The Python Software Foundation re-opens its Grants Program!

The Python Software Foundation is excited to announce the re-opening of its Grants Program! 

The pandemic negatively affected the PSF’s finances with the cancellation of PyCon 2020’s in-person conference and lower donations. Thanks to PyCon 2020 Online sponsors, donors, and our financial reserve, we are able to continue to support the Python community! 

Historical Impact

The PSF’s Grants Program has supported the growth of Python in many regions and fostered the training for many individuals. Between 2014 and 2019, the PSF disbursed $1,637,000 in financial support to organizers and developers all over the world. 

Grant disbursements from 2014 through 2019 by grant type
To see a high resolution version, click here!

Updated criteria & requirements

For the immediate future, the PSF’s Grants Program will focus on virtual sprints, virtual events, and Python core development support. We are not currently accepting applications for in-person events. When that changes, we will update the community.

Here's an abbreviated overview of what the PSF Grants Work Group requires:

• For all applications: at least 6 weeks to review the application; so if your virtual sprint begins November 1st, submit your application no later than September 21. We also require a code of conduct.
• For virtual workshops & training: a detailed curriculum, a budget overview, and mentor information
• For virtual conferences: a schedule, a budget overview, sponsor information, and registration procedures
• For dev projects/sprints: milestone breakdowns with a timeline, and a budget overview

Be sure to read through the Grants Program information page and FAQ page before submitting your grant application to capture all the requirements and changes: 

https://www.python.org/psf/grants/

https://www.python.org/psf/grants/faq/

The PSF has put together a free resource list for virtual events. Some of these may help reduce the cost of your virtual event. We recommend that you read this page before submitting a grant application.

Information on how to submit a grant application can be found on our website.

PyCon 2016: A look back, my take away, and thank you!

Portland, Oregon
photo credit: A. Jesse Jiryu Davis

A quick look back at PyCon 2016

I am writing this during my flight home to Chicago as I reminisce about PyCon, which officially ended yesterday in Portland, Oregon. This was yet another successful conference! We had over 3200 pythonistas check in! The 2016 tutorials and talks sold out in March, which is much sooner than previous conferences. Both committees did a great job reviewing and providing guidance to those that needed it. Personally I only found time to watch Lars' talk, but thanks to our efficient AV crew, I will watch the rest in the comfort of my home over the next few weeks. Hearing the positive feedback from our sponsors, even when logistical issues popped up, tells me the companies that helped make PyCon happen, are just as dedicated to our community as we are. I appreciate their support and understanding. 

PyCon 2016 was my ninth PyCon. I have enjoyed organizing each one of those nine conferences. Over the last nine years I have seen the Python community grow and become a respected community. PyCon is, for many, the central time of the year and I know it is for me and the PSF. Through our learning experiences at PyCon, we are able to help the Python community all around the world. We are able to offer others insight on conference childcare, our financial aid system, and volunteer involvement amongst other things. We also learn from others within our community and welcome guidance for how processes could be more effective and less overwhelming. On a larger scale, PyCon's revenue helps us (the PSF) fund hundreds of other PyCons and teaching workshops around the world per year. But those are not the only ways that PyCon impacts our community.

My main take away

I have noticed that it is easier for us to improve and grow as a community when we meet in person from time to time. Over the years I have learned through my own experiences that emailing about community relations is not always easy nor productive. When I come to PyCon and see the many interactions, I understand the reasons why conferences are so vital to any community. When we are face to face, we are able to put our differences and opinions aside. It is easier for us to put ourselves into someone else's shoes. When we find common ground, we become a stronger community. Watching Twitter the last few days has been my evidence for this happening at PyCon. I have seen so many moving "good-byes" and appreciations for our community. I have seen attendees publicly thanking our community for its openness and acceptance. Witnessing this energizes me and inspires me to further support the community through my PSF and PyCon work. Thank you PyCon 2016 for motivating me and making me a stronger individual in so many ways. Let us keep this inspirational motivation going all year round!

