The PyCon US Blog

We are proud to announce the first videos from PyCon 2009 US. Topics Of Interest - Ian Bicking ( Slides/Data ) Lightning Talk: New Python Licence - Jesse Noller

This morning the PyCon organizers received some bad news. Our photography coordianator, Steven Wilcox, has a family emergency and won't be able to attend the conference. We hope everything turns out well for Steven and his family. Unfortunately this has left us scrambling a bit, but in the spirit of "The show must go on", we are asking that any attendees who are photographers or photography buffs to step up and help out. We also ask that anyone who had arrangements with Steven for PyCon photography should contact us. We are particularly looking for session photographers and portrait photographers. Session photographers will take photos of speakers during thier talks, tutors during thier tutorials, sprinters during thier spints, and so on. The portriat photographers would be responsible for setting up and running a small studio to get portraits of Python people, for use by the PSF in future press releases. Of course everyone is welcome (and encouraged!) to take many pyco...

Organizers are already in place, preparing for the tutorials and summits that begin tomorrow... and here's the final PyCon 2009 press release. We hope your bags are packed! ---------------------- White Oak Technologies, Inc., Google, Sun Microsystems Sponsor World's Largest Python Conference Python 3.0 enters spotlight at PyCon 2009 CHICAGO - March 24, 2009 - PyCon 2009, the largest annual conference of the worldwide Python programming community, takes place March 25 - April 2 at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare and the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare in Chicago, IL. The core conference runs March 27-29, with days of special events both before and after the main conference. Last December's release of Python 3.0 marks one of the most important events in Python's history, and PyCon 2009 provides developers a chance to learn to adapt to it from the worldwide masters of Python programming. Though Python's 2.x series will remain viable for years, the Python community is cl...

This year, like the last few years, an open space room has been dedicated to friendly board gaming and cards. Last year there seemed to be a constant game of Fluxx and Settlers of Catan while Power Grid, RoboRally, Carcassonne, Bang!, Munchkin, Treehouse, piecepack, and a load of others opened some of our eyes to the engaging world of German style and abstract games. If you're looking for a low-key social activity at this year’s PyCon please join us in the open space area. If you have a game you’d particularly like to play, visit the Board Games Social wiki page at the PyCon web site and add the game so we may inform fellow players or pass word for someone to bring it. We'll have Chess, Scrabble and other standards if you're looking for something familiar, and some new variations such as Sorry Sliders, Yahtzee Free For All, Lost Cities the Board Game, Hive with the Misquito and Monty Python Fluxx. The games are brought by attendants and some loaners are being provided by T...

PyCon US is a 100% volunteer effort. In order for the conference to run smoothly we need a large on-site volunteer turnout. This year the conference is larger than ever. As a result we need more people than ever to step forward and volunteer their time at the conference to help make it a success for all. With PyCon less than a week away, we are in desperate need for Session Staff and Session Runners in particular. Being a Session Runner is a simple task where you work with presenters to make sure they are ready to present before they give their talk, and help the Session Chairs with the transition between speakers. The rest of the time you are free to see whichever presentation or other activity you wish. All session staff this year will have radios with headsets so staying in touch will be easy. Everyone can see which session still need session staff on the main Schedule ; those talks w/o star or clipboard icons. Signup is very simple, and this is a great way to be involved and ma...

Today (March 18) is the last day for online registration for PyCon 2009. While you can register on-site next week, registering online will save you money and time . See you in Chicago!

PYCON 2009 HOSTS CROSS-COMMUNITY SUMMIT MEETINGS CHICAGO - March 16 - Python programmers won't be the only ones coming to PyCon this month. PyCon 2009 is hosting two new summit events that will draw key developers and strategists not only from Python, but also from the Perl, Ruby, Java, .NET, and JavaScript communities. The Virtual Machine Summit on March 25, sponsored by Sun Microsystems, and Python Language Summit on March 26, both at PyCon 2009 in Chicago, are invitation-only events that will bring cross-discipline groups together to discuss and strategize on challenges that are common across their projects. Virtual machines - software layers that sit between machine-specific binary code and language-specific compilers, creating multi-language programming environments - have become a focus of modern language development. Virtual machine developers will attend from a variety of projects, based in a number of language communities: PyPy (Python), Parrot (Perl), Da Vinci (Java), D...

