greg Lindstrom > Date: Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 3:33 PM > Subject: pyArkansas 2010 Call For Papers > To: pyar2-organizers at python.org, python-announce-list at python.org, > pyar2 > > > The 3rd annual pyArkansas conference, a gathering of Python programming > enthusiasts, will be held on Saturday, October 16th, on the campus of the > University of Central Arkansas (Conway) and we would like you to present a > talk. We are accepting proposals for 30 or 60 minute talks (25 and 55 > minutes, actually) on anything Python. Do you want to present on a > particular topic (Python 3? Web? Database? Objects? Packages? Images? GIS? > Sphinx?)? How about telling us about that cool program you just wrote? > This is a conference run by enthusiasts for enthusiasts; you will never find > a better audience. > > Last year we had 78 people attend including students/teachers from at least > 5 Arkansas Colleges/Universities as well as High School and home school > students. Professionals from 5 different states were on hand as well. > > We will have a wiki up in the next week but, if you are interested, please > send your name and a brief description of the topic you would like to > present (a paragraph would be just fine). Tell us if you would like a 30 or > 60-minute slot and anything else we should know. We'll select talks by > October 1st, so you'll know a couple weeks in advance if you were selected > (and there will be open space so even if you are not selected you still can > give it a go). > > Send you proposal to . > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-announce-list > > Support the Python Software Foundation: > http://www.python.org/psf/donations/ > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas From kevin.horn at gmail.com Mon Aug 30 03:28:31 2010 From: kevin.horn at gmail.com (Kevin Horn) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:28:31 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Fwd: pyArkansas 2010 Call For Papers In-Reply-To: <1283128842.26257.23.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> References: <1283128842.26257.23.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> Message-ID: I'm hopping to go, but I'm not sure whether I'll be available yet. Kevin Horn On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 7:40 PM, Jason Galyon wrote: > I marked that time on my calendar already, so I am going ;) > > Jason > > On Sun, 2010-08-29 at 18:18 -0500, Brad Allen wrote: > > I'm planning to go to pyArkansas; is anyone else from the Texas group > > planning to go? There is a call for proposals out right now, so if you > > want to give a talk, this would be a good time to start thinking about > > it. > > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > From: Greg Lindstrom > > Date: Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 3:33 PM > > Subject: pyArkansas 2010 Call For Papers > > To: pyar2-organizers at python.org, python-announce-list at python.org, > > pyar2 > > > > > > The 3rd annual pyArkansas conference, a gathering of Python programming > > enthusiasts, will be held on Saturday, October 16th, on the campus of the > > University of Central Arkansas (Conway) and we would like you to present > a > > talk. We are accepting proposals for 30 or 60 minute talks (25 and 55 > > minutes, actually) on anything Python. Do you want to present on a > > particular topic (Python 3? Web? Database? Objects? Packages? Images? > GIS? > > Sphinx?)? How about telling us about that cool program you just wrote? > > This is a conference run by enthusiasts for enthusiasts; you will never > find > > a better audience. > > > > Last year we had 78 people attend including students/teachers from at > least > > 5 Arkansas Colleges/Universities as well as High School and home school > > students. Professionals from 5 different states were on hand as well. > > > > We will have a wiki up in the next week but, if you are interested, > please > > send your name and a brief description of the topic you would like to > > present (a paragraph would be just fine). Tell us if you would like a 30 > or > > 60-minute slot and anything else we should know. We'll select talks by > > October 1st, so you'll know a couple weeks in advance if you were > selected > > (and there will be open space so even if you are not selected you still > can > > give it a go). > > > > Send you proposal to . > > -- > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-announce-list > > > > Support the Python Software Foundation: > > http://www.python.org/psf/donations/ > > _______________________________________________ > > Texas mailing list > > Texas at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > > > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevin.horn at gmail.com Mon Aug 30 06:01:22 2010 From: kevin.horn at gmail.com (Kevin Horn) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:01:22 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Brad Allen wrote: > Let's discuss how well our venue worked out this time, at the Baylor > University Science Building in Waco. Should we plan to use the same > venue next year? > I thought the venue was great, and Waco was a nice central location for most attendees, I think. My default is to prefer the same location for next year, because we > now have experience with this venue and know how to make it work. > However, it may be worth exploring alternatives. > The only alternative that comes to mind here is Bryan/College Station (presumably at Texas A&M). While I think A&M could be a great venue for an event like this (admittedly, as an Aggie, I'm biased), I think it might be a good idea to keep PyTexas at Waco for next year, and focus more on things other than dealing with the venue. I'm not sure staying at one location for _every_ year makes sense, for the same reason that PyCon moves around (attracting attendees from different areas). But as far as the venue goes, my only complaint is the ban on refreshments in the classrooms, and that's an awfully minor issue. It might be nice to have some tables designated downstairs for people to hang out at while refreshing themselves. Brad had a similar idea in another email. It also