The technology scene of Montréal is a very vibrant one. With groups such as our selves, OWASP, JS-Montreal, Montreal.rb, and PHP-Québec; with events such as WordCamp, PodCamp, Startup Drinks, and Startup Camp; you end up with weeks during which all your evenings are booked before lunch time on Monday. Yet, it also happens that you have a guest in town and that you want to show then how active you city is without knowing where exactly you should take him to.

Fortunately, some members of the community decided to take the matter in their own hands and to expose for all to see what is going on with the tech and startup scene here in Montréal. Next Montréal is a blog featuring news and opinion from the Web, mobile, and gaming communities. The site is piloted by a handful of Montréal entrepreneurs, engaging us with interviews with the local players and giving us a good feel for who’s working on what and what’s the next big thing. Beyond interviews, Next Montréal brings together the community by posting job opportunities and a calendar of events.

Next Montréal is a great initiative and we hope to see more Python project featured there.

This year again, ConFoo is going to be a major conference on Web development bringing together many of the local communities. To celebrate this synergy, everyone is invited to ConFooBBQ, the BBQ for developers and other actors of the Web.

The BBQ will take place on 2010-09-11 starting at 1h00 PM.

On the menu: hot-dogs, chips, salad, soft-drinks, cookies, and lots of fun. In line with our beer inspired events, Montréal-Python will bring a keg a Charmeuse de Serpents, a special batch of India Pale Ale with a very assertive character.

To help us plan adequate supplies, please send an email to board@confoo.ca if you plan to attend. Don’t forget to mention if you come with others. If you can’t find the group once you’re on the site, feel free to give the crew a call: 1-888-679-8466 option 0.

Details of the event:

• when: 2010-09-11 at 1h PM
• where: Mont-Royal park, near the Smith House
• who: developers, actors of the Web, and their family
• price: it’s free
• reservations: board@confoo.ca

Montréal in September is an enthralling an time and place to be part of. With so many universities, you can hardly walk three blocks without bumping into a group of young persons dressed with their grand parents’ cloths and proudly holding signs announcing their initiation. People moving in, shopping for books, meeting old friends in brew pubs, typing on their laptop while sitting on a park bench. These parks,  are slowly left behind as the weather cools down and as cafés fill up once again.

For us too, at Montréal-Python, the vacation must end and we have to get back to work with new presentations and sprints. The preparation for our next meeting is going well and we should be able to announce a date soon. Beside that, we will have two sprints in September: one on Django translation on 2010-09-22 and one on the Python Packaging System on 2010-09-29. As usual, both will start at 6h30pm and will go on as long as people are standing. The most likely location is the Brasseurs Numériques’ office but we have other options in our sight so wait for some announcement later on to confirm the venue.

“What are these sprints anyway?”,
you may ask. During a sprint, a bunch of hackers get together and start working towards a common goal. You arrive there with your laptop, you grab a drink from the fridge, most likely a beer but other options are available, then you ask what everyone is working on. At this point, you might decide to pair with someone else or you may elect to work one some other aspect of the project, in which case you let everyone know what your plans are.

“Why would I join the sprint instead or working from home?”,
you probably wonder at this point. Beside all the merriness that usually ensues from simpling having a bunch of people sitting together with their favorite beverage, mine being beer in case you are wondering, you will typically be much more productive when you have many experts at hand to give you some help when you get stuck. That or you get much less productive as you spend your evening helping others to become super stars, just like you. “Wait, how did you just do that?”, you will probably ask at some point, “in Bash, CTRL-r searches in your history” is the likely reply from your coach. Sprints are like that; you learn new ways to be productive, not things that you would read in books, but the kind of tips and tricks that makes your life easier.

“What if I’m a total noob?”,
Well in that case we don’t want you. Just kidding. We want new comers at sprint because it’s the best place to teach them how to become self sufficient, and it’s much more effective to help them while sitting beside them then by instructing them on a mailing list. We once had one guy come to a sprint without having Python installed on his computer. When he left, he had committed a unit test for distutils2. He is now a core Python contributor.

“That’s cool! Where do I sign up?”,
I’m glad you asked, because venues that are good for sprinting are not very large and we have to restrict participation accordingly. You can make sure that there will be room for you by signing-up on our wiki. If you can’t attend for one reason or the other, you can always work with us remotely and coordinate by IRC, on #montreal-python on irc.freenode.net.

This is what sprinting is all about, and this is why we do it. We hope to see many new faces in our September sprints.

