The PyCon US Blog

A Community Effort! Well folks, we did it again! A   huge thanks   to all our   sponsors , speakers, volunteers, and attendees for making   PyCon 2014   such a success! PyCon Videos & Pictures If you weren't able to join us, the  tutorials  and  talks  were recorded and are available online at  PyVideo . There are also a  ton of great pictures  from PyCon 2014. Be sure to check them out, and add your photos to the group! Thank you so much to the program committees – they reviewed over 800 proposals, and spent the better part of their year putting together a fantastic schedule. Diversity Outreach Chair:  Jessica McKellar Talk Chairs:  Luke Sneeringer  &  Alex Gaynor Tutorials Chairs:  Stuart Williams  &  Ruben D. Orduz Posters Chairs:  Juan Gomez  &  Gustavo Pinto Lightning Talk Chairs:  Lynn Root  &  Nilovna Bascunan-Vasquez ...

As we transition from the tutorials into the conference, we're celebrating the start of another great PyCon with an opening reception. It'll take place tonight  from 6 PM to 8 PM in hall 220DE at the Palais de Congrès (the convention center), and all attendees are invited. When you checked in at the registration desk, you were given free drink tickets, so be sure to bring those . For those of age, there will be a cash bar, as well as a selection of beer from Montréal's own  Dieu du Ciel   brewery. The reception is sponsored by  iWeb , provider of dedicated, colocated, and cloud hosting, located right in Montréal. iWeb uses Python for many of their products and services, including their groundbreaking iWeb Cloud, released in 2013. There'll be a DJ and a photo booth, so come out and have fun with your friends and start off PyCon 2014!

PyCon is packed with stuff to do. There are 95 talks to choose from, running in five parallel tracks. There are lightning talks Friday through Sunday. If you've registered for tutorials, you'll certainly want to remember when those are. Add in the events like open spaces, dinners, parties, and more, and there's a lot to keep track of. Guidebook We've partnered up with Guidebook  once again to bring you an easy way to stay on top of everything PyCon has to offer with your mobile device. You can either install the app by searching in your device's app store, or scan the QR code or receive a link via text from  http://guidebook.com/g/pycon2014/ . Once you have Guidebook, search for "PyCon 2014" to pick up the guide. Many thanks to Guidebook and Felix Crux for getting this great tool setup for us! Duckling Our friends at Caktus Group have created an app that’ll help you find, join, and create outings with fellow Pythonistas while you’re ...

As soon as we unpacked our bags from PyCon 2013, we started working on PyCon 2014. Through another record breaking call for proposals and another sell out registration period, we hit the point where we're about to pack our bags again, this time heading to Montréal. Before you all do the same, there are a bunch of great events going on outside the conference to keep in mind as you plan out what you'll be doing while you're there. 5K Charity Fun Run  - Saturday, 7:00 AM - $20 We started the 5K run in Santa Clara and are happily bringing it up north to raise funds for charity. One of this year's beneficiaries is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF . Register for the run at  https://app.lap.io/event/2014-pycon-5k-charity-fun-run ! The 6th Track - Explore Montréal - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday Montréal is a city of great history, culture, and of course, food. While there are five talk tracks during the conference, we've added a sixth: the city itself. ...

This is a guest post by Software Carpentry , one of our Open Source & Community sponsors. Programming is not just fun, it's a fantastic tool for getting things done, making things go, and participating in the world of technology and the Internet. We all know this, and that's why a lot of us spend a lot of time teaching others how to program. But do you ever wonder if you're actually teaching effectively? If the techniques you're using actually work, or if there's something you could do better? Educational theorists have been working on the problem of how to transfer knowledge for decades (centuries, even) and there are actually answers to these questions! If you don't have decades to study education theory, come to the Software Carpentry workshop on How to Teach Programming on April 14. At Software Carpentry we've been teaching busy and reluctant people how (and why) to program for over a decade. Greg Wilson, the leader of this workshop, has create...

Last week we put together information on local mobile voice and data plans. A lot of people had been asking phone questions on twitter, so a bunch of people came together and outlined a lot of the options to share with everyone. In addition to that, Similicious , a Toronto-based startup, has offered our attendees a 10% discount code! Similicious offers various configurations of voice, text, and data plans, and will deliver the SIM card direct to your hotel via registered mail. If you place your order by Thursday April 3, delivery is guaranteed by April 9 - the first day of tutorials. Take a look at their site and use the code pycon2014 when checking out! Note: if you are staying at any of the official conference hotels, their addresses are listed on the venue page .

Did you know PyCon is in two weeks? Did you know we're kicking off the weekend with a an opening reception ? Did you know it's all going to be awesome? Thursday April 10 from 6 PM to 8 PM in hall 220DE at the Palais de Congrès (the convention center), we're going to have an opening reception, and all attendees are invited. There will be appetizers available, and each attendee will receive a drink ticket. For those of age, there will be a cash bar, as well as a selection of beer from Montréal's own Dieu du Ciel brewery. The reception is sponsored by iWeb , provider of dedicated, colocated, and cloud hosting, located right in Montréal. iWeb uses Python for many of their products and services, including their groundbreaking iWeb Cloud, released in 2013. There'll be a DJ and a photo booth, so come out and have fun with your friends and start off PyCon 2014!

