Re: Pycon disappointment
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Barry Hawkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'll step out and say that some of the non-vendor talks were quite weak. The most severe was a talk on Stackless where the original speaker was unable to be here and someone got up and clicked through the slide deck at a very fast pace. I thought the person had stepped in at the last minute, but later learned that he had volunteered with a couple of weeks' notice. Additionally, the original speaker had Andrew Dalke's *exact* slide deck from his Stackless talk last year. One first-time attendee told me over lunch that he was going to recommend to his employer that they not pay to send their programmers to PyCon next year based on what he had seen in this year's talks. I know that's an unpleasant message, but in the interest of preserving PyCon's quality, I'm willing to be the jerk of a messenger. The plural of anecdote is not data. I sympathize with what you're saying to some extent, but any gathering of a thousand people will certainly garner comments like this. Moreover, there will be some talks that screw up because of short notice changes (and believe me, two weeks is short notice). Feedback is for the most part only interesting in the aggregate. -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code. --Bill Harlan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], fumanchu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 5:09 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT! This would be true, except that the two talks I proposed last year were essentially denied because they were too advanced, so I didn't even bother this year. Perhaps I should have, but the PERIOD needs to at least be replaced by a COMMA as long as the talk-acceptance committee continues to reject more advanced talk topics in favor of HOWTOs and Introduction To Package X. Feel free to join the Program Committee! Seriously, this is exactly the kind of difficult problem I was talking about when I said it is YOUR FAULT. Speaking as someone who has been on the program committee for most of the last few PyCons, it is extremely difficult to balance all the conflicting expectations that attendees have (particularly given that we have to guess, for the most part -- consider that a thousand people compared to the six hundred at PyCon 2007 means that much of the feedback from 2007 isn't particularly relevant). On top of that, we have to pick and choose from whatever proposals are offered; with very limited exceptions, we can't just solicit talks on topics, we don't have enough volunteer labor. -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code. --Bill Harlan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 17, 1:20 am, Paul Rubin http://[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stephan Deibel [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I have to admit, I'll keep coming to PyCon even if all the talks suck abysmally as long as there's good hallway time, open space, BoFs, and sprints. ;-) OK, so why not get rid of all the talks and other stuff, and just have a basically structureless conference, beyond scheduling some open meetings on various topics? That would be a lot less expensive and a lot more interesting. For me as first time pycon attendee, i think this would be an absolute disaster. The talks gave me an opportunity to sit next to new people and meet people I wouldnt have otherwise if they had simply put us out to pasture to chat it up. I think for devs that are just meeting each other, having some sort of subject matter to talk about is a big deal, and the talks forced that. I agree though that once things get going, the hallway time and BOF time would be fantastic. -adam -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
Okay! I just read this entire thread to be caught up. I am a first time PyCon-goer (as my previous post states). Because I have nothing to compare this year's experience to, I'll give it to you as I saw it. None of this is intended as a rant, (except maybe the lightning talk section;) Gripes -- Numero Uno: The Lightning Talks. The best lightning talk I saw was the one where the guy's code didn't work and he couldn't believe it or simply move on with his presentation, it was hilarious but I felt bad for the guy. I have to be honest, I had heard GREAT things about the lightning talks and I went to the session expecting to hear something great, or at least feel the same sense of community I felt when discussing python in education (i'm a student) or its use in the industry. I went with a friend who also attended the conference from my school and sat down expectantly. I noticed the guy was trying to set up a powerproint (or OOo or whatever) presentation and I simply couldnt believe it. A powerpoint presentation? Pictures? text? preparation? That doesn't sound like lightning at all. It sounds like, slow-tning talks. Methodically prepared sales-pitch presentations on johnny q. coder's latest commercial triumph. I thought these talks were spur of the moment, community-delivered and off the cuff? In my opinion, i don't believe that lightning talks should include the option of using presentation software, maybe thats too restrictive, but it seems to me that we'd be treated to much more grassroots or user-given talks rather than sponsor-given ones. I could just be ranting. Number Two: Presenters should be required to post their slides on the web site / schedule before they are permitted to present. We want 'em, they've got 'em, and I was in more than one session where simply having uploaded them to the PyCon schedule would have saved the presenters bacon when it came time for their laptop to die or something else. I realize that these presentations are fluid and change (often the night before!) but a failsafe like this wouldn't hurt anyone. Number Three: Too much code, not enough concept. Presenters this one's for you. I can't count the number of presentations I attended where the presenter would click through three slides of pycode just to show us a two or three-line snippet that illustrated their point. Worse yet, it was often at the bottom of the screen so no one but the front row could see it. This goes for text two. I saw some great presentations as well, and they had limited text on each slide. The last thing your audience wants to see is a slide drenched in text of any kind. You only have 30 minutes (or less). Show us brief couplets of code for syntax sake. We don't care about code, we care about the concept. If it were an hour lecture you could go through pages of code and itd be great, but when we can't even read the whole slide before you move on then its too much. Number Four: What's a BOF? Noob here. My first pycon and I didnt know the terminology. Shocker huh? Heh, well i figured it out into the first day, but still didn't quite get the concept. Around day two or three i started attending these and learned just how cool they are. With the RAPID growth pycon has shown over the last few years, perhaps a little session at the beginning to help the newcomers or a Terminology page in the handbook would be helpful? Praise -- As a student attending his first pycon, i must say it was AWESOME. Depending on the sessions i chose to attend, i learned all KINDS of useful stuff. Pyglet, Stackless (i'm willing to give it a chance despite the mediocre presentation), RE, pysight and more. Coming from a small school out west, the experience of visiting a convention where a community actually existed was an incredible experience. That was probably the best part of the conference was seeing that there truly was a programming community and meeting other like-minded people and being able to finally discuss things of programming importance with them. I guess thats what we had hoped to see more of in the lightning talks. We enjoyed the EXPO as well and a couple of our graduating attendees have nabbed phone interviews with companies that were represented there. I am definitely planning on returning to pycon next year, if only to rub shoulders with other python programmers again and *hopefully* attend a conference that has learned from any mistakes this year and become an even better event for 2009. adam -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 20, 2008, at 11:54 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Number Three: Too much code, not enough concept. Presenters this one's for you. I can't count the number of presentations I attended where the presenter would click through three slides of pycode just to show us a two or three-line snippet that illustrated their point. Worse yet, it was often at the bottom of the screen so no one but the front row could see it. This goes for text two. I saw some great presentations as well, and they had limited text on each slide. The last thing your audience wants to see is a slide drenched in text of any kind. This is good advice: simple slides serve as organization cues, but the content should come from the speaker. The worst case (only saw this twice at this year's PyCon) is when there is a text-heavy slide that the presenter simply reads. We can all read it ourselves! Your job is to elaborate on the topic. I'd like to see two things regarding slides: first, if at all possible, set a limit on the percentage of the talk that can consist of slides. I would much rather see the presenter show actual demonstrations of what they're talking about than simply talking about it. If that's not possible, then in the session description, clearly state the % of the talk that will be slides. Perhaps there are people who like to sit in a room and watch long PowerPoint (-type) presentations, but I'm not one of them. Let's see some code! Let's see stuff working (and sometimes crashing!), and how changes affect the results. When I've presented at PyCon and other conferences, that's the part that I spend the most time on: preparing demonstrations. It's not easy to do; certainly much more difficult than creating a slide that sums up what the demo does. But it makes for a much more interesting session! -- Ed Leafe -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
,,,snip... Let's see some code! Let's see stuff working (and sometimes crashing!), and how changes affect the results. When I've presented at PyCon and other conferences, that's the part that I spend the most time on: preparing demonstrations. It's not easy to do; certainly much more difficult than creating a slide that sums up what the demo does. But it makes for a much more interesting session! -- Ed Leafe Here, here!! (or is it hear, hear??). I remember Ed's talk on Dabo a couple of years ago (or was it last year?) because he was writing code while up in front of the room. Here's how to do this and then he would tweak various aspects and show the results. I can appreciate the need for slides, but I also like seeing code in action. --greg -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 20, 12:39 pm, Ed Leafe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 20, 2008, at 11:54 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Number Three: Too much code, not enough concept. Presenters this one's for you. I can't count the number of presentations I attended where the presenter would click through three slides of pycode just to show us a two or three-line snippet that illustrated their point. Worse yet, it was often at the bottom of the screen so no one but the front row could see it. This goes for text two. I saw some great presentations as well, and they had limited text on each slide. The last thing your audience wants to see is a slide drenched in text of any kind. This is good advice: simple slides serve as organization cues, but the content should come from the speaker. The worst case (only saw this twice at this year's PyCon) is when there is a text-heavy slide that the presenter simply reads. We can all read it ourselves! Your job is to elaborate on the topic. I'd like to see two things regarding slides: first, if at all possible, set a limit on the percentage of the talk that can consist of slides. I would much rather see the presenter show actual demonstrations of what they're talking about than simply talking about it. If that's not possible, then in the session description, clearly state the % of the talk that will be slides. Perhaps there are people who like to sit in a room and watch long PowerPoint (-type) presentations, but I'm not one of them. Let's see some code! Let's see stuff working (and sometimes crashing!), and how changes affect the results. When I've presented at PyCon and other conferences, that's the part that I spend the most time on: preparing demonstrations. It's not easy to do; certainly much more difficult than creating a slide that sums up what the demo does. But it makes for a much more interesting session! -- Ed Leafe I'd like to see code listings made available to download where appropriate. That way the slides dont have much hard to read content, and we can look at the bits of code we find tricky as we see fit. And if we get bored with bits, we can play with code! Erich. