----------------- PyAr, The History ----------------- .. class:: endnote +-------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ | .. image:: ../genesispyar/autor.jpg |**Author:** Facundo Batista | | :class: right foto | | | |Facundo is an Electronic Engineer who | | |enjoys programming and playing tennis | | | | | |**Blog:** http://taniquetil.com.ar/plog | | | | | |**Twitter:** @facundobatista | | | | | |**Identi.ca:** @facundobatista | | | | | |**Translation:** Andrés Gattinoni | +-------------------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ .. raw:: pdf Spacer 0 1cm I met Python in 2001, looking for a cool language to work on both Unix and Windows environments, and frustrated by some previous experiences. I immediately saw that it was something I liked and started to invest time learning and going deeper into it. I didn't know many who used this language. Yes, I was a member of both the Spanish and the English Python mailing lists, but I didn't have contact with any other Argentines who coded in it (other than a couple of co-workers). Looking for people, I came across a website which organized meetings of all sorts, I signed up, but nothing happened. Along came 2004. Pablo Ziliani (better known as *some Pablo guy*) found the same site but he took it out of its hibernation and sent an invitation for a meeting. This get-together was finally the First Meeting of Python Argentina. We gathered at a downtown bar on September 9th 2004, Pablo, a guy named Javier whom we never saw again, and myself. Even though we only talked general stuff about Python, the impulse didn't stop there and from that ground we planned the next meeting, where the group started to take shape. In this second meeting, by the end of October, the group was baptized with the name "PyAr - Python Argentina", and we decided to create a mailing list and establish a website where we would publish our objectives and the group's activities, the instructions to participate, links to useful information, and create some original content (such as local experiences with the use of Python). The first year of the group was full of meetings. Making ourselves known wasn't easy and, although we got together once a month, we were always the same four to seven people. But in the sake of reaching more people we decided, on our August 2005 meeting, to take part on CaFeConf 2005, the GNU/Linux and Open Source Software Open Conference hosted by CaFeLUG. We presented two talks in that conference. Lucio spoke about PyGame and I gave an introduction to Python. The first couple of meetings of 2006 came along with more people (from ten to twenty each time), and discussions on other subjects regarding the group, beyond its publicity. We created the first t-shirts, Ricardo had created an IRC channel on Freenode (the old *#python-ar*), and Alecu was suggesting to get more serious about our meetings, creating a procedure for their organization. With a stronger structure we started to discuss other challenges such as meetings abroad, bringing some foreign guest to CaFeConf 2006, translating Python's official documentation, and something that, at that time, we called NERDcamp... In February of that year I made my first trip to PyCon USA (the world's most important Python conference), where PyAr started to make itself visible beyond our borders, not only because I gave a Lightning Talk about our group, but also because I managed to sell many of the t-shirts we had done. In the meetings of that first part of the year we also talked about the content of the mailing list (whether to split it in sub lists or what to do to limit conversations that were not Python-specific; we still have this discussion these days...), we talked about the Python Day held in Mendoza, and discussed how to organize the structure of the group: whether we will define *positions* within the group, or if we would stay as we were, on a horizontal structure without hierarchies. The organization of the group deserves its own paragraph. From the beginning of Python Argentina until now there has never been people with specific positions. We have always kept a very healthy anarchy, where people who want to push forward an internal project does it in free association without the need of "official decisions" that would impose a line on the rest of the people involved in the group. In other words, if anyone in PyAr wants to push forward a project, he only has to get on with it, and he will have more or less supporters depending on how interesting the project is, but he doesn't need to "make it official" or ask for approval of any kind. Going on with the story ----------------------- On June 2006 took place the First Santa Fe Python Conference, in the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional in the city and province of, precisely, Santa Fe. The conference was a success and in the sprint that followed (over pizza and chit chat) we started to work on a project that is very important for the group: an offline version of the Wikipedia. This event was very encouraging and in the next meeting Pablo Ziliani suggested that we tried to set the objective of "organizing a *federal* meeting at least once a year", and we decided we wanted to have a PyAr flag. September 2006 found us participating on the third edition of PyWeek, an international programming challenge where the aim is to code a game in Python in a week, starting from the scratch and finishing something that can be tested by the rest of the competitors. It wasn't the first time we participated, but this time one of the groups of PyAr won the competition with the game Typus Pocus (and another of our groups ended up third!). The second half of the year didn't bring much news until we got to CaFeConf 2006, where we had our first stand with a brand new flag. Also one of the plenary talks of the event was given by Alex Martelli (who spoke about "What is Python and why does it matter"), an international guest brought thanks to PyAr's arrangements. After this event we started to acknowledge how important it was for Python Argentina to be a part of these conferences and talks which were open to the community, because after them we noticed a big increase in the amount of subscribers to the mailing list. Besides, we started to establish strong links with the rest of the Open Source Software community of Argentina, a community that some of us knew but in which we were not involved. The year 2007 was one of consolidation. There were many meetings in the capital and the rest of the country, there was the second Python Day in Santa Fe (this time with two tracks, a new success), and PyAr participated in CaFeConf, Unlux and the Regional Conference of Open Source