Not the State of the Python Union

Back to Florence for EuroPython 2012 – Don’t be jealous – you would hate the heat! We are talking serious heat here between 35 and 40 degrees.

Monday morning started with a talk by Guido van Rossum “Not the State of the Python Union”. In this talk Guido answered some questions –

• Worried about the future of Python 3
• Wondering when lambda will be fixed
• Angry about the GIL

And much more.

This talk was followed by Alex Martelli’s “Permission or Forgiveness”. Inspired by the Mother of Cobol, Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper ‘s motto “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission”.  I cannot argue with Alex’s recommendation of applying or not applying this motto in the Python environment but I would not recommend its application at home.

Other talks included all the buzzwords:

• PyPy
• White PyGame (Python’s most popular 2D game library)
• OpenStack – the large and relatively new platform for building IaaS public and private cloud
• Django – Python Web Framework
• Tornado – the non-blocking lightweight web server and framework
• Juju – new open source configuration management and tool for deploying services into a cloud and data centre environment
• Flask
• RestFS – next generation cloud storage
• PyPedia
• Camelot

There are of course some more generic talks like –

• Spotify, Pipelining your Music by J Pulliainen
• Becoming a better programmer by H Massa
• Health for Geeks: Feel better, save money, live longer by being lazy by N Larosa
• Music Theory;  genetic algorithms and Python by N. Tollervey
• Increasing women engagement in the Python environment by L Root

As expected you can now find talks on databases and Python, Arduino and Python, Android and Python etc.

The week was not just about talks but there was Coding Competitions – Python Challenge and Google EuroPython Code Jam. One should not forget the social side of the event with PyBeer, PyFiorentina, Tag Cocktails etc.

EuroPython (Florence) is one of the best organized conferences I know. Organized by Python Italia, Associazione di promozione sociale with a lot of support from Develer Srl.

Hope to see you there next year!