We're happy to announce the Sponsor Workshop series , taking place on Wednesday April 9 and Thursday April 10, the two days leading up to the conference. In a similar fashion to our tutorials, our sponsors are leading 90 minute sessions on a variety of topics. Oh, and they're free ! If you'd like to come to any of the workshops, it would be helpful if you RSVP'ed here . It's not required, but it helps us estimate how much food and drinks we should have for those times.  Wednesday - 9:00 AM John Wetherill of ActiveState will be introducing Platform-as-a-Service and container technologies, along with how to design and architect applications to take advantage of them. He also covers topics like deployment and migration, and gives examples of monitoring, logging, and debugging cloud-based applications. Wednesday - 3:30 PM Jacob Kaplan-Moss introduces Heroku by guiding attendees through the process of deploying and managing applications on the platform. With ...

You may have heard the news that conference tickets have sold out , but you know what’s not sold out? Tutorial tickets ! These three-hour courses are taught by Python experts and cost only $150. Take for example the “ IPython in depth: high productivity interactive and parallel python ” tutorial. Fernando Perez, creator of IPython and recipient the Free Software Foundation’s 2012 Award for the Advancement of Free Software , will walk you through the many uses of the great IPython project. IPython’s use as a shell has recently been shown off in the recently redesigned python.org , which includes an embedded version of the shell. The tutorial goes far beyond the shell’s capabilities. The graphical console goes a step beyond, offering features such as inline images, such as those generated by matplotlib. One of the most popular features of late is the notebook , providing a document-like view, combining code with results, all displayed in a browser. The high-performance features of...

While attendees at PyCon have traditionally been adults, Python's use had long spread to more than adults in the workforce. Colleges have been teaching Python for years, high school students have been using Python for projects, and programming books for kids have become quite popular. In 2012 we cut the student rate in half, bringing the ticket cost down to $100 for a three-day conference. We figured this would reach out to those college students, particularly local ones, and it worked. However, we still had another group to reach: the kids. In 2013 we introduced a tutorial session for kids 12 and over called, " The Young Coder: Let's Learn Python ," taught by Barbara Shaurette and Katie Cunningham. It was an absolute hit. Barbara and Katie loved it.  The kids (and parents!) loved it . The sponsors loved it . It was so well received that the material has now been taught at other conferences, including PyOhio last summer, and this weekend at PyTennessee . If ...

Although conference tickets are sold out, tutorial tickets are not. Whether you got a conference ticket or not, you’ll want to check out our tutorials, as our tutorials are perhaps one of the best values that PyCon offers. Some of the tutorial instructors are full-time educators, and some are the creators of the software they’re teaching. In any case, you’re getting expert instruction by some of the best in the community. Tutorials cost $150 each, which gets you three hours of classroom instruction, and includes a coffee break. Both Wednesday April 9 and Thursday April 10 have two sets of tutorials: a morning session and an afternoon session, split by a provided lunch. For Django Beginners Kick off Wednesday morning with Kenneth Love’s “ Getting Started with Django, a crash course .” Kenneth created a popular series of the same name, available at http://gettingstartedwithdjango.com/ , featuring video tutorials to walk you through building websites with Django. At PyCon, h...

PyCon 2014 is sold out! Following two sold out events in Santa Clara, CA, we're so happy to make it a third in Montréal. The talk schedule is amazing, tutorials are better than ever, posters are looking great, and all together it's shaping up to be an incredible conference. We're bringing back the 5K Charity Fun Run , Young Coder workshop, and have more events to announce. If you weren't able to get a ticket, we hope you'll explore other conference opportunities. The Python community has been growing a ton lately, and conferences are popping up all the time. Next weekend is PyData London , PyCon Philippines , and PyTennessee . DjangoCon Europe and PyCon APAC are in May. PyCon Singapore is in June. SciPy , EuroPython , and PyOhio are in July. Follow @pythonevents on twitter for an event feed, or check out a calendar on the Python wiki . Please note that there is no waiting list, and registration is closed to new registrations. If you were granted a ti...

At PyCon US 2013, it was brought to our attention by an attendee that we scheduled PyCon US in conflict with Passover in both 2014 and 2015. Obviously, this kind of scheduling error is a major failure on our part, but our response to the incident was mishandled, and we'd like to fix that now, in full view of our community. Here's what happened: Planning an event as large as PyCon requires a lot of lead time. In 2012, Python Montréal (in conjunction with Tourisme-Montréal) proposed a series of dates that were available for the conference in 2014 and 15. Nobody involved in the planning phase was mindful of the major Jewish holidays. We failed to note the conflict, and proceeded to sign multiple binding contracts for those dates, each specifying stiff financial penalties for moving or breaking the engagement. When the date conflict was brought to our attention, we frantically reached out to our contacts to see if there was any way to move the conference dates. There were n...