My long list of thank yous

• Betsy Waliszewski (psf event coordinator): Welcome to the PSF & PyCon community! Thank you for all of the time and energy you put into the pre-planning and onsite work. Having you at PyCon 2016 was a tremendous help that I have never had before. I look forward to developing your role as event coordinator!
• Kurt Kaiser (psf treasurer): Thank you for all of the work you do for PyCon, especially for financial aid. The work you do impacts hundreds of PyCon goers every year.
• Brandon Rhodes (conference chair): Thank you for being such a wonderful person. It was a pleasure working with you and seeing the way you work. Working with you has taught me much more than you know.
• Ruben Orduz, Carol Willing, Allen Downey (tutorial chairs): Thank you for all of your work reviewing tutorial proposals and helping those that needed guidance.
• Ned Jackson Lovely, Karen Rustad Tölva (program chairs), and the program committee: Thank you for all of your work reviewing hundreds of talks. Thank you for coming together as a community when needed. I admire your strength and ability to work through certain situations.
• Ashwini Oruganti and LVH (financial aid chairs): Thank you for continuing to improve our financial aid process. I know this task needed a lot of time, but we will continue to work to make it better for the volunteers as well as the recipients. 
• Barry Warsaw and Larry Hastings (language summit chairs): Thank you for working to put together a great language summit. I look forward to seeing the evolvement of the summit and the python language.
• Chalmer Lowe, Jessica Ingrassellino, Ria Baldevia (education summit chairs): Thank you for continuing to grow the education summit. This year, the event was a huge success and I look forward to what it will bring to PyCon 2017!
• Rami Chowdhury and Yarko Tymciurak (volunteer chairs): Thank you for helping organize our volunteer efforts. Our volunteers make our conference significant and special. I am sure they all appreciate you two also :)
• Felix Crux (mobile guide chair): Thank you for helping with the mobile guide. Your attention to detail helped us put together an awesome guide that many attendees took advantage of.
• Anna Ossowski, Kinga Kięczkowska and Hobson Lane (open space chairs): Thank you for putting so much effort into improving Open Spaces. I look forward to seeing what you will bring to 2017!
• David Wolever and Julia Duimovich (session staff chairs): The work you two put forth onsite is immeasurable. Without you both, the talks would not happen like clock work! The session chairs give our speakers the attention they deserve. Thank you all who volunteered to be a session chair and/or runner!
• Brian Costlow (CART coordinator): Thank you for taking on this task this year. Your thorough feedback will definitely help us make the process better going forward!
• Hannes Hapke and Gustavo Pinto (poster session chairs): I enjoyed seeing the posters get so much attention this year. Thank you for making that event run so smoothly!
• Lynn Root and Thursday Bram (lightning talk chairs): Thank you for putting together the lightning talks daily and moderating the 5 minute talks. 
• Don Sheu and Yannick Gingras (startup row chairs): Thank you for working so hard to give startups a chance to market their work and to meet awesome pythonistas!
• Mathieu Leduc-Hamel and Nick Lang (5k coordinators): Mathieu - thank you for helping us pre-plan the 5k. Also, your dedication to wake up that early and get everyone organized is appreciated! Nick - thank you for helping us onsite and giving us pointers on how we can improve the process!
• Doug Napoleone, Jackie Kazil and Lynn Root (pyladies auction chairs): Thank you for making the PyLadies Auction such a fun event and raising so much money for a great cause.
• Luke and Meagan Sneeringer (young coder setup and other volunteer tasks): Thank you for all of your support onsite. Having you both there makes us a stronger team. I really appreciate you both being up so early every day to help registration!
• Kushal Das and Naomi Ceder (sprint chairs): Thank you for the help you both provided to get the sprinters informed and organized. Your work at the Sprints impacts so many in our community!
• Barbara Shaurette and Andrew Dupont (young coder teachers): Thank you for staying strong and teaching the Young Coders classes this year. Your dedication is appreciated by me and the children! 
• Noah Kantrowitz (general volunteer): Thank you for just being there to help us with random tasks that needed attention. Having someone there with institutional knowledge that can jump in to help with anything is very useful.  
• Jon Henner (accessibility chair): It was unfortunate that you could not join us onsite, but we look forward to seeing you at 2017! Thank you for working with us to make PyCon more accessible. I am grateful for your guidance and I look forward to seeing the impact you will have on PyCon 2017.
• Jessica McKellar (diversity chair): Thank you for helping PyCon increase its diversity year after year! I look forward to seeing what 2017 will bring!
• Paul Hildebrandt (swag coordinator): Not only do you bring awesome gifts for our speakers year after year, but you also dedicate so much time to get swag organized and distributed. We are all thankful for you!

Our 2016 PSF Board of Directors

The PSF's annual election completed yesterday. Please welcome the new PSF Board of Directors for the 2016/17 term!

• Annapoornima Koppad 
• Carol Willing
• Carrie Ann Philbin
• Diana Clarke 
• Jackie Kazil
• Kushal Das
• Lorena Mesa 
• Naomi Ceder
• Trey Hunner
• Van Lindberg
• Younggun Kim

These eleven directors represent a range of continents, genders, ethnicities, and technical specialties. Their biographies, and their plans and hopes for the PSF, are in their candidates' statements on the wiki.

Our heartfelt thanks to the outgoing board members Nick Coghlan, Lynn Root, Alex Gaynor, Marc-Andre Lemburg, Anna Ossowski, and Ashwini Oruganti.

Reminder: Vote for the 2016 Board of Directors

If you're a voting member of the Python Software Foundation, then on May 20 you were emailed a ballot to vote for this year's Board of Directors. The voting booths close at the end of May 30, Anywhere on Earth, so please get your votes in!

