Greetings from jennifer, my edubuntu box in the basement (just loaded some laundry, enjoying the cool of an underground cave -- no central A/C in this house nor even wall units, and it's a record breaking day for A/C in PDX, in terms of consumed megawattage (KOIN News www.koin.com), with a local high of 102F, also record-breaking. At the local supermarket (good A/C in there) I picked up the latest Linux mags and noticed Ruby getting a lot of attention as a kind of "SmallTalk + Perl" (interesting). I did study the Rails system after the last OSCON and understand the appeal of "opinionated platforms" (not all things to all people -- but maybe exactly what *you* need for this job at this time). Python was also showcased in one article: picture of Guido + entrepreneur, around this photo journalism service (online Python webapp). I don't have the mags with me, so won't be able to pin down the reference in this post. I'm mostly @ Math Forum & blogs of late, challenging California's ed standards (a way of sparking debate) and talking up gnu math (Pythonic math is a subclass of this more generic approach to merging OO with more traditional pre-computer notations). I'm not sure how tied I am to OO in the long run, but find Python's concept of namespaces, based on dictionaries (right down to self.__dict__) so satisfyingly consistent, that I'm not inclined to abandon ship any time soon. Closer to home, I continue to work through Wanderers, a local thinktank under the umbrella of isepp.org, recently joined by Glenn Stockton of Global Matrix, David Tver (a mathematician) and others. It's through this group that I landed my paying gig as Pythonic math teacher at the local university (PSU), with an ideal set of young enrollees. I've often used Wanderers as a focus group, when preparing a new Python talk, be that for Linuxfest in Bellingham, a training for local GIS/GPS experts, an OSCON, Pycon, or EuroPython. I'd like to try more adult-centric venues next, so am sorry about not making it to EuroPython this year (mostly young-than-me adults), but maybe next year. More local venues should suffice for field testing. I'll keep ya'll up to date. Kirby