Saturday, August 21, 2010

Setting the turtle free with Sikuli

Have you played with turtle graphics? I enjoyed Logo ages and ages ago. Nowadays there's a turtle module in Python's standard library, plus several other implementations.

But all the implementations I know of keep the poor little turtle stuck inside a dull little window. Last night I realized that, with Sikuli, I can set the turtle free! It can roam freely beyond one little window and have adventures in the big, wide world. Here it is marching right past the edge of TuxPaint and onto GNU Paint.

Note that this is an invisible turtle. But you can see its effects.

For the new free-range turtle, "penDown" and "penUp" are actually "mouse button down" and "mouse button up". If it's walking across a drawing program with a paintbrush turned on, it will paint a line like a traditional Logo turtle. Otherwise, it will click and drag its way across your desktop and your other applications. This turtle can be mischievous!

What really pleased me was just how easy it was to implement with Sikuli. Here's the code in an .skl bundle - it's a zipfile that Sikuli can use directly.

import math

class Turtle(object):
def __init__(self):
self.heading = 0
self.penDown()
self.loc = Env.getMouseLocation()
def forward(self, distance):
sin = math.sin(math.radians(self.heading))
cos = math.cos(math.radians(self.heading))
endpoint = (int(self.loc.x + cos * distance),
int(self.loc.y + sin * distance))
if self.down:
dragDrop(self.loc, endpoint)
else:
mouseMove(endpoint)
self.loc = Location(*endpoint)
def backward(self, distance):
self.forward(distance * -1)
def right(self, degrees):
self.heading = (self.heading + degrees) % 360
def left(self, degrees):
self.right(-1 * degrees)
def penUp(self):
self.down = False
def penDown(self):
self.down = True
def circle(self, radius, extent=360., steps=20):
circ = 2 * math.pi * radius
fraction = extent / 360.
step_length = (circ * fraction) / steps
for i in range(steps):
self.forward(step_length)
self.left(360. * fraction / steps)

def zigzag(startHeading, size, angle, steps):
t = Turtle()
t.heading = startHeading
t.left(angle * 0.5)
for i in range(steps):
t.forward(size)
t.right(angle)
t.forward(size)
t.left(angle)

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

gmail filter appender with Sikuli

Gmail filters are great, but I've got some filters that apply to a hundred different senders - and I'm always adding new senders to them. I've wished for an automated way to add the sender of the message I'm currently viewing to one of my filters.

I'm sure this could be done in Greasemonkey, Selenium, etc., but Sikuli is my tool of interest for the moment - and, after some fumbling, I'm really happy with it.

A partial screenshot, just to give you the idea:

View the Sikuli code, or download it and run it with /path/to/your/sikuli-ide.sh spammy.skl - except you'll probably want to edit the keywords identifying your filter, and possibly recreate the graphics to match your own Firefox theme. Mostly, it's there as an example to learn from.

I'm learning plenty that will go into my Ohio LinuxFest talk, but the big lesson for today is to rely on keyboard-based and text-based techniques rather than picture-finding whenever they're available. For instance, how should I click a button that might have scrolled off the bottom of the screen? There are lots of ways - I could embed find() in a loop with type(Key.PAGE_DOWN), for example - but it's more reliable to piggyback off Firefox's "Find" to zoom in on the text on (or near) the button and then find it.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Sikuli at Ohio LinuxFest

And now, for my next trick, one month from today, I shall demonstrate how to script virtually any program with a GUI... without touching an API! (audience gasps)

If You Can See It, You Can Automate It: Sikuli
Your computer should save you from doing tedious and repetitive tasks yourself, but automation programming has been too difficult for casual uses. MIT's Project Sikuli changes that. It fuses traditional text-base scripts with actual screenshots of targets on your screen, making programming simple, versatile, and useful. If you've ever told a friend, "Go here, now click on this, then on that", you know enough to start using Sikuli. Let Project Sikuli shake up your notions of what programming is like.

I'll be spending most of this month using Sikuli to build a test suite for a complex GUI app at work, recording the pain points as I go. I'd also appreciate your questions and comments about Sikuli - I may be able to work them into my talk (or at least be prepared when they're asked from the audience.)

Ohio Linux Fest, Sep. 10 - 12.

Sunday, August 08, 2010

"Many Eyeballs" - HA!

Oh, yes, I feel I should record this little incident from PyOhio 2010, for the sake of evidence during Nick's trial.

