A Glimpse of PyCon in Your Hometown

As in past years local Python user groups are hosting PyCon speakers to give their talks in a dress rehearsal before PyCon. It is good for the speakers, good for the local user groups, and good for PyCon (more polished talks! I did a teardown/rewrite of my talk last year based on Boston PIG feedback). Here are three dates I know of with locations and speakers:

Toronto, Feb 16, Linux Caffe

* Leigh Honeywell: Think Globally, Hack Locally - Teaching Python in Your Community
* Greg Wilson: What We've Learned From Building Basie
* Mike Fletcher: Debating 'til Dawn: Topics to keep you up all night

Boston, Jan 20, Microsoft NERD center

* Francesco Pierfederici: Python for Large Astronomical Data Reduction and Analysis Systems
* Jack Diederich: Python's Dusty Corners
* Ned Batchelder: Tests and Testability
* [added] Antonio Rodriguez: preview of his Keynote

Boston, Feb 3, Microsoft NERD center

* Peter Portante: Demystifying Non-Blocking and Asynchronous I/O
* Glyph Lefkowitz: Turtles All The Way Down: Demystifying Deferreds, Decorators, and Declarations
* Edward Abrams: DJing in Python: Audio processing fundamentals

Seattle, Jan 30, Paul Allen Center

[added from Seattle PIG in the comments]
* Speakers TBD


The Toronto announcement is here and though Boston hasn't been officially announced it was organized by Ned Batchelder this year (he organized last year's "PyCon on the Charles" too).

I'm happy to see Boston back up in the rankings with six talks this year. I intend to fully [ab]use my slot by briefly highlighting all the "dusty corners" (all the __method__ methods and object protocols) and then, based on feedback, expanding on just a subset for PyCon proper. The opportunity to see talks beforehand is a boon; you can see a talk NOW and free up a slot during PyCon and you can also see talks that you would otherwise skip altogether (I saw a great talk last year that I wouldn't have picked based on the printed program's blurb). And of course you can get ahead on your "hallway track" by catching up with people a month ahead of time.