Montreal Python

Due to the very low rate of registration, we won’t hold the sprint tomorrow at Le Site. The sprint will be remote only; you can still meet us on irc.freenode.net, in #montrealpython and in #distutils.

We take note that sprinting during the weekend is not a good option for most of you. Expect some new sprints on weekday evenings in the coming weeks.

According to the success of our last 5-à-7 at Cheval Blanc, we’re forced to admit that Pythonistas are beer fans. Of course we like to hang around together, we Pythonistas, but we shouldn’t be afraid to drop a pint whilst enjoying the company of coders from other horizons at the traditional ConFooBar, the 5-à-7 evenings of the communities backing ConFoo.

The next ConFooBar will be at the Ste-Elizabeth on 2011-02-18.
Be there.

Part of our mission here at Montréal-Python is to allow more hackers work full time with Python. We’re really happy with the state of the Python job market in Montréal compared to how it was a few years ago but too often, we hear about employers and job seekers who don’t know what’s a fair remuneration for a Python developer.

Glassdoor.com is a very useful industry survey of salaries and even though it contains a lot of answers for Python positions, it’s true that not a lot of them are from people working here in Montréal. Maybe it’s time for some of us to share some information. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly anonymous.

The guys at Foulab just told us they were having a pretty cool workshop on OpenCV (CV stands for Open Vision), and -you guessed it- the main programming language will be Python!
Here’s their introduction:
Do you want to make your computer react to light, sound and gestures? Do you want to capture and process images and video as part of your project? Do you wonder: whats wrong with these lazy AI programmers, why cant my computer recognize me yet? Get answers to all these questions and more at the Foulab Workshop “Introduction to computer vision with OpenCV”.

More information:
http://foulab.org/en/news/Foulab_News/2011/01/18/openCV

We have found a location for our next packaging sprint (2011/01/29), it will be at LeSite’s office!
Here are the coordinates:
Le Site
381, Notre-Dame west, suite 200
Corner of McGill or St-Pierre
Metro Square Victoria

There will be beer -of course- and also coffee, food, beanbags, and even a giant TV with a PS3 if you want to take a small fifa break

PyCon and ConFoo published their schedule recently and now is probably the time to decide where you’re going to go because you have until next week to benefit from the early bird rate at both conferences. If you don’t want to miss Raymond Hettinger showing us how to have Fun with Python’s Newer Tools, then get your ticket for PyCon before next Tuesday. On the other hand, if you want to see Blaise Laflamme give an Introduction to Pyramid, then you should register for ConFoo before next Friday. Of course, those who are not faint of heath will want to go to both conferences. Will you dare?

Our original plans for January were to have the meeting on the 17th but booking a room in a university at the beginning of the semester is a non-trivial task, not quite unlike renewing an expired passport at Complex Guy-Favreau.

Facing the grim prospect of not drinking beer with Pythonistas, we decided to invite you all for a very informal 5-à-7 on 2011-01-24 at Cheval Blanc. See you there.

The core Python packaging team is going to be sprinting on distutils2 from Thursday 2011-01-27 to Sunday 2011-01-30. We don’t want to be left behind so we plan to join them with a gathering on Saturday 2011-01-29.

We expect to be hacking between 11h AM and 8h PM. The location will be announced shortly but we expect an attendance cap between 12 and 20 hackers so don’t forget to RSVP on the wiki.

Startup Camp 7 is going to take place on January 20th at Théâtre Telus. Startup Camp is always a good place to learn about what it is to start an Internet business and to meet the high profile entrepreneurs.

Maybe you will find someone to join you in this great adventure of changing the world with Python code. Register soon because we’re told that the event is about to be sold out.