Who is a voting member? Details of membership levels and voter registration, along with the list of candidates for this year's board, are on the PSF wiki:

Voting, Election Process, and Candidates' Statements

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Image: Women voting in New York City, 1917. Library of Congress file no. 00037.

Brett Cannon wins Frank Willison Award

This morning at OSCON, O'Reilly Media gave Brett Cannon the Frank Willison Memorial Award. The award recognizes Cannon's contributions to CPython as a core developer and project manager for over a decade.

Beginning in 2002, the Frank Willison Memorial Award for Contributions to the Python Community is given annually to an outstanding contributor to the Python community. The award was established in memory of Frank Willison, a Python enthusiast and O'Reilly editor-in-chief, who died in July 2001. Tim O'Reilly wrote In Memory of Frank Willison, which includes a collection of quotes from Frank's insightful and witty writing. O'Reilly Media maintains an online archive of Frank Willison's column, "Frankly Speaking".

O'Reilly Media presents the Frank Willison Memorial Award annually at OSCON, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. The recipient is chosen in consultation with Guido van Rossum and delegates of the Python Software Foundation.

Contributions can encompass so much more than code. A successful software community requires time, dedication, communication, and education as well as elegant code. With the Frank Willison Memorial Award, we hoped to acknowledge all of those things.

  — Tim O'Reilly 

In the open source community, project management is an often underrated skill: given a problem to be solved, and a proposed solution for solving it, define the concrete steps necessary to get a group of volunteers from the point of saying "We should do something about this" to "We have solved that problem".

Brett Cannon has repeatedly volunteered to handle project management responsibilities that have significantly improved the CPython core development infrastructure, from migration to a dedicated bugs.python.org infrastructure, to the initial switch to a distributed version control system, to the current adoption of a more automated development workflow.

Brett Cannon

Since he began as a core developer in 2003, Brett has dedicated significant time to ensuring that the design, implementation, and development of essential parts of the CPython reference interpreter are accessible to new contributors. He wrote the first versions of the Python Developer's Guide and the design documentation for the CPython compiler. He converted the bulk of the import system's implementation from C to Python, created the "devinabox" project to make it easier for new contributors to get started at development sprints, wrote the "Python-dev Summaries" articles from 2002 to 2005, and moderated the python-ideas mailing list since it began in December 2006.

Brett has served on the PSF Board of Directors from 2006-2010, and again from 2013-2014, and was PSF Vice President in 2006-2007, and Executive Vice President from 2007-2010. He is also a gracious ambassador for the Python development community. His thoughtful manner, genuine kindness, and sense of humor have inspired many at PyCons over the years. Whether helping a new contributor understand a code snippet at a sprint or encouraging a new speaker with his confidence in them, Brett shares his positive character with us.

Reminder: Run for the 2016 PSF Board of Directors

As we announced last week, the Python Software Foundation is seeking candidates for this year's directors. Nominations are open now until the end of May 15 Anywhere on Earth.

Candidates from anywhere in the world are welcome; members of the Board do not need to be residents or citizens of the United States. There are 11 directors, elected annually for a term of one year. Directors are unpaid volunteers.

The list of nominees is on the PSF wiki:

Candidates in the 2016 PSF Board Election.

If have a passion for the Python language and community, add yourself to the list! If someone you know would make a great member of the board, ask if they'd like you to nominate them.

We Want You to Run for the 2016 Board of Directors

You don't have to be an expert, or a Python celebrity. If you care about Python and you want to nurture our community and guide our future, we invite you to join the Board.

Nominations are open for the Python Software Foundation's Board of Directors now through the end of May 15. Nominate yourself if you are able and inspired to help the PSF fulfill its mission:

"The mission of the Python Software Foundation is to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers."

If you know someone who would be an excellent director, ask if they would like you nominate them!

What is the job? Directors do the business of the PSF, including:

• Appoint PSF officers.
• Manage the budget, allocate funds, and award grants.
• Raise money and recruit sponsors.
• Manage public relations, education, and outreach.
• Perform the PSF's legal duties as a non-profit corporation.
• Administer the PSF membership program and serve its members.
• Protect Python’s intellectual property rights and licenses: logos, trademarks, and open source licenses.

Read "Expectations of Directors" for details.

There are 11 directors, elected annually for a term of one year. Directors are unpaid volunteers. Candidates from anywhere in the world are welcome; members of the Board do not need to be residents or citizens of the United States.

The deadline for nominations is the end of May 15, Anywhere on Earth ("AoE"). As long as it is May 15 somewhere, nominations are open. A simple algorithm is this: make your nominations by 11:59pm on your local clock and you are certain to meet the deadline. Ballots to vote for the board members will be sent May 20, and the election closes May 30.

If you're moved to nominate yourself or someone else, here are the instructions:

How to nominate candidates in the 2016 PSF Board Election.

