Hi All, I knew this Brian Ingerson guy back in the day. He was actually a time traveler from a distant galaxy. He left our world sometime in late 2005, IIRC. Before he left, he asked me if I would carry on his work here in this world. I graciously accepted his offer. I can say with complete certainty that Brian will not be speaking at your upcoming meeting. However, I would be more than happy to give a talk in his place. :)
Given that, I would like to present to all of you, a talk on some of my latest work, C'Dent. C'Dent is a new programming language made out of old ones (like Perl & Python). It's purpose is to create portable modules via the HOPE (Hack Once, Please Everyone) model of software development. I will show you how you can write a Python module and use it in Perl, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, Perl 6, Python 3000 and many others. I'll also show you how you can use Python modules that were written in Perl, Ruby, etc. It is very fitting that I am giving this talk to seapig. The entire C'Dent language is being prototyped in Python. I am finding Python to be a good language for getting the job done. Some of you oldtimers might recall that Brian attended seapig back in the day. He was really into Perl. I think Perl is a nice language too, but I have the conviction that great programmers need to think past their language boundaries and create things that move programming forward as a whole. I call this belief, Acmeism, and I'll talk a bit about that as well. I'm really looking forward to meeting you, Ingy döt Net On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 2:02 PM, Mike Orr <[email protected]> wrote: > I replied to a comp.lang.python post on the Python-URL, and there were > some ideas for code-sharing activities we might want to try. > > By the way, Brian Ingerson is preparing a talk for the April meeting. > He has a programming-language translator built in Python, which > involves a language-neutral AST that can generate code in several > languages. I think it can transform higher-level functions as well as > primitive commands. > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Mike Orr <[email protected]> > Date: Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 1:52 PM > Subject: Re: Need advice on starting a Python group > To: [email protected] > Cc: Mike Orr <[email protected]> > > > On Mar 11, 7:57 am, gb345 <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm hoping to get advice from anyone with prior experience setting > > up a Python group. > > > > A friend of mine and I have been trying to start a > > scientific-programming-oriented Python group in our school (of > > medecine and bio research), with not much success. > > > > The main problem is attendance. Even though a *ton* of people have > > told us that it's a great idea, that they're *very* interested, > > and have asked to be added to our mailing list, the attendance to > > our first few meeting has never been more than 5, including my > > friend and I. Last time just he and I showed up. > > > > The second problem is getting content. The format we'd envisioned > > for this group was centered around code review (though not limited > > to it). The idea was that at every meeting a different member > > would show some code. This could be for any of a number of reasons, > > such as, for example, 1) illustrate a cool module or technique; 2) > > present a scientific research problem and how they used Python to > > solve it, or get help solving it; 3) get general feedback (e.g. on > > code clarity, software usability, module architecture, etc.). But > > in principle just about anything is OK: e.g. a talk on favorite > > Python resources, or a comparison of Python with some other language, > > or an overview of Python gotchas would all be fair game. > > I've been involved in a Python users group since 2000, and have > attended or heard about a few others. The ones that have 20+ attendees > have a speaker every month. Our group is usually a show-and-tell and > open discussion, so we get around six people each month (but not the > same six). We've decided to solicit more talks as a way to increase > attendance. > > I have never heard of a Python group focusing on code review, so I > don't know what attendance to expect for that. One problem is that > much of people's code is private at their workplace, and they can't > bring it to a meeting. I'd suggest expanding the focus a bit: code > review, writing unit tests for each other, pair programming, some open > "How do I do this in Python?" discussions, etc. > > You're also limiting the pool of potential attendees by targeting one > institution. There are only a subset there who are interested in > Python, a smaller subset who can attend meetings, and an even smaller > subset who are willing to attend meetings even if they can. A citywide > group or at least bringing in other institutions would hopefully > increase attendance. Although it may be harder to keep the scientific > focus with that. But on the other hand, here the specialized groups > are getting more attendance than the general groups are. The local > Plone and Django groups get more people than the Python group does. > > --Mike > > > -- > Mike Orr <[email protected]> >
