Django at PyCon
It's that time of year again!
PyCon 2007 is is rapidly approaching with an amazing line-up of talks on all sorts of Python-related topics. If you've got the opportunity, I highly recommend going. The conference is a steal at $195 ($125 for students) if you register before January 15th.
Of course, there's also a large array of Django-oriented activities at PyCon; here's a list of the (officially planned) activities (in chronological order):
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On Feb 22nd (the tutorial day) I (Jacob) will be teaching back-to-back three-hour Django tutorials. The morning tutorial is an introduction to Django designed for anyone interested in getting started with Django.
After lunch, I'll move on to an advanced Django tutorial, covering a lot of what goes on under the hood. Anyone who knows Django and wants to dig deeper should really enjoy this one. You can, of course, sign up for both.
(I should point out by way of disclaimer that I get a bit of money for each person who attends one of my tutorials. I'd promote them here anyway, of course, but full disclosure is the best policy and all that.)
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During the conference proper, I'll be talking about the lessons in Open Source development that we've learned in 18 months of running the Django project. It's been an amazing ride, and we've all learned a huge amount about what it means to be involved in Open Source.
This talk is tentatively scheduled for Saturday (Feb. 25th), but the schedule is still being finalized so that date may change.
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There's also a web frameworks panel planned for Friday (Feb. 24th) afternoon. Titus Brown plans to bring together developers from the many Python web frameworks; I'm really looking forward to seeing all these different points of views.
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Finally, we'll again hold a Django sprint in the four days following the conference (Feb. 26th through Mar. 1st). If you've never attending a sprint before, you can read more about sprinting on the PyCon wiki; essentially sprints are a focused development session wherein a bunch of developers gather in a room and bang out code.
We've not yet decided on what we'll focus on during the sprint, but if you're interested in getting involved in Django development (or if you're involved already), we'd be happy to have you! I'll probably give an informal "how to contribute to Django" session on the first day of the sprint for anyone who's interested.
I hope to see a bunch of Djangonauts there. I've been to PyCon for the last couple of years, and it's always been fantastic, and I can see from the line-up of talks that this year will be no exception.
Remember to register before Jan. 15th if you want to save sixty bucks!
Posted by Jacob Kaplan-Moss on January 2, 2007
Comments
somejohn January 2, 2007 at 8:41 p.m.
Will there be videos available from the tutorials?
Jacob Kaplan-Moss January 2, 2007 at 9:13 p.m.
somejohn: I don't know, but I somewhat doubt it. Tutorials are one of the main ways that PyCon offsets the cost of the conference (i.e. tutorial fees help keep conference ticket prices down) so keeping them exclusive is probably in their best interest.
That said, you might ask the PyCon folks themselves if they'll be making anything available. I'll certainly post my slides and handouts afterwards, so at least there'll be that.
Doug Napoleone January 2, 2007 at 9:56 p.m.
somejohn,
For teachers who sign a release, their materials will be sold in a compendium of all tutorials at the conference (and after for a period of time). Teachers own their works and can offer them up for free as Jacob Kaplan-Moss will (most do).
Unlike the talks, the tutorials do not have their audio recorded. This is because of three reasons:
1. Some of the teachers do this for a living.
This is bread and butter for some people. Many give the tutorial at a reduced con rate in the hopes that some of the attendees will have their bosses hire them to give the same or extended version at a company.
2. infrastructure.
Tutorials are held the day before the main con, and not all the infrastructure is set up yet. The recording equipment is rather complicated to set up (there are 7 tutorials in parallel, vs. the 3 con talk tracks).
3. Cost to the convention.
The data and equipment is expensive. We only have 4 kero boxes (embeded linux recording machines) and limited long term storeage. The addition of another 42 hours and 3 more machines is too much (doubling the data for the con). Video would be insanly expensive just for the equipment.
There was alot of organizer talk about having the audio as an option for presenters who want it (up to the 4 we could support or maybe get more machines with another PSF grant or special sponsor). In the end it would still mean having the organizers setting up the equipment on Wend. in time for 8am the next day. This additional cost to the volunteers + added day space rental made it a no go.
somejohn January 3, 2007 at 7:05 p.m.
Thanks for the answers. I just asked, because I was at the 23C3 in Berlin (December, 27th-30th) and they recorded all the lectures (well, most of them).
See http://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Home if interested.
Eric Florenzano January 8, 2007 at 2:19 a.m.
I've just registered for PyCon and the Advanced Django Tutorial. It's exciting because this will be my first conference ever. Any advice or tips for a newbie?
Doug Napoleone February 7, 2007 at 11:32 p.m.
Jacob,
The pycon schedule app now supports the uploading of materials! Well it has for a while and you should have gotten an e-mail about uploading data for your talks. What I don't think was mentioned was that files can be uploaded for the Tutorials as well. If you plan on giving out the materials for free, please also upload them in the app.
http://us.pycon.org/apps07/schedule/
Bring up the tooltip for the talk/tutorial and click on 'Upload Files'. For the rest of us, if there are files present, there will be a table containing them in the tooltip.
Django + Dojo = Sexy Cool!
Ian Ozsvald February 13, 2007 at 11:06 a.m.
Dear all, just to say that I've been talking with Doug Napoleone (PyCon-Tech) and over at our:
http://ShowMeDo.com
we're interested in helping to host tutorial video from PyCon. We're certainly interested in (freely) hosting Django tutorial videos, we'd love to lend our site to help.
If you're interested in sharing your own knowledge (regardless of whether you're at PyCon), of course just get in touch, that's the whole point of ShowMeDo.
Cheers,
Ian
Arvind February 26, 2007 at 7:29 p.m.
Hello,
Videos/slides available from the presentation? I am just getting started on building a Django app, and am not totally sure about what am doing.
keep up the good work, there's a lot of us out there who really appreciate it
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Doug Napoleone January 2, 2007 at 3:59 p.m.
Not only is there a Django sprint, there is a PyCon-Tech sprint which will have Django as the central tech:
http://us.pycon.org/TX2007/PyConTech
If you are more interested in sprinting on apps written in Django instead of working on the core, please check us out.
If you are interested in helping out right now, please do! we can use all the help we can get!
The talk proposal system, accepted talks, and talk schedule are written in django (along with a number of organizer applications).
http://us.pycon.org/apps07/talks/
http://us.pycon.org/apps07/schedule/
(NOTE: the schedule app includes organizer views including ranking interest in talks, which speakers have yet to register, generating the schedule handouts, room signs, etc.)