While you're on that page, check if your membership makes you eligible to actually vote in the election.

For more info, see the PSF home page and the PSF membership FAQ.

The PSF has hired an IT Manager!

We are pleased to announce that the PSF has hired a part-time Infrastructure Manager. Please join us in welcoming Mark Mangoba!

Mark has a background in IT management and has experience with non-profits. Mark is excited to be part of the team and is ready to lead new PSF infrastructure projects and better support the community volunteers leading existing ones. In his own words, "I look forward to working with our infrastructure team of volunteers to optimize, streamline processes, and to bring enterprise level tech support to the services we provide to the Python community". 

In the coming months, Mark will work on documentation for our infrastructure setup and improvements to the PSF voting process. Later this year, he will work on python.org improvements. It takes a while for any new employee to learn the ropes, but Mark has not wasted any time. He has jumped right in, getting to know our volunteers and working with the PSF. Mark expressed that "its been an amazing experience so far working with the PSF and I am glad to be a part of it!". 

The PSF has visited the idea of improving Python.org usability and our voting system before. We have made incremental improvements, but we didn't have the resources to fully examine all of the existing issues, let alone complete all of them. With Mark on the team, we'll be better equipped to face our current and future challenges.

With our growing team, I'm confident that the PSF will continue to make a positive impact on the Python community in 2016 and beyond. I look forward to working with Mark and seeing all of the wonderful goals he'll help us achieve. 

Welcome to the PSF, Mark!

First-Ever PyCaribbean Coming This February!

At the October 28th meeting of the Board of Directors of the PSF, the following resolution was passed:

 

"RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation sponsor PyCaribbean on February 20-21, 2016 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in the amount of $3000 USD."

This will be the first-ever PyCaribbean, and the PSF is proud to be a Platinum-level sponsor. The venue will be the headquarters of the Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE) located at Calle Capitán Eugenio de Marchena 26, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

According to organizer, Leonardo Jiminez, they are expecting approximately 300 - 350 people from all over the Americas and the Caribbean. This is a great size for a conference, allowing for both intimacy and breadth of content. As Leornardo puts it:

"I think we have the spirit you can find in PyCon but in a more concentrated way and with better weather."

Better weather and gorgeous beaches!
Photo Credit: CC License

Based on proposals received so far, it appears that the talks will be quite diverse. Along with such expected topics as strategies for improving data analysis, Leonardo particularly mentioned a talk about the adventures of someone teaching Python in Latin America in his car.

Of course, that adventurer is none other than Manuel Kaufmann! Some of you may recall that last year the PSF funded his project, and it was featured in a couple of posts to this blog: Python in Argentina and Highly Contagious. And in addition to what is sure to be a fascinating talk by Manuel Kaufmann, there will also be a keynote by the PSF’s very own Brandon Rhodes, who is also the organizer of the upcoming PyCon 2016 in Portland.

I asked Leonardo to tell us a little about his local Python community. Here’s what he said:

Santa Domingo
Photo Credit:  CC License

"The Python Dominicana Usergroup was the first usergroup formed in Santo Domingo and after that a lot of progress happened. We have more than three years meeting consistently every month. The experience has been really transformative for the city. We have done road trips, hackathons, and a lot of events to promote the language. . .[This work] is paying off with all the growth we see in Software Development locally."  

And when I asked about his own interest in Python, he gave a great answer:

"I fell in love with Python in High School while reading How to Think Like a Computer Scientist in Spanish. I really enjoy being part of this community, which I think is the killer feature of Python."

I have to agree that the community is our killer feature, so I’m hoping that some of you will be able to participate in PyCaribbean by giving a talk or by attending. You have until November 20th to submit a proposal, so please give it some thought. Of course, if you don’t have a talk prepared, the organizers would still love to see you there. And could there be any better vacation than to visit the Dominican Republic in February? In fact, this conference looks so good to me that I may see you there myself!

For further information, you can contact the organizers (at [email protected] or [email protected]). Also you can follow them on Twitter (at https://twitter.com/pycaribbean).

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at [email protected].

Register Now for PyCon 2016!

Once again, the PSF is proud to underwrite and produce the largest gathering of the international Python community at PyCon 2016!

The 2016 conference will be held in Portland, Oregon, and will take place from May 28th to June 5th -- a little later in the spring than previous PyCons.

Those of you who have attended previous PyCons know what a fantastic event these are. Education, advocacy, community building. . . all take place at a PyCon. If you've never been, you can check out these talks from last year's PyCon 2015 in Montreal.

But nothing can fully give the full experience, the excitement and flavor, the connections forged and strengthened, the sheer intensity of spending several days with a large community of bright, energetic, and engaged Pythonistas, sharing their knowledge and skills and teaching and learning with each other, as attending a PyCon itself.

