[portland] Planning for October Meeting / Python Release Party!

[Igal Koshevoy]

jason kirtland wrote:
> Two new major versions of Python are nearly upon us.  2.6 is scheduled
> for release on October 1st, and Python 3.0 shortly after that.  At the
> September meeting we talked about having a release party at our
> October meeting.
A party sounds good, but I'd definitely like to hear a discussion of the
changes either at this event or the next meeting.

Would anyone in the group be interested in presenting a summary of the
changes and show code samples?

If coming up with a real presentation seems like too much, we've had
great luck in other groups by simply having a facilitator read through
the list of changes, have people in the audience jump in if they're
familiar with them, and then demo these live on the projector.


Some ways to do such an event:

- Go to CubeSpace for the technical content and then go to another venue
for food and drink. This would be the easiest thing to do, especially if
we expect a modest-sized group.

- Have the entire event at CubeSpace, and offer drink and maybe food.
This would require some planning and someone to act as cashier, but kegs
and pizza are easy to arrange and are affordable. I handled planning for
an event of this sort recently and would be glad to assist. The
food/drink can be sponsored, or we could collect donations before and at
the event. However, for this to work, we'd need a reasonable idea of
expected attendance to figure out how much to buy.

- Have the entire event at the Holocene, where they have a screen, as
well as a bar and kitchen. We had some medium-sized Ruby events there in
the past, and these were easy to do because the venue took care of
food/drink and was free/cheap as long as attendees bought enough
food/drinks. However, reserving the space may be tricky because they
have a fairly full calendar of concerts.

> The PostgreSQL Conference will be here in town Friday 10/10- Sunday
> 10/12.  We could see about combining forces and throwing a combined
> Python/Postgres party, possibly on the Saturday. (Might make finding
> Beverage sponsorship easier!)
Interesting suggestion. I've contacted Selena of the PostgreSQL group
and CC'ed Jason to see if she thinks this may be a good match, whether
an event is already in the works, and who we can talk with about this
further.

-igal