Press Information
Contents
Press Passes
PyCon 2009 welcomes editors, reporters, freelancers, webloggers, and broadcasters from interested media outlets. You may request a press pass and, if accepted, will receive a discount code that will provide free registration for PyCon. Reporters will have access to the three conference days (March 27-29 2009) and to the sprints (March 30 - April 2 2009).
To request a press pass or make any other press-related inquiry, please contact:
Press Releases
Press Release #4
White Oak Technologies, Inc., Google, Sun Microsystems Sponsor World's Largest Python Conference
Python 3.0 enters spotlight at PyCon 2009
CHICAGO - March 24, 2009 - PyCon 2009, the largest annual conference of the worldwide Python programming community, takes place March 25 - April 2 at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare and the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare in Chicago, IL. The core conference runs March 27-29, with days of special events both before and after the main conference.
Last December's release of Python 3.0 marks one of the most important events in Python's history, and PyCon 2009 provides developers a chance to learn to adapt to it from the worldwide masters of Python programming. Though Python's 2.x series will remain viable for years, the Python community is clearly excited about the way forward paved by Python 3.0. Several PyCon sessions will cover features new to the 3.0 release and techniques for writing Python 3.0 code. Following the main conference days (March 27-29), eighteen major Python-based projects and the Python language core itself will gather attendees for four days of development sprints, where usually far-flung groups will work together to improve and extend their project codebases, and adapt them to Python 3.0's new possibilities.
Python continues to advance in popularity and is acknowledged as one of the most important and useful languages in the IT community. In the past year, the Python language has been awarded the Linux New Media "Best Open Source Programming Language" award and the LinuxQuestions.org Language of the Year, and is currently at position 6 in the TIOBE Programming Commmunity Index.
Alan Broder, President of White Oak Technologies, Inc., says, "Since its inception in the late 1990's, WOTI's excellent reputation as a developer of high-performance software has depended on its ability to find top developers who can develop and deliver excellent software products. The marketplace for top technical talent in the Washington DC area is quite competitive, so we needed to choose a language that would enable WOTI to recruit from the widest possible pool of developers. As accomplished developers in C/C++, Lisp, Perl, and other languages, we decided to conduct an experiment to try and build identical web-client applications in both Python and Java, starting with little knowledge of either language. The results were dramatic - including all learning time, we were able to build our first viable Python application in far less time then the equivalent Java application. Python was the obvious choice, and since then, we've not looked back. We're quite pleased that Python continues to provide us with a competitive edge."
Twenty-five industry leaders have joined to sponsor PyCon 2009, including White Oak Technologies, Inc. (Diamond); Google and Sun Microsystems (Platinum); and ESRI, CCP, Visual Numerics, Microsoft, slide.com, and Walt Disney Animation Studios (Gold).
PyCon 2009 includes over eighty-five talks and keynotes, plus Open Spaces, Lightning Talks, and nighttime events - activities that give attendees chances to meet and learn from each other in unstructured and semi-structured ways. An Expo Hall will bring attendees together with sponsors and vendors.
The core PyCon conference days (March 27-29) are preceded by two days (March 25-26) of intensive half-day tutorials. Two invitation-only summit meetings, the Virtual Machine Summit and the Python Community Summit, will run concurrently with the tutorials. These first-time-ever summit meetings will give leaders from the Python and other dynamic programming language communities an opportunity to share ideas and strategize together. All PyCon attendees are invited to stay after the core conference for development sprints (March 30 - April 2).
About Python
Python is an open-source, dynamically typed, object-oriented programming language that can be used in nearly the entire range of technology applications. It offers an easy learning curve and access to a vast array of libraries. With implementations available for all common operating systems as well as the Java and .NET platforms, Python can be used on virtually any system in existence. Like other open-source, dynamic languages, it offers rapid productivity and a vigorous developer community; at the same time, Python's clarity and reliability give confidence to enterprise users. The December 2008 release of Python 3.0 marks a major milestone in Python's history, bringing new levels of clarity, consistency, and power to Python code.
About PyCon
Presented by the Python Software Foundation, the world’s largest Python conference brings together a diverse group of developers, enthusiasts, and organizations to explore new challenges, launch new businesses and forge new connections within the Python community. PyCon provides attendees with the opportunity to delve into the dynamic programming language employed by well-known companies such as Google, Cisco, and the New York Times. PyCon helps people learn new tools and techniques, present their own projects, and meet other Python fans. Press passes to the conference are available for members of the press who would like to see PyCon in person.