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 20, 2:53 pm, Erich [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 20, 12:39 pm, Ed Leafe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 20, 2008, at 11:54 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Number Three: Too much code, not enough concept. Presenters this one's for you. I can't count the number of presentations I attended where the presenter would click through three slides of pycode just to show us a two or three-line snippet that illustrated their point. Worse yet, it was often at the bottom of the screen so no one but the front row could see it. This goes for text two. I saw some great presentations as well, and they had limited text on each slide. The last thing your audience wants to see is a slide drenched in text of any kind. This is good advice: simple slides serve as organization cues, but the content should come from the speaker. The worst case (only saw this twice at this year's PyCon) is when there is a text-heavy slide that the presenter simply reads. We can all read it ourselves! Your job is to elaborate on the topic. I'd like to see two things regarding slides: first, if at all possible, set a limit on the percentage of the talk that can consist of slides. I would much rather see the presenter show actual demonstrations of what they're talking about than simply talking about it. If that's not possible, then in the session description, clearly state the % of the talk that will be slides. Perhaps there are people who like to sit in a room and watch long PowerPoint (-type) presentations, but I'm not one of them. Let's see some code! Let's see stuff working (and sometimes crashing!), and how changes affect the results. When I've presented at PyCon and other conferences, that's the part that I spend the most time on: preparing demonstrations. It's not easy to do; certainly much more difficult than creating a slide that sums up what the demo does. But it makes for a much more interesting session! -- Ed Leafe I'd like to see code listings made available to download where appropriate. That way the slides dont have much hard to read content, and we can look at the bits of code we find tricky as we see fit. And if we get bored with bits, we can play with code! Erich. agreed. and just to clarify, i LIKE CODE! i hope we all do haha... but in a presentation setting if they could teach/share with us what they've been doing, allow us to download some example code (and tinker with it) and remove all those details from the slides, itd be vastly helpful. I fully expect anyone who presented this time (who takes time to TRY to improve) will improve. -adam -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
On Mar 19, 6:07 am, Jeff Schwab [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As I have never attended PyCon, the amount of entertainment already gleaned from this thread has wildly exceeded my expectations. :) Are slides or notes from any of the presentations available online? What was the topic of the well-received presentation from Google? I'm mostly intrigued by the tantalising hints being dropped regarding Steve Holden's Teach Me Twisted talk ;) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 18, 12:55 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Amen on the diamond keynotes and lightning talks. The lightning talks were a great disappointment. Sponsor talks (or any such talks pitched at selling or recruiting) should go in their own, clearly labeled group so those of us who don't care about them can avoid them... Seconded. I haven't been at a Python Conf for a long time but as a former attendee and (not very good) organizer I have a couple suggestions based on my past experience and mistakes: - The conference is too long and it shouldn't be on the weekend. - Almost all talks should be 10 minutes at most with prepared slides and extended abstract with references. - With much shorter talks you should be able to accept just about any properly prepared talk (with abstract and slides) and this should reduce the politics and increase the attendance (with speakers and some colleagues and maybe broader interest). I don't know about this conference, but in past conferences I've been frustrated by people who give out a train of conscience meander including popping in and out of various console prompts, editors, web pages, guis... without conveying any useful information (to me) in 30 minutes. If you tell them they have 10 minutes and make them get organized in advanced they are much more likely to get to the point and everyone can see something else before they run out of attention span. -- Aaron Watters === bye bye petroleum! good riddance. http://biofuels.usu.edu/htm/initiative http://www.xfeedme.com/nucular/pydistro.py/go?FREETEXT=pretty+boring -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:36:29 -0500, J. Clifford Dyer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Note to speakers: do not say x, y = tee(foo) say from itertools import tee x, y = tee(foo) or better (for pedagogical purposes) import itertools x, y = itertools.tee(foo) I was scratching my head over tee() also, in the session where I heard it. Were you in the iterators II session also? I've used itertools a bit, but never tee(), and so when I thumbed through my copy of PER I thought, ahh, I've skimmed over but never registered the importance of that little bugger before... That was one of the more interesting sessions to me. John -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
Amen on the diamond keynotes and lightning talks. The lightning talks were a great disappointment. Sponsor talks (or any such talks pitched at selling or recruiting) should go in their own, clearly labeled group so those of us who don't care about them can avoid them. If there must diamond 'keynotes' put them at the end of a session or in a separate track so we can easily avoid them if we wish. But personally, I don't think keynotes should be for sale at all in any form. One problem I faced was that there were sessions that had few talks I was interested in and other that had several at the same time where I couldn't attend all that I was interested. It's likely that there is no good solution to this, but perhaps one could try a new scheme for scheduling talks by posting the talk list early and letting registrants select the top n talks they want to see and running some sort of scheduling optimizer that tries to satisfy most of these desires (I have no idea if anything like this exists anywhere). And if you do decide to change how you handle sponsorship don't be afraid to say publicly how things are going to be different next time. There could well be many who won't go next time (like me) unless they have some reasons to believe that things will be different. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 6:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: vendors: But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air time. We introduced sponsor lighting talks last year. This year it got out of hand because there were twice as many sponsors. By the time the Lightning Talk coordinators realized this, the sponsors had already been promised a priority talk so we couldn't back out of it. So it was a lack of foresight, not some commercial plot. Next year we (the Lightning Talk coordinators) have recommended either not having sponsor lighting talks, or moving them to a separate (non- plenary) session. The vendor exhibition was much bigger this year, and I think that's an adequate replacement for sponsor lighting talks. If there are sufficient Open Space rooms, they can also create their own session. At first the morning plenary sessions -- where the entire conference audience was in a single room -- just seemed a bit commercial. But then I slowly figured out that the so-called diamond keynotes were actually sold to vendors. It must have sounded great to some I liked the mini-keynotes and I don't think they detracted from the main keynotes. I did know what diamond meant so I knew they were sponsor talks. I guess that should be clearer on the schedule. What was supremely frustrating was discovering that the people wanting to give REAL lightning talks had been pushed off the end of the list The worst part of scheduling Lighting Talks is there's always more interesting speakers than time. This seems to be an insolvable problem. The main problem I had at PyCon this year was the number of talk I wanted to see that were scheduled at the same time as other talks I wanted to see. The highlight was the number of Open Space rooms and events. I didn't attend any of these, but they seemed unusually lively this year. On top of that, the quality of the presentations was unusually low. I did feel that. An advanced track would be a good idea. Because you do need to repeat stuff for the newbies. At least 30% of the attendees were at PyCon for the first time. --Mike -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
On Mar 17, 6:25 pm, dundeemt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree - the balance wasn't as good. We can all agree that HowTos and Intros are a necessary part of the conference talks track, but as Robert pointed out some talks should be of a more advanced nature. I enjoy those that stretch my brain. Alex M, Pyke and NetworkIO and Mark Hammond's keynote were among my favorite talks. Raymond Hettinger's talk on collections was not only one of my favorites, it was apparently lots of other people's too--the room was PACKED. I can't recall seeing any other talk that was even close to seating capacity. Robert Brewer [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 18, 1:49 pm, Mike Orr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 6:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: vendors: On top of that, the quality of the presentations was unusually low. I did feel that. An advanced track would be a good idea. Because you do need to repeat stuff for the newbies. At least 30% of the attendees were at PyCon for the first time. Not all first-comers are newbies; I attended for the first time too but I've been using Python for the last four years or so. My overall (totally unscientific) impression was that most attendants had at least a decent grasp of the language. George -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
On Mar 18, 1:41 pm, fumanchu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 17, 6:25 pm, dundeemt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree - the balance wasn't as good. We can all agree that HowTos and Intros are a necessary part of the conference talks track, but as Robert pointed out some talks should be of a more advanced nature. I enjoy those that stretch my brain. Alex M, Pyke and NetworkIO and Mark Hammond's keynote were among my favorite talks. Raymond Hettinger's talk on collections was not only one of my favorites, it was apparently lots of other people's too--the room was PACKED. I can't recall seeing any other talk that was even close to seating capacity. Robert Brewer [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Using PyGame and PySight to Create an Interactive Halloween Activity (#9) session with Mr. John Harrison was also quite full as was the one for Pyglet. I think the nose presentation had people sitting on the floor. Geeks like games! I know I do! Mike -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
Mike Driscoll wrote: On Mar 18, 1:41 pm, fumanchu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 17, 6:25 pm, dundeemt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree - the balance wasn't as good. We can all agree that HowTos and Intros are a necessary part of the conference talks track, but as Robert pointed out some talks should be of a more advanced nature. I enjoy those that stretch my brain. Alex M, Pyke and NetworkIO and Mark Hammond's keynote were among my favorite talks. Raymond Hettinger's talk on collections was not only one of my favorites, it was apparently lots of other people's too--the room was PACKED. I can't recall seeing any other talk that was even close to seating capacity. Robert Brewer [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Using PyGame and PySight to Create an Interactive Halloween Activity (#9) session with Mr. John Harrison was also quite full as was the one for Pyglet. I think the nose presentation had people sitting on the floor. Geeks like games! I know I do! Me too. As I have never attended PyCon, the amount of entertainment already gleaned from this thread has wildly exceeded my expectations. :) Are slides or notes from any of the presentations available online? What was the topic of the well-received presentation from Google? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On 16 Mrz., 21:52, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 2:48 pm, Pete Forde [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My friends and I decided to stage a grassroots Ruby conference this summer; it will have no paid sponsors for exactly this reason. We're trying to change up the typical format as well: it's a single-track event, no keynotes, no schills for well-heeled interests. We're even organizing activities for significant others traveling with conference attendees so that everyone has a good time. The response we've gotten to this approach has been curious; many people totally get why these things are important, and the speaker list reflects this. However, we've also had a lot of complaints that our event is too expensive. In fact, they say that it should be free, like a BarCamp. Just get a bunch of sponsors, and that will be the ticket. We say bollocks to that. http://rubyfringe.com/ I've been running open spaces conferences for the past few years and I would suggest you do that instead of an eyes-forward conference. It's not only a lot easier, but it's also a lot more fun. For example, last week we did the Java Posse Roundup, which is all open-spaces. Since the rubyfringe seems to make also a commitment against the Ruby mainstream I'm not sure how Open Spaces can help? Self organization is always an aid for those who are already strong, maintain popular projects ( Rails, Django... anyone? ) and keep lots of attention. I certainly wouldn't attend to an Open Space conference if I intended to make my development and findings public. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Europython fees (was PyCon Disappointment)