might be a good idea to put a 15 min break into the schedule for this purpose. One important question will be whether we can secure a large > auditorium room. This year we had ~92 attendees and our keynote room > was past capacity. I have some ideas about how to increase turnout > for next year, and want plan to support up to 200 attendees. Getting > everyone into one room is critical for certain moments in the > conference. > > Some notes: > > * Wireless was down till about 9:30am(?). Thanks to Jeremy Langley for > getting IT support to fix it! > I didn't notice...I never even tried to get on the wireless except in the morning, when it wasn't working, and I was mostly trying then because I thought I might need it later in the day. Which I didn't. > * One hour was not long enough for lunch, due to the long walk to the > cafeteria. > Agreed, and hour and a half would be better. About 10 of us went to a cajun place across the freeway (which was very tasty) and it took us about that amount of time to get there, eat and get back. > * The food in the cafeteria seemed pretty good ($8 all you can eat > buffet). Do you agree? How many of you missed going to the cafeteria > because of the earlier misdirection of the food court with Quizno's > and Chick-Fillet ? > As I said above, I didn't hit the cafeteria, but I heard no complaints. > * We had some technical issues with one of the projectors; I heard > that one talk had to be given with no projector (Intro to Version > Control). I'm not sure what happened there. > I think it might be a good idea next year to get volunteers to be "room proctors" and have a brief "training session" at the beginning of the day in which they familiarize themselves with the equipment. That way, hopefully we have at least one person in the room who knows how it is supposed to work. They could also introduce speakers and otherwise coordinate things. Ideally we'd only need to have people sign up to be a "room proctor" for specific sessions, so they wouldn't be chained to the same room all day. I don't think I'd call having "room proctors" necessary for a one day event, but it might be helpful. > * The security paperwork to support wireless access is a bit > cumbersome at Baylor, but I think it was acceptable and we can live > with doing it again next year. What do you think? > I think it was fine. > * There was a lot of walking required, both to and from the parking > garage, and to and from the cafeteria. We got lucky with the weather, > which could have been much hotter or much rainier. That is a big risk > for future events at the same place. > > I think weather is the only real concern here. By itself, I didn't think the walking was a problem. If it had been 105F or pouring down rain, it might have been a problem, though. All in all, it was a really nice place to have a conference/ Kevin Horn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jeremy at 33ad.org Mon Aug 30 14:12:11 2010 From: jeremy at 33ad.org (Jeremy Kelley) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:12:11 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Two Requested Source Fragments From My Talks In-Reply-To: <4C7A285D.7090207@taupro.com> References: <4C7A285D.7090207@taupro.com> Message-ID: On Sunday, August 29, 2010, Jeff Rush wrote: > Under the description of my "What Does This Code Do?" talk, I've added > two links to source I showed and folks asked for copies of: > > ? ?http://pytexas.org/2010/TalksAgenda#talk8 > > * Using Control-C to Drop into Debugger of a Running Program > * Dropping a Logging Aspect over All Methods of a Class > > Have fun with them, and thanks for a wonderful pyTexas event everyone! > > -Jeff Excellent! Thanks for such a great talk and useful code. -jeremy -- As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. A. Einstein From martin at martinthomas.net Mon Aug 30 15:54:34 2010 From: martin at martinthomas.net (Martin Thomas) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:54:34 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility Message-ID: Big thanks to everyone who made PyTexas 2010 such a great event. Here's my feedback (hoping that I did not miss a message with a URL to a survey, say something on http://www.surveymonkey.com/ or http://www.zoomerang.com/) Location: Great. Easy trip down and no hassle finding the parking. Following the chalkmarks was kind of fun. Venue: Great. Nice rooms, good screens, projectors etc. Comfortable seats. Food: Good. The 10+ minute walk was ok (good to stretch the legs) but would have been a problem on a really hot or a rainy day. Food selection in food court was great; I thought I was going to be eating some fried thing on a bun so it was a nice surprise. Make it easier to get to the food? Seems kind of silly to suggest a shuttle until you consider 100+ hungry Pythonistas standing at a doorway looking out into a torrential downpour. Talks: Good. The talks I attended all gave me food for thought without leaving me baffled. I didn't attend any OpenSpaces (now wishing I had at least dropped in). I enjoyed the lightning talks but would have liked a few more. Was there a sign-up board? I know Brad was taking names but that didn't give visiblilty on how many to expect. Seemed like the crowd was a mix of people ranging from new to Python to old-timers. I definitely would like to go next year if it is Waco again and maybe get more involved earlier. Thanks again! //M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cody at telnet.org Mon Aug 30 19:01:35 2010 From: cody at telnet.org (cody at telnet.org) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:01:35 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Teach-In In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: tutor perspective: The teach-in appeared to work well enough. People were trickling in over the entire two hours, so some announcements on the half hour might have lowered some of the confusion. Overall, I couldn't tell how many people were really benefitting in large room, but there were lots of tutors paired up with students. The small room (205?) seemed to have people making good progress with self paced learning and occasional help from tutors. It might help to