Empty Thoughts

This Week in Django is a weekly podcast about all things Django.

This week we talk to Doug Napoleone on of the many volunteers working hard to bring us PyCon 2008 in Chicago. Doug is Software Coordinator and Webmaster for PyCon 2008 and lead developer and maintainer for PyCon-Tech. Doug gives you all the information you need to be well prepared for PyCon this week. We also announce the winners of the Win Cool Stuff Contest and some information on This Week at Pycon.

Please see the Show Notes below for all the pertinent information and links

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Show Notes

Doug Napoleone on PyCon 2008 (2:27)

• Dougma – Doug’s blog.
• PyCon-Tech

Doug is Software Coordinator and Webmaster for PyCon 2008 and lead developer and maintainer for PyCon-Tech.

Doug touches on the following subjects. Lots of great information in the show. If you’re going to PyCon you want to be sure to get the scoop.

1. What’s not new this year.

2. Whats new this year. (Program guide, longer lunches, more lightning talks, vendor booths)

3. Social events (Python Lab, Board games, bag stuffing, Galcon Tournament)

4. Record attendance (And the registration problems we had)

5. Beyond the talks: (Open Space, 5th track (hallway), evening parties, Sprints)

6. Future of PyCon: (what do we do now that we have attendance breaking the 1K mark)

7. Getting there and Getting Home.

8. A brief intro to PyCon-Tech and some of the great hidden gems in there.

Win Cool Stuff Contest (43:38)

We appreciate all the submissions to the Win Cool Stuff Contest. All valid submissions will be recognized on future episodes. Our winners will have the option of appearing on the show to discuss their winning submission.

Watch the winners drawn live

The winners are:

• The Definitive Guide to Django: Web Development Done Right – Congratulations to Francis Cleary for his submission “Multiple view prefixes”.

• Django T-Shirt – Congratulations to Paul Kenjora for his submission “Adding Custom Actions To Django Admin Change Forms”.

Special thanks go to Apress and Eminent Consulting Group for donating the prizes.

This Week at PyCon (48:34)

For the This Week in Django podcast we will be doing the following:

• PyCon Unwind – Nightly one hour podcasts on our experience of the day. Get three or more other attendees to join us. We will do our best to slap these up on the web every day. If you want to hang out or get in on the Unwind we’ll Pownce it when / where. Free beer—hang out and have fun. We’ll be in the Dorval Int’l from 7PM to 8:30PM.

• Impromptu Chats – Chats with people in the hallways, or wherever, etc…

• Interviews – We are working to coordinate some interviews but since everyone is very busy at PyCon this may or may not happen.

The main thing is we are going to keep thing flexible.

Thank You! (54:26)

• Django.June – an unconference.

• Oebfare – Brian Rosner’s excellent blog.

• django-sqlalchemy – project to integrate Django’s models into SQLAlchemy’s ORM.

We appreciate all the submissions to the Win Cool Stuff Contest. All valid submissions will be recognized on future episodes. Our winners will have the option of appearing on the show to discuss their winning submission.

In true Django fashion I created a Django application that was used to draw the winners. You can watch the screencast here:

Watch the winners drawn live

The winners are:

• The Definitive Guide to Django: Web Development Done Right – Congratulations to Francis Cleary for his submission “Multiple view prefixes”.

• Django T-Shirt – Congratulations to Paul Kenjora for his submission “Adding Custom Actions To Django Admin Change Forms”.

Special thanks go to Apress and Eminent Consulting Group for donating the prizes.

Just a friendly reminder that the Win Cool Stuff Contest will be ending shortly. If you wanted to submit something but haven’t be sure to get it in shortly. There haven’t been a lot of submissions so your chances of winning are pretty good.

You can definitely feel the momentum in Django these days. So, it is no surprise that Sams Publishing chose to offer Django in its Teach Yourself series. This one is written by Brad Dayley and is titled Sams Teach Yourself Django in 24 Hours.

It looks like all the updates to the Django Book have been made available to the online version. Check it out now: http://www.djangobook.com

Mike Clark just announced the release of his new Beta book Advanced Rails Recipes. Although it is a beta book, it already contains 42 recipes, and by the time the book is complete there should be 70+ available.

Unlike the first Rails Recipes book, written primarily by Chad Fowler, this books is collection of the best tips and tricks from the Rails community at large. Mike Clark contributed, reviewed, edited, and consolidated them into a great collection of the most up-to-date Rails information available.

For those of you that do not know him, Mike Clark is an independent consultant, author, trainer, and programmer. I got to know Mike and his lovely wife Nicole through their excellent training program at The Pragmatic Studio.

I just received my PDF copy and plan to make my way through it over the next week or two. So many new books, so little time…

Very exciting news!! Those of you who follow James Bennett’s blog, The B-List, closely already know the news. For those of you who don’t (yes both of you) there is great news on the Django resource front. James Bennett just announced that he’s writing a Django book titled Practical Django Projects. It will likely not hit the streets until June 2008 time frame but it sure puts a spring in my step tonight.

Well it looks like it’s finally here. The Definitive Guide to Django: Web Development Done Right is finally shipping. If you haven’t ordered your copy yet, head on over to Amazon and get it today.