Catherine Devlin
Having waaaaay too much fun with Python and Oracle.
Updated: 2 hours 21 min ago
Viva Tortuga
Joseph Lisee, author of the upcoming Python submarine robot PyCon talk, left a comment on my last post. I think he was a little shy about me highlighting him.
I'm sorry, Joseph. You really left me no choice.
Completely Unfounded Rumors About "An Underwater Python: Tortuga the Python Powered Robot"
Roll 1d6 for each hour spent in the Atlanta Hyatt bar.
P. S. Blogger, don't you know what an <ol> is? You know, like an <ul> with numbers.
I'm sorry, Joseph. You really left me no choice.
Completely Unfounded Rumors About "An Underwater Python: Tortuga the Python Powered Robot"
Roll 1d6 for each hour spent in the Atlanta Hyatt bar.
- 1. Joseph will announce the release of asimov.py, a pure-Python implementation of the Three Laws of Robotics.
- 2. Bring a swimsuit and snorkel. One lucky audience member will be picked to join Tortuga in the hotel pool, where Tortuga will take a fish from their hand.*
- 3. Jozeph 'az been practeeseeng 'eez reedeeculous Jacques Cousteau accent for months and weel uze eet to deeleever zee eentire talk.
- 4. Several minutes into the presentation, Tortuga will overpower Joseph, throw him from the stage, and announce that humankind is obsolete and has been deprecated.
- 5. Attendees will be asked to pour out a libation to Poseidon. Any caffeinated beverage may be used.
- 6. There will be a sprint to construct a tall, dapper companion to Tortuga for communication and protocol purposes.
P. S. Blogger, don't you know what an <ol> is? You know, like an <ul> with numbers.
PyCon pre-favorites
When I look over the PyCon 2010 talk list, I'd like to be at about half of them (a physical impossibility, until I master self-multiplexing). Still, these are the ones that I'll move heaven and earth to be at. What about you - what are your favorites?
- Extending Java Applications with Jython
- I'm hopeful that this can really move Jython from my "stuff I think is cool" box to my "stuff I use every day" box.
- IronPython Tooling
- This is going to cover development environments and tools for debugging and profiling... pretty much a necessity in the .NET world. I also hope to use the video of this talk in the future in talking to the hordes of programmers around here who live and breathe Visual Studio.
- Python in the Browser
- Silverlight is way too cool to leave to the C# kids.
- Think Globally, Hack Locally - Teaching Python in Your Community
- As a local group-leader type geek, I'd love to start some of these Hack Nights.
- Dude, Where's My Database?
- There were so many proposals for descriptions of non-relational databases - but this one really stands out because it looks at the huge picture, classifying databases by their broad category and highlighting what makes each category beneficial for particular purposes.
- Sprox: data driven web development
- I confess - I've fallen behind the TurboGears world lately. Nobody's demanded a dynamic web app of me for a while, and TG has moved too fast for me to keep track of it. When last I was involved, Sprox was just emerging. I hope this talk will help me catch up.
- Revisioned Databases for MultiUser Editing
- Revisioned databases are an interesting concept, and seeing how one was actually developed should warm my datageek heart.
- Easy command-line applications with cmd and cmd2
- Interactive command-line interfaces were good enough for ZORK, and they're good enough for you! cmd and cmd2 make them crazy-easy. (I'll get in trouble if I don't go to this one, since I'm the speaker.)
- Dealing with unsightly data in the real world
- Gathering data from disparate, chaotic sources is a big part of pretty much everybody's life. I'm eager for any new insights.
- An Underwater Python: Tortuga the Python Powered Robot
- because, deep down inside, people everywhere are the same; we all want to be loved, and Python-powered robot submarines.
pernicious python.org proxy problem
For the past few weeks, I haven't been able to access python.org or any of its pages through a proxy server. My workplace has one standard proxy server, and I also use a personal machine as a SOCKS proxy for an SSH tunnel - and both of them have been getting name resolution errors for all python.org sites. I haven't seen it for any other sites, or when using no proxy.
Does anybody know what's going on? Is there something about python.org that would make name resolution work differently for it?