The past month was busy with two programming sprints. The seventh in our packaging series took place on 2010-07-29 and the and eighth was on 2010-08-05. We were planing on having a translation sprint on 2010-08-03 but we faced extreme competition from the excellent weather so it got cancelled for lack of participants. Hopefully, fall will be bring us back to our previous attendance levels.

The seventh sprint was at Brasseurs Numériques with the following sprinters:

• Éric Araujo (remote from France)
• Nicolas Cadou
• Alex Gal
• Yannick Gingras
• Alok Mohindra
• George Peristerakis
• Luis Rojas

It was good to have Éric brave the time zone gap and to sprint with us until the early morning in his hometown. Most of the crew worked on improving the test coverage and Alex got to make some progress towards using argparse instead of getopt for command line arguments.

The eighth sprint was at the Montréal office of Google with the following sprinters:

• Éric Araujo (remote from France)
• Alex Gal
• Yannick Gingras
• Pierre Phaneuf
• Antoine Reversat
• Luis Rojas

Google’s very stylish office is always very welcoming with extra perks such as easy access to the M&M dispenser. Watching the crowd at the outdoor fashion show bellow run for cover during the storm certainly confirmed that it was better to be sprinting than to be drinking on terraces.

Éric decided to stay up late for that sprint too, which really helped us. Most people worked on unit tests, Alex kept working on the argparse integration, and and Antoine improved the PEP-8 compliance of the code.

We will take a break for the rest of the summer but stay tuned for more sprints in September.

Alexandre Bourget’s energetic presentation on Pylons is at last online: Pylons, Web development done right.

Your browser doesn’t support HTML5. Please use the download link.
If you use Safari and want to use a libre format, install the Xiph QuickTime Component at http://www.xiph.org/quicktime

We plan to sprint a few time in the coming weeks. Here’s our schedule:

• Thursday 2010-07-29 (packaging)
• Tuesday 2010-08-03 (Django translation, cancelled)
• Thursday 2010-08-05 (packaging, at Google Montréal)

The first two sprints will be at Brasseurs Numériques, at 1124 Marie-Anne, suite 11, the last packaging sprint will be at Google Montréal, 1253 McGill College, suite 250. Attendance is limited so please RSVP on the wiki. Thanks a lot to AUF for supporting the translation sprint with food and drinks.

update: all sprints start at 6h30 pm EDT (UTC-4) and it’s possible to participate by IRC.
more updates: The packaging sprint on 2010-08-05 will be at Google. The packaging sprint is canceled.

As most of you certainly know by now, Montréal-Python 15 is next Monday. We now have the room number and the list of flash presentations. It will be in room SH-3420 of the Sherbrooke building and flash presenters are going to be:

• Pierre Thibault on ipython
• Dimitry Zolotaryov on dealing with remote API calls
• Derek Mounce on A way-too-short introduction to a new Web framework for Python
• Simon Law on Startup Mistakes in Cloud Deployment
• Wesley Bouarab on skeedy.com

Thanks to our sponsors for making Montréal-Python 15 possible:

• UQAM
• Benelux
• Savoir-faire Linux
• Ecometrica
• Apress

Last Thursday, we ran our 6th sprint on the Python packaging system. Most people worked on distutils2 and its test suite although a few were undertaking the implementation of new features in the 2to3 automated migration tool.

This sprint was a turning point in our sprint series because we managed to get enough notoriety to convince two sprinter to join us remotely despite a massive six hours timezone difference. Alexis Métaireau and Éric Araujo, both living in France and both Google summer of code students on the Python packaging system, joined us util the end of the sprint, around 7am in their timezone. Their participation was very helpful since they were able to answer many questions regarding the road-map and what was in the pipe for various sub-systems of the packaging eco-system. Since they both the commit privilege in the canonical repository, it was very motivating for everyone in Montréal to see their contributions being merged on the fly.

Congratulations to all the sprinter who resisted the call of the terraces to work on the Python packaging system:

• Éric Araujo (remote from France)
• Nicolas Cadou
• Alex Gal
• Yannick Gingras
• Alexis Métaireau (remote from France)
• George Peristerakis
• Luis Rojas

We will have more sprint in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for the announcements.

The last sprint was a productive one, yet we left with a few outstanding issues. In order to correct those while everything is still fresh in our mind, we don’t waste anytime and go for another sprint on the Python packaging system this Thursday, 2010-07-15.

The sprint will be at Brasseurs Numériques, 1124 Marie-Anne, suite 11, starting at 6h30 pm and going as long as there are hackers standing.

