

Pycon 2008 Disappointment  - nickb
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/2b6cb0e7245347be#

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thorax
I was at Pycon this week. While I'd like to see no highlighted sponsor talks
in the lightning talks (I was bumped partially due to them eating up available
time), I didn't feel like the rest of the con was particularly bad. The talks
from White Oaks and Google were good keynotes and not at all marketingesque.

Will attend again next year. Some brilliant minds running around at that
conference. Absolutely no press, which is odd given how many clever things are
being discussed.

~~~
thorax
test

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kirubakaran
Seems to be the opposite of Startup School, which is not only free but so
content rich.

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kashif
Well, I dont think they need the money - why then, why?

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llimllib
Aahz says later on in the thread that they did it to keep attendance cost
down.

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polar
Oh dear.

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mechanical_fish
My sentiments exactly.

As a Python outsider (Ruby won the coin flip, so I still haven't learned much
Python) can I ask for a translation from the Python wizards in the audience?
Is this a Zed-Shaw-style rant with 80% fewer swear words? i.e. "I'm annoyed
because marketing departments have discovered my favorite tool and now my
breakfast cereal is full of tchotchkes?" Or is this a symptom of an actual
problem in the Python core community?

One of the annoying side effects of developing a reputation for success is
that corporate IT wants very badly to talk to you. I'm watching the Drupal
community go through this now, I've seen the Ruby folks trying to cope with
Rails mania, and this looks like it might be the same thing. It's annoying,
like a headache, but in the immortal words of PG, headaches can be a sign of
good things -- for example, you might be recovering consciousness after a blow
on the head.

In this case, we might be seeing a sign that Python is developing a popular
reputation for success! And that's good... although it may mean that people
need to start holding smaller, less formal meetings in odd corners if they
want to actually discuss anything.

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cstejerean
This is definitely not a symptom of problems in the Python community. Certain
people will always be disappointed no matter what happens, and some of them
can write well and make it seem like it's really a wide spread problem.

Personally I'm glad to see more companies become interested in Python and I'm
looking forward to how PyCon evolves going forward. The thing to keep in mind
is that PyCon is really a volunteer run conference. If you don't like
something, volunteer to make it better. Don't like the talks this year? Join
the selection committee for next year and help pick better talks.

