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Join our monthly meetup in Christchurch about all things Python at Trade Me’s office at 181 High Street. Doors open at 5:30pm, with the talk starting at 6:30pm. Trade Me is generously providing food and drinks.
This month, Zane Gilmore will be talking about databases and Python.
Visit the event’s meetup page to RSVP and for more details.
The meetup will also be accessible virtually. Point your web browser at https://bbb2.nzoss.nz/b/men-pg1-cot-ai2 to access the session using Big Blue Button.
PS: NZPUG’s Code of Conduct applies for our local meetups. Please take a look if you you haven’t read it yet.
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Hey everyone! This is the post where we ask for your help!
Kiwi PyCon XIII is shaping up to be a great one. We’ve got two amazing keynote speakers, a beautiful venue, the call for proposals is open, and tickets are selling.
The next thing on the list is for us to start finding helpers and volunteers who can help ensure the event runs smoothly and that everyone has a fantastic time.
When it comes to volunteering at a conference, there’s always a handful of fairly specific roles, like “staffing the registration desk” or “A/V camerawork”, but there are also always just a bunch of things that suddenly you discover need to happen like “oh crap we need better signs pointing the way to rego” or “quick! the sanitisers need refills/we need tape/we forgot water for the speakers/we need a power extension for this sponsor booth”, as well as just the labour of getting set up and packed back down.
On our “become a volunteer” page, you can register your interest in helping with any specific roles, or all of them!
You don’t need any prior experience. There will be a bunch of us volunteering who have done this before, so we can show you what needs to be done. That said: being a volunteer is sometimes just about noticing a need, and finding a way to fulfil it, if you have an instinct for that, you’ll be amazing.
I want to answer the obvious question: “What will I be sacrificing by volunteering?”
- The biggest one (to me): you might lose some autonomy when it comes to which conference talks you get to see live. For example you might be doing A/V in one room while another room has a talk you want to see. That said: we try to work around everyone’s interests, and the more volunteers we have, the easier that is.
- We’d really like you to be at the venue early enough to help set up, and late enough to help close it down, so you might sleep-in a little less than you otherwise could.
- If you’re keen to be on the A/V team there will probably be a training session with the team that it’ll be important you not miss (details TBD).
At Kiwi PyCon, we’re all volunteers, and every single person participating makes the conference that little bit better. Head to the “become a volunteer” page, to sign up and help us make it all happen!
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We’ve been looking forward to letting you know and are delighted to now announce that Deb Nicholson has kindly agreed to be a keynote speaker at Kiwi PyCon XIII.
Deb Nicholson is the Executive Director at the Python Software Foundation, the non-profit steward of the Python programming language. She is a free software policy expert and a passionate community advocate. After years of local organising on free speech, marriage equality, government transparency and access to the political process, she joined the free software movement in 2006.
She has previously served the open source ecosystem through her work at the Open Source Initiative, Software Freedom Conservancy, and the Open Invention Network. She’s won the O’Reilly Open Source Award and the Award for the Advancement of Free Software for her efforts to broaden the free and open source software movement. She is also a founding organiser of the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference, an annual event dedicated to surfacing new voices and welcoming new people to the free software community.
She lives with her husband and her lucky black cat in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Let’s Future-Proof Python”
If you’re lucky, you’re part of a big important project (like Python) that is very likely to outlive you. That might make it feel like you have all the time in the world to do everything you want to do, but you never know how much time you have. That might sound a little grim, but it’s important to accept that if we’re going to plan for the future. Even though it feels very, very personal while you’re doing it, community work is not entirely about you. It’s about what we leave for the next generation of Pythonistas. I want us to start planning for the far future of the Python ecosystem today.
In this talk, we’ll discuss future-oriented leadership which means addressing issues as you find them, spearheading thorough solutions that don’t leave a mess for the next person and always, always planning for someone else to take over your work one day. With a forward-looking mindset and some strategic planning, we can make sure that the next generation (and the one after that and the one after that) will always have a robust, open source Python eco-system to rely on. This talk is for all mortal Python contributors.
Kiwi PyCon XIII
Deb Nicholson will be joining Russell Keith-Magee, Our Friday workshop facilitators, our wonderful attendees (that’s you!), our amazing speakers (hey, we think that that might also be you!), our sponsors (maybe your company!), and the rest of the team this August 23-25 at the Wellington waterfront. The Kiwi PyCon XIII call for proposals is accepting submissions right now and until the 23rd of May.
We can’t wait to see you all!
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Kiwi PyCon XIII is shaping up to be the best one yet.
We’ve got a gorgeous venue on the Wellington waterfront. Ticket sales are well underway, and we’ve got one amazing keynote so far and we’re about to announce the next!