The conference schedule will begin on the weekend with tutorials, then there will be five full tracks of talks, over 100 total, during the three main conference days. As usual, development sprints will follow, offering a unique opportunity for developers to work in "dream teams" on open source projects. And of course there will be the Summits, Expo Hall, Poster Session, Sponsor Workshops, Lightning Talks, Open Spaces, Job Fair, PyLadies Auction, and last, but hardly least, the dynamic and inviting "Hallway Track," that make for such a vibrant conference. All of this, along with ample (organized, spontaneous, and even some chaotic) social and cultural activities (including the annual Opening Reception and 5K Charity Run). The venue will be the centrally-located Convention Center which will allow for easy exploration of the fabulous city of Portland, Oregon.

By Another Believer (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

As this year's PyCon organizer, Brandon Rhodes, tells us on the PyCon blog,

PyCon offers tremendous value for both individuals and businesses. PyCon’s three main conference days offer keynote speeches, nearly a hundred talks, Open Space rooms for meetings and workshops, and an Expo Hall where you can meet dozens of sponsor companies and open source non-profits. More than 3,000 fans and contributors to Python are expected to attend the conference!

Another feature of PyCons as opposed to other tech conferences that must be mentioned is the diversity of speakers and attendees. For both 2014 and 2015 in Montreal, a full 33% of talks were given by women. Not only does this make for a more varied range of content and a higher degree of excellence (since the work of women programmers contributes to a greater pool of proposals from which the final talks are selected), but for a truly welcoming community. As someone who has attended the last four PyCons (the first of which, before I even became a Python user), I can tell you with absolute certainty that if you come, you will not be disappointed!

And, please, if you're working on something interesting, or care to share some insights, experiences, project development, or theoretical observations, consider proposing a talk, tutorial, or a poster session.

Registration is now open, and, if you hurry, you can qualify for the reduced cost of an Early Bird ticket. If the past is any indication, these tickets, and all remaining ones, will sell-out quickly. Don't be left out! Register today!

You can also view the announcement on the PyCon Blog, or go directly to Registration and Financial Aid.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at [email protected].

New PSF Community Mailing List

Last year, the Python Software Foundation adopted an open membership model, allowing anyone that uses and supports Python to become a member of the foundation. Furthering our efforts on this front, the historical psf-members mailing list has been retired, and two new mailing lists have been created in its place: psf-community and psf-vote.

Unlike the old psf-members mailing list, the new psf-community mailing list will be open to all community members, and will have public archives. The new psf-vote mailing list will only be used to administer elections. A more detailed summary of the mailing list changes can be found below, along with the related resolutions from the PSF board meetings.

• The psf-members mailing list has been retired:
• This list will be locked to new posts.
• This list will no longer accept new subscribers.
• The archives will be open to existing list subscribers.

• A new psf-community mailing list has been created:
• All community members may subscribe.
• The archives are public.
• This list is expected to be an active list with courteous, productive, and respectful conversations about community issues and news.
• Example topics: PyCon announcements, PSF board meeting minutes, PSF board member nominations, community awards, outreach and education initiatives, etc
• All current PSF members have been sent an invite to join this mailing list, and anyone is welcome to subscribe to this list (after signing up for a basic membership).

• A new psf-vote mailing list has been created:
• All PSF members with voting privileges may subscribe to this list. This includes the following membership classes: supporting members, sponsor delegates, managing members, contributing members, and fellows.
• The archives will be open to list subscribers.
• This list will be used to administer PSF elections. We have automatically subscribed all current PSF voters. If you unsubscribe from this list, our secretary will reach out to you to confirm that you wish to relinquish your voting rights.
• This list is expected to be a low volume mailing list, containing election details, and discussions that require some privacy and discretion (such as a potential corporate sponsors).

We hope to see you on the new psf-community mailing list – thank you for your contributions to the community!

Approved on July 9, 2015 (meeting minutes):

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation adopt these mailing list actions to further support the Python Software Foundation bylaws, improve governance, and provide greater transparency for the membership:

a) RESOLVE to retire psf-members mailing list where the psf-members mailing list will be locked for new posts and new subscribers and the psf-members archives will be open to list subscribers as of July 9, 2015

b) RESOLVE to create a new psf-vote mailing list where all Python Software Foundation membership classes with voting rights granted by the Python Software Foundation bylaws may subscribe to the mailing list; posting privilege will be subject to the Python Software Foundation Code of Conduct and moderation; and the archives are open to list subscribers

Approved on May 20, 2015 (meeting minutes):

RESOLVED, that a new psf-community mailing list be created, with public archives, open for all PSF members, including, in particular, all the basic members

CSA Awards to Tollervey, Stinner, and Storchaka

Greetings Readers, 

I apologize for the hiatus I’ve taken recently from writing this blog -- other commitments temporarily got in the way. But during this time the PSF has been hard at work, and I intend to catch you up on their activities in the next few posts. 

