Jacob Hallén wrote: [snip]
This is where I think Europython has done better than Pycon. We have had keynote speakers (apart from Guido), who have talked about things that transcend Python, and I think this has affected the whole spirit of Europython.
As a datapoint:
At the first PyCon, there was a talk by Paul Graham. Interesting, but not about Python at all. Basically about how languages like Lisp are the future and some tiny nods to Python about being enough like Lisp to be part of the "good languages". It was fun, it transcended python I guess, but a *bit* more about Python would've been good. :)
My other aspect is that I think a keynote is the opportunity to be a bit different from the regular talks. Most people go to Europython to work hard and to listen to talks that will actually help them in their work, so after a hard day of work, they should be able to settle down and hear something that is entertaining, thought provoking and which does not have a direct bearing on their everyday work.
This means that (to me) it is more important that keynote speakers are entertaining than that they are relevant.
This is true, but some relevance (from at least an inspirational point of view) would be nice. In this sense something slightly more business oriented might be good, as compared to language-techie oriented (which Paul Graham's talk was). Mark Shuttleworth's talk had a nice mix of space, python, and new linux distributions (with good python support); I liked that. :)
Regards,
Martijn _______________________________________________ EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