[EDIT: Friends from the Dayton Dynamic Languages SIG figured this one out. My primary workplace proxy server is blocking DNS lookup on the python.org domain. Trying to use a different proxy through a SOCKS/SSH tunnel produced the same DNS failure, because - to my surprise - by default, Firefox does not make its DNS requests through the SSH tunnel even when all other traffic is tunneled. The network.proxy.socks_remote_dns preference must be set to change this. See "Proxy Firefox through a SSH tunnel".]
Does anybody know what's going on? Is there something about python.org that would make name resolution work differently for it?
[EDIT: Friends from the Dayton Dynamic Languages SIG figured this one out. My primary workplace proxy server is blocking DNS lookup on the python.org domain. Trying to use a different proxy through a SOCKS/SSH tunnel produced the same DNS failure, because - to my surprise - by default, Firefox does not make its DNS requests through the SSH tunnel even when all other traffic is tunneled. The network.proxy.socks_remote_dns preference must be set to change this. See "Proxy Firefox through a SSH tunnel".]
Configuring Oracle Data Guard
The official Oracle Data Guard docs are, of course, the most complete and accurate source of information about setting up Data Guard.
They're not very easy to use, though. They don't provide a walk-through of the entire process, for example, instead branching the discussion at every possible decision point.
I just fought my way through the process, with help from Chris Ruel of Perpetual Technologies, and thought I'd record my steps for the benefit of humankind. OK, that's not true - it's actually because the Internet is the only place I can leave myself notes and be certain to find them again later.
It's too bulky for a blog post, so here: Oracle Data Guard Configuration Walk-Through
They're not very easy to use, though. They don't provide a walk-through of the entire process, for example, instead branching the discussion at every possible decision point.
I just fought my way through the process, with help from Chris Ruel of Perpetual Technologies, and thought I'd record my steps for the benefit of humankind. OK, that's not true - it's actually because the Internet is the only place I can leave myself notes and be certain to find them again later.
It's too bulky for a blog post, so here: Oracle Data Guard Configuration Walk-Through
A PyCon program committee volunteer reflects
The PyCon program committee has finished its work. All submissions have been reviewed, debated, argued on, and voted - often through several cycles. Emails accepting and declining talks have gone out.
I wanted to blog about my impressions as a program committee volunteer. Note that this is totally unofficial, and I'm not speaking on behalf of the committee, PyCon, etc.
It was wonderfulJust reviewing the talks was a great experience. Some of the talks were fun just to visualize; watching them will be even better. I learned lots about what is going on in the Python community. The program committee is a smart and fun crowd to work with, too.
It was horribleThe problem with a programming language that can do pretty much anything is that three days of scheduled talks are nowhere near enough to see everything that's going on. I wish we could have five days of talks, but there are too many people who wouldn't have the time or money for such a conference.
With room to accept fewer than half of our submissions, we had to turn away talks that would have been great. For instance, the one talk I most wanted to see - the proposal I would have walked barefoot to Atlanta for - got declined. What can you do? Often "pretty much everybody was pretty excited about this" talks had to be sacrificed for the sake of "virtually everybody was dying to see this" talks.
But wait, there's moreFortunately, scheduled talks are only the tip of the PyCon iceberg. We have Lightning Talks, Open Spaces, and (new this year) poster board sessions! I hope all declined speakers will consider taking their material to one or more of those formats!
PyCon is going to be wonderfulI think we have the best crop of presentations we've ever had. If you can look through the list of accepted talks and not start making Atlanta travel plans, then you are already dead.
PyCon is going to be horrible... because, with five simultaneous tracks packed with the very best of material, I promise you will face multiple can't-miss talks going on at the same time, all day, every day. The painful decisions of the program committee are really only a preview of the difficult decisions every attendee will have to make at the conference itself.
For 2011: increasing your chancesIf you want to make your future PyCon proposal more appealing to the committee (making our decisions even harder - thanks a lot), here are some of the things I saw that helped talks make the cut.
I wanted to blog about my impressions as a program committee volunteer. Note that this is totally unofficial, and I'm not speaking on behalf of the committee, PyCon, etc.
It was wonderfulJust reviewing the talks was a great experience. Some of the talks were fun just to visualize; watching them will be even better. I learned lots about what is going on in the Python community. The program committee is a smart and fun crowd to work with, too.
