Montreal Python

At last, you can go watch the videos of the Montréal-Python presentations, including the lightning talks, on the dedicated presentations page.

So far, we have:

• Montréal-Python 1 David Goodger on Polyform Puzzler
• Montréal-Python 2 Cyril Robert on Scripting Asterisk with Python and Yannick Gingras on a live demo of PyQt and PyOpenGL
• Montréal-Python 7 Olivier Bélanger on Ounk, an environment for musical scripting
• Montréal-Python 8 Alexandre Vassalotti on Developing extension modules for CPython
• Montréal-Python 9 Andrew Francis on Stackless Python
• Montréal-Python 10 Chris Steel on Web2py

Each video is linked to a page on the Montréal-Python wiki to give the opportunity to presenters and attendees to gather interesting material about the presentation, such as the slides, example code, and related links.

Now we need your feedback on the videos; Theora is quite easy to deal with but H264 is a lot more tricky to transcode properly. If you have trouble enjoying our videos, let us know.

The Python Software Foundation is announcing a new sprint sponsorship programme :
Announcing: Python Sprint Sponsorship.

Montreal Python’s short yet intense sprint experience  gathered pythonistas of all levels in contributing to Python’s ecosystem in different ways, such as Django documentation’s translation, Packaging and Turbogears2.

Sprint sponsorship is good news that should enable us to do more sprints on a wider range of topics.

Andrew Francis, who did the main presentation at Montréal-Python 13, will be presenting at EuroPython. His talk on Implementing Go’s Select will be a slightly shorter version of the one that he did at Montréal-Python. It’s good to see fellow Montréalers presenting at large international conferences.

We learned a lot from past sprints and we want to keep our momentum so without waiting, we launch a 4th sprint on the Python packaging system. The sprint will be on 2010-06-02 starting at 18h. It’s likely to be at Brasseurs Numériques’ but we also have an altenate location in sight. One way or the other, attendance will be limited to around 12 to 18 hackers so RSVP on the wiki.

Bring your laptop or make a pairing arrangement on the mailing list beforehand. We don’t have any sponsors for this sprint, but this won’t stop us. Bring your refreshments and expect a group order for food around 7pm.

The third packaging sprint was a clear success: we closed tickets, seven sprinters showed up, and everyone got to commit something. Congratulation to all the sprinters:

• Pior Bartida
• Nicolas Cadou
• Yannick Gingras
• Mathieu Leduc-Hamel
• George Peristerakis
• Cyril Robert
• Tarek Ziadé (remote)

We were also lucky to have Tarek Ziadé in voice conference from the other side of the Atlantic, which really jump-started our motivation. Tarek gave us an overview of the state of the packaging, he did put the various tickets in a wider context, and gave some orientation to our strategy.

Over all, it was a very good sprint with work that got done on:

• Distutils2, the next generation of distutils
• Distribute, the temporary replacement for setuptools
• PyPI, the website that aggregates Python packages

The motivation is high and we keep going with our momentum. Therefore, without waiting any longer, we already launch the next sprint. It will be on 2010-06-02 starting at 6 pm. Stay tuned to know the location.

It took some time, but at last, the videos of Montréal-Python 10 are finaly online. It took some time but the waiting was well worth it because our new video editing pipeline is a lot more efficient and it allows us to not only publish the main presentation but the lightning talks too.

But wait, there’s more. Given the curent ongoing debate on Flash vs open formats, we decided to more forward and to ditch our current hosting provider in favor of an homegrown solution that allows streaming without Flash, in Theora on supported browsers.

Ain’t that great? Yeah, we thought so too, that’s why we decided to post the annoucement before the trancoding was entirely done. So don’t worry if you don’t see all the videos from Montréal-Python 10 yet; they will all show up before the end of the week (or not very long after that). That’s it for now; stay tuned for the rest of the videos. In the mean time, enjoy:

WSGI by Alexandre Bourget

PyJML by Jeremy Barnes

The 14th Montréal-Python meeting will take place at UQAM on June 14th, room SH-3420 of the Sherbrooke building (200 Sherbrooke west, metro Place-des-arts); it will be an entrepreneurial themed meeting because we received many proposals on that theme and because we sincerely believe that the best way to ensure that you are paid to code in Python is to found your own job.

