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hpr_transcripts/hpr0520.txt

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+Episode: 520
+Title: HPR0520:  Selecting Talks for PyCon 2010
+Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0520/hpr0520.mp3
+Transcribed: 2025-10-07 22:21:48
+
+---
+
+So
+Welcome to a little bit of Python episode 2 with Andrew Kushling, Jesse Noller, right
+Canton and Michael Ford and Steve Holden.
+Jesse, I'd like you to start on this one because you, God bless you, had the horrendous
+task of trying to, I mean, normally for choosing Python talks, it's sorting the wheat from
+the chat, but as far as I could tell, it was almost all wheat this year and there was
+a huge amount more of it.
+For those of you who are listening to this, that don't know, I decided that because I
+saw a bunch of people working on Python, they said, hey, listen, we need a program committee
+chair and program committee chair is, I guess, a shorthand for a webbing boy.
+And so basically, I took over as the Python program committee chair from Ivan Kristich,
+I believe.
+Ah, so that's the correct pronunciation.
+So in any case, so I took it over and I said, you know, how hard is it going to be?
+We're going to review, we're going to review a bunch of talks, we're going to discuss
+them, we're going to pick the best ones.
+Well, very hard indeed.
+Well, so if we had gotten the volume of talks that we have gotten in the past, I don't
+think it would have been nearly as painful, but instead this year, for Python 2010, we
+got a grand total of 178 talk proposals, which is important.
+No, compared to last year, I believe we had 118, something like 120, yeah, around there.
+So, yeah, office many again, 50 percent increase.
+Yeah, 178 talk proposals.
+We were lucky.
+We had over 50 reviewers sign up.
+Unfortunately, many of those reviewers volunteered before they could realize that real life tends
+to get in the way.
+So we actually had a relatively, we had an increased reviewer pool, but a significantly increased
+number of talks.
+So what the program committee basically does is we turn around and we look at all the talks,
+we review them and we do this online via a web interface.
+We vote, we use identify the champion, and we plus one, we plus zero, we minus one, minus
+zero, and we kind of vote on these.
+So we get towards the end and all of a sudden turns into marathon IRC meetings where we,
+we being the committee, we being the chair, sit down, we individually discuss and vote
+on each one of the talks.
+I don't remember the exact number, but typically what we do is we start with the only positive
+vote talks and these are talks that are all plus one, plus zero votes.
+We had well over 100 of those out of 178 talks, the bulk of them had gotten positive feedback
+from the reviewers.
+This has serious consequences, at least for the review committee, because this means that
+we have to iteratively review these talks, we have to go through and say, okay, this
+one's good, this one's not good, this one's good, this one's not good, this one's good.
+We have to do that on the same batch of talks over and over and over until we get down
+to a relatively decently sized pool.
+I think, Josie, you really should emphasize here.
+As Josie said, we had, how many was it over 100 all positive votes?
+We don't have 100 slots for PICOM.
+I mean, originally for last year, 2009, we only had just under 70 slots.
+So we were well over positive talks compared to the number of slots.
+So this is not just, oh, we took just acceptable talks.
+These were good talks.
+Yeah, I mean, the evidence is clear that there are a huge number of good talks that have
+had to be rejected simply because there were other talks which were marginally better.
+And the case of quality, if we have a lot of talks on one particular topic, we're going
+to have to reject more of those.
+Yeah, so you have to try and offer a broad interest in the conference.
+Yeah, and I mean, obviously giving current hype and trends, there were a ton of web talks.
+There were a ton of asynchronous programming talks.
+I mean, you've got things in the news like tornado and twisted and everything else like
+that.
+So it's even talks, like there were a few talks that were very well positive, very positively
+voted.
+And they actually survived some of the final rounds.
+But at the end of the day, it's like, okay, we can only have so many talks of this type
+before we think about 20 to be sure some tornado in the end, didn't we?
+So your favorite so-so in the just again, just to give people some idea of the likely
+quality.