It was horribleThe problem with a programming language that can do pretty much anything is that three days of scheduled talks are nowhere near enough to see everything that's going on. I wish we could have five days of talks, but there are too many people who wouldn't have the time or money for such a conference.
With room to accept fewer than half of our submissions, we had to turn away talks that would have been great. For instance, the one talk I most wanted to see - the proposal I would have walked barefoot to Atlanta for - got declined. What can you do? Often "pretty much everybody was pretty excited about this" talks had to be sacrificed for the sake of "virtually everybody was dying to see this" talks.
But wait, there's moreFortunately, scheduled talks are only the tip of the PyCon iceberg. We have Lightning Talks, Open Spaces, and (new this year) poster board sessions! I hope all declined speakers will consider taking their material to one or more of those formats!
PyCon is going to be wonderfulI think we have the best crop of presentations we've ever had. If you can look through the list of accepted talks and not start making Atlanta travel plans, then you are already dead.
PyCon is going to be horrible... because, with five simultaneous tracks packed with the very best of material, I promise you will face multiple can't-miss talks going on at the same time, all day, every day. The painful decisions of the program committee are really only a preview of the difficult decisions every attendee will have to make at the conference itself.
For 2011: increasing your chancesIf you want to make your future PyCon proposal more appealing to the committee (making our decisions even harder - thanks a lot), here are some of the things I saw that helped talks make the cut.
- The basics: a clear talk description, orderly-looking outline, plausible-looking timings. If reviewers ask questions, answer them. Give every impression that you're prepared to put serious effort into your talk.
- Broad appeal. It's OK to present on specialty topics, of course, but if you can point out ways that even people outside the specialty will also want to see it, it will help.
- Unusual topic. Every year, there are some hot topics that everybody in the community seems to be talking about... and submitting talks on. Since we're not going to accept a dozen talks on any topic, no matter how hot, these talks need to prevail over a lot of competitors. On the other hand, if you've got a topic that makes the committee say, "HUH? Wow, I'd never heard of anything like that!", it really helps you stand out.
- We always get more intermediate-level submissions than for beginner or advanced, so the competition was fiercest there.
- What will attendees get from your talk that they couldn't get simply from reading the docs? Make sure we can tell.
- Evidence of preparation and skill. Some speakers had established reputations as skillful, engaging presenters; some provided links to their slide decks from earlier versions of their talks given at local groups or regional conferences; a few linked to actual recordings of earlier versions of their talks. Give your talk at a nearby usergroup, then convince one of your group members to volunteer for the program committee. :)
- Scratch the itch. When committee members say, "Ah, yes, I've been puzzled by that and dying for a proper explanation!" - or, "I personally understand it, but I see misunderstanding of it throughout the community and wish somebody would help clear it up", that is a big plus.
- Keep the Py in PyCon. If the topic is one of general IT interest - database technology or rich web client programming, for instance - then make sure to emphasize the Python angle of your talk. How do you work the problem from Python specifically? What do Python users need to know about the problem that they won't learn from materials aimed at the IT community overall?
Stop! Drop that field!
For PyOhio registration, we used a nice service called eventbrite. It worked great, but I have one big problem with it: it collected way too much data from registrants. It got us the data we needed, but it also asked for home addresses, gender, job title, company... all data we had no legitimate need for or plans to use, probably just because the fields are in the eventbrite form template. Entering it was pointless nuisance for our attendees, and maybe some were actually put off by the length or intrusiveness of the registration form. (Dave Stanek, if you're reading this, let's see if we can change that for next year.)
We are so not the only offenders in this department. It's everywhere, it's endemic. At website after website, we're asked to provide information of no apparent relevance to the sites' purposes. It's so easy to throw field after field into a data collection form; templates are provided with every conceivable field already in place; and - well, why not? Isn't more data better?
No. No, it's not. Excess data takes time, clutters databases, obscures important data, increases risks of data leakage. In interpersonal interactions, we always have the option of asking "Why do you need to know that?", or just giving people that funny look that tells them they're going out of bounds. On paper forms, we can leave fields blank. Automated forms with field validation cut those safeguards off and open the door to compulsive collection syndrome. The one defense people do have against intrusive electronic forms - lying - ruins data quality, and false data is much worse than no data at all.