About White Oak Technologies, Inc. White Oak Technologies, Inc. (WOTI) provides the next generation of solutions to massive, information-intensive, strategic intelligence challenges. WOTI, with its industry-leading expert staff, is a premier provider of advanced software technologies. Python is WOTI's primary programming language for solving many or our clients' problems. As a past sponsor of PyCon, WOTI is honored to further support the Python community through PyCon 2009. For more information, visit www.woti.com.
Links
Press Release #3
PyCon 2009 Hosts Cross-Community Summit Meetings
CHICAGO - March 16, 2009 - Python programmers won't be the only ones coming to PyCon this month. PyCon 2009 is hosting two new summit events that will draw key developers and strategists not only from Python, but also from the Perl, Ruby, Java, .NET, and JavaScript communities.
The Virtual Machine Summit on March 25, sponsored by Sun Microsystems, and Python Language Summit on March 26, both at PyCon 2009 in Chicago, are invitation-only events that will bring cross-discipline groups together to discuss and strategize on challenges that are common across their projects.
Virtual machines - software layers that sit between machine-specific binary code and language-specific compilers, creating multi-language programming environments - have become a focus of modern language development. Virtual machine developers will attend from a variety of projects, based in a number of language communities: PyPy (Python), Parrot (Perl), Da Vinci (Java), DLR (.NET), TraceMonkey (JavaScript), and MagLev, Rubinius, and JRuby (all Ruby). The summit gives them a unique opportunity to share insights and ideas on their common challenges with an exceptionally broad group.
Allison Randal, architect of the Parrot virtual machine and a director of the Perl Foundation, said, "Virtual machines have become such a crucial part of language development that there are groups working on them from virtually every language community. We're facing similar challenges, and too often, we've been facing them separately. I'm looking forward to this chance to share ideas with some of the best minds in programming."
Python itself has grown into a variety of Python implementations (CPython, Jython, IronPython, PyPy) and an ecosystem of tools and resouces like the Python Package Index. The Python Language Summit will bring managers of these projects together for focused discussions on topics including the ongoing transition to Python 3.0, better coordination between different Python implementations, and improved packaging of Python libraries and applications. The agenda is at http://us.pycon.org/2009/about/summits/language/.
PyCon 2009 takes place from March 25 to April 2 at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare and the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare in Chicago, IL. The core conference dates are March 27 -- 29; the two summits run concurrently with the tutorials on March 25 -- 26. The core conference is followed by development sprints (March 30 -- April 2), sponsored by Canonical, where attendees will work with project leads for four days of intensive, cooperative coding to advance major Python projects.
About Python
Python is an open-source, dynamically typed, object-oriented programming language that can be used in nearly the entire range of technology applications. It offers an easy learning curve and access to a vast array of libraries. With implementations available for all common operating systems as well as the Java and .NET platforms, Python can be used on virtually any system in existence. Like other open-source, dynamic languages, it offers rapid productivity and a vigorous developer community; at the same time, Python's clarity and reliability give confidence to enterprise users. The December 2008 release of Python 3.0 marks a major milestone in Python's history, bringing new levels of clarity, consistency, and power to Python code.
About PyCon
Presented by the Python Software Foundation, the world’s largest Python conference brings together a diverse group of developers, enthusiasts, and organizations to explore new challenges, launch new businesses and forge new connections within the Python community. PyCon provides attendees with the opportunity to delve into the dynamic programming language employed by well-known companies such as Google, Cisco, and the New York Times. PyCon helps people learn new tools and techniques, present their own projects, and meet other Python fans.
PyCon 2009 is sponsored by twenty-two leading companies, including White Oak Technologies, Inc. (Diamond); Google and Sun (Platinum); and ESRI, CCP, Visual Numerics, Microsoft, slide.com, and Walt Disney Animation Studios (Gold).
Links
Press Release #2
PyCon 2009 Takes Python to New Places
CHICAGO - February 10, 2009 - PyCon 2009, the seventh annual conference of the worldwide Python programming community, has opened registration and announced its list of accepted talks. The topics show Python appearing in a variety of places outside its traditional realms.
From hackathons in Africa to a neutrino detector at the South Pole; from massive multicore machines to tiny embedded wireless devices; and from mobile phones to distributed heterogeneous networks, talks at Pycon 2009 demonstrate how Python is being used in places and in ways that will startle even longtime Python users. Python continues to branch out across software platforms as well, with several talks covering the growing use of IronPython and Jython on the .NET and Java platforms.