I used PyOhio's Lightning Talks to give away our swag prizes; and, in the spirit of open-source, I put the code on the projector for everyone to see.

import csv
import random

regfile = open('registrations.csv')
reader = csv.DictReader(regfile)
registrants = list(reader)

def pick():
winner = random.choice(registrants)
return '%s %s' % (winner['First Name'],
winner['Last Name'])

Then I realized that I didn't have the Lightning Talk sign-up board, so I went out into the hall to get it. I was gone maybe 60 seconds. When I got back, I called pick() and got... Nick Bastin!

The room giggled. Nick said, "Wow, that's the first time I've written bug-free code on the first try!" I didn't get it, so he said, "Why don't you pick another winner?"

Nick Bastin!

The nice thing is, my code was intact. However, this was lurking in my directory.

$ cat random.py
def choice(foo):
return {"First Name" : "Nick", "Last Name" : "Bastin"}

The lesson here is: Many eyeballs can help protect you from malicious code... unless they're all in on it!

PyOhio 2010 review

My own PyOhio 2010 wrap-up post is highly suspect, because I'm probably not one to deliver an unbiased opinion. So, when I say that

IT WAS AWESOME

you can be forgiven for being a little skeptical. In fact, one of my few regrets is that I didn't collect firm, objective data on just how awesome it was. I don't have accurate numbers on attendance yet - our sign in sheets are, um, somewhere around here. We had 179 pre-registrations; subtract some no-shows, add some walk-ins, and you get... I don't know. But the place was bustling!

The talks were good, and more importantly, they stimulated some excellent informal activity. The Open Space activity was stronger than ever this year; some of them packed our Open Space rooms to the walls. There were a fair number of Python newcomers there - yay! - and I was glad that we had a good Beginners' Track for them. An After-Hours Board helped people coordinate some evening fun together. Overall, it was not at all just "a place to see talks", but a full immersion in the awesomeness of Python people. Of course, the sprints were the big after-hours event, but they deserve their own post (soon to follow).

OSU's new Ohio Union was a great locale. It helps a lot that it has a design and a staff specialized in holding meetings and conferences, and it's just fantastic that the OSU Open Source club was able to provide the space at incredibly good rates. We look forward to using virtually the same space next year, with just some minor tweaks.

And, for everybody who wondered how we put on a great show at no charge... thank our sponsors!
  • Microsoft
  • Intellovations
  • AGInteractive
  • Dayton Microcomputer Association
Anyway, I'm delighted. I had fun and learned a ton. I hope you did, too! Thanks so much to everybody who took part!

Here are a couple other wrap-up posts I've happened across. Let me know about others you find.

Alex Gaynor
William Chambers
Richard Harding

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

PyOhio: photos plz

We have 138 PyOhio registrants so far - that's greater than the total number of attendees last year. I'm excited!

Is there a shutterbug in the house? I'm always envious of the photos taken at some conferences, like this one of Python core sprinters at EuroPython. (Hi, guys! Our contribu-palooza-ers will be joining you soon!) I want to join the fun. Our PyOhio attendees are just as pretty as any of them!

So if you enjoy taking pictures, and you're coming to PyOhio (and who wouldn't?), please don't forget your camera! Get some group shots, and let me know about them afterward. Thanks!

See you Saturday!

Friday, July 16, 2010

PyOhio

PyOhio staff badge
We are 15 days from the third PyOhio, and I am so excited... My first hope for PyOhio was that it would become a little slice of PyCon-ish goodness in our region... we've definitely accomplished that. This year we're adding on some very serious sprinting that, I think, will make PyOhio an important part of the Python scene not just here, but worldwide.
  • The Android Scripting Workshop has the potential to make Python-lovers of a whole new class of people who wouldn't even call themselves programmers (yet)... people who love their powerful Android phones and will love them even more once they learn the power of scripting on them. One question I'd like your advice on: how do we let these people know about the workshop? They're not reading my blog, after all...
  • The Contribu-palooza is a set of linked events (a classic talk, a "Teach Me" talk, and a big fat sprint) designed to make you into a contributor to the Python language, starting from nothing - we supply the motivation, the skills, and then the hands-on practice. I'd like to see this produce both an immediate new set of Python contributors (including me) and a new way of bringing contributors in.

I hope to see you there!

Friday, July 02, 2010

talking with women

A man at a conference I was at a couple months ago approached me to talk about databases.