We need a ethos of restraint in data collection, of always asking, "Why am I collecting this field?" Data collection needs to be seen as something that is not pure good, but something that has a cost to weigh against the benefit. Not collecting data is often the responsible choice, and we need to teach each other that.
We are so not the only offenders in this department. It's everywhere, it's endemic. At website after website, we're asked to provide information of no apparent relevance to the sites' purposes. It's so easy to throw field after field into a data collection form; templates are provided with every conceivable field already in place; and - well, why not? Isn't more data better?
No. No, it's not. Excess data takes time, clutters databases, obscures important data, increases risks of data leakage. In interpersonal interactions, we always have the option of asking "Why do you need to know that?", or just giving people that funny look that tells them they're going out of bounds. On paper forms, we can leave fields blank. Automated forms with field validation cut those safeguards off and open the door to compulsive collection syndrome. The one defense people do have against intrusive electronic forms - lying - ruins data quality, and false data is much worse than no data at all.
We need a ethos of restraint in data collection, of always asking, "Why am I collecting this field?" Data collection needs to be seen as something that is not pure good, but something that has a cost to weigh against the benefit. Not collecting data is often the responsible choice, and we need to teach each other that.
PyCon talk review
We've got a record number of volunteers working on PyCon's Program Committee - the group that reviews talk proposals and decides which ones go on the schedule. And it's a good thing, because we've also got a record number of proposals - 179! (For comparison, PyCon 2008 got 118.)
Right now, we're in the fun part - going through the proposed talks and yelling, "Oooh! Ooooh! I want that one!" Just looking through the proposed talks is a great Python education all by itself - you find out about useful packages and techniques you'd never known were out there.
The tough part comes later - when we have to winnow the list down. Without exception, there are talks I want to see that won't make the cut. Accepting all the good talks would be great, but we'd need a week of PyCon, and three days for the core conference are all we figure most attendees can spare. (My proposal for a round-the-clock talk schedule met only chuckles. Then again, with late-night Open Spaces, we already come dangerously close to a round-the-clock schedule...)
Right now, we're in the fun part - going through the proposed talks and yelling, "Oooh! Ooooh! I want that one!" Just looking through the proposed talks is a great Python education all by itself - you find out about useful packages and techniques you'd never known were out there.
The tough part comes later - when we have to winnow the list down. Without exception, there are talks I want to see that won't make the cut. Accepting all the good talks would be great, but we'd need a week of PyCon, and three days for the core conference are all we figure most attendees can spare. (My proposal for a round-the-clock talk schedule met only chuckles. Then again, with late-night Open Spaces, we already come dangerously close to a round-the-clock schedule...)
Ohio LinuxFest
Wooo, Ohio LinuxFest!
My reStructuredText slides are at catherinedevlin.pythoneers.com, down at the bottom of the page. Thanks to everybody who attended and gave great feedback!
I arrived Friday morning this time and spent a good chunk of the day at the Hackathon, working with Mark Borgerding on his idea for a new educational game for Childsplay. We made some good progress, especially since we were both 100% newbies to pygame! I enjoyed myself and learned a thing or two. Hopefully we'll be able to finish the game up remotely over the next several weeks.
Next came an impromptu lightning talk session (I looooove lightning talks) where I gave an extremely badly-organized (but well-received) glimpse at sqlpython.
I helped Todd Trichler from Oracle Technology Network with his demonstration of Oracle's free offerings. We had a good group, and the next morning Todd gave away his ENORMOUS box of Oracle software in about an hour.
The hallway track was, as usual, excellent. William McVey and Eric Floehr used the PyOhio table to stir up interest in CincyPy and Central Ohio Pythonistas, and Monday's inaugural COPy meeting had 27 attendees! Score! I enjoyed talking with people so much that I found myself on the verge of going hoarse just 90 minutes before my talk. Eek!
I had a great time. Congratulations and thank you to the OLF organizers and sponsors. Once a year, you make Ohio feel like anything but a technology backwater!
Sunday was the Diversity in Open Source workshop, which deserves its own post. To be continued...
My reStructuredText slides are at catherinedevlin.pythoneers.com, down at the bottom of the page. Thanks to everybody who attended and gave great feedback!
