"The Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) is using Python to develop its innovative Personal Information Manager, Chandler. Regarded by many as an unconventional choice for this task, why did we choose Python? Now that development is at the mid-point, what have we learned? I'll report on what's worked well, what could work better, and the challenges and rewards ahead."

Mitchell Kapor is the founder and Chair of the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF), a non-profit organization working to create and gain wide adoption for software applications of uncompromising quality using open-source methods. OSAF is designing a new application called "Chandler" to manage email, appointments, contacts, and tasks, and easily allow information to be shared with friends, family, and colleagues. Chandler will be free of charge and will run on the Windows, Macintosh and Linux platforms.

Kapor has worn many hats over the past 25 years: software designer, entrepreneur, and social activist, among them. He founded Lotus Development Corporation in 1982 and designed Lotus 1-2-3, the "killer app," which made the PC ubiquitous in business. He is the co-founder and former Chair of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization working in the public interest to protect privacy and free expression on the Internet.

Kapor has written widely about the impact of personal computing and networks on society in publications including Forbes, Scientific American, and The Buddhist Review. In 1997, he created and endowed the Mitchell Kapor Foundation, a private foundation focused on the intersection of health and the environment, the social impact of information technology, and removing barriers to full participation in education and the workplace, by historically disadvantaged groups.

Guido van Rossum is the creator of Python, one of the major free scripting languages. He created Python in the early 1990s at CWI in Amsterdam, and is still actively involved in the development of the language.

In 1995 he moved to the US; first to work for CNRI in Reston, VA as a researcher, then for Zope Corporation as Director of PythonLabs, and since 2003, after a move to the SF bay area, for Elemental Security.

His home on the web is http://www.python.org/~guido/.

"Many people observe that type checking is a religious discussion best avoided. I often agree, having started more than my share of fires in this area. However, there are a few issues surrounding types and type checking that capture the essential distinctions between programming languages. This understanding makes the pitfalls worth the risk, so in this talk I will look at various issues and arguments surrounding the concept of type, and in particular examine the phenomenon of 'latent typing' (often called 'weak typing'), why the concept is powerful, and how it is expressed in different languages. In the process, I will attempt to clear up many of the issues that have arisen during attempts to describe Python's place in the spectrum of language features."

Bruce Eckel (www.BruceEckel.com) is the author of Thinking in Java (Prentice-Hall, 1998, 2nd Edition, 2000, 3rd Edition, 2003), the Hands-On Java Seminar CD ROM (available on the Web site), Thinking in C++ (PH 1995; 2nd edition 2000, Volume 2, 2003), C++ Inside & Out (Osborne/McGraw-Hill 1993), among others. He's given hundreds of presentations throughout the world, published over 150 articles in numerous magazines, was a founding member of the ANSI/ISO C++ committee and speaks regularly at conferences. He provides public and private seminars & design consulting in C++ and Java.

Although he writes about C++ and Java, Bruce reaches for Python first when creating his own tools.