I was at Pycon this week. While I'd like to see no highlighted sponsor talks in the lightning talks (I was bumped partially due to them eating up available time), I didn't feel like the rest of the con was particularly bad. The talks from White Oaks and Google were good keynotes and not at all marketingesque.
Will attend again next year. Some brilliant minds running around at that conference. Absolutely no press, which is odd given how many clever things are being discussed.
As a Python outsider (Ruby won the coin flip, so I still haven't learned much Python) can I ask for a translation from the Python wizards in the audience? Is this a Zed-Shaw-style rant with 80% fewer swear words? i.e. "I'm annoyed because marketing departments have discovered my favorite tool and now my breakfast cereal is full of tchotchkes?" Or is this a symptom of an actual problem in the Python core community?
One of the annoying side effects of developing a reputation for success is that corporate IT wants very badly to talk to you. I'm watching the Drupal community go through this now, I've seen the Ruby folks trying to cope with Rails mania, and this looks like it might be the same thing. It's annoying, like a headache, but in the immortal words of PG, headaches can be a sign of good things -- for example, you might be recovering consciousness after a blow on the head.
In this case, we might be seeing a sign that Python is developing a popular reputation for success! And that's good... although it may mean that people need to start holding smaller, less formal meetings in odd corners if they want to actually discuss anything.
This is definitely not a symptom of problems in the Python community. Certain people will always be disappointed no matter what happens, and some of them can write well and make it seem like it's really a wide spread problem.
Personally I'm glad to see more companies become interested in Python and I'm looking forward to how PyCon evolves going forward. The thing to keep in mind is that PyCon is really a volunteer run conference. If you don't like something, volunteer to make it better. Don't like the talks this year? Join the selection committee for next year and help pick better talks.
Will attend again next year. Some brilliant minds running around at that conference. Absolutely no press, which is odd given how many clever things are being discussed.