I mentioned earlier that June is fully booked (kids birthday parties, and more events that there are days; not to mention work deadlines). Unfortunately one event I might need to miss is Django.June which has me very upset. It is occuring at the same time as the Plone training I also want to go to. These are two encredible events. A Chance to learn from arguably the top Zope 3 instructor in the world, and a chance to attend a Django unconference at a Django festival (Adrian Holovaty will be less than two hours from my house!)

Django.June

An informal meeting of Django web framework people
Northampton, Massachusetts, USA - June 16, 2007

Here in Northampton, there’s a fun annual music festival called Django in June. It’s all about gypsy jazz — performances, music clinics, and jam sessions.

During the festival a small group of Django (web framework) developers are planning to get together. We’ll do it during the day on June 16, with the evening free for gypsy jazz!

Details

This is an informal event in the “unconference” vein. I’m hoping to have several short talks and maybe even some collaborative coding. I’m perfectly happy to have the content be driven by the desires of the attendees.

We’ll be meeting right in the heart of town, in the public meeting room of the Media Education Foundation. There’s a projector, a big meeting table, and plenty of chairs. The MEF shares the building (which used to be the town firehouse) with one of the best cafes in Northampton. As long as we’re buying some of their excellent food and drink it shouldn’t be a problem to use their free wifi. The room is reserved for us from 9am to 5pm.

See the NorthamptonArea page for a little more info about the locality, lodging options, etc.

People

Check out the DjangoDotJuneAttendees page. Please add your name and info there if you plan on coming!

The problem is that it is also ‘girls camping weekend’, so my wife will be away, and I need a babysitter. Not any babysitter, one available all day, and which I trust enough to be two hours away. I want this to happen, but there are other events days later that I will be attending. June is going to be fun!

Forget the cute dictionary definition tonight, we all know what being backlogged is like. Too many projects, tasks, bugs, deadlines, and a sever lack of time. A co-worker once called it suffering from ‘an acute temporal deficiency and a terminal case of deadline-itous.’ Terminal in the sense that you either the item gets killed off, or you do. You can’t do it all and something has to give. June and July have been fully booked for months, and I will be making a few announcements of some interesting things soon. It looks like some plone classes, and two sprints are going to be casualties. A few of the things I have been able to get done (NOTE: these were all team efforts):

1. 15 new Yew shrubs planted in the back yard (NEE!)
2. All the beds cut, weeded, trimmed, pruned, and a huge new bed one roughed out
3. First half of the border stones are in, awaiting four yards of mulch
4. New feature productized in the engine after four years of research and development
5. Re-re-re-re-re-re-re-learned how complex SWIG typemaps can get
6. Learned how roundup differs from trac, and how it does not (conference paper submission and review, NICE!)
7. Created a detailed list of new features and code snippits to incorporate into the PyCon-Tech code base (dynamic schema creation rocks!)
8. Was present at two very successful python meetups (can’t really take credit for their success, but I actually made it to them on time!)
9. Wrapping my brain around multi-threading (ipython + Stackless + scipy + matplotlib = my new shell; too bad matplotlib is not thread safe on win32)
10. Got the LightScribe CD art done for a set of Sugar Live CD’s I am planning on burning

I have 6 other blog posts started (most very short). All last week I was sleep deprived. This weekend improved things, mainly because my body shut down. I promised myself I would not write e-mails or these posts late at night or when I was over tired, as I tend to ramble and go off on tangents. oops….

I caught the OLPC piece on 60 Minutes (video) last night and am equally delighted, and disappointed. Other news groups are picking up the story, centered around the Intel competition. Slashdot even has an article on it. Watching and reading these stories, I can’t help but hear the implicit editing reporters do to make a story more salacious than it is. I am disappointed that once again the focus is on the hardware alone. I am disappointed that ‘problems’ described with the project were not examined in any real depth. There are problems, and they deserve more than ‘[Wayan Vota] is concerned about the additional cost of the project for infrastructure such as satellite dishes.‘ While I understand that not everything can be covered in detail, there are some oversights which need clarification.

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Lots to cover today. Lots of things going on and me under a deadline!

Boston/Cambridge Python Meetup - Wednesday, May 23, 2007, 7:00 PM

Boston Plone Meetup - Thursday, May 24, 2007, 7:00 PM

UPDATE: New Location for the Plone Meetup
Nature Conservancy
11 Ave. de Lafayette
Boston, MA 02111
(617) 542-1908

Peter Marquez has lined up a great speaker for the Cambridge meetup Wednesday! George Lambert of Goldenware Travel will be talking about his companies switch to python and what impacts (good and bad) this decision has had. This is not our normal day, week, or location for a meetup, but was chosen for availability of people and the guest speaker. One of the topics at the meetup will be when and where to hold future meetings, and to schedule future speakers as well as informal sessions. We will also be saying farewell to a Chris Curvey who worked hard for years managing the Boston Python Interest Group.

