Python BarCamp April, 17th at Cologne, Germany organized by pyCologne

Design by Thomas Richter

Authors: Reimar Bauer, Thomas Lenarz

On April 17th, 2010, pyCologne, the Python-User-Group of Cologne, Germany, welcomed about 20 participants at the first German Python-BarCamp at the site of GFU Cyrus AG in Cologne.

GFU, a Cologne based IT training company (http://www.gfu.net/), provided a set of three conference rooms, their cafeteria, and an assembly hall, which built up a perfect venue for the barcamp.

O'Reilly (http://www.oreilly.de/) sponsored selected Python-books, which were raffled in addition to a special Barcamp T-Shirt among the participants. The start of the event was awaited with eager anticipation since at a barcamp the participants themselves take care of the content. pyCologne took care of the organizational preparations.

After a warm welcome from Reimar Bauer and Muharem Hrnjadovic on behalf of pyCologne and a brief round of introductions, planning of the slots using the prepared Flipcharts started immediately. Planning just finished, the participants swarmed out to join the different sessions: PyPy, Plone, MoinMoin-2.0, Django, imap2xmpp und bildout. Couchdb, from frameworks to libraries, 3D-graphics programming, Midi as well as Python and Java found enthusiastic participants, following the scheme "presentations last as long as it takes or the next slot is about to start".

To get motivated again after the lunch break with pizza and drinks, Christopher Arndt invited the participants into the sunny assembly-hall for the lightning talks: speakers talk for five minutes max, the goal is to entertain. After four minutes the moderator signals that their is one minute left and breaks off the talk after five minutes unconditionally.

Topics were: Coworking Project Cologne, pyCologne@FrOSCon, PyPy, RPX für Plone und Twitter, Zotero, html2wiki, Web-Development Client vs. Server, scriptutil for fun and profit and Django OR-M im Backend.

Again keen for action, the afternoon started with further sessions. Easily noticed by the noise of the keyboards many of the new learned topics were transferred immediately to the internet. Using the hashtags #pybar and #pybarcamp everybody from inside and outside the camp could follow the event.

After the closing session and the group-photo (http://www.flickr.com/photos/12317756@N08/4530807440/sizes/o/) it was time to say goodbye to GFU.

The participants enjoyed the rest of the evening at the restaurant "La Mäng" in a cosy atmosphere having food and drink and friendly conversation.