First of all, the Community Service Awards have been given out for both the second and third quarters of 2015. I am extremely happy to announce that the second quarter award went to our good friend, Nicholas Tollervey, for his excellent work in education and outreach. You can read more about Nick in a recent previous post to this blog (Tollervey), so I’ll forgo saying more about him here, other than congratulations,  and will turn to telling you about our third quarter award recipients.

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation award the 2015 3rd Quarter Community Service Award to Victor Stinner and Serhiy Storchaka (PSF CSA).

Both Stinner and Storchaka are extremely active Python core developers. In the past three years, Serhiy has contributed well over 2000 commits, while Victor comes in a close second with almost 2000. Their hard work and dedication have helped increase Python’s vitality, relevance, and amazing growth -- a fact that the PSF wishes to recognize with this award.

In addition, Serhiy Storchaka is active on the Python tracker, taking the time to help other contributors by reviewing and committing their patches.

Victor Stinner’s work additionally includes 20 PEPs (see PEPs) as well as active participation in the Python community. You can view his PyCon 2014 talk here. He is also one of the developers of the tulip/asyncio project which provides asynchronous I/O support to Python. It was Victor who ported tulip/asyncio to Python 2; its usefulness has resulted in its recently being included as part of the Python 3.4 standard library.

Victor Stinner

Please join me in congratulating our latest CSA recipients and in thanking them for their important work.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at [email protected].

Jessica McKellar receives 2015 Frank Willison Award

Ask any Pythonista to name the best features of Python and they are sure to include its amazing community. For the past 15 years the PSF has recognized this important feature with its Community Service Awards and with a special annual award for outstanding contributions to the Python Community–the Frank Willison Award.

I am extremely happy to report that this year’s Frank Willison Award was presented at OSCON 2015 to Jessica McKellar (see Award Ceremony).

Jessica sharing her knowledge and skills

According to the PSF,

Jessica McKellar has served in many distinguished roles within the Python community: Director, Python Software Foundation; PyCon Diversity Outreach Chair; core organizer of Boston Python, one of Python’s largest user groups; frequent keynote speaker and tutorial presenter; board member of OpenHatch; Boston Python Workshop organizer and evangelist; PSF Fellow; mentor for Outreachy program; core contributor to OpenHatch and Twisted projects. She also has a long history as a Python advocate, as a book author (Twisted Network Programming), training author (Introduction to Python), startup founder, VP of Engineering, and MIT alumna in Computer Science.

Jessica’s tireless dedication to outreach and education created fundamental change in the Python community. In 2011, only 1% of talks given at PyCon were presented by women. Jessica’s outreach efforts included hundreds of individually targeted emails to women in technology, encouraging women to submit talk proposals, and mentoring many through the entire proposal process. In 2014 and 2015, a full 33% of talks at PyCon were given by women.

As a volunteer with genuine commitment to the education and success of others, Jessica spends a significant amount of her time on outreach, encouraging new leaders in the Python community, and sharing how Python education empowers others to change the world. She has touched many Python community members, directly and indirectly, with her grace, intelligence, and humble willingness to listen, collaborate, and celebrate the contributions of others.

The award is a memorial to the legacy of O'Reilly editor-in-chief, Frank Willison, who died in 2001. Author of the column Frankly Speaking, Willison shared his enthusiasm for programming, open-source, and, in particular, Python with his many appreciative readers. His writings and witticisms can be found at O'Reilly Archives and In Memory.

Previous recipients of this prestigious award were: 

• Barry Warsaw (2014) 
• Anna Martelli Ravenscroft (2013) 
• Jesse Noller (2012) 
• Georg Brandl (2011) 
• Christian Tismer (2010) 
• Mark Hammond (2009) 
• Martin von Löwis (2008) 
• Steve Holden (2007)  
• Alex Martelli (2006) 
• Cameron Laird (2004) 
• Fredrik Lundh (2003) 
• Andrew Kuchling (2002)

Please join me in congratulating Jessica McKellar on her well-deserved award and thanking her for her numerous contributions.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at [email protected].

BBC Micro:bit successfully launched!

July 7, 2015 BBC Microbit 

Last March, I wrote about a terrific educational project taking place in the UK, with which the PSF is proud to be involved (see PSF Blogpost). I am very happy to report today that the BBC micro:bit project has successfully launched!

The BBC micro:bit release is part of the BBC’s Make it Digital initiative, whose purpose is to prepare a generation for the challenges of a tech-driven world. The project is a collaboration of 29 partners from industry, education, and government. 

Key partners include ARM, Microsoft, Samsung, Barclays, Freescale, Element14, Lancaster University, Nordic Semiconductor, Technology Will Save Us, ScienceScope and the Wellcome Trust.

