[python-uk] UK Python Conference: Oxford, April 16-17 2004

[andy at reportlab.com]

At long last I am pleased to announce that there will once again be a UK
Python event this year.  This is being organised as a track within the
ACCU (Association of C and C++ Users) conference. It will be held at the
Randolph Hotel in centre of Oxford on Frday 16th and Saturday 17th April. 
The dates were chosen so people could take less time off work or get
cheaper flights across Saturday. It follows a 2-day Open Source event with
Eric Raymond, Paul Everitt and a host of other interesting speakers.

A provisional programme and details are available at
     https://www.accu.org/conference/prog.html
Python stuff is "bottom right".


The general theme is "where Python goes next".  In keeping with
the other ACCU tracks, it is an event about the language and about
programming.  Speakers provisionally include Eric Raymond, Alex Martelli, 
Samuele Pedroni, Armin Rigo, Duncan Booth, Chris Withers David Ascher,
Marc-Andre Lemburg, Michael Hudson, myself and (to be confirmed) David
Ascher.  There may be a PyPy sprint concurrent with the event.


----
Tha ACCU event will be unlike any other Python event adn has certainly
been organised differently, so let me add a few remarks on how it came
about....

Whether we call it a track or "the UK Python conference" is up to the
community :-)


The ACCU conference I supposed to be a place where professional
programmers can take a week out to follow all the latest and greatest
developments in languages, methodologies and tools.  The Python track aims
to follow this theme.  I would like to express my gratitude to the ACCU
for putting on an event at their own financial risk, with their own
professional staff,
and which puts Python on an equally serious foooting with C++ and Java in
the development world.

This is explicitly NOT
  (1)  a budget event  (it's actually about GBP 100 per day if you sign up
fast)
  (2)  a place to show off specific neat Python apps or projects
  (3)  a democratic, commnunity run event
EuroPython fills all those roles perfectly and we don't want to conflict
with it.


The lack of (3) is more an accident of peoples' schedules than
a planned conspiracy. The ACCU does not normally issue calls for papers;
the committee recruits  from their membership which comprises the top
echelons of the C, C++ and  Java worlds (e.g. Stroustrup, Coplien, and
various ISO working groups which are co-hosted).  They assumed I'd do the
same, I assumed we were all going to do a call for papers, and in December
we cleared up the confusion, panicked, and did it the ACCU way :-)


A number of issues were up in the air until last week which prevented an
announcement.  We will now be publicising it regularly.  There will be
considerable space for mini-talks in the breaks, for BOFs, a possible PyPy
sprint, and for low-cost sponsorship options for open source projects and
consulting firms.  I'll be posting updates at approximately weekly
intervals.

Best Regards,

Andy Robinson
ReportLab (and ACCU Python track chair)