The deadline for PyCon 2009 hotel reservations at the conference rate is 3:00 pm (Chicago time; 21:00 UTC) on Friday, March 6. Act now, because the regular rate is considerably higher! If you haven't registered for PyCon yet, there is still time! The regular online registration deadline is March 18. After that, on-site registration will be available, but the price is higher.

A PyCon 2009 LinkedIn group has been created. If you've already registered for PyCon and agreed to have your name on the public attendee list , the e-mail address you used to register is pre-approved for the group.

Through clever use of import __future__ , NPR's Science Friday has managed to record and publish interviews at PyCon's sprints... a month before they take place! Watch it at Science Friday Well, actually, the video is from PyCon 2008's sprints - but it's a good chance to see several PyCon attendees (including Guido, Mike Fletcher, Travis Oliphant, and Ka-Ping Yee) talking about Python, PyCon, and sprinting.

The early-bird registration deadline for PyCon 2009 is February 21, only a few days from now. After that, the price for registration will be going up. Hotel reservations at the conference rates are still available, but not for long. Act now, because the regular rate is considerably higher! A reminder to tutorial and talk speakers: you are responsible for your own registration and hotel reservations. So don't delay!

YOUR FRIEND Wherever did you get that lovely blog badge? YOU At the "Publicize PyCon" webpage, of course. They have badges in a variety of styles and sizes to insert into blog entries, blog sidebars, and any other sort of webpage. YOUR FRIEND It's so stylish! And it shows you're going to PyCon, one of the most valuable and enjoyable conferences in the tech world. YOU Not just that - by encouraging new attendees to come to PyCon, I'm helping make the pool of talent and energy that we share there even more dynamic and exciting. I'm helping build a better conference with this simple badge! YOUR FRIEND Was it difficult to insert? YOU As easy as cutting and pasting this: <a href="http://us.pycon.org"><img src="http://us.pycon.org/media/2009/public/pycon2009-horizontal-large-215x135.png" alt="PyCon 2009: Chicago"></a> YOUR FRIEND I'm so jealous! It must have cost a fortune. YOU Not at all! All "Publiciz...

PyCon 2009 Takes Python to New Places CHICAGO - February 10, 2009 - PyCon 2009, the seventh annual conference of the worldwide Python programming community, has opened registration and announced its list of accepted talks. The topics show Python appearing in a variety of places outside its traditional realms. From hackathons in Africa to a neutrino detector at the South Pole; from massive multicore machines to tiny embedded wireless devices; and from mobile phones to distributed heterogeneous networks, talks at Pycon 2009 demonstrate how Python is being used in places and in ways that will startle even longtime Python users. Python continues to branch out across software platforms as well, with several talks covering the growing use of IronPython and Jython on the .NET and Java platforms. Meanwhile, traditional Python strongholds such as science, education, databases, and web programming are not neglected, and several talks flesh out attendees' understanding of fundamental Python t...

Python-related projects: join the PyCon Development Sprints! The development sprints are a key part of PyCon, a chance for the contributors to open-source projects to get together face-to-face for up to four days of intensive learning and development. Newbies sit at the same table as the gurus, go out for lunch and dinner together, and have a great time while advancing their project. Sprints are one of the best parts of PyCon; in 2008 over 250 sprinters came for at least one day! If your project would like to sprint at PyCon, now is the time to let us know. We'll collect your info and publish it so that participants will have time to make plans. We'll need to get the word out early so that folks who want to sprint have time to make travel arrangements. In the past, some have been reluctant to commit to sprinting: some may not know what sprinting is all about; others may think that they're not "qualified" to sprint. We're on an ongoing mission to change that pe...

