January 10, 2006 — originally posted on artima.com
So, the new job at Google is a blast! It's like being back in college. There are tons of smart people here, and that doesn't just refer to programmers; it appears that everyone they hire is above average in their domain. There's always more to learn; I expect to be overwhelmed for the first three months and it may take me a year before I feel truly comfortable. (And did I mention the free food? :-)
Python is big at Google. Since I don't want to bother with getting this blog reviewed by Google, I can't go into much detail, but it's at a secure 3rd place after C++ and Java, and it's being used for everything from build tools to managing ads. Name your third-party Python module and someone at Google is probably using it. So this is an exciting environment -- I get to see first-hand what truly large-scale Python development is like, and where the pain points are.
And did I mention that I get to spend 50% of my time on Python? No strings attached. Of course I get to spend the other 50% on Python too, but that's in a corporate setting. Fortunately it's easy to separate the two. If it uses two-space indents, it's corporate code; if it uses four-space indents, it's open source. (If it uses tabs, I didn't write it! :-)
The next US Python Conference is soon! We've got a new location, Addison TX (near Dallas). I've heard some rumblings from the organizers that attendance is lower than expected, but I'd like to point out that we've had worries about attendance at every PyCon, and in the end the results were always above all predictions. And, like most years, we're keeping early-bird registration open an extra two weeks (until January 15); the special rate at the hotel is valid until February 1st.
The program looks spectacular. We've got the Plone team keynoting, and on day three instead of a keynote we have an interview with BitTorrent creator and nouveau-enterpreneur Bram Cohen (submit your questions now!). Oh, and I believe some BDFL guy is doing a state-of-the-Python talk. BTW, at least 7 Googlers are coming (with at least three of us presenting this or that).
After the conference there will be four days of sprints. Like every year, this is an outstanding opportunity for teams that normally communicate via email and IRC to have a few days of coding in the same space -- despite the wonderful invention of the internet, there's still nothing that quite beats face-to-face contact. Several groups will be sprinting on core Python things (possibly even Python 3000!); I expect we'll also see sprints for projects like Twisted, Zope and Plone. You can sign up your own project via the wiki!