Björn wrote: I haven't been to EuroPython even when it has been fairly nearby because the entrance fee was to high. But how do you help change something like that? Last year rates were: 100 Euros for early bird, 160 Euros for later registration, 65 Euros for early students and 85 Euros for later registration. Thus for most people transportation costs and hotel costs work out to more than Europython costs. There is also a program of financial aide for people who cannot afford the costs, approval on a per-case basis. Are you sure you aren't confusing us with OSCON? Can we discuss this on europython-improve at python.org ? Laura Creighton -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers ( Pycon disappointment)
Hallöchen! Carl Banks writes: On Mar 16, 10:49 pm, Brian Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 8:09 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT! I find this insulting, inexcusable, and utter nonsense. If putting the blame for a failed experiment on the backs of the good folks who paid good money for travel, lodging, and registration is also an experiment, you can hereby consider it also failed. He said aside from the sponsor talks, chief. I see no reason why the fault for parts of the rest being sub-optimal, too, must necessarily be on the attendee's side. (Just hypothetically; I wasn't at PyCon.) Tschö, Torsten. -- Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus Jabber ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (See http://ime.webhop.org for further contact info.) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
Stephan Deibel [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I have to admit, I'll keep coming to PyCon even if all the talks suck abysmally as long as there's good hallway time, open space, BoFs, and sprints. ;-) OK, so why not get rid of all the talks and other stuff, and just have a basically structureless conference, beyond scheduling some open meetings on various topics? That would be a lot less expensive and a lot more interesting. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
But vendors often don't label themselves as vendors. And often, the researcher or individual in question, who has something worth saying, does have a professional job of sorts, which might be related to his or her work or speech. I've heard people give very long, detailed talks about interesting topics, that did have a spin on them, but contained worthwhile information also. Now, is that to be billed as a vendor (and ignored) or not? Further, no vendor who is trying to sell a product will allow themselves to be marked in an obvious way as advertising, knowing that they'll be ignored. At least, they certainly won't pay for the time/space to any real degree, knowing they'll be walking in under a cloud like that. No vendor with integrity will want their advertising to be presented to attendees as anything but advertising. If vendors won't buy advertising, then find different ways to fund the conferences. This sounds like an example of the editorial-content/advertising dilemma that publishers have wrestled with for a long time. It's basically impossible for anybody, even for seasoned professionals, to both sell advertising and set editorial content without bias. In the publishing business, it is a very big no-no for the same people to both sell advertising and also set editorial content. When you go high enough in an organization, it's harder to do, but still a goal. Perhaps the organizers can therefore learn from the experience of publishers: 1) Keep the folks who sell things in an advertising department. They need to be different people from the folks who book keynotes and such. 2) Keep the folks who book keynotes and such in a content department. They need to be different people from the folks who sell things. 3) Do everything possible to keep the advertising and content departments firewalled. This is cultural as much as anything else. Like any other potential conflict of interest situation, make it honorable for folks to recuse themselves when they sense a bias in themselves. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [PyCON-Organizers] FWD: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
Aahz wrote: FYI - Forwarded message from Aahz [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: Aahz [EMAIL PROTECTED] Newsgroups: comp.lang.python Subject: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment) Date: 16 Mar 2008 17:09:02 -0700 Organization: The Cat Dragon [warning: rant ahead] [[ Before starting my rant, I would like to encourage anyone who was at PyCon but has not provided formal feedback to use the following URLs: For the conference: http://tinyurl.com/2ara8u For the tutorials: http://tinyurl.com/2ew2pc ]] In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], fumanchu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is my third PyCon, and I've found a reasonably-sized cadre of people who come for the hallway conversations plus a Bof or two, having given up on hearing anything new, useful, or inspiring in the talks. There are several people I know who would like to see a more advanced academic track. Let's leave aside the issue of how sponsor talks were handled: assuming that there's general agreement that this year was a failed experiment, fixing it is easy. What you're bringing up here is a much more difficult issue, and it is, in the end, not a solvable issue in the general case. For starters, speaking as someone who has been going to science fiction conventions for more than twenty years, there will inevitably be plenty of people like your cadre. I rarely go to organized programming anymore, but I still have a great time because I'm seeing all my friends. PyCon is a similar community-oriented event. Moreover, PyCon's success rests on many legs: tutorials, Open Space, Lightning Talks, formal presentations, keynotes, and sprinting. That's aside from the myriad opportunities to network with people. Finally, trying to satisfy a thousand people is impossible. People who want to emphasize specific topics (e.g. an academic track) will need to start organizing other kinds of Python conferences. Now the rant: If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT! PyCon is built on the backs of its volunteers. I personally spent more than twenty hours just doing Program Committee work. We rejected half the proposals that we received, simply due to lack of space. We had difficulty evaluating some proposals because nobody on the PC had subject matter expertise. None of the speakers received any kind of honorarium. Except for keynote speakers (e.g. Ivan Krstic), no speakers received free registration unless they requested financial aid. There are no requirements for volunteering other than a willingness to volunteer and a modicum of courtesy in working with people. PyCon is what YOU make of it. If you want to change PyCon, propose a presentation or join the conference committee (concom) -- the latter only requires signing up for the pycon-organizers mailing list. This doesn't mean that we are uninterested in feedback. We love feedback. But there are stark limits to what we can do unless people get involved and push their pet projects. I am copying this reply to comp.lang.python just so that the people who were *not* involved in the organization of the conference will know two things: first, that the negative feedback the organizers have received is regarded as valuable, helpful, and (to some extent) justified; secondly, so that everyone who receives this message knows that they are welcome to participate in improving PyCon (which, as Aahz has indicated, really means that the broader the range of expertise on the program committee the more the selected talks can reflect the true needs of the audience - but don't imagine that participation is limited to the Program Committee). Also, please be aware this is only one message on a *very* long thread in the pycon-organizers list. Before I say anything else, I want to (again) publicly thank David Goodger and his team, and the ChiPy team led by Chris McAvoy, for the long hours and hard work they put in to what I personally (as the founder of PyCon) regard as the best PyCon ever. You will perhaps get some idea of the explosive growth in demand they have managed to satisfy by pointing out that this year there were more people attending paid tutorials, and there are more people staying after the conference to sprint (thereby improving Python and its applications), and more people attending their *first* PyCon this year, than attended the first PyCon that I organized five years ago in DC. If you have not been privy to the planning process, let me assure you that you have *no* idea how hard people have worked to try to ensure that *everyone* who came to PyCon this year had a positive experience. I can say this without fear of being thought to defend my own position, since I have (for the first time ever, yay!) played absolutely
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
On 17 Mar, 02:39, BJörn Lindqvist [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I haven't been to EuroPython even when it has been fairly nearby because the entrance fee was to high. But how do you help change something like that? You could join in and make your case. There was a more protracted discussion than usual last year about fees because some people pointed out the discrepancy between salary and price levels in different parts of Europe and the need to make the conference more affordable: what may be relatively inexpensive for some might be relatively expensive for others, and the organisers felt that it would be foolish to exclude the latter group, particularly when they may be more likely to travel to the conference in its present location. It's hard to say whether the conference is reaching everyone it should, given the composition of attendees: http://www.europython.org/community/Planning/Projections But without anyone to pursue a particular cause, and with decisions needing to be made within certain timeframes (which is often a struggle, anyway), things often get preserved as they are rather than being improved. I live in a European country which is either number one or two on the price scale (depending on whether you include alcohol prices or not), and I can't say what the right fee level should be (other than possibly lower than it is) - it's up to others to weigh in and give their opinion, I think. Paul -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 10:20 am, Barry Hawkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I shared the same perception as Bruce; most keynotes and lightning talks were anemic vendor pitches that really gutted the spirit of what I experienced last year. I don't think you can lump the keynotes in with the lightning talks. I had to go check the schedule to see which keynotes were diamond ones. I wasn't thinking to myself, oh, this must be a paid keynote at the time at all. In fact, the Google one was the most entertaining of all, judging by audience reaction. But the vast majority of the vendor lightning talks were a waste of time, I agree. -Jonathan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
Paul Boddie napisał(a): I haven't been to EuroPython even when it has been fairly nearby because the entrance fee was to high. But how do you help change something like that? You could join in and make your case. There was a more protracted discussion than usual last year about fees because some people pointed out the discrepancy between salary and price levels in different parts of Europe and the need to make the conference more affordable: what may be relatively inexpensive for some might be relatively expensive for others, and the organisers felt that it would be foolish to exclude the latter group, particularly when they may be more likely to travel to the conference in its present location. It's hard to say whether the conference is reaching everyone it should, given the composition of attendees: http://www.europython.org/community/Planning/Projections I did not event think on attending EuroPython in Switzerland due to high cost of 3-day accomodation there (relatively to my wage these times). Lithuania seems to be not much more expensive than my home country, so I'll travel to Vilnius this year too. I thionk it was valid for others in Poland too, judging from the figures you mention. But without anyone to pursue a particular cause, and with decisions needing to be made within certain timeframes (which is often a struggle, anyway), things often get preserved as they are rather than being improved. I live in a European country which is either number one or two on the price scale (depending on whether you include alcohol prices or not), and I can't say what the right fee level should be (other than possibly lower than it is) - it's up to others to weigh in and give their opinion, I think. EUR 100 does not seem too high as early bird registration fee, so the most intimidating costs (for me at least) is accomodation and travel. I mean, lowering the fee would be nice, but not essential to me. -- Jarek Zgoda Skype: jzgoda | GTalk: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | voice: +48228430101 We read Knuth so you don't have to. (Tim Peters) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers ( Pycon disappointment)