I arrived Friday morning this time and spent a good chunk of the day at the Hackathon, working with Mark Borgerding on his idea for a new educational game for Childsplay. We made some good progress, especially since we were both 100% newbies to pygame! I enjoyed myself and learned a thing or two. Hopefully we'll be able to finish the game up remotely over the next several weeks.
Next came an impromptu lightning talk session (I looooove lightning talks) where I gave an extremely badly-organized (but well-received) glimpse at sqlpython.
I helped Todd Trichler from Oracle Technology Network with his demonstration of Oracle's free offerings. We had a good group, and the next morning Todd gave away his ENORMOUS box of Oracle software in about an hour.
The hallway track was, as usual, excellent. William McVey and Eric Floehr used the PyOhio table to stir up interest in CincyPy and Central Ohio Pythonistas, and Monday's inaugural COPy meeting had 27 attendees! Score! I enjoyed talking with people so much that I found myself on the verge of going hoarse just 90 minutes before my talk. Eek!
I had a great time. Congratulations and thank you to the OLF organizers and sponsors. Once a year, you make Ohio feel like anything but a technology backwater!
Sunday was the Diversity in Open Source workshop, which deserves its own post. To be continued...
Python at Ohio LinuxFest
The Ohio LinuxFest fun starts tomorrow! Here are the Python-related activities there that I know of.
Of the Friday hackathon projects, I believe that schoolsplay and sendoff are Python-based.
http://www.ohiolinux.org/hackathon.html
Zenoss Community day on Friday (Zenoss is a Python product):
http://www.ohiolinux.org/zenoss.html
Python for Linux System Administration - Vern Ceder
10 AM Saturday
http://www.ohiolinux.org/talks.html#PYTHON
reStructuredText - Plain Text gets Superpowers - me
5 PM Saturday
http://www.ohiolinux.org/talks.html#TEXT
PyOhio booth - all day Saturday (though not always staffed). All Python groups should take advantage of it shamelessly - bring your literature! - and anybody who wants to hang around there and have Python-related conversations with people, that's fantastic.
And, of course, don't forget Oracle's event at OLF.
See you there!
Of the Friday hackathon projects, I believe that schoolsplay and sendoff are Python-based.
http://www.ohiolinux.org/hackathon.html
Zenoss Community day on Friday (Zenoss is a Python product):
http://www.ohiolinux.org/zenoss.html
Python for Linux System Administration - Vern Ceder
10 AM Saturday
http://www.ohiolinux.org/talks.html#PYTHON
reStructuredText - Plain Text gets Superpowers - me
5 PM Saturday
http://www.ohiolinux.org/talks.html#TEXT
PyOhio booth - all day Saturday (though not always staffed). All Python groups should take advantage of it shamelessly - bring your literature! - and anybody who wants to hang around there and have Python-related conversations with people, that's fantastic.
And, of course, don't forget Oracle's event at OLF.
See you there!
easy_install no longer easy on Vista
Since my Windows machine was upgraded from XP to Vista, managing Python packages has become absolutely horrible. Here's what I've puzzled out so far, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth:
1. No matter what rights your primary account has, you need to run easy_install from a Run as Administrator window - otherwise, easy_install runs in a separate window which pops up, flashes some feedback at you for a microsecond or so, then disappears, leaving you with absolutely no record of whether the install works and why. There doesn't seem to be any way to log the results to a file.
2. After installing any module that is deployed as an .egg into site-packages, you need to go and edit its permissions manually to give your account read privileges on the egg. (Giving your account privileges on the whole site-packages directory does not help.) Until you do, import newmodule will fail with ImportError: no module named newmodule on your account - but will succeed when run from a Run as Administrator window.
This is bad news. I fought my way through because I'm a dedicated Pythonista; how many Vista-using Py-curious are going to give up on Python because module installation now requires such hacks?
(Don't forget - Ohio LinuxFest registration ends tomorrow at noon! Move, move, move! You'll hurt my feelings if you don't go.)
1. No matter what rights your primary account has, you need to run easy_install from a Run as Administrator window - otherwise, easy_install runs in a separate window which pops up, flashes some feedback at you for a microsecond or so, then disappears, leaving you with absolutely no record of whether the install works and why. There doesn't seem to be any way to log the results to a file.