Meanwhile, traditional Python strongholds such as science, education, databases, and web programming are not neglected, and several talks flesh out attendees' understanding of fundamental Python topics. Software craftsmanship is another prominent topic, with many talks describing techniques for testing and deploying high-quality code.
The 10 invited talks and 65 accepted talks are only a part of PyCon's schedule. The three-day main conference will be preceded by two days of intensive tutorials with 32 sessions on a broad range of topics. Lightning Talks, Open Space sessions, and keynotes will provide even more learning opportunities throughout the conference. Finally, attendees are invited to stay after the conference for four days of development sprints, where they can work alongside some of Python's greatest programmers to advance prominent Python projects like Django, One Laptop Per Child, and the Python language itself.
PyCon 2009 takes place from March 25 to April 2 at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare and the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare in Chicago, IL. The core conference dates are March 27 -- 29; tutorials run March 25-26, and development sprints run March 30 - April 2.
About Python
Python is an open-source, dynamically typed, object-oriented programming language that can be used in nearly the entire range of technology applications. It offers an easy learning curve and access to a vast array of libraries. With implementations available for all common operating systems as well as the Java and .NET platforms, Python can be used on virtually any system in existence. Like other open-source, dynamic languages, it offers rapid productivity and a vigorous developer community; at the same time, Python's clarity and reliability give confidence to enterprise users. The upcoming production release of Python 3.0 marks a major milestone in Python's history, bringing new levels of clarity, consistency, and power to Python code.
About PyCon
Presented by the Python Software Foundation, the world’s largest Python conference brings together a diverse group of developers, enthusiasts, and organizations to explore new challenges, launch new businesses and forge new connections within the Python community. PyCon provides attendees with the opportunity to delve into the dynamic programming language employed by well-known companies such as Google, Cisco, and the New York Times. PyCon helps people learn new tools and techniques, showcase projects, and meet other Python fans.
Links
Media Contact
See PyCon 2009 press releases at http://us.pycon.org/2009/about/press/
Press Release #1
Python Conference Changes Venue to Accommodate Growth
World's largest Python event returns to Chicago
CHICAGO - October 20, 2008 - PyCon 2009, the seventh annual Python community conference, will take place March 27 to 29 at Chicago's Hyatt Regency O'Hare hotel.
In 2008, its first year in Chicago, PyCon stunned organizers by drawing over 1000 attendees, up from 586 in 2007 and 410 in 2006. To avoid running out of room in 2009, organizers have moved next year's conference to Chicago's Hyatt Regency from the Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare, its 2008 venue.
"The continued growth of PyCon keeps us on our toes. Each year's new attendees bring new energy to the community with their enthusiasm and their creativity - not to mention their sheer numbers; we changed venues to accommodate expected growth. It's an exciting time to be in the Python community", said David Goodger, PyCon chair.
PyCon, an entirely volunteer-run conference, encompasses topics across the breadth of Python usage, from core language design to dynamic web applications. PyCon includes hundreds of regular talks, keynotes, Lightning Talks, hands-on laboratories, and informal Open Space events, as well as a sponsors' expo hall. PyCon 2009's main conference days (March 27-29) will be preceded by two days of intensive, half-day tutorials - increased from last year's single day due to their popularity. After the conference, many attendees will stay for four days (March 30 - April 2) of development "sprints" - cooperative programming workshops that advance selected open-source projects.
About Python
Python is an open-source, dynamically typed, object-oriented programming language that can be used in nearly the entire range of technology applications. It offers an easy learning curve and access to a vast array of libraries. Python has shown steady growth in the TIOBE index and has advanced from position 8 to 6 in the past year. With implementations available for all common operating systems as well as the Java and .NET platforms, Python can be used on virtually any system in existence. Like other open-source, dynamic languages, it offers rapid productivity and a vigorous developer community; at the same time, Python's clarity and reliability give confidence to enterprise users. The upcoming production release of Python 3.0 marks a major milestone in Python's history, bringing new levels of clarity, consistency, and power to Python code.
About PyCon
Presented by the Python Software Foundation, the world’s largest Python conference brings together a diverse group of developers, enthusiasts, and organizations to explore new challenges, launch new businesses and forge new connections within the Python community. PyCon provides attendees with the opportunity to delve into the dynamic programming language employed by well-known companies such as Google, Cisco, and the New York Times. PyCon helps people learn new tools and techniques, showcase projects, and meet other Python fans.
Links
Media Contact
See PyCon 2009 press releases at http://us.pycon.org/2009/about/press/
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