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Torsten Bronger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Carl Banks writes: On Mar 16, 10:49 pm, Brian Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 8:09 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT! I find this insulting, inexcusable, and utter nonsense. If putting the blame for a failed experiment on the backs of the good folks who paid good money for travel, lodging, and registration is also an experiment, you can hereby consider it also failed. He said aside from the sponsor talks, chief. I see no reason why the fault for parts of the rest being sub-optimal, too, must necessarily be on the attendee's side. (Just hypothetically; I wasn't at PyCon.) Let's suppose you have a group of friends who collectively throw a party. They invite you to help out organizing it and putting it together, but you choose not to. If you don't have a good time at the party because it wasn't what you wanted, I think it's fair to say it was your fault. And I think exactly the same thing is true for PyCon, albeit on a much larger scale. It is absolutely critical to the long-term success of PyCon as a volunteer-run community conference that each attendee take responsibility for their experience. Science fiction fandom -- the part that holds volunteer-run events such as Worldcon -- has lots of experience with this model. It is one reason why such cons make a fuss about attendees being members, compared to purchasing a ticket (which is what you do for a commercialized Star Trek con). -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code. --Bill Harlan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Paul Rubin http://[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Stephan Deibel [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I have to admit, I'll keep coming to PyCon even if all the talks suck abysmally as long as there's good hallway time, open space, BoFs, and sprints. ;-) OK, so why not get rid of all the talks and other stuff, and just have a basically structureless conference, beyond scheduling some open meetings on various topics? That would be a lot less expensive and a lot more interesting. Don't think we haven't discussed this. The problem is that some kinds of talks demand a lot of preparation (and therefore need to be scheduled in advance), plus plenty of people like some structure. PyCon -- like most organized human endeavors -- is in many ways about the art of compromise, trying to figure out how to satisfy as many people as possible and disappointing as few as possible, keeping in mind that it is almost impossible to completely satisfy anyone and most people will have some disappointment (if only because two talks that are ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to them are cross-scheduled). -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code. --Bill Harlan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers ( Pycon disappointment)
Hallöchen! Aahz writes: In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Torsten Bronger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] I see no reason why the fault for parts of the rest being sub-optimal, too, must necessarily be on the attendee's side. (Just hypothetically; I wasn't at PyCon.) Let's suppose you have a group of friends who collectively throw a party. They invite you to help out organizing it and putting it together, but you choose not to. If you don't have a good time at the party because it wasn't what you wanted, I think it's fair to say it was your fault. And I think exactly the same thing is true for PyCon, albeit on a much larger scale. Fair enough. But then I question the sensibility in saying it is XY's fault at all. Somebody not involved in organising was not happy with the Con. You may take the criticism or leave it. The criticism may be justified or not. But saying that it is his fault is useless in my opinion, it even discourages feedback. It think it's okay to evaluate something that you didn't help coming into existence. A good point is a good point no matter who makes it. Tschö, Torsten. -- Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus Jabber ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (See http://ime.webhop.org for further contact info.) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
Bruce, I can't speak to your issues with the normal sessions, but your bad experience with the lightning talks was my fault. And, in apologizing to you, I hope that all the others on this thread who have expressed similar sentiments hear me too. Ultimately, we miscalculated in certain respects. It wasn't any particular thing, but rather there were a couple of issues that came together here: 1 - We had an incredible amount of sponsorship. Higher than expected by anyone. This wasn't bad in itself (I think it was very good!), but it set the stage for some of the issues later. 2 - As part of the sponsor package, we promised the sponsors priority for a lightning talk. Our thought was that the sponsor lightning talks from last year were well received, so they probably would be this year as well. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case - at least having *that many* was not well received. 3 - We had a very limited time when some of the sponsors would still be here - basically Friday and Saturday. The major problem on Saturday is that we *had* to stack the sponsor talks that way or else we would not fulfill our obligations to our sponsors. We offered lightning talks this year because a) we didn't know how well the expo hall would go, and b) that was the only way for the sponsors to connect with the audience last year - so we assumed that it might be the same way this year. This was discussed and generally agreed-to in September. IIRC, the sponsor lightnings were not an issue that was subject to much debate back then, most people were accustomed to the generally positive 2007 experience.* I think that with the success of the expo hall, we can remove the lightning talks from the sponsor benefits for next year, and at this point I am in favor of doing so. Personally, I was *very* disappointed that some of our sponsors didn't prepare or even show up for their assigned slots. I think that the sponsors are members of our community, and I expect them to act as such. Taking slots and not showing up - or not showing up prepared - isn't how I would hope a community member would act. Thanks, Van *(On the other hand, the Diamond keynotes were the subject of substantial debate - but I thought those went well; I would like to keep them for next year.) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers ( Pycon disappointment)
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Torsten Bronger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Aahz writes: In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Torsten Bronger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I see no reason why the fault for parts of the rest being sub-optimal, too, must necessarily be on the attendee's side. (Just hypothetically; I wasn't at PyCon.) Let's suppose you have a group of friends who collectively throw a party. They invite you to help out organizing it and putting it together, but you choose not to. If you don't have a good time at the party because it wasn't what you wanted, I think it's fair to say it was your fault. And I think exactly the same thing is true for PyCon, albeit on a much larger scale. Fair enough. But then I question the sensibility in saying it is XY's fault at all. Somebody not involved in organising was not happy with the Con. You may take the criticism or leave it. The criticism may be justified or not. But saying that it is his fault is useless in my opinion, it even discourages feedback. It think it's okay to evaluate something that you didn't help coming into existence. A good point is a good point no matter who makes it. Two things: * There's a reason why I labelled it a rant ;-) * You may be misunderstanding the distinction between fault and blame. When there is fault, it is a person's responsibility to correct it. Blame, OTOH, is about responsibility that *should* have been taken. We're not telling people that they should volunteer to run PyCon (although the vast majority of people who help run events like this end up enjoying them more than people who just show up). But anyone who complains and doesn't volunteer is at fault -- the only recourse likely to produce results is to change their volunteer status. As I said, feedback is welcome. Those of us who volunteer do so because we care about the Python community and want to put on a successful event for everyone. But we can rarely make commitments to change anything unless people step up to fix them. It's really no different from the people who show up here on c.l.py to complain about Python: the answer inevitably boils down to write a patch! -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code. --Bill Harlan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers ( Pycon disappointment)
On Mar 17, 8:16 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Torsten Bronger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Carl Banks writes: On Mar 16, 10:49 pm, Brian Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 8:09 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT! I find this insulting, inexcusable, and utter nonsense. If putting the blame for a failed experiment on the backs of the good folks who paid good money for travel, lodging, and registration is also an experiment, you can hereby consider it also failed. He said aside from the sponsor talks, chief. I see no reason why the fault for parts of the rest being sub-optimal, too, must necessarily be on the attendee's side. (Just hypothetically; I wasn't at PyCon.) Let's suppose you have a group of friends who collectively throw a party. They invite you to help out organizing it and putting it together, but you choose not to. If you don't have a good time at the party because it wasn't what you wanted, I think it's fair to say it was your fault. And I think exactly the same thing is true for PyCon, albeit on a much larger scale. It is absolutely critical to the long-term success of PyCon as a volunteer-run community conference that each attendee take responsibility for their experience. Science fiction fandom -- the part that holds volunteer-run events such as Worldcon -- has lots of experience with this model. It is one reason why such cons make a fuss about attendees being members, compared to purchasing a ticket (which is what you do for a commercialized Star Trek con). -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) *http://www.pythoncraft.com/ It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code. --Bill Harlan You have a lot of good points, Aahz. I was thinking of the talks and such as a kind of seminar learning event, not a participatory community event. I went for two reasons: 1) To learn more Plone / Zope 2) To hang out with Python geeks The first one I didn't really get anywhere with, but I got lots of time with PyCon attendees, which was cool. I hope I can go next year, make new friends and maybe present some of my own stuff. Mike -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