It was, in all ways, a good and appropriate conversation, and an example of the reason I go to conferences like that in the first place. But he later confessed to me that he'd been very hesitant to speak to me because he was afraid it would come across as cover for some kind of flirtation. It seemed ridiculous, because he was so far from anything inappropriate, but his uncertainty came a hair's breadth from actually diminishing the conference's benefit to both of us.

You see the big fat irony. Avoiding sexualizing a woman's professional environment is an absolutely appropriate and important goal. But sidelining women from a professional community's social aspects is genuinely harmful.

Most men can easily judge for themselves the difference between friendly and creepy, but geekdom is infamous for its high proportion of the awkward.* I'd love it if there were a really clear and well-known rule of thumb that would assure even the most shy and awkward guys about where "the line" is. The hard part is that men differ so widely in their judgements and self-judgements. Some will be critical or suspicious of themselves at virtually anything, and some find excuses for even the most egregious of their own behavior. It's hard to know how to encourage the former but not the latter.

My first thoughts -
  • Imagine that she were a man. Would you still do or say what you're doing or saying now, or would it feel too awkward?**
  • If you're genuinely worried about it, you're probably not a problem guy in the first place.
What are your thoughts?

* - Understand that, when I say this, it's with affection. I love the socially awkward! I find communities where everybody adheres smoothly to a single social standard to be boring and uncreative. I hope geekdom will always be a haven for the awkward.
** - Obviously not a very useful standard for bisexual people.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Dayton Dynamic Languages User Group

In Dayton, we don't have a dedicated Python user group; instead, we have the Dynamic Languages User Group. I always struggle to explain why I enjoy this group so much, because a quick description doesn't sound that impressive. Each meeting is 5-10 people scattered across the entire dynamic language landscape: Python, Ruby, Perl, JavaScript, PHP... now and then somebody will throw in some LISP or whatnot. There's only occasionally a formal presentation.

Instead, there are people who are very open about sharing both what they know (which is impressive) and what they don't know (which is more important). I've never been in a group where people are more uninhibited about saying, "Wait -- I don't get it." As a result, everything we do gets enriched by some extremely good discussion.

When we don't have a formal presentation, we sometimes walk through a code project somebody's working on, or research a programming topic together (like dependency injection). Recently we've started publishing a simple programming problem and asking the members to bring a solution in their favorite language - reviewing the various solutions is a nice exercise in both language details and programming approaches.

Come see us sometime. We meet the second Wednesday of the month at 7:00 PM at the Dayton Chess Club.

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

On the error message soapbox again

Q. What's wrong with this message?

Database Configuration Assistant: Info - There is an error in creating the following process: /data/ora/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/bin/sqlplus -s -N /NOLOG  The error is: /data/ora/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/bin/sqlplus: error while loading shared libraries: /data/ora/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/lib/libclntsh.so.11.1: cannot restore segment prot after reloc: Permission denied
A. The window that it pops up in doesn't support copy-and-paste (on Fedora 13, at least). If you want to websearch for this message, you have to type it in by hand.

Hey, Oracle - fix it, please? It's the sort of usability problem that I wouldn't nag you about if you were a little FOSS project or a mom-and-pop software shop, but you're a big company with fifty bazillion programmers and entire committees on usability, so I know you can do it.

I'm sure that's the fault of whatever Java GUI library underlies your graphical tools like dbca... so go on and fix the library, and the whole world will benefit!

Also, in keeping with my fixation with good error messages, I implore you to think about error message usability ahead of time. I suspect that error messages get the short end of developer attention because they never appear in sales presentations. Well, actually, they do appear in sales presentations, they're just not supposed to... (although, frankly, watching somebody work through an error is a million times more interesting than watching a polished sales pitch)

Q. What else is wrong?

A. The workaround to this error is to disable SELinux. For the ultimate bestest securest database EVAR, doesn't that seem a little cheesy?

Q. Anything else?

A. Until you actually achieve SELinux compatibility, how about trapping the error with a message that describes the workaround? Failing that, mentioning in the Installation Guide that SELinux should be turned off is a next-best solution... no, come to think of it, forget I said that. "It's on page 732 of the docs" is actually a terrible excuse for leaving a bug unfixed. I don't know how "document it" became an acceptable alternative to "fix it".

