This has been my first time at Europython. Every body has ever told me that it was a super event. And they were right.
The venue:
Florence: should I say more?We were staying at a lovely house in a rented room via Airb&b in the very city center. The conference was held in a big Hotel good suited for the task near the amazing river that runs across the city.
Everything was perfect: the videos, the rooms power plugs everywhere. Food was good and there was plenty of it. The wifi was sometimes buggy but I had no real Issues. This is a miracle considering that there where at least ONE THOUSAND devices ( every geek has a laptop/tablet/smartphone combination)
The conference
The level of the talk was really high. some of the talk I appreciate the most ( in no particular order ):- "Good enough" is good enough! by Alex Martelli
- Inside the Hat: Technology @ Walt Disney Animation Studios
- ElasticSearch: Introduction and lessons learned
- Open Source as a Business by D. Cramer author of Sentry
- Introduction to machine learning using Python tools
- Crash course for opensource developers (Corso di sopravvivenza per sviluppatori OpenSource)
- Practical uses for function annotations
Two of this talks deserve specific mentions:
Open source as a Business has been really inspiring other than informative. It gave me a meaningful view of how to apply a humble biz model to an opensource project.
Without all the buzz words from the sturtup scene.
Machine learning using Python tools was as good as a talk on this topic should be. The speaker demonstrated a very good knowledge of ML and share it with the ease that demonstrate a lot of dedication. A lot of info has been passed in just an less than an hour talk.
The people
I met a lot of amazing developers, and I found a lot of people form the Django community. As you can see I had the chance to have a brief and informal talk with Alex Martelli. A very enjoyable and relaxed conversation with one of the greatest mind in both Google and the python community.
As A side note I have receved a lot of cheers for my past organization of the DjangoDay. Things grew a bit complicated in WebDeBs... but I defnitly try to organize something.. The people ask for it! :-)