On Mar 16, 5:09 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: fumanchu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is my third PyCon, and I've found a reasonably-sized cadre of people who come for the hallway conversations plus a Bof or two, having given up on hearing anything new, useful, or inspiring in the talks. There are several people I know who would like to see a more advanced academic track. Finally, trying to satisfy a thousand people is impossible. Well understood. Sorry if I implied it was an easy job. I know it isn't. If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT! This would be true, except that the two talks I proposed last year were essentially denied because they were too advanced, so I didn't even bother this year. Perhaps I should have, but the PERIOD needs to at least be replaced by a COMMA as long as the talk-acceptance committee continues to reject more advanced talk topics in favor of HOWTOs and Introduction To Package X. Robert Brewer [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 9:42 am, Mike Driscoll [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do you mean the official presentations or the lightning talks? I thought both were kind of bad. Jeff Rush was great in both of the sessions I saw and the gaming presenters were also good. But I saw a lot of people who had never presented and were unprepared. In fact, one didn't have any code whatsoever to share and the other one only started showing some code during the last 10 minutes of his time. This was also my first time at PyCon and I thought I'd expand on what Mike said as I feel pretty much the same way. I also want to provide some constructive feedback that can hopefully help improve the next PyCon. I attended all the keynotes, 15 sessions and two days of the lightning talks. I was disappointed with about one-third of the keynotes and sessions. I found only a handful of the lightning talks interesting. My biggest complaint was the lack of preparation of the speaker: * in three cases the presenter had a recent problem with their laptop but had no back-up plan (dead drive, dead power supply, unable to get video out to projector). The presenters didn't have a copy of their presentation elsewhere (thumb drive, or even a printout) so they just winged it and the presentation was difficult to follow and ineffective. When I have presented at conferences in the past, we were required to submit our presentations and materials to the conference at least a week before so they could make them available on a web site and also on backup laptops at the conference. * the PyCon feedback survey doesn't allow for any useful feedback about the presentations. You only get to pick your five favorites. There should be forms available (hardcopy or online) where we can give feedback to the presenters themselves. My impression is that many of the speakers have presented at PyCon before and may do so in the future so this feedback can help them be more effective. I found it a bit ironic that I attended at least three sessions with a strong testing theme that talked about the importance of feedback in the development process and how it helped improve the quality of the final product, yet there was no channel to provide feedback to the presenters themselves. It seemed a glaring omission to me that the PyCon survey had questions about whether I shared a room (who cares?) but not about the quality of the presenters and presentations. * As a PyCon first-timer, I was not aware of the open meetings and BoF discussions while I was there. I feel like I might have missed one of the more valuable parts of the conference simply because I was ignorant. It would have been nice to get the word out a bit more - maybe an announcement each morning at the beginning of the keynotes. * There has been a lot of discussion about the reservation of lightning talk slots to sponsors. What I don't understand is why this wasn't disclosed at the conference. I've seen some of the organizers defend the experiment but no one explain why it wasn't mentioned beforehand. I'm left with the impression that the organizers knew this would be unpopular and didn't want to draw attention to it. I think a lot of this could have been averted by disclosing this change before the conference took place (in which case the community may have pushed back and convinced the organizers to reconsider the decision). Or at least it could have been disclosed at the conference so people could have decided to skip the lightning talks and organize their own ad-hoc meetings or talks. Experimenting isn't bad. But failing to disclose this information was a poor decision - especially at a conference that prides itself in openness and community involvement. * Lastly, I found the technical depth at most talks to be too shallow. I was especially surprised at this because I've only been using Python for two years, so I still think I'm a bit of a noob. But if you looked around at the conference, you saw a bunch of people who are really into programming (so much that many of them were doing it _during_ the talks) so to think that the audience isn't capable of following deep technical discussions is a bit off the mark. At other conferences I've attended and/or presented at, they would typically rate presentations as a level 1, 2 or 3. I think this would help set people's expectations. That coupled with session-level feedback, would help the organizers plan future PyCon sessions that better match the attendees' interests. That said, I did learn a few things at PyCon and found the overall experience pretty good. I simply had been hoping for a little more... -Dave -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
I just want to step in and offer my 2¢. This is my first PyCon, and I agree that a lot of the Lightning talks seemed pretty useless. Overall though, I had a great experience at this conference. I learned a lot; I met a lot of cool people; and I got really excited about new ideas to bring back home. Django code lab was fantastic. Teach me Twisted was a fantastic, innovative, and effective way to teach a new technology. There was a little bit of difficulty hearing over the cross-talk, but I just moved up front and had no further troubles (and better access to the Balvenie single-malt! Most of the sessions I attended were moderately to highly useful. FWIW, none of my presenters had laptop troubles, except at teach me twisted, but we weren't on as much of a time crunch, and we took care of that one pretty easily and kept going. The only useless one I attended was actually the most highly technical, not because it didn't have good information, but because functions were used without reference to what module they had been imported from and slides containing 15-20 line functions were left up for about thirty seconds, and then were gone. I couldn't even finish reading them. Note to speakers: do not say x, y = tee(foo) say from itertools import tee x, y = tee(foo) or better (for pedagogical purposes) import itertools x, y = itertools.tee(foo) I don't disagree with the criticisms leveled throughout this thread, but I do want to say that I think it has been a great conference, and for me, the problems did not ruin the experience. Heed these criticisms and it will be even better next year. Ignore them, and it will probably degrade over time. Thanks, Cliff -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
This was my first PyCon as well. I had heard glowing recommendations about the lightning talks (from Bruce) previously, and I was really looking forward to them. I, too, was disappointed. I help to organize a community based conference, and we have struggled with providing value for sponsors as well. I have some suggestions, which I will offer here and to PyCon organizers. This sounds similar to what one person described above, regarding how lightning talks were managed in '07. At CodeMash, we scheduled a daily slot for vendor sessions and clearly marked them as such. We were concerned that attendees would simply avoid the vendor sessions, which would backfire. To mitigate this risk, we strongly encouraged our vendors to do something different than a sales pitch for vendor sessions, asking them to consider providing something meaningful for the audience. Talks weren't reviewed; we just gave them a nudge when we discussed the vendor sessions with them. They were entitled to choose a pure sales pitch if they wanted to do so, but we definitely discouraged this activity. And the sponsors responded with some great talks, and expressed satisfaction in the entire process! The vendor sessions were well attended, and it was completely transparent that they WERE vendor sessions. I had been totally skeptical about providing vendor sessions ahead of time, yet even *I* was won over. Vendors WANT people to come to their sessions. Sometimes they, just like speakers, simply need a little nudge in recognizing what makes a compelling talk. In my opinion, other speakers suffered from not knowing what makes a compelling talk as well. I don't know what other talks were proposed, but those that were on the schedule were often disappointing because the speaker provided too much background and not enough here's what's cool for me. Those were the talks that I walked out of. I suffer from this same problem as a speaker and I'm trying to fix that myself. I hope that other speakers are interested in doing the same. As for the attitude that if you weren't involved with organizing Pycon, you can't complain about it, that's a bit unfair. Several people DID engage in the conference onsite, organizing Open Spaces discussions (Bruce included). I saw Bruce both suggesting Open Spaces talks and being recruited to convene them (and, in one case, even reconvene one that had taken place earlier). That's being involved in the process, and should not be discounted. Furthermore, in my experience, people don't usually complain about things that don't matter to them. It's important, IMO, to recognize that the complaints you see on this group seem to come from the heart, from a desire to see PyCon flourish and be a conference worth attending. I certainly feel that way, and I suspect that the vast majority of people who have offered constructive criticism here do as well. I'm bummed about the lightning talks at PyCon from 2008, but I have a lot of confidence based on what I have read here from Jacob and others, that things will be different in 2009. Thank you for listening to the community feedback. -- Dianne -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 17, 2:52 pm, Dianne Marsh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm bummed about the lightning talks at PyCon from 2008, but I have a lot of confidence based on what I have read here from Jacob and others, that things will be different in 2009. They will! This year's lightning talks[*] were disappointing because nobody really thought through how having so many more sponsors changed the dynamic. Now we know, and we'll fix it. Jacob [*] Personally, I thought the Sunday talks -- which featured no sponsors -- were quite good. I think attendance was spotty because it was the last day, and because Saturday's talks were so painful. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 4:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the following seems unnecessarily harsh, it was even more harsh for me to discover that the time and money I had spent to get to my favorite conference had been sold to vendors, presenting me as a captive audience they could pitch to. My thoughts: * Saturday and Sunday were much better than Friday. * Open-source != Anti-vendor. The vendors are a vital part of the open-source community. * Lightning talks should be proportionate to their information content. The most common vendor message can be done in 45 seconds while the next speaker is setting-up: Hi, I'm Raymond from Raymond Enterprises. We sell Raymond's signature to Raymond's fans. We use Python to crawl the web for clients wanting his signature. We're hiring Python programmers with experience in web-crawling. We're proud to sponsor for PyCon 2009. Good night and good luck.. * The sole guiding principle for the conference should be whatever best serves the attendees. * As the conference gets bigger, lots of previously minor annoyances will become more irritating. The conference organizers will adapt as needed. * Vendor/sponsor presentations should not have priority over informational talks. Also, lots of things went well: * Sean stepped-in and fixed-up the wireless for Saturday and Sunday (but on Friday the third-party wireless setup sucked mightily). * The conference admin (checkin, schedule posting, etc) was excellent. * The AV work was great (you'll soon be able to see HD recordings for most talks). * Steve Holden successfully created a new type of talk, Teach me Twisted. * The feedback on the tutorials was excellent, the BoFs seemed to go well, and the sprints are off to a nice start. * The conference was close to the airport. One last thought: * Most of the conference work is done by volunteers. As the community grows, more volunteers will be needed (for next year, I plan to help by reviewing talk proposals). Raymond -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
This is my third PyCon, and I've found a reasonably-sized cadre of people who come for the hallway conversations plus a Bof or two, having given up on hearing anything new, useful, or inspiring in the talks. There are several people I know who would like to see a more advanced academic track. Yes, Yes. This was my third pycon and before, I had always left feeling as though my brain had been stretched. (A good thing) This years balance of talks and my choices didn't leave me with the same feeling. I would have like to seen slightly longer talks, especially the ones I liked ;) -Jeff Hinrichs -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
On Mar 17, 10:35 am, fumanchu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 5:09 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: fumanchu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is my third PyCon, and I've found a reasonably-sized cadre of people who come for the hallway conversations plus a Bof or two, having given up on hearing anything new, useful, or inspiring in the talks. There are several people I know who would like to see a more advanced academic track. Finally, trying to satisfy a thousand people is impossible. Well understood. Sorry if I implied it was an easy job. I know it isn't. If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT! This would be true, except that the two talks I proposed last year were essentially denied because they were too advanced, so I didn't even bother this year. Perhaps I should have, but the PERIOD needs to at least be replaced by a COMMA as long as the talk-acceptance committee continues to reject more advanced talk topics in favor of HOWTOs and Introduction To Package X. I agree - the balance wasn't as good. We can all agree that HowTos and Intros are a necessary part of the conference talks track, but as Robert pointed out some talks should be of a more advanced nature. I enjoy those that stretch my brain. Alex M, Pyke and NetworkIO and Mark Hammond's keynote were among my favorite talks. -jeff hinrichs -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 7:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the following seems unnecessarily harsh, it was even more harsh for me to discover that the time and money I had spent to get to my favorite conference had been sold to vendors, presenting me as a captive audience they could pitch to. Yes, the keynotes were very boring compared to last year. If there's only one thing ot change, I think sponsorship shouldn't entitle one to a keynote. FWIW, tho we sponsored at a Platinum level from Microsoft this year but we declined to take up on any lightning talks, etc. To me, its worth sponsoring PyCon (just for Python) irrespective of what we get. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Pycon disappointment