2. After installing any module that is deployed as an .egg into site-packages, you need to go and edit its permissions manually to give your account read privileges on the egg. (Giving your account privileges on the whole site-packages directory does not help.) Until you do, import newmodule will fail with ImportError: no module named newmodule on your account - but will succeed when run from a Run as Administrator window.
This is bad news. I fought my way through because I'm a dedicated Pythonista; how many Vista-using Py-curious are going to give up on Python because module installation now requires such hacks?
(Don't forget - Ohio LinuxFest registration ends tomorrow at noon! Move, move, move! You'll hurt my feelings if you don't go.)
Enthought's reStructuredText editor
Enthought has produced a wonderful tool for getting into reStructuredText: a side-by-side WYSIWYG rST editor.
Getting it installed, however, just about killed me. Here are the steps I finally puzzled out for Ubuntu 9.04. Miss any steps - or even change the order - and you'll get error messages that don't help even slightly.
[EDIT] If you're not on 9.04, or you just want to be on the safe side, it doesn't hurt to
The other odd thing is that this lovely editor apparently has no name, and certainly no handy start script or presence in any menu. Mine got installed at
Then, set up a bash script to make it usable. I'm calling it "rsted".
...
(The $* in /usr/local/bin/rsted doesn't actually do anything - the editor doesn't seem to accept arguments like a filename - but I'm being hopeful for the future.)
Getting it installed, however, just about killed me. Here are the steps I finally puzzled out for Ubuntu 9.04. Miss any steps - or even change the order - and you'll get error messages that don't help even slightly.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-setuptools python-vtk
sudo easy_install -U numpy
sudo easy_install -U docutils sphinx TraitsBackendQt[nonets] AppTools[nonets][EDIT] If you're not on 9.04, or you just want to be on the safe side, it doesn't hurt to
sudo apt-get install python-dev python-qt4 at the beginning of the whole process.The other odd thing is that this lovely editor apparently has no name, and certainly no handy start script or presence in any menu. Mine got installed at
/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/AppTools-3.3.0-py2.6.egg/enthought/rst/app.py; your best bet to find yours is probably sudo updatedb; locate -r rst/app.py$Then, set up a bash script to make it usable. I'm calling it "rsted".
sudo nano /usr/local/bin/rsted and fill it with:
#!/bin/bash
python /usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/AppTools-3.3.0-py2.6.egg/enthought/rst/app.py $*
...
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/rsted, and live happily ever after.(The $* in /usr/local/bin/rsted doesn't actually do anything - the editor doesn't seem to accept arguments like a filename - but I'm being hopeful for the future.)
PyCon 2010: Call for Proposals
In the opinion of most attendees I talked to, PyCon 2009 was the best one yet. If you need an excuse to come to PyCon 2010... well, what better excuse could there be than, "I'm speaking"?
Call for proposals — PyCon 2010 — http://us.pycon.org/2010/
Due date: October 1st, 2009
Want to showcase your skills as a Python Hacker? Want to have hundreds of people see your talk on the subject of your choice? Have some hot button issue you think the community needs to address, or have some package, code or project you simply love talking about? Want to launch your master plan to take over the world with python?
PyCon is your platform for getting the word out and teaching something new to hundreds of people, face to face.
Previous PyCon conferences have had a broad range of presentations, from reports on academic and commercial projects, tutorials on a broad range of subjects and case studies. All conference speakers are volunteers and come from a myriad of backgrounds. Some are new speakers, some are old speakers. Everyone is welcome so bring your passion and your code! We’re looking to you to help us top the previous years of success PyCon has had.
PyCon 2010 is looking for proposals to fill the formal presentation tracks. The PyCon conference days will be February 19-22, 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia, preceded by the tutorial days (February 17-18), and followed by four days of development sprints (February 22-25).
Online proposal submission is open now! Proposals will be accepted through October 1st, with acceptance notifications coming out on November 15th. For the detailed call for proposals, please see:
http://us.pycon.org/2010/conference/proposals/
For videos of talks from previous years – check out:
http://pycon.blip.tv
We look forward to seeing you in Atlanta!
