[Python-Dev] Business related to the upcoming Python conference

[Eric S. Raymond]

I'm sending this to python-dev because I believe most or all of the
reviewers for my PC9 paper are on this list.  Paul, would you please
forward to any who were not?

First, my humble apologies for not having got my PC9 reviews in on time.
I diligently read my assigned papers early, but I couldn't do the
reviews early because of technical problems with my Foretec account --
and then I couldn't do them late because the pre-deadline crunch
happened while I was on a ten-day speaking and business trip in Japan
and California, with mostly poor or nonexistent Internet access.

Matters were not helped by a nasty four-month-old problem in my
personal life coming to a head right in the middle of the trip.  Nor
by the fact that the trip included the VA Linux Systems annual
stockholders' meeting and the toughest Board of Directors' meeting in
my tenure.  We had to hammer out a strategic theory of what to do now
that the dot-com companies who used to be our best companies aren't
getting funded any more.  Unfortunately, it's at times like this that
Board members earn their stock options.  Management oversight.
Fiduciary responsibility.  Mumble...

Second, the feedback I received on the paper was *excellent*, and I
will be making many of the recommended changes.  I've already extended
the discussion of "Why Python?" including addressing the weaknesses of
Scheme and Prolog for this application.  I have said more about uses
of CML2 beyond the Linux kernel.  I am working on a discussion of the
politics of CML2 option, but may save that for the stand-up talk
rather than the written paper.  I will try to trim the CML2 language
reference for the final version.

(The reviewer who complained about the lack of references on the SAT 
problem should be pleased to hear that URLs to relevant papers are in
fact included in the masters.  I hope they show in the final version
as rendered for publication.)
-- 
		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the
government off the backs of the people.
	-- Justice William O. Douglas