If the following seems unnecessarily harsh, it was even more harsh for me to discover that the time and money I had spent to get to my favorite conference had been sold to vendors, presenting me as a captive audience they could pitch to. I believe that this year's Pycon organizers suffered from inexperience and naivete, because they didn't know that some vendors will ask for anything just to see how far they can push it. And that it's a negotiation, that you must push back rather than give in just because the conference might get some money for it. More importantly, that the imperative to grow Pycon does not mean at all costs. I've already spoken to more than one vendor who was dismayed by the state of things, so we are not talking about all vendors here by any means. At first the morning plenary sessions -- where the entire conference audience was in a single room -- just seemed a bit commercial. But then I slowly figured out that the so-called diamond keynotes were actually sold to vendors. It must have sounded great to some vendors: you get to pitch to everyone and nothing else is going on so the audience is trapped. But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air time. Vendors were guaranteed first pick on lightning talk slots, and we in the audience, expectantly looking forward to interesting and entertaining content, again started to feel like things were awfully commercial. And what seemed like a good idea, moving lightning talks into plenary sessions with no competition, began to look like another way to deliver a captive audience to vendors. What was supremely frustrating was discovering that the people wanting to give REAL lightning talks had been pushed off the end of the list by this guarantee to vendors. We didn't get to see the good stuff, the real stuff, because that time had been sold. On top of that, the quality of the presentations was unusually low. I'd say that 80% were not worth going to -- there were definitely some good ones, but it was a lot of pain to discover them. In my opinion, open spaces should have had greater status and billing, with eyes-forward talks and vendor sessions offered only as possible alternatives. Especially, vendor sessions should not be presented as keynotes during plenary sessions. I think it took a little while for people to catch on to the idea that they could have control of their own experience through the open spaces and that the main offerings were not the only option. The worst thing about the whole experience was the feeling that someone was trying to trick me and control me into watching these things, presenting them under the guise of real keynotes and real lightning talks. My trust has been violated. I paid a lot, in both money and time, to be at this conference just to be herded into a room and have my eyeballs sold to the highest bidder. And it's going to bug me, especially when I think about coming back next year. I'm going to need a lot of reassurance that this isn't going to happen again. I think a lot of people have been caught up in the idea that we need to commercialize Python, and ride some kind of wave of publicity the way that Java and C# and Rails seem to have done. This kind of thinking leads to bad, impulsive decisions that can have long-lasting or even permanent negative impacts on the community. Maybe things don't seem to be happening fast enough in comparison with those commercial endeavors, but this is a grass-roots movement. It's never been about moving as fast as you can. It's always been about vision, not tactics. For many, it's fun and exciting and really important to catch the wave, but the wave passes and then you've just exhausted yourself chasing a brief bump in the water. Python may not have caught any particular wave, but it's always grown, steadily. I know what the argument for the results of Pycon 2008 will be: we needed the money. My answer: it's not worth it. If this is what you have to do to grow the conference, then don't. If the choice is between selling my experience to vendors and reducing the size of the conference, then cut the size of the conference. Keep the quality of my experience as the primary decision criteria, or I'll stop coming. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My trust has been violated. I paid a lot, in both money and time, to be at this conference just to be herded into a room and have my eyeballs sold to the highest bidder. Hear hear. Conference organisers, past and future, take note: Attention of attendees is *not* a commodity to be traded. Just because some parties will pay significant sums for that, it is *not* your place to sell it to them. Your place as conference organisers, rather, is to provide value to paying attendees. Their trust is hard earned, and easily lost. -- \ Oh, I realize it's a penny here and a penny there, but look at | `\ me: I've worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme | _o__) poverty. -- Groucho Marx | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air time. Vendors were guaranteed first pick on lightning talk slots, and we in the audience, expectantly looking forward to interesting and entertaining content, again started to feel like things were awfully commercial. And what seemed like a good idea, moving lightning talks into plenary sessions with no competition, began to look like another way to deliver a captive audience to vendors. This was my first time at PyCon and when I went to the Lightning Talks yesterday, I was also under the impression that they were for attendees. About half of the ones I saw were commercials. It was weird and made me wonder if they were always like that. On top of that, the quality of the presentations was unusually low. I'd say that 80% were not worth going to -- there were definitely some good ones, but it was a lot of pain to discover them. Do you mean the official presentations or the lightning talks? I thought both were kind of bad. Jeff Rush was great in both of the sessions I saw and the gaming presenters were also good. But I saw a lot of people who had never presented and were unprepared. In fact, one didn't have any code whatsoever to share and the other one only started showing some code during the last 10 minutes of his time. The sponsor keynotes weren't all bad. I thought the White Oaks guy was quite sincere and it was cool to hear about Python from the business side. And the Google rep probably had the slickest presentation I've ever seen. In retrospect, I'm not sure what it had to do with Python though. Mike -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the following seems unnecessarily harsh, it was even more harsh for me to discover that the time and money I had spent to get to my favorite conference had been sold to vendors, presenting me as a captive audience they could pitch to. Ouch. I'm probably one of the few organizers currently paying much attention to c.l.py -- because I'm also one of the few who's not at PyCon. We debated this extensively before going ahead, and we decided it was worth an experiment. If your feedback is at all representative, this won't happen again, I assure you. I'm forwarding your post to the semi-private pycon-organizers list (pretty much anyone can join -- more volunteers are always welcome -- but you have to join to see the archives) to make sure everyone sees it. I believe that this year's Pycon organizers suffered from inexperience and naivete, because they didn't know that some vendors will ask for anything just to see how far they can push it. Actually, it was our idea to offer something in return for the sponsorship. On top of that, the quality of the presentations was unusually low. I'd say that 80% were not worth going to -- there were definitely some good ones, but it was a lot of pain to discover them. Just to make sure, you're talking about the vendor presentations, right? I think a lot of people have been caught up in the idea that we need to commercialize Python, and ride some kind of wave of publicity the way that Java and C# and Rails seem to have done. Not in my observation. What we were trying to do was to increase sponsorship to decrease the cost to attendees -- we have NO interest in pushing the commercialization of Python. I know what the argument for the results of Pycon 2008 will be: we needed the money. My answer: it's not worth it. If this is what you have to do to grow the conference, then don't. If the choice is between selling my experience to vendors and reducing the size of the conference, then cut the size of the conference. Keep the quality of my experience as the primary decision criteria, or I'll stop coming. That was our intention. Apparently it didn't work for you. I'll wait for more feedback before I make up my mind about whether your experience was common. And no, we don't need the money so badly that we can't afford to turn away sponsors who demand this particular benefit. -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code. --Bill Harlan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
In my opinion, open spaces should have had greater status and billing, with eyes-forward talks and vendor sessions offered only as possible alternatives. Especially, vendor sessions should not be presented as keynotes during plenary sessions. I think it took a little while for people to catch on to the idea that they could have control of their own experience through the open spaces and that the main offerings were not the only option. This is an excellent suggestion and observation. Sold sponsorships are fine as long as they are billed as such. Labels on the vendor speeches indicated they were sold as ad space would be great, as well as more strongly emphasizing the ad hoc discussion spaces. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
2008/3/16, Aaron [EMAIL PROTECTED]: In my opinion, open spaces should have had greater status and billing, with eyes-forward talks and vendor sessions offered only as possible alternatives. Especially, vendor sessions should not be presented as keynotes during plenary sessions. I think it took a little while for people to catch on to the idea that they could have control of their own experience through the open spaces and that the main offerings were not the only option. This is an excellent suggestion and observation. Sold sponsorships are fine as long as they are billed as such. Labels on the vendor speeches indicated they were sold as ad space would be great, as well as more strongly emphasizing the ad hoc discussion spaces. But vendors often don't label themselves as vendors. And often, the researcher or individual in question, who has something worth saying, does have a professional job of sorts, which might be related to his or her work or speech. I've heard people give very long, detailed talks about interesting topics, that did have a spin on them, but contained worthwhile information also. Now, is that to be billed as a vendor (and ignored) or not? Further, no vendor who is trying to sell a product will allow themselves to be marked in an obvious way as advertising, knowing that they'll be ignored. At least, they certainly won't pay for the time/space to any real degree, knowing they'll be walking in under a cloud like that. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 11:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip..] But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air time. Vendors were guaranteed first pick on lightning talk slots, and we in the audience, expectantly looking forward to interesting and entertaining content, again started to feel like things were awfully commercial. And what seemed like a good idea, moving lightning talks into plenary sessions with no competition, began to look like another way to deliver a captive audience to vendors. coming. I have a conflict of interests - coming to PyCon from a sponsor company and having given a lightning talk. But I *kind* of agree with you. Most of the sponsor lightning talks were pretty dull. I *hope* mine was one of the exceptions. (Resolver One demo.) ;-) This isn't new though. Last year (my only other PyCon) all the sponsors gave lightning talks. The difference is that there were more sponsors this year I guess... Personally I think 'sponsor keynotes' was a mistake. Not a huge mistake, but nonetheless... Michael Foord Resolver Systems -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code. --Bill Harlan That's a great quote that I had not heard before. :-) Michael Foord http://www.manning.com/foord -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 9:18 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the following seems unnecessarily harsh, it was even more harsh for me to discover that the time and money I had spent to get to my favorite conference had been sold to vendors, presenting me as a captive audience they could pitch to. Ouch. I'm probably one of the few organizers currently paying much attention to c.l.py -- because I'm also one of the few who's not at PyCon. We debated this extensively before going ahead, and we decided it was worth an experiment. If your feedback is at all representative, this won't happen again, I assure you. [...] I believe that this year's Pycon organizers suffered from inexperience and naivete, because they didn't know that some vendors will ask for anything just to see how far they can push it. Actually, it was our idea to offer something in return for the sponsorship. [...] Ashz, thanks for offering some explanation. It is my sincere hope that the organizers will look upon the aforementioned experiment as a failed one. I shared the same perception as Bruce; most keynotes and lightning talks were anemic vendor pitches that really gutted the spirit of what I experienced last year. In meeting new people this year, I have had more than one first-time attendee ask me if PyCon lightning talks are always like that. I have also heard from a couple of folks I would consider PyCon elders who were not happy with what lightning talks became this year. I was one of the 15 or so persons who had a lightning talk that ended up in overflow for the Saturday talks. At the end of the regular time, we were all brought forward to be told that we would not do overflow talks. Standing there in the huddle, I looked around, and it appeared that we were mostly non-vendors. It was pretty crummy to see that real PyCon lightning talks had been sacrificed in favor of subjecting Pythonistas to rather dry vendor presentations. Some of the vendor presenters even had a tone that sounded like my boss is making me do this. PyCon lightning talks are the stuff of legend; I implore the organizers to learn well from this costly experiment, and let's not go there again. Ever. On top of that, the quality of the presentations was unusually low. I'd say that 80% were not worth going to -- there were definitely some good ones, but it was a lot of pain to discover them. Just to make sure, you're talking about the vendor presentations, right? [...] I'll step out and say that some of the non-vendor talks were quite weak. The most severe was a talk on Stackless where the original speaker was unable to be here and someone got up and clicked through the slide deck at a very fast pace. I thought the person had stepped in at the last minute, but later learned that he had volunteered with a couple of weeks' notice. Additionally, the original speaker had Andrew Dalke's *exact* slide deck from his Stackless talk last year. One first-time attendee told me over lunch that he was going to recommend to his employer that they not pay to send their programmers to PyCon next year based on what he had seen in this year's talks. I know that's an unpleasant message, but in the interest of preserving PyCon's quality, I'm willing to be the jerk of a messenger. I know what the argument for the results of Pycon 2008 will be: we needed the money. My answer: it's not worth it. If this is what you have to do to grow the conference, then don't. If the choice is between selling my experience to vendors and reducing the size of the conference, then cut the size of the conference. Keep the quality of my experience as the primary decision criteria, or I'll stop coming. That was our intention. Apparently it didn't work for you. I'll wait for more feedback before I make up my mind about whether your experience was common. [...] Hopefully the surveys and this thread will be filled with feedback from the participants. Also, check http://twitter.com/pycon for some further anecdotal evidence. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 9:59 am, Fuzzyman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This isn't new though. Last year (my only other PyCon) all the sponsors gave lightning talks. The difference is that there were more sponsors this year I guess... The difference (from my POV as the guy who helped plan and run the lightning talks this year and last) was that last year the sponsor talks were at a separate time, and clearly labeled as Sponsor Lightning Talks. A *lot* of folks still showed up, and they didn't feel lied-to when they got product or company pitches. Jacob -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 6:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air time. Thanks for being harsh here, Bruce. I've been responsible for organizing the lightning talks at PyCon over the past few years and Saturday's talks -- where a grand total of four community talks were given between twelve sponsor talks -- was the low point. I volunteer to run the lightning talks because they're usually by *far* my favorite time of the conference. Yesterday wasn't. What was supremely frustrating was discovering that the people wanting to give REAL lightning talks had been pushed off the end of the list by this guarantee to vendors. We didn't get to see the good stuff, the real stuff, because that time had been sold. Tell me about it. I felt like crap putting up a sign-up sheet with four names on it. Again, thanks for your harsh words, Bruce. Needed to be said. Jacob -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 7:18 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the following seems unnecessarily harsh, it was even more harsh for me to discover that the time and money I had spent to get to my favorite conference had been sold to vendors, presenting me as a captive audience they could pitch to. Ouch. I'm probably one of the few organizers currently paying much attention to c.l.py -- because I'm also one of the few who's not at PyCon. We debated this extensively before going ahead, and we decided it was worth an experiment. If your feedback is at all representative, this won't happen again, I assure you. Add me to the list, then, please. I heard from several people that the entire first day was a bit wasted, that even the non-vendor talks on Friday were rather dull and simple. This is my third PyCon, and I've found a reasonably-sized cadre of people who come for the hallway conversations plus a Bof or two, having given up on hearing anything new, useful, or inspiring in the talks. There are several people I know who would like to see a more advanced academic track. What we were trying to do was to increase sponsorship to decrease the cost to attendees -- we have NO interest in pushing the commercialization of Python. Can't fault you for that. But perhaps we're seeing the limit of what that approach can provide. Robert Brewer [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 6:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think a lot of people have been caught up in the idea that we need to commercialize Python, and ride some kind of wave of publicity the way that Java and C# and Rails seem to have done. This coming from someone who caught the Java wave and rode it for a decade. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 12:38 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 6:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think a lot of people have been caught up in the idea that we need to commercialize Python, and ride some kind of wave of publicity the way that Java and C# and Rails seem to have done. This coming from someone who caught the Java wave and rode it for a decade. Doesn't that make him better to see the problems with it? Robert -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
I know what the argument for the results of Pycon 2008 will be: we needed the money. My answer: it's not worth it. If this is what you have to do to grow the conference, then don't. If the choice is between selling my experience to vendors and reducing the size of the conference, then cut the size of the conference. Keep the quality of my experience as the primary decision criteria, or I'll stop coming. This commodification of eyeballs is happening in the Ruby community, as well. 2008 seems to be the year of Ruby conferences, and both organizers and attendees have been entirely complicit in the gradual dilution of interesting, un-biased presentations. As a result, many of the most innovative members in our community no longer show up. This is a real shame. My friends and I decided to stage a grassroots Ruby conference this summer; it will have no paid sponsors for exactly this reason. We're trying to change up the typical format as well: it's a single-track event, no keynotes, no schills for well-heeled interests. We're even organizing activities for significant others traveling with conference attendees so that everyone has a good time. The response we've gotten to this approach has been curious; many people totally get why these things are important, and the speaker list reflects this. However, we've also had a lot of complaints that our event is too expensive. In fact, they say that it should be free, like a BarCamp. Just get a bunch of sponsors, and that will be the ticket. We say bollocks to that. http://rubyfringe.com/ I'm posting here because even though the Python and Ruby communities are seen as being in some sort of competition, I personally believe that we have more in common (and lots to learn from each other) than we are credited for. For example, the popular Haml template engine is white-space sensitive, and that's a direct nod towards Python syntax. Thanks for your post, Bruce. You've given us a huge boost that we're doing something right, here. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
Tom Moertel organized a Perl conference with an interesting sponsorship policy, that may be worth considering. He posted about it on the reddit thread about this clp thread: http://reddit.com/info/6c9l6/comments/c03gli2 . (Disclaimer: I have no idea if that would work for pycon at all or in part, I'm just posting it because I found it thought-provoking.) -Bill Mill http://billmill.org -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 2:48 pm, Pete Forde [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My friends and I decided to stage a grassroots Ruby conference this summer; it will have no paid sponsors for exactly this reason. We're trying to change up the typical format as well: it's a single-track event, no keynotes, no schills for well-heeled interests. We're even organizing activities for significant others traveling with conference attendees so that everyone has a good time. The response we've gotten to this approach has been curious; many people totally get why these things are important, and the speaker list reflects this. However, we've also had a lot of complaints that our event is too expensive. In fact, they say that it should be free, like a BarCamp. Just get a bunch of sponsors, and that will be the ticket. We say bollocks to that. http://rubyfringe.com/ I've been running open spaces conferences for the past few years and I would suggest you do that instead of an eyes-forward conference. It's not only a lot easier, but it's also a lot more fun. For example, last week we did the Java Posse Roundup, which is all open-spaces. The way we've handled sponsorship for the Roundup is swag only. If sponsors want to send gifts, then we'll give them out, but we don't take money. Everybody seems pretty happy with that arrangement and it doesn't feel intrusive in the least. So you might consider that. Because of requests I've had (before Pycon started) we are planning a small open-spaces conference on Python, this summer in Crested Butte. The dates haven't been set yet but I'll announce them on my weblog and elsewhere. It will follow the format of lightning talks to kick off, then all open spaces (plus the usual hikes and barbeques). And swag- only contributions from vendors, although that usually just happens via people who happen to work for vendors, who are coming as participants and find out they can contribute something else. I'm posting here because even though the Python and Ruby communities are seen as being in some sort of competition, I personally believe that we have more in common (and lots to learn from each other) than we are credited for. For example, the popular Haml template engine is white-space sensitive, and that's a direct nod towards Python syntax. I think Ruby has done a lot to push the idea of dynamic languages for medium and large scale projects and to help recover from the bad experience many had when they tried to push Perl too far. Thanks for your post, Bruce. You've given us a huge boost that we're doing something right, here. I'm sure your conference will be great because you're making it totally attendee-focused. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the following seems unnecessarily harsh, it was even more harsh for . As a relative noob to the Python world, (and lurker to the list :) ) I can't speak to differences from previous years. However, my impressions as a first-timer are much in alignment with you Bruce. Many lightening talk seemed to me to be more about recruiting than selling though. Whereas I might have been discovering a vendor for the first time in a lightening talk, it wasn't a particularly good use of my time here. I'll FIND the commercial vendor, because, if they have a good product, word will get around, aided by their web presence, and formidable advertising budget. On the other hand, bleeding edge use of Python in a lab on a distant continent (just for example) is going to be much harder to both discover, much less get the added bonus of face-to-face time with the developer! That said, I thank the organizers, and welcome the new friendships made at this event, and hope like hell I can come next year!! Alaric -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 2:43 pm, Robert Hicks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 12:38 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 6:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think a lot of people have been caught up in the idea that we need to commercialize Python, and ride some kind of wave of publicity the way that Java and C# and Rails seem to have done. This coming from someone who caught the Java wave and rode it for a decade. Doesn't that make him better to see the problems with it? Sure, but he dumped C++ (a truly non-commercial language) like a bad habit for the latest silver bullet ten years ago. Complaints against Java's commercial nature now ring a bit hollow. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