Bring your own laptop or make an arrangement for pairing on the mailing list beforehand. Attendance is limited to 12 persons so please RSVP on the wiki.

Last Monday was a hot and sticky day here in Montréal, one of these days when air feels as dense as molasses, when grocery stores run out of ice cream. Yet, a handful of brave Pythonistas decided to brave the heat and to head out to Brasseurs Numériques for the fifth Montréal-Python sprint on the Python packaging system.

The turn out was a bit low compared with previous sprints but this is easily explained by the many regulars who are traveling abroad during the summer. We were also happy to welcome a few new comers.

We took a moment at the white-board to review what was the state of the Python packaging and to define the aspects on which everyone could be contributing.

Alex and Nicolas worked on improving the test coverage in distutils2, a very good way of getting familiar with the code while diving in right away; I, Yannick, gave them a hand by adding test coverage reports as a command line option to the test runner; George and Pior worked on 2to3 migration fixers and on the related test suite; and Davin improved the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Packaging while Michel helped him by packaging a package of his own while following the guide, making sure that the documentation was clear and obvious.

Thanks to the sprinters:

• Davin Baragiotta
• Pior Bastida
• Nicolas Cadou
• Alex Gal
• Michel Gallant
• Yannick Gingras
• George Peristerakis

I also want to personally thank everyone for taking the time to clean their glasses and plates as they were leaving. It was refreshing not to have to do most of the cleanup myself at 1am.

We’re becoming productive during our sprints. One thing that we overlooked when we started sprinting at Montréal-Python is how important it is to have a coach, that is, someone who knows the project reasonably well and who will answer questions from other sprinters. Theoretically, a bunch of hackers could work together, dive in, pry open, and figured out a project as they go. In practice, that does not work very well for a sprint since you get a bunch of people who are not used to work together and the kind of close communication that you need for pair investigation does not have time to kick in during the relatively short sprint. As people are waiting for the investigators to come up with answers to their questions, their excitement dissipates and they get kicked out of the zone.

Another thing that really helps is to have possible tasks with a wide range of difficulty to allow anyone to get busy. An example of great introductory task, as mentioned earlier, is writing unit-test. This requires that setting up a working test environment and producing a coverage report is straight forward and this is what a someone should keep in mind before launching a sprint on a given project.

As it takes some time to setup and to get focussed, one way to improve productivity is to have longer sprint. Hacking during the week-end, especially during nice summer days, is not very popular but dedicated hackers will show up. A good balance between week-days and weekend sprints is key here. Another way to improve is to nail down as many “boiler plate” tasks as possible before the sprint: creating all the Bitbucket accounts and distributing the necessary privileges, assigning tasks, or even setting up a working tests environment.

We have to thank the Python Software Foundation for supporting the sprint by covering the cost of food and drinks. Fuel (food and drinks), is not a requirement for a sprint since dedicated hackers will show up whether they have to bring their own booze or not, but it’s nice to be able to reward sprinters with a savory meal. They deserve it. The sprint sponsorship program is a great thing, not because there is a financial bottleneck to organizing sprint, but because having a common coordinator for Python sprint will help to share the excitement and the knowledge of what works for sprints and what doesn’t. Hopefully, other user groups will join us and make sprints a core element of their schedule.

Montréal-Python 15 is delayed by a week. The new date is 2010-07-26.

Summer is going strong with lots of good opportunities for terraces but we know that beer always feel better after accomplishing something great. This is why we will have a fifth sprint on the Python packaging system next Monday, 2010-07-05.

The sprint will be at Brasseurs Numériques, 1124 Marie-Anne, suite 11,
starting at 6h30 pm and going as long as there are hackers standing.

Bring your own laptop or make an arrangement for pairing on the mailing list beforehand. Attendance is limited to 12 persons so please RSVP on the wiki.

update: We thank the Python Software Foundation for supporting our sprinting effort by supplying food and drinks. You probably recall that not long ago, the PSF announced that it would start a sprint sponsorship program. Montréal-Python is honored to be the first recipient of the program.

This 5th Django sprint at the Google office wraps-up on a great conclusion: things are moving forward!
This is 951 new lines translated by our 6 sprinters:

• Davin Baragiotta
• Pior Bartida
• Alexandre Bourget
• Nicolas Cadou
• Yannick Gingras
• George Peristerakis
• Pierre Phaneuf (from Google)

This new effort of translation brings the French translation coverage of the Django 1.2 documentation up to 18%. We estimate that 77% of the French translation has been made by pythonistas of Montréal.