Q. Are you finished yet?

A. Almost. After more than 10 years of DBA work, I actually don't know what the proper channel is for making suggestions to Oracle Corp. I end up ranting about it on my blog, approximately the equivalent of wandering into the street and yelling about it. Is that silly or what?

I'm Catherine Devlin, and I approved this message.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

templating engine cookoff updated

Ian wished for loop syntax examples in the Templating Engine Cookoff, so I just added them.

And none of you Django programmers have given me code to include Django templates in the cookoff. You can't throw an exception in this town without hitting a Django programmer, so what's up? C'mon, it's easy - I just need something analogous to this:

The answer to the Ultimate
Question is ${everything['universe'].answer}.

Among our weapons are:
% for weapon in weapons:
${weapon}
% endfor

import mako
import mako.template
class MakoDemo(Demo):
name = 'mako'
version = mako.__version__
def demo(self, vars):
self.template_name = 'mako.txt'
template = mako.template.Template(filename=self.template_name)
return template.render(**vars)


[EDIT: Well done, Django folks! Django is in the cookoff now. Except... hmm... it reacts to missing variables by leaving blanks instead of throwing an exception... so I need a new trick if I want to actually see the Django error stack.]

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

dbapiext.py

Richard Jones alerted me to Martin Blais' dbapiext.py, and I like it very much.

Richard's post focuses on the improvements to bind variable handling. I love dbapiext.py for another reason: it provides query results as namedtuples, a class so perfect for database resultsets that they make me sob with relief.

>>> import cx_Oracle, dbapiext
>>> connection = cx_Oracle.connect('username/password@SID')
>>> results = dbapiext.execute_obj(connection, 'SELECT * FROM crew')
>>> row = results.next()
>>> row
Row(ID=1, NAME='Kaylee Frye', ROLE='Mechanic')
>>> row[1]
'Kaylee Frye'
>>> row.ROLE
'Mechanic'

When memory isn't an issue, I like to transform the result into a list and tack on a simple equality filter method for convenience.

class Filterable(list):
def filter(self, **kw):
for itm in self:
for k in kw:
if not (getattr(itm, k) == kw[k]):
break
else:
yield itm
yield StopIteration


>>> result = Filterable(dbapiext.execute_obj(connection, 'SELECT * FROM crew'))
>>> result.filter(NAME='Jayne Cobb').next()
Row(ID=5, NAME='Jayne Cobb', ROLE='Public Relations')

It is, of course, no SQLAlchemy, and isn't meant to be. It's meant to be a roadmap toward a less awful DB-API for Python. (I still wake up in the middle of the night, gasping, "Five incompatible bind variable formats! It's heresy!") In the meantime, dbapiext.py is a nice lightweight layer for times when SQLAlchemy is too much. For instance, I write lots of database administration tools that poke around in lots of different views of Oracle's data dictionary, and setting up SQLAlchemy mappings for each of them is a pain. dbapiext.py is perfect for that. Thanks, Martin!

Monday, May 03, 2010

Penguicon wrap-up

Thanks to the wonderful audience at my Ren'Py talk. Your patience and your questions got us through the painful time of waiting for the projector to work... bless you all! I hope you have fun with Ren'Py. I've posted my slides and sample game in the Ren'Py forum * here *.

Oh, and I saw a flashbulb during the talk... if you're reading this, could you send me a copy of the photo? I don't have a good recent photo of myself presenting. Unless it sucks, that is. :)

Some of Penguicon's other highlights, from my POV:

Adrian Crenshaw's talk on Mutillidae was delightful. I am so tempted to quit my job and become a security researcher; they have all the fun. He tipped us off to some Firefox extensions for conveniently testing websites for some common vulnerabilities, too.

Matt Arnold's talk on Inform7, which showed me wonderful tools the Inform IDE comes with. It's amazing to see how much work has gone into a language that has such a specialty purpose. I hope I'll find time to put some more work into Inform7 games. I loved this exchange:
Attendee: Is there a limit to how many [options] there can be?
Matt: No! The limit is your sanity!

The dance. I love dancing with nerds. It's so much more fun when the cool kids aren't there. I miss the good old days, though, when we danced to songs, instead of to interminable dance beats. Ah well.