[warning: rant ahead] [[ Before starting my rant, I would like to encourage anyone who was at PyCon but has not provided formal feedback to use the following URLs: For the conference: http://tinyurl.com/2ara8u For the tutorials: http://tinyurl.com/2ew2pc ]] In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], fumanchu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is my third PyCon, and I've found a reasonably-sized cadre of people who come for the hallway conversations plus a Bof or two, having given up on hearing anything new, useful, or inspiring in the talks. There are several people I know who would like to see a more advanced academic track. Let's leave aside the issue of how sponsor talks were handled: assuming that there's general agreement that this year was a failed experiment, fixing it is easy. What you're bringing up here is a much more difficult issue, and it is, in the end, not a solvable issue in the general case. For starters, speaking as someone who has been going to science fiction conventions for more than twenty years, there will inevitably be plenty of people like your cadre. I rarely go to organized programming anymore, but I still have a great time because I'm seeing all my friends. PyCon is a similar community-oriented event. Moreover, PyCon's success rests on many legs: tutorials, Open Space, Lightning Talks, formal presentations, keynotes, and sprinting. That's aside from the myriad opportunities to network with people. Finally, trying to satisfy a thousand people is impossible. People who want to emphasize specific topics (e.g. an academic track) will need to start organizing other kinds of Python conferences. Now the rant: If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT! PyCon is built on the backs of its volunteers. I personally spent more than twenty hours just doing Program Committee work. We rejected half the proposals that we received, simply due to lack of space. We had difficulty evaluating some proposals because nobody on the PC had subject matter expertise. None of the speakers received any kind of honorarium. Except for keynote speakers (e.g. Ivan Krstic), no speakers received free registration unless they requested financial aid. There are no requirements for volunteering other than a willingness to volunteer and a modicum of courtesy in working with people. PyCon is what YOU make of it. If you want to change PyCon, propose a presentation or join the conference committee (concom) -- the latter only requires signing up for the pycon-organizers mailing list. This doesn't mean that we are uninterested in feedback. We love feedback. But there are stark limits to what we can do unless people get involved and push their pet projects. -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code. --Bill Harlan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
well, like, at least he left a free copy of his book on the web, that was kinda decent. 2008/3/16, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Mar 16, 2:43 pm, Robert Hicks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 12:38 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 6:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think a lot of people have been caught up in the idea that we need to commercialize Python, and ride some kind of wave of publicity the way that Java and C# and Rails seem to have done. This coming from someone who caught the Java wave and rode it for a decade. Doesn't that make him better to see the problems with it? Sure, but he dumped C++ (a truly non-commercial language) like a bad habit for the latest silver bullet ten years ago. Complaints against Java's commercial nature now ring a bit hollow. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
On 17 Mar, 01:09, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: PyCon is what YOU make of it. If you want to change PyCon, propose a presentation or join the conference committee (concom) -- the latter only requires signing up for the pycon-organizers mailing list. This doesn't mean that we are uninterested in feedback. We love feedback. But there are stark limits to what we can do unless people get involved and push their pet projects. The same rules apply for most of the other Python conferences, too. Apologies to Aahz for hijacking his rant, but for anyone interested in enhancing the EuroPython 2008 experience, the advice is fairly similar: join the volunteers organising the conference and make what you want to see actually happen. For EuroPython, start here: http://www.europython.org/community/Volunteers If EuroPython is too remote or not to your taste, help your local conference or the Python conference which caters to your specific interests: http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonConferences http://www.pycon.org/ (a list of the big generic Python conferences) Constructive feedback is always welcome, but it's better to change things before your favourite conference so that it remains your favourite conference. Paul -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) writes: I would like to encourage anyone who was at PyCon but has not provided formal feedback to use the following URLs: For those who don't like to follow opaque munged URLs from services that give no indication where you'll end up, here are the actual URLs you'll arrive at: For the conference: http://tinyurl.com/2ara8u PyCon 2008: Conference Feedback URL:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=BvZ0fzE5FMKgiqbRk2g6OA_3d_3d For the tutorials: http://tinyurl.com/2ew2pc PyCon 2008: Tutorial Evaluation URL:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=_2fBZVTQe3Ov49vIGxgs_2fh9g_3d_3d Thanks for posting these links, Aahz. -- \ Imagine a world without hypothetical situations. —anonymous | `\ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ben Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) writes: I would like to encourage anyone who was at PyCon but has not provided formal feedback to use the following URLs: For those who don't like to follow opaque munged URLs from services that give no indication where you'll end up, here are the actual URLs you'll arrive at: For the conference: http://tinyurl.com/2ara8u PyCon 2008: Conference Feedback URL:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=BvZ0fzE5FMKgiqbRk2g6OA_3d_3d For the tutorials: http://tinyurl.com/2ew2pc PyCon 2008: Tutorial Evaluation URL:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=_2fBZVTQe3Ov49vIGxgs_2fh9g_3d_3d Sorry, I agree with you -- those URLs were not (and should have been) on pycon.org, and I just pasted what I got from someone else. Not enough spoons -- Aahz ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) * http://www.pythoncraft.com/ It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code. --Bill Harlan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 12:32 AM, Paul Boddie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 17 Mar, 01:09, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: PyCon is what YOU make of it. If you want to change PyCon, propose a presentation or join the conference committee (concom) -- the latter only requires signing up for the pycon-organizers mailing list. This doesn't mean that we are uninterested in feedback. We love feedback. But there are stark limits to what we can do unless people get involved and push their pet projects. The same rules apply for most of the other Python conferences, too. Apologies to Aahz for hijacking his rant, but for anyone interested in enhancing the EuroPython 2008 experience, the advice is fairly similar: join the volunteers organising the conference and make what you want to see actually happen. For EuroPython, start here: http://www.europython.org/community/Volunteers I haven't been to EuroPython even when it has been fairly nearby because the entrance fee was to high. But how do you help change something like that? -- mvh Björn -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
On Mar 16, 8:09 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT! I find this insulting, inexcusable, and utter nonsense. If putting the blame for a failed experiment on the backs of the good folks who paid good money for travel, lodging, and registration is also an experiment, you can hereby consider it also failed. The bottom line is that the people who are providing feedback in this forum are doing so *voluntarily*, and for the good of future PyCon events. They were sold a bill of goods, it was ill-comunicated, and they have taken their time to express that this is not a good idea moving forward. If it weren't for these people giving feedback, you would not have a complete experiment, because you would never have been able to prove or disprove your hypothesis. In fact, the people in this forum are just as important to the process as those who devised the experiment. As an experiment, it would seem that having an event organizer, who is presumably interested in the future success of the event, talking down to the people who would also like to see a better event in the future (and think they can make that happen - otherwise why bother giving feedback?), is doomed to failure. Of course, I'm only looking at how the experiment is being carried out. I claim ignorance as to the hypothesis. The rest of the points in your rant are all pretty commonly known by now, to most. At the end of the day, the buck has to stop somewhere, and that somewhere has to be with the organization that were charged with motivating a volunteer force, and the organization who set the expectations of the attendees. If you think that PyCon would've been better had there been more volunteers, then you should feed that back to the folks in charge of attracting and motivating said force. If you think it was simply a mis-labeling of the different classes of talks, feed that back to the folks who are in charge of such things. The point is that there are endless things that can be done which are more useful and productive than pointing fingers back at the people who support the conference by being attendees. They help build the conference too. A conference answers to its attendees, and that should be an expectation of anyone concerned with conference organization. Period. Exclamation point. Brian K. Jones Editor in Chief Python Magazine -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: PyCon Feedback and Volunteers (Re: Pycon disappointment)
On Mar 16, 10:49 pm, Brian Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mar 16, 8:09 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aahz) wrote: If you did not like the programming this year (aside from the sponsor talks) and you did not participate in organizing PyCon or in delivering presentations, it is YOUR FAULT. PERIOD. EXCLAMATION POINT! I find this insulting, inexcusable, and utter nonsense. If putting the blame for a failed experiment on the backs of the good folks who paid good money for travel, lodging, and registration is also an experiment, you can hereby consider it also failed. He said aside from the sponsor talks, chief. You need one of these: http://tinyurl.com/26owvg Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Pycon disappointment
On Mar 16, 6:10 am, Bruce Eckel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air time. Vendors were guaranteed first pick on lightning talk slots, and we in the audience, expectantly looking forward to interesting and entertaining content, again started to feel like things were awfully commercial. And what seemed like a good idea, moving lightning talks into plenary sessions with no competition, began to look like another way to deliver a captive audience to vendors. Yes, this sucked, and I say that as one of the guys that gave a boring vendor lightning talk. I felt obligated to take the slot but probably shouldn't have, or should have talked about something else. The problem was definition of the sponsorships without carefully limiting the benefits that would get out of hand when 3X as many sponsorships were sold as expected (which is what happened). To be fair, I'm not sure I would have foreseen this either. I know what the argument for the results of Pycon 2008 will be: we needed the money. My answer: it's not worth it. If this is what you have to do to grow the conference, then don't. If the choice is between selling my experience to vendors and reducing the size of the conference, then cut the size of the conference. Keep the quality of my experience as the primary decision criteria, or I'll stop coming. I have to admit, I'll keep coming to PyCon even if all the talks suck abysmally as long as there's good hallway time, open space, BoFs, and sprints. ;-) But, yes, lightning talks are also a critical part of the conf, and would be a terrible loss. - Stephan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list