Concluding EuroPython

I didn't sense much unease regarding Python 3000 this time, following Guido's keynote.

This isn't a complete overhaul, like the transition from Zope 2 to Zope 3, or Perl 5 to Perl 6.

Quick summary: the old xrange will become the new range, raw_input the new input, all strings will be unicode by default, all classes new style, and where it makes sense to return an iterable instead of a list, that's what'll happen. Print becomes a function.

Python 2.6 will have plenty of back ported bridging features.

Conference organizers were disappointed with how little help they got this year, meaning the conference fell short of their hopes and dreams. We had an excellent threshing session that will likely lead to greater participation next year.

The venue will be the same: Vilnius. Next year's Europython will hopefully attract more conferees from Eastern Europe and Russia.

We're doing more lightning talks at the moment.

OK, I managed to squeeze in a quick demo of hypertoons. What was really impressive however was the demo of gSculpt by Geoffrey French. Michael Hawker of Mikeware is also a man of many talents. He and I plan to do some sightseeing tomorrow.

I've invited Open End conference organizers to dinner tomorrow night, as a small token of my thanks for including me in these proceedings.