+I've seen in the review process, I've seen talks where they were reviewed by four different
+reviewers, one of whom gave the proposal a plus zero and the other three gave it a plus
+one.
+And that one's not made it in now quite apart from the fact that this means that we're
+going to have what I think will be an exceptionally high quality program this year.
+There are also indications that the people whose talks didn't make it into the formal program
+will be organizing open space sessions and those open space sessions are also going
+to be absolutely amazing.
+It's one of those things where as the chair, I really tried to steer the committee towards
+making as objective decisions as possible.
+And it's one of those things where we all have kind of our pet subjects.
+And it's funny kind of watching the process because a lot of people kind of left their
+comfort zones to argue for a given subject or even a subject that was very controversial.
+They actually argued for it and things like this makes it in.
+And I think that overall, the past has shown us controversial subjects on things that
+maybe aren't necessarily the tip of the height machine makes the best conference because
+these are the types of talks people go in and they're floored and they're talking about
+from months afterwards.
+I really do think that this is going to be probably one of the best, hopefully the best.
+Of course, that's me talking selfishly, Picon's we've had.
+And one of the things that is out there that I don't think people fully realize is we actually
+added an additional track of talks.
+I mean, we typically historically, Picon has four tracks.
+For semi-themed, you know, maybe beginner, intermediate, web, advanced.
+But for the most part, they're kind of a mishmash.
+This year I approached Van very early on and I said, listen, if we get a lot of extremely
+high quality talks, I want to see if we can burn the resources necessary to add a fifth
+track.
+And he and I were very positive on it.
+Van should mention being Van Lindbergh, this is the next year's conference chairman.
+Yes.
+So I approached Van very early on to say, hey, listen, do you think we could do this?
+Now there's some negative sides of that, which is if you add a fifth track, you actually
+increase the volume, you increase the number of talks, which means you have to have more
+talks running at once, which means people have to make harder decisions.
+But when you've got 178 really good talks, it doesn't make sense to kind of throw the
+amount and say, you know, we only have this number of tracks, especially when we have
+the availability to add the fifth one, we actually have the room.
+We actually have the hotel, you know, saying, we're cool with you using the space.
+So we now have a fifth track.
+We actually have over 80 talks that are going to happen.
+We've got a massive number of, you know, we've got more 45 minute talks than we ever have,
+30 minute talks on broader ranges of subject matter.
+I mean, we've got twist.
+We don't have this year.
+Don't we have this new thing that the post-decessions, which is a not a first for PICON?
+It is indeed.
+Yeah.
+That was an idea that came out of last year's PICON and it's something that's popular
+at academic conferences.
+And it does mean that people get a chance to present their work in a way that allows more
+people to see it actually, because the posters are available generally.
+They throw out the whole conference and that means that, you know, as people are walking
+maybe from the exhibition area to the next session, they can take in a poster session.
+And there's lots of interesting stuff that people will be able to get that way too.
+Yeah, for those of you who don't know what a poster session is, it's basically if you
+think back to grade school, those dioramas, you always have to, not dioramas, but those
+posters you had to do for, you know, science projects, you know, this is, you know.
+I was going to say the same thing, but it's not like, because I guess that Jesse was basically
+great to say for those of you who don't know what a poster session is, it's posters.
+Not necessarily.
+So, I mean, you always have the, you know, this is a poster, it's got a bunch of planets
+on it.
+And, you know, somebody says, you know, this is, you know, the way the planets are aligned
+and, you know, so on and so forth.
+This is the exact same thing, which means that, you know, somebody can sit there and do
+a lot of work.
+But together, a great poster on a subject that, you know, may not, may not otherwise get
+exposure and they can just stand there and they can, you know, evangelize, they can show
+it to people.
+They can do a lot of work to, you know, squeeze information, which might be lost inside
+of a talk into a much different, in a much more succinct and compact format.
+So, it's going to be interesting.
+It's worked out for the scientific community quite well.
+I just think it adds a very interesting aspect to the conference because you have talks
+for dissonally information out to a large group.
