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UK Python Conference: Oxford, April 16-17 2004

andy at reportlab.com andy at reportlab.com
Wed Feb 4 08:19:19 EST 2004 
At long last I am pleased to announce that there will once again be a
UK Python event this year.  This is being organised as a track
within the ACCU (Association of C and C++ Users) conference. It
will be held at the Randolph Hotel in centre of Oxford on Frday 16
and Saturday 17th.  The dates were chosen so people could take less
time off work or get cheaper flights across Saturday. It follows
a 2-day Open Source event with Eric Raymond, Paul Everitt and
a host of other interesting speakers.

A provisional programme and details are available at
  https://www.accu.org/conference/prog.html
Python stuff is "bottom right", open source top right.

The general theme is "where Python goes next".  In keeping with
the other ACCU tracks, it is an event about the language and about
programming.  Speakers provisionally include Eric Raymond, Alex
Martelli,  Samuele Pedroni, Armin Rigo, Duncan Booth, Chris Withers
David Ascher, Marc-Andre Lemburg, Michael Hudson, myself and
(to be confirmed) David Ascher.  There may be a PyPy sprint
concurrent with the event.


-------------------------------------
Tha ACCU event will be unlike any other Python event and has certainly
been organised differently, so let me add a few personal remarks on how it
came about ths year....

First, whether we call it a track or "the UK Python conference" is up to
the community :-)


The ACCU conference I supposed to be a place where professional programmers
can take a week out to follow all the latest and greatest developments in
languages, methodologies and tools.  The Python track aims to follow this
theme.  I would like to express my gratitude to the ACCU for putting on
an event at their own financial risk, with their own professional staff,
and which puts Python on an equally serious foooting with C++ and Java in
the development world.

This is explicitly NOT
  (1)  a budget event  (it's actually about GBP 100 per day if
       you sign up fast)
  (2)  a place to show off specific neat Python apps or projects
  (3)  a democratic, commnunity run event
EuroPython fills all those roles perfectly and we don't want to conflict
with it.


The lack of (3) is more an accident of peoples' schedules than
a planned conspiracy. The ACCU does not normally issue calls for papers;
the committee recruits  from their membership which comprises the top
echelons of the C, C++ and  Java worlds (e.g. Stroustrup, Coplien, and
various ISO working groups which are co-hosted).  They assumed I'd do the
same, I assumed we were all going to do a call for papers, and in December
we cleared up the confusion, panicked, and did it the ACCU way :-)


A number of issues were up in the air until last week which prevented
an announcement.  We will now be promoting the event heavily.  There will
be considerable space for mini-talks in the breaks, for BOFs, a possible
PyPy sprint, and for low-cost sponsorship options for open source projects
and consulting firms.  I'll be posting updates at approximately weekly
intervals.

Best Regards,

Andy Robinson
ReportLab (and ACCU Python track chair)
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