If you’re coming to PyCon , which takes place in Montréal, Quebec, Canada from April 9 through 17, you need a passport if you are a US citizen . If you’re coming to PyCon from any other country, you already needed a passport, but you probably already knew that :) This wasn’t always the case, as Americans and Canadians used to cross the border with ease. I once had delicious ice cream at Twist o’ the Mist in Niagara Falls, NY after a day on the Canadian side, and it was delicious, and I didn’t have a passport. However, on June 1, 2009, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative was enacted, making it a requirement that a passport must be shown to enter the United States, which in turn made it a requirement to have a passport to enter Canada. If you are traveling by air between the US and Canada: you need a passport book. If you are traveling by land between the US and Canada: you can have a passport book or a passport card. If you are traveling by sea between the US and Can...

PyCon 2014   has released the schedule of   talks ,   tutorials , and   posters   for the April conference in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. The conference begins with two days of tutorials on Wednesday April 9 and 10, followed by three days of talks from Friday April 11 through 13, and ending with four days of sprints through April 17. The event will mark the first time the Python community's main conference travels outside of the US, following two sold-out events in 2012 and 2013 in Santa Clara, California. The tutorial schedule this year came from yet another large pool of submissions, with proposals covering a broad range of subjects. The selections represent an effort to offer both a mix of subjects covering a wide scope of expertise. Once again there are offerings for beginners through experts, including a tutorial for those with no Python knowledge whatsoever. With a group of presenters including several full-time educators, experienced trainers, and commun...

Registration for our tutorials is open and ready for signups! If you're ready to sign up, head to  https://us.pycon.org/2014/registration/ and get started. The tutorials take place April 9 and 10, the two days preceding the conference, with four opportunities to learn from some of the Python community's best teachers. Each day has two sessions; a morning and an afternoon offering, split by lunch, with each of the sessions having a short snack break. The cost is $150 per session, which is a steal when you look at who is teaching these classes. This year we have a good mix of full time trainers, experienced presenters, and a couple of first time tutorial givers. The amount of experience we have on stage teaching these classes all in one space is hard to top. All together, it makes for a wide selection of topics that we hope the community finds beneficial. If you're interested in learning about popular web frameworks, we have tutorials on Django, Pyramid, web2py, and Fla...

We're bringing the 5K Charity Fun Run back! Last year we had 200 people join us to raise nearly $5,200, split between the American Cancer Society  and NumFOCUS , on behalf of the late John Hunter. This year's first beneficiary is the  Electronic Frontier Foundation , or EFF. John Perry Barlow, one of the EFF's co-founders, will be delivering a keynote during the conference! The run happens Saturday April 12 at 7 AM, beginning near the Montreal Science Center. The event is open to people of all abilities. We've had people come out for a morning stroll, people who train for ultra marathons, and several people have used the event as a way to get back in shape via the Couch to 5K program. The run is being sponsored by Lapio, who run the signups and time tracking for the event. Check out https://app.lap.io/event/2014-pycon-5k-charity-fun-run and get signed up today!

Just a quick reminder: Applications for our Financial Aid program are due on January 1, 2014. As long as it's the first of the year somewhere in the world, we'll be accepting applications! Check out our previous post about how the application works and what financial aid is for. We're looking forward to evaluating all of the applications and notifying recipients by January 15, 2014. Happy New Year from the PyCon organizers!

The wait is over: selections for PyCon 2014's talks, tutorials, and posters are now available! It took a lot of effort from a lot of people to review another record breaking year of submissions, but once again, the result is a stunning set of presentations. Both the tutorial list and schedule are now available, with tutorial registration expected to be available later this week (we'll post/tweet when it's up). The 36 slots available on the schedule were filled from 71 proposals, making up yet another set of courses to get beginners started, and to help each type of Python user level up their skill set. The tutorials take place Wednesday April 9 through 10, and the schedule is comprised of morning and afternoon sessions over those two days. Each tutorial costs $150 and gets you three-hours of teaching and includes a 20 minute snack break. The list of accepted posters is also available. Taking place on Sunday April 13, the poster session is a great event for both pres...

On Monday , we announced the first two keynote speakers for PyCon 2014: Python's creator Guido van Rossum and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, John Perry Barlow. We're happy to announce that Van Lindberg, Jessica McKellar, and Fernando Perez will be joining them in the morning keynote slots! Van Lindberg Van brings a unique background to the keynote stage, being both a technologist and a lawyer. He currently serves  as the Python Software Foundation's chairman , and he's Vice President of Intellectual Property at Rackspace. In 2008 he authored Intellectual Property and Open Source:  A Practical Guide to Protecting Code , and in 2010-11 he served as the chairman of the Atlanta PyCons. He'll be giving the chairman's address, talking about the Python Software Foundation and Python community as a whole. Jessica McKellar Jessica serves on the PSF's board of directors with Van, is an entrepreneur and open source developer, and leads th...