+You have open spaces for much smaller group discussions, usually, the hashed out ideas
+and such.
+And then you have posters, which allow you to kind of, once again, at a smaller level
+compared to talks, broadcast out information by staying there and having one-on-one conversations.
+So, we have talking to an audience for talks.
+We have talking amongst a small group in open space and then we have a single person
+with more one-on-one talks and posters, allowing basically covering every aspect of so many
+information, giving everyone a chance to at least somehow get some idea or a piece
+softer or whatever they want out.
+And it's all been done at Picon in 2010.
+Well, and not only that, I mean, just look at the list of invited speakers itself is
+awesome.
+I won't even describe that.
+I won't even give you their titles, although you can find that from the Picon blog that
+we've got Ian Bicking, Jeff Rush, Jack Dietrich, Mike Fletcher, Raymond Hattinger,
+Bob DePolito, Alex Martelli, Joe Grigorio, Ned Batcholder, Holger Crickle and Ted Leung,
+all giving invited talks.
+I mean, any, I would be surprised if any of those talks aren't completely amazing.
+Yeah, it's just, let's ignore the keynotes, let's ignore, you know, ignore the keynotes.
+Well, I mean, let's ignore, let's ignore the, let's look at the core of Picon.
+I mean, we've got a killer list of invited talks, we've got poster sessions, we've got,
+I saw the tutorial list today in those, we've got a talk on robots in space and another
+one on robots underwater, I mean, you can't be bad.
+Yeah, we actually, there was a large discussion about whether or not it was actually technically
+legal for us to actually get rid of any talks involving robots and Python.
+I think we actually decided that there would be a longstanding rule, yes to robots, yes
+to Python, go to complete.
+But I mean, we've got, we've got an amazing amount of great tutorials.
+We've, you know, added a ton of talks, we've got awesome invited speakers.
+And from what I can tell, the hotel looks, you know, just pure awesome.
+Yeah, I've actually been to the hotel.
+I've been to the hotel.
+The conference advises that the Python software foundation use seemed to favor the
+Mario to cross the road, which was also, I have to say, an awesome hotel, but the
+Hyatt is just a fabulous space, quite apart from the, you know, the conference venue that
+we'll be using.
+It's just a beautiful space.
+It's got this huge 20 story atrium with elevators going up and down in it.
+And I'm sure it could, it could house a very good conference indeed.
+This reminds me, I did want to suggest to everybody that if you're coming to Python, I would
+like you to obey what they call in some of the science fiction conventions, the 321 rule.
+Have any of you guys ever heard of the 321 rule?
+Apparently the rule is you're supposed to go for three hours sleep a night, two square
+meals and one shower.
+I need my beauty sleep, man, three hours of sleep.
+That's not enough.
+I sometimes get three hours of sleep at Python.
+The trouble is it's so damn interesting.
+You just don't want to go to bed and leave interesting things behind some of the time,
+you know?
+Well, I like to find people's head-offs if I only get three hours of sleep, so I really
+don't think you want that from me.
+I like to find interesting things to pass out under.
+What do you mean like tables in bars and so on?
+Well anyway, I mean, there you go, I think we can wrap it all up by saying that it
+looks like the Python, Python 2010 is going to be the most amazing Python yet.
+Yep.
+And everyone should come.
+Jesse, do you just want to outline the, what are the registration fees this year?
+Oh, Lord, I actually can't remember.
+Oh, of course, you're the program chairman, not the conference chairman, aren't you?
+If you want to go to the Python in the US, then the URL is us.pycon.org, which will
+actually, currently, we direct you to the Python 2010 conference.
+It's February 17th, sorry, the tutorials of February 17th and 18th.
+The conference days are Friday through Sunday, February the 19th to the 21st.
+And then there is yet again a four day following sprint from February the 22nd to the 25th.
+Stay for the sprints.
+Yeah, so it's the rates.