Call for proposals — PyCon 2010 — http://us.pycon.org/2010/
Due date: October 1st, 2009
Want to showcase your skills as a Python Hacker? Want to have hundreds of people see your talk on the subject of your choice? Have some hot button issue you think the community needs to address, or have some package, code or project you simply love talking about? Want to launch your master plan to take over the world with python?
PyCon is your platform for getting the word out and teaching something new to hundreds of people, face to face.
Previous PyCon conferences have had a broad range of presentations, from reports on academic and commercial projects, tutorials on a broad range of subjects and case studies. All conference speakers are volunteers and come from a myriad of backgrounds. Some are new speakers, some are old speakers. Everyone is welcome so bring your passion and your code! We’re looking to you to help us top the previous years of success PyCon has had.
PyCon 2010 is looking for proposals to fill the formal presentation tracks. The PyCon conference days will be February 19-22, 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia, preceded by the tutorial days (February 17-18), and followed by four days of development sprints (February 22-25).
Online proposal submission is open now! Proposals will be accepted through October 1st, with acceptance notifications coming out on November 15th. For the detailed call for proposals, please see:
http://us.pycon.org/2010/conference/proposals/
For videos of talks from previous years – check out:
http://pycon.blip.tv
We look forward to seeing you in Atlanta!
BLOBs in sqlpython
Obviously, you can't query BLOBs in a command-line SQL tool.
Unless, of course, that tool is sqlpython. Bwa ha ha ha.
Unless, of course, that tool is sqlpython. Bwa ha ha ha.
reStructuredText talk at OLF
It's official - I'm on the schedule!
reStructuredText: Plain Text Gets Superpowers
September 26, 2009, 5 - 6pm
at Ohio LinuxFest
Greater Columbus Convention Center 400 North High Street Columbus, OH 43215 USA
Introduction to reStructuredText, a simple single-source format that can generate documents in HTML, PDF, .odt, and many other formats.
I also see tasty-looking talks on "Python for Linux System Administration", a "Sysadmins' Rosetta Stone" talk that should help me port my Ubuntu skills to Red Hat, and gobs more - plus the Diversity in Open Source workshop. This will be a great year!
reStructuredText: Plain Text Gets Superpowers
September 26, 2009, 5 - 6pm
at Ohio LinuxFest
Greater Columbus Convention Center 400 North High Street Columbus, OH 43215 USA
Introduction to reStructuredText, a simple single-source format that can generate documents in HTML, PDF, .odt, and many other formats.
I also see tasty-looking talks on "Python for Linux System Administration", a "Sysadmins' Rosetta Stone" talk that should help me port my Ubuntu skills to Red Hat, and gobs more - plus the Diversity in Open Source workshop. This will be a great year!
Spend Like a Pirate Day
Why do we Americans continue to carry around drab $1 bills, struggling to cram mushy, wrinkled paper into vending machine readers, when we could carry gleaming, clinking, golden doubloons?
Admire the gleam and the weight. This is the proper sensory experience for money!
I just found out you can buy boxes of 250 coins directly from the mint. Granted, there's $5 shipping, so you're paying $255 to get $250, but your credit card kickback should cover that. Then you can eschew that lame ATM for months! Let's face it, you only use cash for little purchases these days anyway. Make every cash transaction enjoyable!
When you receive your coins, feel free to run your hands through them several times, purring, "Arrrrrr! Thar's treasure for ye, me mateys!" Do NOT, however, bury them in a sturdy wooden chest and draw a map with a dotted line and an X. I know it's tempting! I want to do it, too! But the point is to get more of these beauties into circulation.
Arrrrrr!
Admire the gleam and the weight. This is the proper sensory experience for money!
I just found out you can buy boxes of 250 coins directly from the mint. Granted, there's $5 shipping, so you're paying $255 to get $250, but your credit card kickback should cover that. Then you can eschew that lame ATM for months! Let's face it, you only use cash for little purchases these days anyway. Make every cash transaction enjoyable!
When you receive your coins, feel free to run your hands through them several times, purring, "Arrrrrr! Thar's treasure for ye, me mateys!" Do NOT, however, bury them in a sturdy wooden chest and draw a map with a dotted line and an X. I know it's tempting! I want to do it, too! But the point is to get more of these beauties into circulation.
Arrrrrr!