• 11314 lines translated (18%)
• 52731 lines waiting for translation

Of the translated lines,

• 8759 are by Montreal-Python
• 2624 are by the Django-fr team

Their is still a long road ahead but the Montreal-Python team is more and more efficient and we hope to see you at the next sprint.

Thanks a lot to AUF for the food and to Google and especially to Pierre Phaneuf (@pphaneuf) for hosting us during those crazy six hours.

The 5th translation sprint is changing location. Google kindly offered to host the sprint in it’s Montréal office and we gladly move to the new location, which only one block away from the McGill metro station: 1253 McGill College, suite 250.

Django 1.2 has been released and then 1.2.1. The project moves on and so will be our translation effort. Montréal-Python is organizing a next sprint on 2010-06-28 at Google’s office:

1253 McGill College suite 250

We warmly thank Agence universitaire de la Francophonie for supporting the event with food and drinks for every participants.

The sprint begins at 18h and ends once everyone is too tired to type. Bring your own laptop or make an arrangement for pairing on the mailing list beforehand. We only have 12 seats; use the wiki to RSVP. If you can’t join us physically, you can still participate on IRC, on #montreal-python on irc.freenode.net.

update: the event is delayed by one week. The new date is 2010-07-26.

Montréal-Python 15 will take place at UQAM on 2010-07-26. This will be a scaling and deployment themed edition. We don’t have the exact room number yet but it will be announced shortly.

Here is our schedule for the evening:

• 18h00: Opening
• 18h20: Announcements
• 18h30: Flash presentations
• 19h00: Break
• 19h20: Main presentations
• 20h30: Discussions and refreshments at Benelux

Our main presenter is going to be Stéphane Jolicoeur and he’s going to talk about the architecture of NFB.ca, a platform with open and pythonic roots.

He is going to describe what he and his team at the National Film Board of Canada had to do in order to accommodate the massive increase in traffic that they received after deploying their new Django-powered website.

Technical Lead at the Web department of the National Film Board of Canada, Stéphane Jolicoeur is the architect and the lead implementer of the NFB.ca website.

We still have a few spots for flash presentations so don’t hesitate to contact us if you have a presentation in mind that would fit the scaling and deployment theme.

Montréal-Python 15 is our last meeting of the summer; after a well-deserved break, we’ll be back in September.

Thanks to our sponsors for making Montréal-Python 15 possible:

• UQAM
• Benelux
• Savoir-faire Linux
• Apress

Montréal-Python 14 will take place at UQAM, on Monday 2010-06-14 in room SH-3420 of the Sherbrooke building. The SH building is located at 200 Sherbrooke west, Place-des-Arts metro station.

We are happy to annouce the list of flash presentations for
Montréal-Python 14 this Monday:

• Jeremy Barnes on Recoset
• Chris Hart on the business value of Python
• Michael Lenczner and Daniel Drouet on Ajah
• Sébastien Pierre on FFunction

At last, you can go watch the videos of the Montréal-Python presentations, including the lightning talks, on the dedicated presentations page.

So far, we have:

• Montréal-Python 1 David Goodger on Polyform Puzzler
• Montréal-Python 2 Cyril Robert on Scripting Asterisk with Python and Yannick Gingras on a live demo of PyQt and PyOpenGL
• Montréal-Python 7 Olivier Bélanger on Ounk, an environment for musical scripting
• Montréal-Python 8 Alexandre Vassalotti on Developing extension modules for CPython
• Montréal-Python 9 Andrew Francis on Stackless Python
• Montréal-Python 10 Chris Steel on Web2py

Each video is linked to a page on the Montréal-Python wiki to give the opportunity to presenters and attendees to gather interesting material about the presentation, such as the slides, example code, and related links.

Now we need your feedback on the videos; Theora is quite easy to deal with but H264 is a lot more tricky to transcode properly. If you have trouble enjoying our videos, let us know.

The Python Software Foundation is announcing a new sprint sponsorship programme :
Announcing: Python Sprint Sponsorship.

Montreal Python’s short yet intense sprint experience  gathered pythonistas of all levels in contributing to Python’s ecosystem in different ways, such as Django documentation’s translation, Packaging and Turbogears2.

Sprint sponsorship is good news that should enable us to do more sprints on a wider range of topics.

Andrew Francis, who did the main presentation at Montréal-Python 13, will be presenting at EuroPython. His talk on Implementing Go’s Select will be a slightly shorter version of the one that he did at Montréal-Python. It’s good to see fellow Montréalers presenting at large international conferences.