+So registration this year went up a little bit, but for the most part, the prices, we kept
+them in line, not too far off of last year.
+So corporate government early bird is 450, hobbyist is 300, student early is 200.
+Okay.
+For anyone who's listening and wonders what the hobbyist thing is about, clearly there
+are some people who can't get their companies to fund a low price conference.
+And so for them, the corporate rate would apply.
+The hobbyist rate is supposed to apply basically to anybody who wants to come to PyCon.
+And either their company won't fund them to come so they have to pay their own way,
+or it's to make it easy to get people who are interested in Python to get there.
+Now clearly, because the Python software foundation is a non-profit, we want everyone
+who can do to come at the corporate rate.
+But if you can't come at the corporate rate and you can come at the individual rate,
+and we'd much rather you came at the individual rate than didn't come at all, because
+PyCon was started with the intention of being as inclusive as possible.
+And one of the great parts about PyCon is that you get so many different people there
+to contribute their experience and their knowledge.
+Tutorials only, which is basically show for tutorials, it's $100 plus the fee for the
+tutorial.
+Your first tutorial costs $120, and this is all American.
+Additional tutorials cost $80 each.
+Also remember something that was left out earlier is on the same days that tutorials are
+running if you get an invite, the Python language summit, and what's the second one?
+The other one is the virtual machine summit.
+Yeah, basically these are areas where we get people, the point of the VM summit is to try
+to encourage people from other language implementations to come and share their knowledge and to
+learn what they can about PyCon's implementations so that we can help to distribute and disseminate
+information that will be helpful to all language developers.
+The language summit itself is about the development of the language, and I think it was there
+last year that we got the announcement about the Unladen Swallow project, for example.
+But anyway, bottom line is, even if you're paying the corporate rate, you're getting a
+three-day conference for $450, which is pretty good value for money.
+Speaking of somebody who, you know, all things being, you know, equals still relatively
+new to the community, it's only been like six years now.
+It's, I can remember my first PyCon to the state, and they just keep getting better.
+I mean, the exposure to not just core developers, but twisted developers to, you know, Google
+engineers to just random people, it's fantastic.
+And the conversations that you have, you know, for instance at lunch, you know, they can
+range from astrophysics to, you know, bike shedding about, you know, the name of a built-in.
+I knew that, well, I knew we wouldn't get through this podcast without you uttering the word
+bike shedding.
+Oh, are you going to be that way?
+All right.
+And of course, and of course, I should, in modest dimension, that next year, PyCon has
+something that so far has only been available at Macworld, I'm like, correct, Jesse?
+What's that?
+The Steve note.
+Oh, yes.
+The Steve note.
+Yes.
+So we gave Steve Holden, you know, current company, a PSF slash state of the Python community
+slot.
+And it's, that should be cool, because I mean, historically we've had, you know, Guido
+stand up and say, this is Python.
+And you actually bring that up is actually great, because one of the other things that
+we've done is we sat down and, well, I sat down and I said, what if we gave a 15-minute
+slot to each of the Python interpreters to give a state of, so we're actually going
+to have, you know, Guido is going to give a state of C Python, Colin Winters is going
+to give a state of unlearned Swallow, we're going to have a state of iron Python, we're
+going to have a state of PyPy.
+All these guys are going to stand up and say, here's where the interpreters sit.
+And Steve is going to stand up and say, this is where the community isn't probably
+talk about, you know, very interesting subjects if you're into the community.
+Well, and I hope, I hope to have some interesting things to announce as well.
+Yeah.
+So I mean, it's, it's going to be a great time.
+So let me just say from Andrew Kusling, Brett Cannon, Jesse Nola, Michael Ford and myself
+Andrew Kusling, please send your comments and suggestions to the email address all at bitofpython.com.
+Our theme is tracked 11 from the Headroom Project's album, Heifa, available on the Magnetune
+label.
+Thank you for listening to Hack with Public Radio, HPR sponsored by Carol.net, so head
+on over to C-A-R-O dot-E-C for all of us here.