[portland] django coders?

[kirby urner]

I agree with Dylan that marketing hasn't been Python's chief forte,
especially pre the new logo, which PSF has wisely taken steps to
protect, to the tune of $50K by one estimate, and that didn't include
Israel.

Holden and I were looking at billboard, cab sign, side-of-bus pricing,
though it was "airport concourse in Iceland" that I was thinking,
given Twisted connection, and a "just use it" slogan, conscious play
off of Nike's (there's a link through greek mythology some of you
might know about).

Python has a lot to work with, including but not limited to Monty
Python connections.  In terms of repute among the young, it ranks very
high "for a computer language" and aye, there's the rub.  Who gives a
flying fuck about computer languages?  Practically no one.

The only truly "marketed" language I've seen was Java, originally Oak
(?), but consciously branded and sold with all the yummy coffee and
coffee shop associations befitting a contemporary office environment,
huge rank and file cube farms full of people needing compile time
checking, not really test driven, looks sweet, but less fun ("we
prefer runtime" might be a bumper sticker?).  Anyway it's not
either/or, and there's always Jython for breakfast.

Still, I'm upbeat about our fledgling dictatorship, think it shows
signs of life.  That remark about Rivendale at Pycon was fortuitous,
got Steve talking about "pointy ears" for swag (OK, maybe too
Halloweeny).  Then there's zoomorphic ways of teaching OO, such as I
favor (per Blip TV etc.), where snakes feature prominently, with
scales 'n everything.

Back to reality though, I think part of the problem is we live in a
backward nation that outsources everything and only has eyes and ears
for "real estate stories" in its major metropolitan papers, i.e. we're
dealing with urban farmers and country gentlemen, Victorians who argue
about "evolution in schools" as if Scopes were just yesterday.  Intel
only gets 19% of its MVPs from the local scene, was the figure at the
TechStart meeting (Willamette University), because, lets face it,
Americans are just plain stupid, no ifs ands or buts.  What can I say?
 It's not genetic of course, but self imposed.  We dumb ourselves down
with a vengeance, an interesting process to observe.

Ergo, most of my own marketing thinking is focused "out there" where
I'm looking for more bank from the buck (Iceland, Philippines,
Uzbekistan etc.).  If PPS starts teaching Python or Ruby or Perl as a
part of everyday math class (why not? -- TI calculators more useful?),
our economy might start turning around, but in the meantime I think
we're mostly still into selling hot air (most of it political),
indulging in bling (increasingly faux -- like those new cheapo $400
watches on Wall Street, not the real deal).  The only really secure
industry in our region is native American casinos, and they recruit
the cream of the crop (e.g. CSN CIO a top Reedie, knows his stuff,
works in a Stillaguamish establishment, might do an eduPycon there
sometime? **).

Kirby

** http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2008/07/python-project.html
(eduPycon project)

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 8:05 AM, Dylan
Reinhardt<python at dylanreinhardt.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 8:36 PM, Jeff Rush <jeff at taupro.com> wrote:
>
>> Rami Kassab wrote:
>> >
>> > Nonetheless, Dylan is very correct. Python needs to market itself
>> better!!!
>>
>> Actually from what you describe, Python -is- being marketed very well --
>> it is producing clients asking for Python developers that cannot be
>> found.  I see that here in Dallas as well.
>
>
> Yes and no.  It's not hard to get a decent share of the Python pie, but it's
> an incredibly small pie.  Python could be 10x larger than it
> is... but to do that, we would have to really give a crap about
> marketing the language.  All indications I've seen are
> that such a crap is not likely to be given.
>
> Our community leaders may be composed of software geniuses, but they suffer
> from a serious case of not-getting-it when it comes to marketing.  They very
> strongly do not want to discuss anything beyond objective technical merit
> and don't think it makes any sense to design python.org to reach outside the
> F/OSS community.  It took almost 10 years just to get to the point of having
> a logo that was applied consistently and didn't look horrible.
>
> It would be great if we could get our act together on this, but I'm not
> holding my breath.
>
> $.02
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/portland/attachments/20090615/232f8c74/attachment.htm>
> _______________________________________________
> Portland mailing list
> Portland at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/portland
>