Now, the goal is for us to put together the best programme of talks we’ve ever had at a Kiwi PyCon, and that’s where all of you come in: A conference isn’t something that the organisers construct and then present to you, it’s something that all of us have a hand in turning into the experience that we want it to be.
Chelsea Finnie, Kiwi PyCon XII in Waihōpai Invercargill I’d like to warmly encourage you submit a talk proposal to Kiwi PyCon. Presenting a talk at a community conference is deeply rewarding. Is there a subject that you’re interested in or enthusiastic about? We want to hear you telling us about it!
A question people often ask themselves is if they’re “qualified” enough on a subject. If we can see you are in to what you’re talking about, we probably will be, too: Enthusiasm is infectious. And you can ask anyone: the process of writing a talk about a subject is a quick way to get much better informed on it yourself.
This year Kiwi PyCon is a two-track conference. Our goal is to have one stream weighted towards beginner-friendly topics, and the other weighted towards more advanced material. For that reason, we’re looking for a broad range of subjects to cover, and you don’t have to worry about whether you think the topic is too “basic”.
How to propose a talk
Refer to the CFP page for the details, but I want to mention a few things here:
You’ve got time: the final date for submitting proposals is 22 May, 2024.
But you don’t want to leave it to the last minute: Here’s what I recommend you do: once you have the seed of an idea, log into pretalx and create your submission. You can update it and elaborate on it right up until the deadline.
The best things about this is (a) you’re getting your foot in the door, and (b) you’ll inevitably come up with ideas that would make your talk better, a week or two after you submit it, and so by getting the submission in early, you can update it!
Let us know if you’d like to mentor inexperienced speakers
Finally, if you’re an experienced speaker who is willing to spare a bit of time hearing from new prospective speakers, please let us know! Mention it in your social media circles, or contact us so we can connect you with anyone seeking some advice for their talk submission.
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Hey everyone! We have two Kiwi PyCon XIII announcements today:
Earlybird pricing ends this week
This is the last week you can buy Kiwi PyCon tickets at the “earlybird” discount prices. The discount ends on 31 March. For those who already know they’ll be attending, it’s a great chance to get your ticket early, cheaper, and be all set and ready to go way ahead of time!
Speaking of which….
Accommodation deals are now available
We’re happy to announce partnerships with several Wellington hotels to get you cheaper accommodation for the weekend of Kiwi PyCon XIII!
ibis Wellington, Travelodge Hotel Wellington, and Quest Wellington have all very kindly agreed to offer special rates to Kiwi PyCon XIII attendees.
For all the details, see the accommodation page on the Kiwi PyCon site.
Kiwi PyCon XIII is being held at Shed 6, Wellington, from 23-25 August 2024. See you there!
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We are delighted to announce the first of our two keynote speakers for Kiwi PyCon XIII this year in Wellington: Dr Russell Keith-Magee!
Dr Keith-Magee is the founder of the BeeWare project, a project developing GUI tools and libraries to support the development of Python software on desktop and mobile platforms. He joined the Django core team in 2006, and was President of the Django Software Foundation for five years. He is a frequent speaker at Python and Django conferences around the globe, sharing his experience as a FLOSS developer, community maintainer, and (unsuccessful) startup founder. In his day job, he is a Principal Engineer at Anaconda, working on BeeWare in the OSS team.
“Wither Python?”
The first version of the Python programming language was released 33 years ago. The computing world that existed then is radically different to the world that exists today – and as a result, the language, community and users of Python have changed as well.
In this keynote, Dr Keith-Magee will reflect on how Python, and computing as a whole, has changed over the years. He will also look at what hasn’t changed – and make some predictions about what the future may hold for Python.
Kiwi PyCon
Kiwi PyCon is New Zealand’s Python language and community conference. It will be held at Shed 6, the Wellington waterfront from 23-25 August 2024. Earlybird-discounted ticket sales are available until the end of March and the call for proposals is available now!
We can’t wait to see you there!
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The purpose of PyNoon is to help professionals learn Python in a friendly and convenient learning environment to the level where they can actually start using Python at work.
If this sounds like something you’d like to get involved in, check out the contact details at the end of the post.
The First PyNoon
The first PyNoon was a single 10-session course based in the Auckland CBD spanning the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. Over 60 people expressed an interest in participating and we started with 39 learners.
We lost some over the Summer Break and the various holidays in February but ended up with about 25 people still attending most of the sessions by the final session.
Feedback was positive and further courses are planned.
The first course covered Python with an emphasis on data analysis using Pandas and Plotly on either JupyterLab or Google Colab.
TechNoon and Python
PyNoon is the first cab off the rank for TechNoon. It emerged from discussions between the founders at Kiwi PyCon 2023 in Invercargill.
