• EuroPython
• 2006
• TrackDescriptions

Hopefully very soon, we'll send out a call for papers. This should describe each track. If you're a track chair, please put some nice text here.

• Refereed Papers -- Armin Rigo, Carl Friedrich Bolz

  • Ever since the International Python Conference (IPC) stopped running as a separate venue, the Python world has lacked a properly prestigious peer-reviewed forum for presenting technical and scientific papers. This track aims to fill that gap.

    Can copy the separate CFP from http://www.europython.org/sections/tracks_and_talks/refereed_papers_inst/ with changed dates

• Agile Development -- Holger Krekel, Bea Düring

  • The agile development portfolio is full of methodologies (eXtreme Programming, Scrum, Crystal, FDD etc ) and practices such as pair programming, automated test-driven development, iterative development and sprints. These practices have been adopted and tailored to suite the needs of commercial projects as well as open source projects and communities, whether they work co-located, distributed and/or dispersed. This track is about

    • experience reports and models relating to agile techniques used for tackling challenges in your development project or company.

    • talks about testing and other tools supporting collaborative practices.
    • insights and lessons learned from managing or particapting in distributedly developed projects.

• Social Skills -- Beatrice Fontaine, Aiste Kesminaite

  • This track is intended to address a problem common to all communities of software developers, a.k.a. geeks: that of having to communicate with other groups/individuals who are driven by totally different priorities, such as corporate/academic politics, finances, etc. Since the track schedule was defined by its presenters as much as by its attendees, it ultimately covered vital topics like software patenting as well as the reality of selling your services, on top of the social aspects of collaboration with other staff, and customers. The following are on the most-wanted list today: Social Skills:
    • How to present and sell yourself?
    • How to collaborate in mixed (tech/non-tech) teams?
    • How do language problems affect collaboration?
    The Politics of Open Source: How are we affected by recent developments in the EU software patent battle? This is an open list and will, like last year, be stretched and ironed to incorporate every useful and interesting topic you propose.

• Science -- Nicolas Chauvat

  • This track will focus on the use of Python in science and industry, where tasks imply modelling complex systems (thermics, fluid dynamics, mechanics, aeronautics, biology, chemistry, etc.), processing very large data sets and achieving very CPU-intensive and long calculations. Speakers will present tool sets, frameworks and examples of successful applications based on Python and integrated with the other usual tools and applications used in the field.

• Web Frameworks -- Paul Everitt, Godefroid Chapelle

  • In the past year, Python's story for web frameworks has seen exciting new ideas and movement. This year's EuroPython reflects this by changing the Zope track into a generic web frameworks track. Join us as we hear about the big new ideas, learn from each other across projects, and try to move forward Python's web story.

• Python Language and Libraries -- Samuele Pedroni

  • A track about Python the Language, all batteries included. Talks about the language, language evolution, patterns and idioms, implementations

    (CPython, IronPython, Jython, PyPy ...) and implementation issues belong to the track. So do talks about the standard library or interesting 3rd-party libraries (and frameworks), unless the gravitational pull of other tracks is stronger.

• Business and Applications -- John Pinner, Harald Armin Massa

  • This is where EuroPython thinks outside our Python community - about the applications we have written for ordinary people and businesses, and about how we've sold them to the outside world.

    • What Python apps have you written? Tell your fellow Pythonistas about them. Exchange knowledge and maybe gain new business partners.
    • How do you sell your apps and services into the business community?
    • What strategies have you used to convince potential customers and what works for you? Come to think of it, what doesn't work?
    • How do you license your apps? Do you use a Free Software licence or is your application proprietary? Tell us what path you have chosen and why.
    • What have you learnt about introducing new technology into userland?
    • Share your experiences with the community and go home enthusiastic and enlightened.

    At previous EuroPythons we have heard about applications as diverse as indexing and searching the US patent database, and payroll. We have had panels on software patents (more work to do yet, I'm afraid) and licensing.

    If you have any questions about how you can contribute to this track, please contact the Track Chair, John Pinner (MailTo(john AT clocksoft.com)). But most of all, please send us your proposals for talks for the Applications and Business Track.

• Teaching -- Laura Creighton

  • Are you trying to teach python to somebody? or are you using Python to try to teach something else? The current collection of planned python talks covers a wide range, including teaching to elementary school children, and teaching science to graduate students using Python. It will be rounded out with talks on teaching in Africa, because I happen to know people doing work teaching there. All people who are using python in a teaching environment are welcome, to discuss anything relevant to the teaching experience.

• Games and Entertainment -- Michael Sparks

  • Games are one of the key reasons people start using computers, and python provides people with the power and simplicity to write games of their own from simple sudoko games, arcade games through to massive online gaming systems. There's both commercial usage of python for infrastructure and scripting as well as community events encouraging you to build a game from scratch in a week. Similarly not all the tools that people use for writing games end up being used that way, and get used for entertainment purposes like PVRs, like audio/video players, like fun presentation tools. Come share your experience with the wider community, about how you get started, about how you build something large, about how you build something small, about how you built something cool. Share how YOU built your games, and entertainment systems. In return you may well gain new collaborators, certainly new ideas, and discover new ways of doing things. If you have any questions about how you can contribute to this track, please contact the Track Chair, Michael Sparks ( michael.sparks (AT) rd.bbc.co.uk ). We look forward to hearing what you have to say about python in the home at Europython!

• Misfits -- Laura Creighton

  • So you don't think your talk fits into any of the existing tracks? Talk to me, and we will see what we can do. Many of the past years best talks (as evaluated by the attendees) first showed up as misfits, so do not feel shy, just mail me.