Software in Córdoba. As it was discussed in the group's meeting after that conference, Python Argentina was a new-born group which took advantage of the courtesy of its "older brothers": the organizational skills and the people involved in the LUGs. An important detail to consider is that Python was the only programming language with its own stand, both in CaFeConf and the Regional Conference. During this year also the mailing list reached an amount of users which allowed it to work on its own: most of the responses to the questions that came up stopped coming from the 20 or 30 people who started the group, and instead came from the new people. We also enabled the IRC as a means of communication, but using *#pyar* as the Freenode channel (we needed to do some changes and couldn't get to Ricardo, who had created the previous one). Together, the mailing list and the IRC channel proved to be the best means of communication for the group, complementing each other since the dynamic is different in each case, and both having a persistent support from the website, that soon started to get filled with Recipes, Job offers, News, Documentation, FAQ, etc. 2008 started with a big news: the first PyCamp. Organized by Except, a company from Córdoba, this event took place during four days in which we worked on different Open Source projects related with Python, we socialized and had some little contact with nature. In the meeting of May that year we talked about the participation of the group in other international events. We were represented again at the PyCon and for the first time in Fisl (where members of PyAr made Falabracman, a game coded in 36 hours for the OLPC Game Jam, which they won!). We also discussed an important difference between user groups in USA and Argentina; in the United States they get together directly to code or talk about strictly technical stuff; in Argentina the meetings have a more social objective, to get to know each other's faces and maybe drink a couple of beers. Also, returning to a previous idea, Humitos told us that he was doing a Spanish translation of Django's manual, and it was suggested that we translate the official Python Tutorial, with the possibility of printing it and publishing it to be sold or given out at different events. The second part of the year was very active as well. Not only because of meetings in Buenos Aires and the rest of the country (first time in Rosario!), but also because we finished the design of the second batch of PyAr t-shirts, and we participated again in the Regional Conference of Open Source Software. In this event Python had, once again, a strong presence, not only for the amount of talks we gave or the success of the stand, but also because we brought another international guest (Raymond Hettinger) to speak at a major event. There was also the Third Python Conference in Santa Fe, where it was formally announced that the next year it would take place the first national Python conference in Argentina. In the last meeting of the year in Buenos Aires we finished discussing the beginning of the organization of this important conference, and we ended 2008 looking forward to the next year. Fifth Anniversary ----------------- The last few days of March 2009 brought the second edition of PyCamp, once again at Los Cocos (Córdoba). They were four days in which many projects were developed and we strengthen the bonds within the Python community. The second part of the year had as the main course PyCon Argentina 2009, the first conference in Spanish in the world, which was a well-deserved celebration of the fifth birthday of PyAr. They were two days in September, in the morning and the afternoon, with three sections in parallel most of the time. We used three auditoriums with different capacities, the biggest being for 300 people, and we split the talks in three types: common talks (we had 33 distributed in both days), lightning talks, and plenary talks. PyCon was a huge success (we didn't expect so many people, we had over 400 people over, many from Buenos Aires, but a good deal of people from the rest of the country, and some from abroad), and it had a very good repercussion both in our country and in international media. This last thing was influenced by the fact that we had two first-class guests (Jacob Kaplan-Moss and Collin Winter) who gave wonderful plenary talks. We were able to close the conference with one of the oldest projects within the group: the Spanish translation of the (official) Python Tutorial, which we published online but we could also print a large quantity of them to give out during the conference (specially during the talk *Introduction to Python*), and we could also take them to other events in which we participated. Furthermore, given that PyAr has many members who study at universities, we donated tutorials for the libraries of those institutions. We closed the year participating in a friendly event, "Fábrica de Fallas" (Failure Factory), at La Tribu. It's not a space traditionally oriented to programming and, though PyAr had always been welcomed there, we were gladly surprised that one of the artistic moments of the event was a mural based on the Python Tutorial! 2010 started with the classic PyCamp in the first part of the year, but this time not at Los Cocos, like in the previous editions, but in Veronica (Buenos Aires). We changed the location but not the style: PyCamps are one of the most interesting programming events I know, and one of the best performing when it comes to learn and have fun. The work on CDPedia also received a boost. This is the project I mentioned before about putting the Wikipedia inside a disc that can be used without an Internet connection. In the CD version we managed to include 80 thousand articles, most of them with images. In the DVD version we put all the articles, most of them with their corresponding images. If we can finish with some features we need, we will be distributing CDPedia in many schools all across the country, through the Ministry of Education. In May we had the first Python Day in Rafaela, Santa Fe, which was a success, having almost 100 people over. And in September we will be hosting the first Python Day in Buenos Aires, which we are really looking forward to. The second part of this year will also bring the first round of Open Talks at La Tribu (a series of talks about programming and Python, *a la gorra* -passing the hat around-, open to the community), and the second edition of PyCon Argentina, this time in Córdoba. We will probably close the sixth year of the group celebrating all what was done, but also planning new events, new ways to promote Python and to get all Python users of the country together.