The Cambridge Python May Meetup

When:

Wednesday, May 23, 2007, 7:00 PM

Where:

Brickbottom Building
1 Fitchburg St, Somerville MA Suite 151 Building B
Somerville , MA 02143
617 620 3071

• Info/Map
• This venue has been marked “private” by the Organizer.

Description:

Why did you choose Python?Developers and their companies are using Python to do all kinds of tasks. From utilities to ERP systems. Why are they choosing Python over Java, C++ and other proven enterprise 3 and 4gls?At this meeting we’ll all get a chance to meet each other, learn why we’ve made this choice and what we’ve learned in the process.To kick off the meeting, I have asked George Lambert of Goldenware Travel to explain why his company has switched to Python and the benefits and challenges they are seeing.The meeting will be held at my office in Somerville. We currently have 7 RSVP’s and 10 “Maybe’s”. Of course that may change with the date change.

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Nate is a very busy person these days. He just got back from a Plone4Artists sprint in Paris, and is setting up one here in Boston!

 Hey Boston Plonistas!

I’m pleased to announce the first ever Plone sprint in Boston will be held on July 18-23, 2007!
Thanks to our sponsor, the Christian Science Monitor, for providing the space in which to hold the sprint. Russ and Terry, who have been hosting our monthly Plone meetups, have been gracious enough to open up their meeting facilities for the entire week! We are very fortunate to have the use of these facilities in such a beautiful space in the heart of Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood.

Get more info and register on the sprint page.

At the next Boston Plone May Meetup on Thursday, I’d like to discuss logistics for the sprint, and ask those of you who are attending to help out with the planning to make everything run smoothly. If you’ve never been to a sprint, now’s your chance to participate in an incredible learning experience. For some background about sprinting and what it’s all about, read this explanation of a sprint and this blog post from a first-time sprinter.

I’d like to try to get as many people from the local Boston Plone community (and other OSS communities) involved as possible. The room holds 75-100 persons, so I don’t think we’re going to run out of space!

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Pre-Registration ends May 31st!

This is from Nate Aune:

Want to learn more about using Zope 3 technology in Plone? Now’s
your chance to get hands-on instruction from one of the leading Zope 3
gurus in the Plone community: Rocky Burt.

We are pleased to announce “Zope 3 Training for Plone Developers”
a comprehensive 2-day training course offered in Boston, MA
on July 16-17. This course is specifically targeted at the developer
already familiar with Plone and Archetypes who now wants to leverage
Zope 3 component architecture in their Plone products.

More info:
http://www.jazkarta.com/services/zope-3-training-for-plone-developers
INSTRUCTOR
Rocky Burt is a recognized leader in the Plone community, having been
elected to the Plone framework team, contributed to the popular book
“Web Component Development with Zope 3″, developer of many Plone
products and author of the Plone4Artists suite of products. Rocky is
an expert in using Zope 3 technologies in Plone, and has given various
conference/sprint talks on this subject including a three hour tutorial
at the last Plone Conference in Seattle.

DATES
July 16-17, 2007

LOCATION
Christian Science Center
1 Norway St.
Boston, MA USA

REGISTRATION
The preferred class size is 10-15, so we encourage you to sign up now
to reserve your spot. There is also some early bird special if you
sign up before May 31. Please see the training page for the cost and to register.
http://www.jazkarta.com/services/zope-3-training-for-plone-developers

All participants will receive a copy of Phillips von Weitershausen’s
book “Web Component Development with Zope 3″ (Second Edition).

PREREQUISITES
Knowledge of Plone and experience developing Plone products with
Archetypes. Python programming skills.

COVERS
Everything you need to know about developing Plone products the “Zope
3 way”, using adapters, view classes and interfaces. See the training
page for the full agenda of topics covered.
http://www.jazkarta.com/services/zope-3-training-for-plone-developers

REQUIREMENTS
A laptop computer to follow along with this hands-on class.

CONTACT
Please contact training@jazkarta.com if you have any questions about
the training.

Governor Deval Patrick has instituted May 12th as Park Serve Day! If you have the time and are able, please check out the list of Massachusetts State Parks and join us in a bit of spring cleaning.

Park Serve Day is this Saturday, May 12th!

Please select a park where you would like to volunteer from the list below and register by clicking the “Register Now” link.

For more information, to register a group of six or more people, or to discuss any special accommodations or needs you may have for the day, please contact the Department of Conservation and Recreation at 617-626-4980 or park.serve@state.ma.us. DCR welcomes all interested participants and has developed a broad list of projects suitable for various abilities.

General directions are provided for your assistance. Please use additional on-line trip planning tools or maps to guide you to the park from your specific starting point.

As I have mentioned before, our local parks are in dire need of attention. Any time you can spare would be greatly appreciated.

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Time to once again follow in the footsteps of those greater¹ than myself. A quick google search will turn up all the other blog posts that have been written since Brian D Foy inspired Titus Brown. I made my initial list of five shortly after PyCon when I first read the post and commentary on Titus’ genesis post. Work and other projects have been taking up all my time, so I never got around to it. In the past two weeks each of these five things has come up at work, to the point that I have started working on a patch, and a PEP.

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