Vermont Code Camp
11 Sep 2010 at Kalkin Hall, University of Vermont

Nowell - nice job cranking through Python - what makes it unique (indentation matters!) and what's familiar - what makes it powerful (functional programming anyone?) and where it's ugly (the 2.7/3.0 incompatible version schism in play at the moment). You did this while also handling a barrage of questions and maintaining high energy at the end of a looooong day.

-Bill

Thanks Jim! Excellent talk - a clear, focused, soup-to-nuts run-down on Dallas - what it is, why it matters, and how to use it from multiple perspectives (Excel user, .NET developer, and PHP developer).

Jesse - I enjoyed your talk which gave us all some good take-aways to ponder. A couple of examples from my notes:

You are assuming the operational burden for your customers - so you are always on their mind - and you have to (or "get to"?) prove yourself to every customer every day. In this model, 100% gross margins (after the software is built and delivered) is a thing of the past as "you now own a RELATIONSHIP with your customer, not a REVENUE STREAM" - a model that is great for those who can execute.

Enable multi-tenancy, metering, and ability to sell incremental features. Provisioning is CRITICAL. It must be EASY to start and stop using your software, such as free trials which are automatically and INSTANTLY provisioned at customer request via your web site. Otherwise, you add unexpected friction which annoys customers and kills margins.

-Bill

Thanks Jesse! It was a great discussion on the topic and gave us a lot to think about for our planned move -very informative!!

Thanks for putting the slides up as well.

I don't think you could pack anymore information or enthusiasm into an hour! Obviously put a lot of work into the presentation -Thank You. Afterwards, I realized where all the Kool-Aid went . . . Nowell drank it:)
In my dream world, it would have been great to have a follow-up session showing Python 'in action' under different scenarios so you could get the basics in the first, then see how peeps have used it's generalized nature to make their (programming) lives happier, better looking, etc. Hmmmm . . .

Excellent tips and process ideas for developers who are stuck implementing CSS.

A very thorough overview of the Python programming language. While I won't be switching from PHP anytime soon, it was great learning about another language!

Good overview of WebMatrix. I can see how it will help give Windows users exposure to open source projects. Most of the audience was professional developers, so may not quite be a fit for the audience, but still a useful tool to be aware of.