PyCon Belarus¶
This was originally posted on blogger here.
One function the PSF is happy to do is to send a PSF Director to _PyCons_ in various parts of the world to give a talk and to provide information about and encourage membership in the PSF. Last week, PSF Director, David Mertz, attended _PyCon Belarus_ in Minsk where he spoke about a new Python language feature _(Python’s (future) type annotation system(s)) _and met many amazing Python users.
Along with David, the other invited keynote speaker was Austin Bingham, originally from Texas and currently co-owner and founder of _Sixty North_ in Stavanger, Norway. Austin spoke on _Python refactoring with Rope and Traad._
According to David Mertz, having a PSF Director attend and participate at these conferences “allows us to support the PSF mission, to make new contacts outside the US, and to promote the new membership model.”
The January 31st conference, the first ever held in Belarus, was a one-day affair that took place at _EventSpace_ located in central Minsk. Approximately 150 people attended. There were 14 talks, comprising two tracks; talks were given in either Russian or English. Many speakers and attendees came from Russia and Ukraine, both of which have had active recent _PyCons_.
In the _PyCon_ tradition, lively lightening talks were a popular feature. Austin’s talk about w _hat the hell super() does behind the scenes_ was particularly memorable (hint: see Michele Simionato’s article Python 2.3 Method Resolution Order).
One of the corporate sponsors of _PyCon Belarus_ was the Belorussian software company, _Wargaming,_ developer of the hugely popular online multiplayer game _World of Tanks_. _Wargaming_ employs around 2000 people in Minsk, including 900 software developers. _Wargaming_ also has offices in several other cities worldwide. About 90% of _Wargaming’s _codebase is in Python. David Mertz visited at their invitation and reprised his conference talk. He also discussed performance concerns and optimization. Specifically, major tools allowing significant speed-ups include _PyPy_ and _PyPy- STM_, _Cython_, _Numba_, as well as plain old C __ extension modules. David’s video is available on You Tube.
Pictures of _PyCon Belarus_ are available at PyCon Belarus pics. Videos of talks are at PyCon Belarus youtube.
For a list of PyCons around the world go to the PSF website.