At the beginning of the school term this September, every year-7 UK student (11-12 years old) will be given a BBC micro:bit computer. Designed to inspire creativity, the BBC micro:bit is pocket-sized, versatile, and, most importantly, easy to use:

Something simple can be coded in seconds – like lighting up its LEDs or displaying a pattern – with no prior knowledge of computing. All that’s needed is imagination and creativity.

The idea, according to Sinead Rocks, head of BBC Learning, is to make using computers creatively as natural to children as using crayons to experiment with coloring. 

The micro:bit can be programmed via web-based editors capable of using several programming languages, including Python, Javascript, C++, Microsoft Touch Develop, and Blocks (a visual language). The user can then save her program, run it in a simulator, and retrieve it any time to load it onto the BBC micro:bit. 

In addition to internet connectivity, the device can also connect, via five I/O rings as well as Bluetooth, to other computers and devices, including Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, Kanos, robots, and motors. When connected, it can be powered off another device, or it can run on its own battery. The micro:bit also features a compass and an accelerometer.

BBC Learning, along with the project’s partners, are providing educational resources and tutorials aligned with school curriculum, in an effort to ensure that teachers are ready when the micro:bits are distributed to students. With open-sourced specs and plans for a non-profit to oversee further educational use of the device, the micro:bit’s initial reach is sure to grow. Commercial development of the device is anticipated by the end of 2015.

The PSF is eager to seize this opportunity to further the use of Python and to increase programming literacy. According to the BBC, 

The Python Software Foundation will be working with the BBC micro:bit to provide a code editor that will help to teach children the Python programming language. They will be working with the Python development community to produce resources and activities that children can build using Python. 

I urge Python developers to volunteer for this effort and to get involved in this wonderful educational initiative. You can read more about this project at: BBC micro:bit and BBC Learning.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at [email protected].

CSA goes to PSF Brochure Creators

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation award Armin Stross-Radschinski and Jan Ulrich Hasecke the 1st Qtr 2015 PSF Community Service Award for their work on creating the PSF Python Brochure.

For the last several years, a dedicated team has toiled in obscurity on a task they knew to be important for the future of a programming language they loved, but at the same time, one that many thought would be a fool’s errand and would never pay off. These intrepid visionaries kept going, through thick and thin; through difficulties getting stories, legal permissions, and sponsors; through naysayers and those who said, again and again, that it was useless, since winter is coming (or something similar); through lions, and tigers and . . . ! Ultimately, they produced (drumroll, please) the PSF Brochure!

All kidding aside, the PSF brochure took an enormous amount of work and has been a huge success. It stands as a real-world ambassador for Python, for which we should all be grateful, and of which we should all be aware and proud! The next time one of your relatives, or friend of a friend, or a new acquaintance asks "so why is this open source language you’re spending so much time on such a big deal?" (see fn.* below), you needn’t break a sweat explaining; just hand them the brochure.

And beyond saving individual Pythonistas a lot of time and effort, the brochure, more importantly, conveys to “CIOs and chief developers, scientists and programmers, university lecturers, teachers and students, customers, clients, managers and employees” the benefits, functions, uses, applications, advantages, features, potential, and ease of using Python. 

Armin worked on the design and layout of the brochure, managed the visual aspects of the project, getting the sponsor ads into the brochure, managing the print runs, the project support website, ordering system, payment system, and finally all the shipping of the brochures to various conferences and user groups around the world.

Jan Ulrich was the main editor of the brochure content and worked with the sponsor story authors to create interesting stories. He also wrote the editorial parts of the brochure: the intro and the import success sections.

They both also helped with finding good success stories and sponsors, a task which took more time and effort than originally anticipated. According to PSF Director, Marc-Andre Lemburg, who headed up the project, 

Armin and Jan Ulrich both put a huge amount of work into the creation of the brochure. Armin on the visual and production side, Jan Ulrich on the editorial and content side. Without their efforts and passion, we would not have succeeded running this four year project to completion.”

You can find more information about the project on the wiki page, the support website, and by reading previous posts to this blog: PSF Brochure, Brochure Sold Out.

footnote*:  a real question really asked by real relatives!

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at [email protected].

PSF funds development: Armin Rigo's CFFI 1.0

In looking back over the PSF newsblog posts, it appears that most of the PSF funded projects I’ve written about were conferences, workshops, and education/outreach efforts. These are, of course, truly important. However, it’s also important to get the word out about several development projects that the PSF has sponsored in 2015. One such project is Armin Rigo’s work on CFFI 1.0. 

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant Armin Rigo $2500 towards cffi development aimed at making cffi generated extension modules importable without runtime dependencies on an extension module build toolchain.

CFFI or C Foreign Function Interface for Python provides a way to call compiled C code, i.e., external C libraries, from Python using interface declarations written in C. This eliminates the need to use a programming language other than C and Python. At the same time, CFFI minimizes the amount of C code that needs to be written, so it really is a boon for Python developers. It works with Python 2.6 and up and with PyPy 2x and 3x. See CFFI Documentation.