The PyCon organizers committee would like to confirm that Randall Munroe of xkcd is, in fact, banned from PyCon 2009. We apologize to all 2008 attendees for last year's disgraceful keynote, "Web Spiders vs. Red Spiders". PyCon is a serious conference and we will not countenance this sort of nonsensical frivolity . Many of our sponsors feel that Mr. Munroe is the single largest cause of programmer distraction and his presence would be inappropriate. Registration volunteers have been instructed to refuse admission to Randall Munroe personally, and in fact, to any stick figures who may attempt to register, particularly if they are wearing hats. If Mr. Munroe happens to defeat our elaborate security protocols and attend nonetheless, we urge attendees to avoid any Open Spaces he may convene.

The PyCon Program Committee performs the same key task for every year's conference: it works to bring in the best speakers talking about the most interesting and relevant topics from all corners of the Python community. It's a tall order, but we're very excited about the scheduled talks we selected for this year. Then we decided to do more. Throughout PyCon's history, a small group of speakers has consistently delivered fantastic talks and attracted glowing reviews from our attendees. So this year, we approached them and said "come talk about whatever you want". Their talks didn't go through the normal review process by the Program Committee. Instead, they're invited talks , a new category of talks -- in addition to the scheduled talks and the keynotes -- that will shine a spotlight on what we believe is the very best PyCon has to offer. Our inaugural invited speakers are Ian Bicking, C. Titus Brown, Brett Cannon, Bruce Eckel, Raymond Hettinger, Steve...

The Python Software Foundation has allocated some funds to help people attend PyCon 2009. If you would like to come to PyCon but can't afford it, the PSF may be able to help you. The financial aid can cover some or all of the following: • Your registration for PyCon • Your hotel room at the conference hotel • Your flight or other transportation Please see http://us.pycon.org/2009/registration/financial-aid/ for details & instructions. The deadline for applications is February 23rd.

Registration is now open for PyCon 2009, the annual U.S. Python community conference! Early-bird registration is open until February 21: register now at the low rates. See the PyCon web site for complete details. PyCon 2009 will be held from March 25 through April 2 in Chicago: Tutorial Days: Wednesday, March 25 & Thursday, March 26 Conference Days: Friday, March 27, through Sunday, March 29 Development Sprints: Monday, March 30 through Thursday, April 2 Register early, especially if you'd like to attend tutorials, as tutorials fill up early. There are 32 great tutorials to choose from, in four sessions over two days. The list of accepted talks is up . Hotel reservations are also open. More hotel information is here. The volunteer organizers have been busy developing the software, providing the website content, testing & debugging. There is still much to do, and you can help! See you in Chicago!

The list of sixty-five accepted talks has been posted here . Have a look; it's a very exciting set of topics! Of course, don't forget that the scheduled talks are only a small part of the PyCon experience. There's also Open Spaces, tutorials, keynotes, Lightning Talks, sprints, exhibitors, and just plain spending time with others from the Python community.

EuroPython 2009 is taking place in Birmingham, UK from the 28th June to 3rd July 2009. The local organisers of EuroPython 2009 are the PyCon UK society. This is a community conference - so we need your talks to make it a success. We're looking for proposals on all aspects of Python programming from novice to advanced levels; applications and frameworks, or how you have been involved in introducing Python into your organisation. To submit proposals see: Call for Talks, Papers and Tutorials If you have friends or colleagues who have something valuable to contribute, twist their arms to tell us about it! Please point anyone that you feel may be interested to this link. Already we have some fine keynote speakers, with more to be confirmed: Professor Sir Tony Hoare Jim Hugunin Cory Doctorow Following on from the successful tutorials at PyCon UK 2008, the conference will start with two days of tutorials (28th-29th June). Proposals for half day tutorials can be submitted using the same f...