[EuroPython] KeyNoters

[John Pinner]

Michael Hudson wrote:
> Jacob Hallén <jacob at strakt.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>On onsdag 06 april 2005 15:54, Harald Armin Massa wrote:
>>
>>>Hello to all the members of the KeyNoteSpeaker recruiting Team (KNSrT)
>>>
>>>
>>>Who knows anything 'bout
>>>
>>>http://www.paulgraham.com/index.html
>>>
>>>Paul Graham ???
>>>
>>>He wrote "hackers and painters", got a Millionair during
>>>dot.com<http://dot.com>bubble, founds startups ..
>>>
>>>a) can he speak enthuastically?
>>>b) has anyone heard him?
>>>
>>>what do you think, could he fit?
>>
>>Paul Graham spoke at one of the earlier Pycon's. I found him to be a good 
>>speaker with some fairly interesting things to say. At Pycon he spoke about 
>>the future of programming languages, especially with a view towards Python 
>>3000. His opinions on that matter were fairly far out.
> 
> 
> He would surely be interesting.
> 
> For some reason, I'm full of names today (something that notably
> wasn't true yesterday on IRC): Kent Beck, any of the Design Patterns
> Gang of Four, Richard Gabriel, Peter Norvig, James Gosling.  All a bit
> American, though, and I've no idea how likely any of them would be to
> accept an invitation.  Or if any of them are interesting speakers.
> 
> A more off the wall suggestion would be Ken Macleod -- leftie British
> Sci-Fi author with a bit of a techie streak.  Or Iain Banks -- the
> same, but Scottish and probably a bit less of a geek.

I think keynote speakers are always a problem: there a several 
'inspirational' speakers about, but often you think after their talk 
'What a great talk, but actually what was it about, what was the 
message?' On the other hand, if the speaker is not that good a speaker, 
the message may get lost.

The Pycon keynoters this year were not that impressive. Guido said that 
his keynotes are always crap, but hey he's Guido and he has important 
things to say about Python, so he's wrong. The Google keynote told us 
nothing. Jim Huganin's talk on IronPython at the evil empire was 
interesting and witty, that would be good for EP, even if there wasn't a 
deep message.

Of the keynotes we've had at EP before, the ones that stand out in my 
mind were from Eric Raymond (although I realise that there are reasons 
why some people might not wish to invite Eric back), and Mark 
Shuttleworth. Although Mark's talk was largely about his space trip, 
that was interesting in itself, and he had a very basic and simple 
message about keeping Python simple and true to its roots which I hope 
we all remember.

Ideas:

Jim Huganin.

Larry Wall (despite what people say, there is a lot of common ground 
with PERL, there'd be no harm and maybe a lot of good from the two 
communities working together).

Steve Holden.  Good speaker, long time Python buff and PSF board member. 
Could be available without too much trouble as he is moving from USA to 
UK this summer.

RMS if we could get him (would he come?). Some of his opinions might 
hurt some of the more commercial Python people, but that might provoke 
good things.

Someone from the FFII? Lots of ignorance about the importance of the 
patents issue in the Python community, I fear.


Regards,

John
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