The TechNoon Manifesto
Industry needs training in technical skills that is:
On-the-job
- TechNoon is primarily for people already in technical jobs, not people trying to enter the workforce. There are lots of good training options for students seeking to be work-ready in technical careers – TechNoon is to upskill people already working.
In-person
- Learning technical skills is easier when it is done in a face-to-face community. There will usually be an on-line component of TechNoon but in-person sessions are central. People helping people is part of the TechNoon ethos
Small weekly commitment
- People already in jobs are busy and can’t usually devote long periods of time to skills training. TechNoon courses will usually be between 3 and 15 sessions of 2-3 hours each (including homework) depending on the topic. Given the practical emphasis of TechNoon, it should be possible to split longer courses into smaller, boot-camp sized courses, each with its own practical focus.
With multiple sessions
- Unlike one-day workshops, TechNoon courses are delivered as multiple sessions interspersed with work so learning can be applied between sessions. This makes it possible for learners to bring practical questions / issues to subsequent sessions and avoid getting “stuck”. It is also more motivating to learn something in sessions if there are regular attempts to apply that learning in practice. This is one of the main benefits of on-the-job training compared with academic training.
- Learning technical skills takes time and spaced repetition and time between learning sessions helps new skills stick.
Around lunch-time
- TechNoon occurs around lunch-time to make it easier to fit into the work week and to build community.
At accessible locations
- Because TechNoon is a lunchtime activity it is important that it is delivered in locations that are as close as possible to where people work. Industry support in the form of training venues is very important.
Practical and hands-on
- Teaching and homework will typically have a substantial hands-on component where learners are actually making something useful – for example, programming code, configuration, or documentation
Industry-led
- Teachers will be people in industry with skills to share. TechNoon is about learning so it is crucial that teachers have good communication skills. This doesn’t mean TechNoon can only be delivered by superstars. Although there will be individuals who are unicorns with great technical, communication, and administrative skills, a more common pattern is to deliver training as a small team. There needs to be technical expertise in the room but the person actually delivering the bulk of the teaching should have good communication skills and an orientation to teaching
Free
- Because courses are by industry, for industry, the courses are free. Having said this, before people sign up to a course it is expected will be able to commit to the entire course, and meet the homework requirements
- Free means that managers don’t need to get budget approval to send people to a paid course. Managers can just approve the time for their staff.
- Furthermore, the overheads of running a paid course (managing payment, tax obligations, implication of some kind of certification) mean that TechNoon wouldn’t be practical if it wasn’t free.
With custom courses
- The flexibility of TechNoon encourages delivery of specialist courses for smaller numbers of learners. Some courses will be larger and more general, for example, an introduction to the Python programming language; but others might be less ambitious, for example, a course on how to write readable, maintainable SQL; or more advanced, for example, containerisation best practice
Focused on practical results, not credentials
- At the end of a course the question to ask is not what certification was gained but what specific skills were actually put to use in the existing work context. Did the training make a practical, tangible difference? Is something different as a result?
- This is arguably the key question that the trainer needs to keep front of mind while developing a course.
With open sourced content
- Teaching resources should be shared to reduce the effort required to increase technical skills in industry. TechNoon follows the open source ethos of “give a brick, get a building”
- Less of an industry need, but more of a practicality to make this training actually happen
- Releasing teaching resources, including code, under a Creative Commons licence that ensures attribution will ensure companies that make successful training resources get the appropriate credit and recognition in return.
Why TechNoon is needed
Tertiary degrees and diplomas are not a good answer for people already in jobs. Even Boot Camps are a significant challenge for most people with job commitments. Courses also tend to be too general with hit-and-miss content for people in specific roles
On-line courses, and individual articles and documentation, can’t provide the individualised support and the motivation that an in-person course can
Internal corporate training can’t achieve the economies of scale and specialisation of an industry-wide training ecosystem
Vendor training doesn’t cover the range of skills required and is not focused primarily on what is good for industry
Next Steps
The next step is to refine and sub-divide the content so it can be delivered by other people with minimal effort. Ideally, we’d like to find someone to deliver another round in Auckland – we had a long waiting list and there might be some people who missed sessions and want to make another attempt. We’ll probably limit it to 12 people this time to make it easier to reliably book a venue. We’ll also be looking carefully at how the flow between sub-courses works in practice.
Other courses will probably branch out of TechNoon e.g. maintainable SQL, and version control using git (see https://technoon.org/).
Thanks
Thanks to Tower Insurance, especially Jeff Turin, for hosting most of the events and 2degrees for supporting Grant’s involvement and providing a backup venue. Also to NZPUG for moral support. And to our helpers, Nathan McDougall, Dr John Graves, Sam Boyes, with Charles Lan, Elliot Paton-Simpson, and Giles Paton-Simpson.
