Please Publicize PyCon

If you have a blog, now would be a good time to use it to start encouraging people to attend PyCon. In Atlanta, from February 19-21, with two days for tutorials before and up to four days of sprinting afterwards, it's likely to be the best and biggest PyCon to date.

I would be especially grateful if you would make sure that word gets out to people who might otherwise not think about coming to PyCon. The conference thrives on new blood - typically at least fifty percent of delegates will be attending their first PyCon. There are badges you can use to give your posts a graphical flavor, too.

I'm using the badge above because I am speaking early on the first morning about Building the Python Community. There are others you can use if you are attending, or giving a tutorial. So please, do everything you can to make this the best PyCon ever (which won't be easy, given the event's history). And have a very Happy Christmas!

PyCon is Coming

Kirby Urner suggested that the PSF should advertise PyCon at airports. I though this was a great idea until I looked into the cost of hiring the billboards. Thanks to the wonders of modern web technology, however, we can all now see what it would be like to advertise PyCon on buses.

My slogan is probably pretty feeble. Can you do better?

Advertising the Competition

Someone asked me why the last two posts had highlighted "competing" classes.

This blog isn't here to sell training. It's a place to learn about training, among other things. Feel free to come here to learn about the competition's classes. It's this blog you're coming to, right?

If I only mentioned Holden Web's classes, and not Enthought's and David Beazley's (and ...), you probably wouldn't consider this blog quite such an impartial source. I don't think it hurts to be on good terms with the competition. It's the Python way, after all.

Blogger is Buggered?

Well, three posts in a row about Blogger is a little unusual, but I think this is merited.

From time to time I amuse myself by following the "Next Blog" links to get an idea of what was going on in the blog stream. If today's experience is typical then about one blog in three is complete spam, obscured by a pop-up ad window and full of links to pornographic sites. It seems clear that nobody is exercising any kind of critical control over Blogger content, and frankly it's got to the point where I am no longer sure I want to be associated with it.

I've been a web use for a long time, and it saddens me to see a potentially fantastic medium ruined by the swarms of lowest-common-denominator advertiser scum. If this is "what the people want" then they are welcome to it. I really don't think Blogger are doing themselves any favors by letting this situation continue.