During Mark Ramm's talk about implementing Sourceforge's new TurboGears/MongoDB infrastructure, a questioner invited him to complain about strict schedules for completing a job. Instead, he said that he likes demanding, inflexible deadlines; having flexibility on a project's scope is how you get things done. I thought that was a wondefully wise point of view. A flexible timetable can be an excuse for not triaging a project's scope; a firm deadline helps you make those necessary decisions and actually get something done.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Dayton Oracle meeting

DAY-O, the Dayton Oracle user group, is meeting May 4 - a week from this Tuesday. We've got a full-day meeting planned with lots of great content... see daytonoracle.org for full details.

09:00 AM - 09:30 AM Meeting Registration / Door Prize Raffle Registration
09:30 AM - 10:00 AM Sun / Oracle Merger Update - Gary Hall (Sun / Oracle Corp.)
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM Leading Spaces and Their Diagnosis with Toad for Oracle, A Toad® for Oracle Case Study - Michael Allen (SmartDBA.com)
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM Break
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Update / Roadmap - Eric Rudie (Oracle Corp.)
11:45 AM - 12:40 PM Lunch - Pizza
12:40 PM - 01:25 PM Exadata 2 Database Machine - Gary Hall (Sun / Oracle Corp.)
01:25 PM - 01:30 PM Break
01:30 PM - 02:30 PM Security and Compliance with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 - Eric Rudie (Oracle Corp.)
02:30 PM - 02:45 PM Announcements / Raffle

Thanks to Matt Morrisey and Vicki Blommel for their organizational work, and to Oracle for being our meeting sponsor!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Bugfixing at PyOhio

Jesse Noller wants to know what's holding you back from working on Python.

He's looking to make the process of contributing to Python more smooth and self-explanatory, less intimidating. That's a good discussion, and I'm not sure what to tell him right now, but it does bring to mind something I really want to see.

Let's have a Python Bug Fixing Tutorial at PyOhio!


Walk everybody nice and slooooowly through the process of browsing through the Python bug tracker (for bugs in Python itself, in its standard library, etc.), checking out code, fixing and testing, making a diff file, submitting the fix. Don't assume that people are familiar with VCS, diff files, the test suite, etc. - all those tools and jargon that separate veterans from intimidated users. Let's break down that separation.

Our Call for Proposals is open right now (through May 10). What a coincidence! I'm not actually on the program committee, so I can't promise that such a proposal would be accepted, but let's just say that the committee will give it serious consideration if they know what's good for them. :)

I'm asking you to propose this, not me, because I am not crazy enough to think that I can lead such a tutorial while chairing the conference; especially since I've never actually done it before myself. Actually, maybe there's one way I could do it: taking the role of the leader/learner in a "Teach Me Twisted"-style you-teach-me session. In that case, I'd want commitments from... hmm... let me say 3+ experienced bugfixers to talk me through it in front of a live audience.

One way or the other, let's see to it that PyOhio transforms some Python users into contributors!

Pythonic PL/SQL

Pythonic PL/SQL exists!

https://code.launchpad.net/~catherine-devlin/pythonic-plsql/trunk

I imagine it will grow in fits and starts as my job needs dictate, but it shouldn't ever be abandoned, since I'm incorporating it gleefully into my own production code.

So far, format (Python 3-style string formatting) and join are available. I'm not using object-oriented PL/SQL at all (I find it very unsatisfactory), so instead of
','.join(mylist), you use pythonic.join(',', mylist).

I'm very open to contributions from others! There's plenty of room to participate, since implementation has barely begun.

There are Quest Code Tester tests for it, too, but unfortunately that's a closed-source project and I have to check on what the rules are for releasing tests produced with it.

Of course, most hard-core PL/SQL developers will already have written or found code to handle basic, common operations like this. But, by sticking close to names and APIs we're familiar with from another increasingly well-known language, I hope to reduce the amount of brainspace you need to remember how to do it all.

Usage samples::
   
DECLARE
crewlist pythonic.string_list
:= pythonic.string_list ('Wash', 'Kaylee', 'Mal');
crewdictionary pythonic.string_dictionary;
curs SYS_REFCURSOR;
template VARCHAR2 (100);
BEGIN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (pythonic.join ('; ', crewlist));
-- output: "Wash; Kaylee; Mal"
OPEN curs FOR
SELECT name FROM crew ORDER BY name;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (pythonic.join (' *** ', curs));
-- output: "Kaylee *** Mal *** Wash"
template := '{2}! {1} says we''d better replace that catalyzer!';
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (pythonic.format (template, NULL, 'Kaylee', 'Captain'));
-- output: "Captain! Kaylee says we'd better replace that catalyzer!"
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (pythonic.format (template, crewlist));
-- output: "Mal! Kaylee says we'd better replace that catalyzer!"
crewdictionary ('First Officer') := 'Zoe';
crewdictionary ('Public Relations') := 'Jayne';
template := '{First Officer}: (to {Public Relations}) "I can hurt you."';
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (pythonic.format (template, crewdictionary));
-- output: Zoe: (to Jayne) "I can hurt you."
END;

Monday, April 19, 2010

P(ythonic)L/SQL?

