PyCon

I made it back to PyCon this year. 2011 was the first year I didn't attend PyCon since my first in 2005, so it was good to go back. PyCon is still my favorite conference, although it's lost a bit of its small-town feel with about 2400 attendees this year, double what it was last time I attended.

I gave a talk on What Python can learn from Java. I set out to be controversial but the only boos I got were when I told the audience to use a modern IDE instead of emacs and vim. Either I made a good case or I wasn't controversial enough.

I also had a poster session accepted about the Cassandra database that I work on. This was the third year of posters at PyCon but my first time to bring one. I built the poster from 10 Keynote slides, and Andrew at work stitched them together in Illustrator. It turned out pretty well. Note for next time: add QR codes that people can scan to learn more.

DataStax sponsored the conference. $3000 got us two passes and an exhibition booth. We had a pretty good stream of attendees by the booth, enough that (even with Paul and Tyler doing yeoman's work at the booth) after three days of speaking and explaining Cassandra I was as hoarse as I've ever been in my life -- more than when I used to do our all-day training classes. I think we got some good sales leads out of it.

Yours truly manning the poster

The keynote hall Friday morning

Lunch!