Here is our schedule for the evening:

• 18h00: Opening
• 18h20: Announcements
• 18h30: Flash presentations
• 19h00: Break
• 19h20: Main presentations
• 20h30: Discussions and refreshments at Benelux

Flash presenters will be:

• Jeremy Barnes on Recoset
• Chris Hart on the business value of Python
• Michael Lenczner and Daniel Drouet on Ajah
• Sébastien Pierre on FFunction

The main presentation slot will be split in two parts:

In the first part, Gary Haran will talk about Four ways to fund your startup:

Second installment of the from ghetto to hub series.

Gary is an entrepreneur active in the Ruby and JS communities. Within seven months he managed to found and sell a company. He wants you to do the same.

For the second part, Jean-Sébastien Cournoyer will talk about Real Ventures and Founderfuel, supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs:

Real Ventures is a new seed fund by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to be
launched this summer, from the people behind Montreal Startup. Founderfuel is an accelerator program to be launched in 2011 in Montreal.

Entrepreneur, venture capitalist and/or angel investor since the late
nineties, with successes and failures as entrepreneur and investor. Venture capital experience include Innovatech, CDP, Vantage Point Venture Partner, Montreal Startupand now Real Ventures. Investments include Net Integration Technologies, Wavesat, Quazal, Terrascale, OZ Communications, Whatsnexx, SocialGrapes, Recoset, to name a few. Startups include Terrascale, Maybenow, SocialBuckets, etc. Father of five.

We still have a few spots for flash presentations so don’t hesitate to contact us if you have something that you would like to present.

Thanks to our sponsors for making Montréal-Python 14 possible:

• UQAM
• Benelux
• Savoir-faire Linux
• Ecometrica
• Apress

Some of you may have noticed that last week a new ‘Wiki’ link popped up on our blog’s top menu bar. We wanted to have a wiki for a few reasons:

• RSVP’ing for sprints.
• Keeping an archive of past events, eventually with links to presentation slides, etc.
• Having a kind of “Who’s who” of the local Python companies and developers.
• Providing tips and resources for presenters.

It’s still a bit sketchy in some areas and most pages need some fleshing out but we have a good basis for a great resource. The section that could use the most contribution is probably the tips and tricks for speakers. With all the flash presentations that we’ve had, the local crowd must have accumulated a lot of knowledges on the tools that ensure a smooth experience and this is worth sharing with the future speakers. The focus is not limited to tools; tips and resources on how to structure a presentation and on public speaking are all welcome.

So, go ahead and have a look, improve the content, add your company to the list, and have fun

http://wiki.montrealpython.org/

Please keep the point of view neutral and any listing in alphabetical order.

During the last packaging sprint, we were kind of clueless. Tarek Ziade is coming to the rescue, and will be coaching us live from Dijon, France.

Thanks to his support and the many questions you will be able to ask him, we hope we can bring some real improvements to Python packaging (distutils2, distribute, and PyPi). That way we’ll be able to make a real contribution to the community, and bring the future of Python packaging closer.

We recommend everyone to read carefully The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Packaging and to ask any questions you may have on the mailing list before Saturday.

Next saturday (2010-05-22), from 2pm to 1am, we will be holding the next packaging sprint, at Brasseurs Numeriques (1124 Marie-Anne, bur. 11). Every Python programmer looking to help is welcome, whether it is to help on code or documentation.

Bring your laptop or make a pairing arrangement on the mailing list beforehand. We have a capacity of 12 seats, please RSVP on the wiki. We don’t have any sponsors for this sprint, but this won’t stop us. Bring your refreshments, and we will place a group order for supper around 7pm.

Attendance at the second packaging sprint was very good with a total of eight showing up:

• Pior Bastida
• Alexandre Bourget
• Nicolas Cadou
• Yannick Gingras
• Mathieu Leduc-Hamel
• George Peristerakis
• Cyril Robert
• Jean Schurger

Tarek was kind enough to coach the beginning of the sprint remotely and to produce a list of bugs that are not too hard to undertake and that are not already assigned.

Unfortunately, it was not the most productive sprint that we’ve had. The complicated state of the packaging in Python and the convoluted Setuptools code made it hard for people to get started and all too tempting to get side tracked on other computer related tasks, such as demonstration of Typeracer in instadeath mode and Nethack strategy coaching. I have to be honest; I deserve my share of the blame.

As far as I can tell, no one got to go beyond making themselves familiar with the code during the sprint proper but it’s by learning from our mistakes that we progress. We therefor plan to have the next packaging sprint on a Saturday in order to make it easier to sync with Tarek. Our tentative date is 2010-05-22. Hopefully, we’ll be able to gather enough local knowledge to have local coach for the subsequent sprints. One thing that is sure is that for future code sprints, we will ensure that there is an expert on site.