subdivide by experience levels or other relevant categories a little earlier next time. As a tutor, I enjoyed the time a little more than expected. It was also a nice chance to meet some people before the keynote and regular sessions started. thanks, c On Sat, 28 Aug 2010, Brad Allen wrote: > While the experience is fresh in everyone's minds, I'd like to hear > feedback and ideas for future Python Teach-Ins. Also, what did you > learn during the Teach-In, either as a tutor or a learner? > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > From cody at telnet.org Mon Aug 30 18:45:19 2010 From: cody at telnet.org (cody at telnet.org) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:45:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I found Waco to be a good location. The hotel selection was fair and there are some nice things to visit outside of the PyTexas event. The site for the event seemed good too. The building is certainly nice. The cafeteria food selection was good relative to the cost. I'm with the pro-walking crowd, but it would have been nicer if it was late fall. Having someone dedicated to the projector/audo setups might have helped, similar to Kevin's room proctor idea. Having the lightening talk signups grouped with the other schedule and open space materials might have helped with that turnout. Overall I think its a nice location and a good selection for next year. thanks, c On Sat, 28 Aug 2010, Brad Allen wrote: > Let's discuss how well our venue worked out this time, at the Baylor > University Science Building in Waco. Should we plan to use the same > venue next year? > > My default is to prefer the same location for next year, because we > now have experience with this venue and know how to make it work. > However, it may be worth exploring alternatives. > > One important question will be whether we can secure a large > auditorium room. This year we had ~92 attendees and our keynote room > was past capacity. I have some ideas about how to increase turnout > for next year, and want plan to support up to 200 attendees. Getting > everyone into one room is critical for certain moments in the > conference. > > Some notes: > > * Wireless was down till about 9:30am(?). Thanks to Jeremy Langley for > getting IT support to fix it! > * One hour was not long enough for lunch, due to the long walk to the cafeteria. > * The food in the cafeteria seemed pretty good ($8 all you can eat > buffet). Do you agree? How many of you missed going to the cafeteria > because of the earlier misdirection of the food court with Quizno's > and Chick-Fillet ? > * We had some technical issues with one of the projectors; I heard > that one talk had to be given with no projector (Intro to Version > Control). I'm not sure what happened there. > * The security paperwork to support wireless access is a bit > cumbersome at Baylor, but I think it was acceptable and we can live > with doing it again next year. What do you think? > * There was a lot of walking required, both to and from the parking > garage, and to and from the cafeteria. We got lucky with the weather, > which could have been much hotter or much rainier. That is a big risk > for future events at the same place. > _______________________________________________ > Texas mailing list > Texas at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/texas > From pmichaud at pobox.com Mon Aug 30 21:16:35 2010 From: pmichaud at pobox.com (Patrick R. Michaud) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:16:35 -0500 Subject: [Texas] PyTexas 2010 Retrospective: Facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20100830191635.GA2418@pmichaud.com> On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 11:45:19AM -0500, cody at telnet.org wrote: > Having someone dedicated to the projector/audo setups might have > helped, similar to Kevin's room proctor idea. Yes, I'm not sure what happened with the proejctor in that one room -- my laptop wouldn't work with it either. In presentation mode my laptop outputs 1024x768 @ 60Hz, which afaik is a very standard video signal for projectors. My laptop video worked fine for the lightning talk, but didn't want to work in that room for some reason. Pm From vmohun at entreave.com Tue Aug 31 18:38:17 2010 From: vmohun at entreave.com (Vamsi Mohun) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:38:17 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Austin Startup looking for Python + Django resource Message-ID: Hi All, Entreave, an Austin startup, has been operational since 2009. More info on our company can be found here. http://www.facebook.com/Entreave http://www.entreave.com http://www.entreave.com/tour/ http://www.entreave.com/help/ We are looking for high-energy software developer/s with a startup mindset. Our philosophy at this time: it is better to get a task done fast with reasonable accuracy than to spend 5 times the amount of time to come up with an excellent/elegant solution. The selected individual will first spend time fixing existing defects in our software and hence go through a learning process of how the product is built. Then they will be assigned tasks related to product enhancement. The following skills are relevant. * Python - required * Django - required * Google App Engine with Python - highly desired * HTML - required * CSS - desired * Javascript - desired * PayPal integration experience - desired * Eclipse - desired * AJAX - desired Please shoot me an email and let us set up a time to discuss. Thanks ! Vamsi http://www.linkedin.com/in/vamsimohun -- vmohun at entreave.com http://www.entreave.com http://www.facebook.com/Entreave @entreave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jtgalyon at gmail.com Tue Aug 31 23:39:40 2010 From: jtgalyon at gmail.com (Jason Galyon) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:39:40 -0500 Subject: [Texas] Request for recipe submissions to ActiveState for upcoming new edition of the Python Cookbook Message-ID: <1283290780.26257.58.camel@rivendell.clangalyon.com> http://code.activestate.com/recipes/langs/python/ Please submit your comments and recipes to this site to help O'Reilly make yet another great Cookbook edition. That is all, Jason :)