CFFI has already had approximately 7 million downloads, so it is clearly of use, but its creator, Armin Rigo (who is also one of the creators of PyPy) saw room for improvement. Specifically, according to Armin, there were two main problems:

1. The difficulties of installation [which] can be seen from outside by looking at various workarounds and 3rd-party documentation that have grown into existence. For example, the setup.py of projects like cryptography, PyNaCl and bcrypt deploys workarounds that are explicitly documented inhttps://caremad.io/2014/11/distributing-a-cffi-project/.
2. The time taken at import is excessive in some cases. For example, importing pygame-cffi on a Raspberry Pi ARM board takes on the order of 10 to 20 seconds (and this is the fast case where the compiler doesn’t need to be invoked any more)

Due to the PSF grant, Armin was able to fix both problems. The 1.0 version, now in beta, is available at CFFI 1.0.

Our thanks to the amazing Armin Rigo for this very welcome tool!

Stay tuned for my next post about the PSF’s recent award of $8,000 USD for Read the Docs. 

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at [email protected].

PSF/NumFOCUS joint Working Group on Scientific Python

For the first time ever, the PSF has joined forces with another open source organization, NumFOCUS, to create a collaborative working group to make decisions on allocating grants or sponsorships for Scientific Python projects, conferences, etc. 

NumFOCUS, based in Austin Texas, has been promoting and funding open source computing resources for scientific research since 2012. Their core projects include AstroPi, Data Carpentry, IPython, Julia, SimPy, NumPy, and SciPy, Matplotlib, Cython, PyTables, and more.

This new joint working group was spearheaded by PSF Director David Mertz, who will co-chair along with mathematician and Python evangelist Tim Couper.

The PSF has recently pledged initial annual support in the amount of of US$25,000, and agreed to match any amount NumFOCUS contributes beyond $25,000, up to $50,000 contributed by the PSF, during the PSF Board meeting on 4/28/15 (for combined funding up to $100,000). 

Image credit: engineering.dartmouth.edu

In forming the Working Group, David reached out via the PSF members' list to call for volunteers. As he wrote,

This note is a call for volunteers … The work needed … [is] keeping in mind a finite budget, and evaluating and discussing requests that come in for grants or sponsorship relative to this budget. In the best case, people connected to scientific communities will also do some outreach to let groups know that funds are potentially available, but it’s also necessary just to weigh requests that come to us independently.

The call for volunteers led to an extremely impressive group representing a range of scientific expertise and interests. The PSF is confident in the group’s ability to make capable evaluations of grant requests that will ensure a judicious use of limited funds.

Here are the WG members' biographies:

David Mertz: Ph.D. in Political Philosophy, gone astray into computer theory, with a stint in computational biochemistry. He has been a Fellow of the PSF since 2008, and a Director since 2009. He is author of Text Processing in Python (Addison Wesley) and the series Charming Python (IBM developerWorks).

Tim Couper: Oxford D.Phil. in Mathematics. Python evangelist and consultant for 16 years, now based in Scotland. Extensive python experience with organisations of all sizes from startups to large retail, pharmaceuticals & finance (banking & hedge funds).

Anthony Scopatz: Computational Physicist and avid Python developer since 2002 and PSF Fellow since 2013. He is coauthor of Effective Computation in Physics (O'Reilly). He will be joining the University of South Carolina as a tenure-track faculty member in Mechanical Engineering in August 2015.

Stéfan van der Walt: Assistant Researcher at the Berkeley Institute for Data Science and a senior lecturer in applied mathematics at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He has been an active member of the scientific Python community since 2006, and frequently teaches Python at workshops and conferences. He is the founder of scikit-image and a contributor to numpy, scipy and dipy.

Travis Oliphant: Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Mayo Clinic; professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at BYU 2001 to 2007 with research in inverse problems and biomedical imaging; creator of SciPy, author of NumPy; founder of Numba, PyData, NumFOCUS, and Continuum Analytics. Currently CEO of Continuum.

Leah Silen: Executive Director of NumFOCUS, Leah has been involved daily in the support of the Python scientific computing community since NumFOCUS began three years ago. She has worked with the board of directors to initiate and carry out fiscal sponsorship, fellowship and grant programs funding both projects and individuals. She has also worked through the organization of PyData events to further support the community as well as on scholarship review committees of multiple conferences.

Dana Bauer: Geographer, Pythonista, open data enthusiast, mom to a future robot programmer. Dana has over 54 repositories at GitHub and works as a developer at Rackspace. 

Kurt Kaiser is the Treasurer of the Python Software Foundation.

Congratulations to the organizers and members and best of luck in your important work. We look forward to hearing about your activities.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at [email protected].