I'm itching to begin creating a bunch of PL/SQL packages that will emulate certain handy Python features. Before I sink too much time into it, does the LazyWeb have anything to recommend? Or, perhaps, volunteers to help make the dream come true?

I want to start with a package for Pythonic string manipulation:

'The {0} brown fox jumped over the {1} dog'.format('quick','lazy')
.join()
.split()
.splitlines()

... and so forth

I think this package would not just implement the ones that don't exist in SQL or PL/SQL, it will provide Pythonically familiar names and interfaces to the ones that do exist.

Granted, there's only so Pythonic you can get in PL/SQL. A perfect set of packages would be a heroic task. Still, it's easy to imagine helping PL/SQL to suck less...

Sunday, April 18, 2010

templating engine cookoff

There are more Python string templating engines in the world than homemade chili recipes. Which is tastiest? Let's have a cookoff!

We all have different criteria, of course. The only organized comparisons I've seen between them are based mostly on measuring speed of rendering. Huh? I have never said to myself, "Wow, I'm wasting so much time because these templating engines aren't rendering fast enough. If only they would finish in 0.4 seconds each instead of 0.6!"

I have said to myself, "Wow, I'm wasting so much time because there are errors in my templates, and my templating engine isn't helping me find them." Writing templates is tricky. Errors are common. So, for me, clear error messages are the key virtue. My cookoff focuses on recognizing the engines that report the filename and the offending string when a rendering failure occurs. It also displays a typical simple syntax for writing and using each type of template (so it can serve as a cheatsheet as well).

My results? So far, only jinja2 and genshi report both filename and the error-causing string. The jinja2 error stack is more concise overall, so I award it the prize by a nose.

I'm really happy with the framework I wrote for doing the cookoff, too, so I posted it on Launchpad. It is really, really easy to add new engines for comparison - feel free to suggest or submit them! In fact, I hope that others can adapt my cookoff framework to other situations that call for side-by-side package comparisons.

Incidentally, why are comparisons like this usually styled "smackdowns" or "shootouts"? What's up with that? We're not trying to put anybody in the hospital! We're just trying to select our favorite from a banquet of delicious offerings. Eat up!

Monday, April 12, 2010

I'm speaking at Penguicon

Ren'Py: A Visual Novel Engine

Computer gaming, anime/manga, Python programming, fiction writing: Ren'Py is everything you love about Penguicon rolled up into one. It's an open-source visual novel engine that lets you program graphical games and stories with the greatest of ease. Creating basic linear or branched stories is almost as easy as writing them on paper - yet Ren'Py is also a full-fledged Python environment, so there's no limit to what you can program as you learn. This intro will show you everything you need to start creating your own masterpiece. Ikimashou, otaku-san!

May 1, 2010, 12 noon - 1 PM
Detroit Marriott Troy
200 W. Big Beaver Rd.
Detroit MI 48084

YOU: Okay... but will you give the presentation wearing a homemade Elizabethan-era dress?
ME: Yes!
YOU: Cool! Um... why?
ME: Because this is Penguicon!

What's Penguicon? It's an open-source software conference... it's a science fiction fandom conference... it's an awesome hybrid of the two! Super-sharp technical people come for some awesome knowledge sharing, and the SF fans help make the atmosphere even more relaxed and imaginative than at a normal FOSS con. I love both sides of the con and especially the ways they mix together, which is why I wanted to give a talk this time that would really encompass it all. (Costumes are totally optional, by the way. But they sure are fun!)

(Psst - if you install Operator, you'll be able to automatically process the microformatted data in this post and add it to your calendar. Cool, huh?)

See you in Detroit!

PyOhio Call for Proposals

PyOhio's http://www.pyohio.org/CallForProposals is out, due May 10. Let your imagination run wild; PyOhio is what we make it, no more and no less. Help us make this year's PyOhio the best yet!