Discussions on advocating the use of Python take place on the following mailing lists:

• [http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy General Advocacy (everyone welcome)]

• [http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/usergroup-advocacy Committee to Support Usergroups]

• [http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/group-organizers Gathering of Current/Future Usergroup Leaders]

Greetings! I'm the PythonAdvocacyCoordinator. You can reach me via email at MailTo(advocate AT python DOT org). I'm always glad to hear ideas or corrections.

Current Focus

• [wiki:/UsergroupSupport to support and encourage the formation of usergroups]

• [wiki:/5MinuteVideos to create a series of 5-minute videos introducing uses of Python]
• to write whitepapers as a follow-on to the 5-minute videos

• [wiki:/ProgrammingForNewprogrammers exploration of getting non-programmers to start with Python]

How You Can Get Involved!

Want to help with some writing? Check out our list of whitepaper/flyer AdvocacyWritingTasks or magazine ArticleIdeas.

Suggestions from the Community

• Identify a shirt store in Europe, to provide a more local source of Python wearables than Cafe Press.

• Help complete the remaining 15% of Python-equivalent recipes (and review the existing 85% for being current with Python 2.5) of the [http://pleac.sourceforge.net Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook], a side-by-side comparison of algorithms in different programming languages based on the Perl Cookbook.

• Do something about python.com! Python is a great teaching language, but one of the first things a curious student is likely to do in search of more info is go to their browser and surf to www.python.com. Yikes! It is unlikely that we can get them to give up their domain name, but maybe they could be convinced to at least put up a front page with "You are about to enter an adult site, are you 18, etc..." And if we were really lucky, their front page could contain "If you are looking for info on the Python programming language, go to www.python.org" How can we "encourage" them to do the right thing?

Advocacy Resources

Python Advocacy Kits

Anchor(AdvocacyKits) [#AdvocacyKits (permalink)]

• [wiki:/CollegeStudentKit College Student's Python Advocacy Kit] (being developed)

• [wiki:/ItDepartmentKit IT Department Python Advocacy Kit] (being developed)

• [wiki:/UniversityEducatorKit University Educator's Python Advocacy Kit] (being developed)

• [wiki:/K12EducatorKit K-12 Educator's Python Advocacy Kit] (being developed)

• [wiki:/HomeSchoolEducatorKit Home Schooling Educator's Python Advocacy Kit] (being developed)

• [wiki:/PythonForScientists Python for Scientists Advocacy Kit] (should be developed)

• [wiki:/UsergroupSupport Python Usergroups Advocacy Kit]

Reusable/Retargetable Teaching Materials

Anchor(TeachingMaterials) [#TeachingMaterials (permalink)]

• [wiki:/SlidePresentations Excellent Slide Presentations] - we're looking for the best out of many

• [wiki:/ClassHandouts Class Handouts]

Other Resources

• [wiki:/WearablesGadgets Promotional Items like shirts, posters, etc.]

• [http://advocacy.python.org/@@/collaterals/ Document Library]

• WellKnownPythonPrograms - you may already be using Python!

• LanguageComparisons - Python Compared to Other Languages

• [http://pythonology.org/ Pythonology: A Site for Python Advocacy] (success stories, how-tos, press list, and more)

• [http://www.python.org/doc/Summary.html Executive Summary] ("What is Python?")

• [http://docs.python.org/dev/howto/advocacy.html Python Advocacy HOWTO]

• MarketingPython

• [http://www.cafepy.com/article/53/ Python Marketing] Yet another article collecting quotes and facts pointing to explosive growth of Python in the enterprise.

• PythonAdvocacyInScientificComputation

• And if you think that Python programs run slowly, please read PythonSpeed where some of the issues related to speed are discussed.

• Python23Release (preparation of PR and marketing message for Python 2.x Release)

postive reports about Python

• [http://www.clapper.org/bmc/blog/id/75] Brian M. Clapper explains his feelings "Why is Python more fun than Java?"

Please send me MailTo(advocate AT python DOT org) any files that might be useful for giving out at user groups or business meetings.

Existing material appears (also) at ["evangelism_support_materials"] and PromotingPythonBof. Note [http://psf.pollenation.net/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/ticket/160].

General Notes

Advocacy is the process of letting people know what Python is good at, and drawing them into using the language. The most effective forms of advocacy lure users to the language by impressing them with results, rather than brow beating or lecturing them on language design.

Published articles that answer the question "how do I solve X with Python?" are a good way to get people interested.

One goal for writing articles might be to develop a library of How-Tos for Python. Much information exists, but it has not been collected for convenient access from python.org (or another central location), and there are certainly gaps in covering key strengths of Python.

A collection of [http://python.org/about/success Python Success Stories] already exists. These are also useful, usually by helping engineers convince their bosses that Python is worthy of attention. But success stories tend to be lean on "how-to" style information, so they do not offer a convenient path to get new users working with Python.

Since the goal for advocacy is to highlight Python's strengths, [http://wingware.com/python this Key Strengths list] may be useful.

Print and Online Magazines that Accept Technical Articles

We would like to focus on those magazines outside the Python community, in order to reach those who don't know about us. Also there are many magazines that accept press releases that do not accept articles. We need those that welcome articles.

• [http://linuxjournal.com Linux Journal] [http://www.linuxjournal.com/xstatic/author/index Author Guidelines]

• [http://www.ddj.com Dr. Dobbs Journal] [http://www.ddj.com/authors.htm Author Guidelines]

• [http://byte.com Byte Magazine] (no guidelines found; may not accept non-staff material)

• [http://www.mactech.com MacTech Magazine] [http://www.mactech.com/editorial/writersguide.html Author Guidelines]

• [http://www.onlamp.com/python/ O'Reilly Python Dev Center] -- Inside Python community in a sense but O'Reilly gets a lot of exposure.

• [http://www.infoworld.com/ Infoworld]

• [http://www.artima.com/ Artima Developer]

• [http://www.intelligententerprise.com/ Intelligent Enterprise]

Electronic Magazines that Accept Technical Articles

• [http://arstechnica.com Ars Technica] [http://arstechnica.com/site/styleguide.ars Author Guidelines]

CategoryAdvocacy