PyCon 2011: Exceeded My Expectations

It had been a couple of years since I went PyCon, but I was very happy with my experience. Conferences are expensive to me, both in terms of the cost of travel, and in the opportunity cost. Essentially, the money I could have made doing something else.

What would make me come back next year is a continued emphasis on the diversity of thought and ideas. I enjoyed watching the talk David Cramer did about the worlds largest Django website, which runs his own bootleg version of Django. I also enjoyed talking to him in person. He is a bright guy, and I think he is going to do some interesting things. Would love to hear more talks from him in the future, and more about people willing to go bootleg. Love that stuff!!!

I also enjoyed talking to Jim Fulton, who I met randomly while washing my hands. I mentioned to him that I absolutely LOVE bobo. It is my favorite web framework, and I love it that is was done with minimalism, by a true master of the language.

Finally, I met Massimo Di Pierro who is the creator of web2py. There were a couple of threads both at the convention, and online about how I shouldn't use web2py. To me this literally puts the web framework on the map. If anyone is taking the effort to go out of their way to tell me to NOT use someone else's code, it has to be an interesting idea. I can think of no higher praise in fact.

On my to do list, it is try to use web2py as much as I can this year. That fact that it is forbidden makes the fruit all the more sweet to taste! Will blog on my experiences with web2py this year, as time permits.

I enjoyed giving a talk on writing command-line tools on Windows, where I was able to bring up Windows, PowerShell, and F#, and still have a great discussion afterwards with some really smart people: http://pycon.blip.tv/file/4883215/.

Essentially, I love the Outliers I meet at PyCon. Not the guys who are the most popular, but who have the most interesting viewpoints and ideas. Ideas people tell me I shouldn't listen to! I want those please, double helping in fact. This is why I come to PyCon, I hope it stays that way.