Get Involved
Attending a Course
If you are interested in attending a PyNoon course visit https://pynoon.github.io/apply/
Running a PyNoon
Finally, are you interested in running a PyNoon if we supply all the resources and support? Even if you are not sure, just contact me at grant@p-s.co.nz. Remember, we are designing the material so it doesn’t require teaching superstars. Brilliance is always welcome, of course, but we don’t want to rely on it for the success of PyNoon.
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Wednesday 06 March 2024 – 19:30 NZDT
RSVP/Attend: https://www.meetup.com/nzpug-auckland/events/299512253
We’re trying something different!If you would like to bring some code which is challenging/bugging you (suitably shortened, or ‘anonymised‘ if it’s a work thing), or which you think will be a challenge to others, please do. Additionally, we have two challenges to tackle:
- suitable for Beginner/Intermediate-level folks (not raw Beginners)
- more advanced topic for Intermediate+
At last month’s Auckland meeting, I suggested that the Coding Evening idea has not been enjoying its previous success, and proposed the termination of these extra meetings each month (hint, hint!). This change in emphasis makes it about you…
This will be a learning activity NOT a class-room. It’s participative, so please wear your head-set to communicate with others, and have your IDE/editor open and Python ready to go…
Please note the later starting-time! The doors will open about 15-mins earlier, if you’d like to chat whilst the technology is being organised…
See you there! =dn
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Dear friends, we are delighted to announce that Kiwi PyCon XIII will be held on the Wellington waterfront, Shed 6, from the 23rd to the 25th of August, 2024.
Earlybird ticket sales and the Kiwi PyCon call for proposals launch today.
Kiwi PyCon is New Zealand’s national Python conference. Its inaugural event was held in Christchurch in 2009. Since then it’s been hosted from the Bay of Islands down to Invercargill. For 15 years Kiwi PyCon has brought the New Zealand and international Python communities together to foster connections, learn from, and teach each other. This year, for the fourth time, Kiwi PyCon returns to Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington.
What to expect
Kiwi PyCon is a three-day, two-track conference. On Friday we are hosting four long-form workshops, and an evening social event with a programming competition.
Saturday and Sunday are conference days with 30 minute and 45 minute presentations on all topics and skill levels. On Sunday there will be the traditional lightning talk sessions with a series of 5-minute rapid fire presentations (often a highlight). The schedule outline is available now, with further details to come in later updates.
Earlybird ticket sales start today
Ticket sales for Kiwi PyCon launch today at a steep discount. We are able to offer these earlybird prices from today until the end of March. There are options for attending the full conference, excluding the Friday workshops, and/or including/excluding the conference T-Shirt.
You can purchase a “contributor ticket”. A contributor ticket is both a ticket for the purchaser and a sponsorship contributing to the Kiwi PyCon Financial Aid programme. Every contributor ticket sold helps someone attend the conference who would otherwise be unable to do so. I bought my contributor ticket before drafting this announcement, and if you are in a position to be able to, I warmly invite you to purchase one too.
Purchase your tickets to Kiwi PyCon XIII here.
Attending with financial aid
Kiwi PyCon provides financial aid to those who otherwise would not be able to attend.
We strongly encourage people to apply for financial aid — some attendees, speakers, workshop tutors, etc. may have some, or in rare cases, all of their expenses such as travel, accommodation and conference ticket fee provided to them from the Kiwi PyCon budget.
Applications for financial aid are available from today, and close on the 23 May 2024.
Read more and apply for financial aid here.
We want you to take the stage
By speaking at Kiwi PyCon, you are helping shape the future of the community in New Zealand and beyond. Speaking at a conference is an amazingly rewarding experience, and Kiwi PyCon cannot be what it is without the contribution of new speakers, and experienced ones.
We are looking for submissions on topics of interest to the Python community in Aotearoa. Our conference is attended by people with a wide range of interests and experiences, including experienced professional programmers, people who use Python to support their work in other fields, students, and hobbyists.
Anyone can submit a proposal to be a speaker or poster presenter at Kiwi PyCon. Any topics of interest to the Python community are suitable for a talk or poster, Kiwi PyCon attendees include a broad range of interests, professions, and experience levels, but we all share our enthusiasm for Python.
Full details on the call for proposals can be found here. The call for proposals ends on 23 May for talks and 30 June for posters.
We wouldn’t be here without you
Kiwi PyCon cannot exist without the generous support of our community, our attendees, the speakers, the sponsors, and every individual human being who puts their time and passion into bringing us all together. We can’t wait to welcome you all here again, to Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.
