Happenings in Python Usergroups

There is now a #python-north-west IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, run with a Python bot called "Phenny" (very easy to install). It seemed to be fairly popular, with people logging in literally minutes after I posted the announcement, some even "new faces" and lurkers who didn't come forward on the list. It's yet another way to spread the message, I guess, and it seems to be very low-maintenance; lots of people in the FOSS world are on freenode already.

On a different note, the Facebook group is not really taking off at all. I wonder if it's really worth it to reach out to "social networking" sites... I created the group on FB mainly as a pointer to the mailing list, but I still expected more people to nominally join.

The main talk for the second meeting of the Python North-West group was Michael Sparks on "Greylisting with Kamaelia".

Michael works for the BBC R&D dept., and developed Kamaelia as a Python framework to build applications that can easily implement parallellism and concurrency. He demonstrated how he used Kamaelia components to build an antispam device to "greylist" servers, refusing mail from servers which won't bother re-sending email after a short delay. Kamaelia is completely open-source, contributions are very welcome, and the project is still very active (despite the apparent lack of updates to the main page, which is entirely due to developers being busy!). Slides from the presentation are available on SlideShare and also in the group Files, as ODP.

Michael also demonstrated some Python features like closures and generators, that people often mention; it was extremely useful to see these techniques used in the field, for once, and not just described as some abstract tool. I'll try to do something similar next time I have to give a talk, it's the sort of "practical advocacy" that people really understand intuitively.

Strangely enough, we had similar attendancy numbers as last time, but I was the only one to attend both times. Is this a good thing? The list keeps growing, even though it's gone a bit quiet of recent; I hope it's just the fact that, being november, people are busy at work.

Well, I think it went ok.

Attendance was slightly lower than expected, but it's entirely my fault: the date clashed not just with a (very active) BSD user-group, but also with another OSS event and even a Manchester United home game (which means: terrible traffic as the multitudes move to Old Trafford, and people staying at home/local pub to watch the game). We ended up being 5 (17% of the list members), I expected 2-3 more. Better luck next time, eh!

My presentation about Django (which I uploaded to the Files section of the group page ) seemed well-received, and understood enough to be the conversation-starter which was meant to be. Skills in the group are different enough that it's not going to be a web-only thing.

People seemed happy to make this a regular event... there's another speaker in the pipeline which I hope will be available in two weeks, so that we can set on a fortnightly schedule; this should reduce the odds that we'll clash with other events in the long run. I warmly welcomed all suggestions about people who would/could speak, and I'll try to follow up as soon as possible. If I can't find anyone, I'll try to have a social event anyway and see what happens.

I posted to the group list thanking the attendants and pointing to the presentation... maybe I should also try to write down a couple of other points we discussed, to kickstart conversation and increase interest in the next meeting, but I don't want to sound too fanboyish... so I'll better wait a couple of days and then, if the list is silent, I'll post.

The room was very good. The people at Manchester Digital Development Agency were very kind and helpful and provided everything we needed (and more). I suggest people investigate if similar "public" organizations exist in their cities/towns (make that tax money work for you!).

All in all, it was a good experience. Next time, I'll make sure I stay away from football games (as much as possible) and I'll advertise the free nibbles!

On the wave of the great time we had at PyCon UK, it was decided we should have a proper mailing list dedicated to English North-West-based Python users, so here it is!

The list is open to everyone in the North-West of England who loves coding/playing/enjoying Python. Members are not expected to know their django from their pylons or their pyqt from their wxwindows... and certainly they don't need to pronounce WSGI.

See the Python North-West homepage on GoogleGroups for info on subscribing. There is also a "dummy" Facebook group pointing to the list (it would be great to have some sort of gateway between FB and generic mailing lists, I can't believe FB developers didn't think about it). I'd personally be interested in hearing about other groups' experiences with social software of any kind...

Our first meeting is scheduled to happen in the first week of october, with topics still TBD (submissions more than welcome!). We are looking for a suitable venue, which should have decent Wi-Fi (free if possible), refreshments not too far off, and possibly a projector or big screen. Since it's a fairly scattered group, I'd like to look into some sort of "backup" plan for people who cannot be there in person (it's 2007, how hard can it be, right...?)

That's it for now, I'll report more info as soon as we finalize our plans.