Python Ladies & Gentlemen, Get Your Hack On...in Hollywood Bring your laptop and join PyLadies and the Southern California Python Users Group on Saturday, June 18th for a fun day of coding and hanging out with fellow Python developers.  It can be an existing project or a new one of your own! Not sure what to work on? We'll help you get your feet wet with Python and/or open source... [read more]

Python Ladies & Gentlemen, Get Your Hack On...in Hollywood Bring your laptop and join PyLadies and the Southern California Python Users Group on Saturday, June 18th for a fun day of coding and hanging out with fellow Python developers.  It can be an existing project or a new one of your own! Not sure what to work on? We'll help you get your feet wet with Python and/or open source software development and figure out how to get started. Attendee Info To SoCal Piggies folks:  A few people have asked if men are welcome, and whether there will be time to hack on your own projects.  The answer is a resounding yes to both!  Please encourage the smart women in your lives to come with you if possible -- we'll have mentors there ready to get them going with Python intro tutorials.To past PyLadies workshop attendees:  We had such an amazing response from our first event.  Let's keep learning and inspiring one another -- and the Python community as a whole -- by hacking away at programming projects and real-world applications of the things we learned at the May workshop. To new attendees and beginners:  Don’t be shy to sign up.  This is your opportunity to try Python programming for the first time.  Just be prepared to work hard and ask questions at every opportunity.To non-developers:  Please don’t come just to recruit developers or bother attendees who are trying to focus on writing code.  We will have zero tolerance for this and reserve the right to ask you to leave.  However, if you leave the “recruiter hat” at home and work on a Python coding project or tutorial with an open mind, you’ll be warmly welcomed and we’ll help you learn :) Thank You, Sponsors! This event has been sponsored by a grant from the Python Software Foundation and pythonsprints.com.  They have generously donated funds to cover folding tables/chairs, t-shirts for everyone who open-sources their work or contributes to an open-source project, and pythonsprints.com funding to help cover the event costs.   The PSF is a huge supporter and promoter of diversity in the Python community.  When PyLadies went to ask the PSF for help, the entire PSF board went above and beyond the imaginable to help us.  We salute their efforts and their dedication. The event is graciously being hosted by Border Stylo, the startup behind the Glass browser add-on and Retrollect app.   The Border Stylo devs went out of their way to invite lady friends to the PyLadies event last month, resulting in a few women turning into PyLadies!  A special thank-you goes to the Border Stylo folks, especially @gjdillon and @20dollarlens, for going out of their way to help get women into Python development.  Kudos to this amazingly woman-friendly company, and be sure to check out BoSty's job openings.   Also, two fantastic Django hosting companies have contacted us about giving free beta accounts to attendees.  Try both of them if you can't decide!     To get a gondor.io account: Sign up for the private beta, then email gondor@eldarion.com (mentioning pyladies).  The Gondor folks will make sure that you are immediately let in. They are available in #gondor IRC channel on freenode to help out anyone that needs it. To get a djangozoom.com account:  Sign up for the beta and mention pyladies.  They'll give you an invite. The fact that 2 of the best Django hosting providers reached out to us independently is yet more proof that the Django community is woman-friendly!   These companies are led by very well-known folks in the Python and Django communities who are excited about our success. Schedule 2-7pm: Hack on your own projects7-8pm: Dinner, drinks, and lightning talks8pm-midnight: Python Ladies’ Night 4 at The Hollywood Canteen.  Gentlemen of the Python community and friends not attending the hackathon are invited too.  The more, the merrier! What to expect? Plans for the event include: General Python and technical support.  Male and female mentors from the PyLadies community will be circulating to help you embark on your project idea Basic lessons in use of Git/Github for source control Other Python hackers with code, projects and ideas Exploring data processing in the cloud with the Opani social supercomputing platform Lightning talks Food and drinks (included) Free t-shirts to anyone who works on open-source.  Make a small or large volunteer contribution to any open-source project, or make your code publicly available on Github or Bitbucket, and receive a free limited-edition PyLadies or PyLadies Supporter t-shirt as your reward. What you should bring: Laptop & powercord Ideas for projects and/or code you have written Optional 5 minute lightning talk. Beginner PyLadies are especially encouraged to present on useful intro topics - this is a friendly, supportive audience. Parking Info  Seward St. will be closed on Saturday, and Border Stylo's parking lot will be inaccessible. There is ample street parking on June St. and Waring Ave. -- just be sure to double check the parking signs! Project ideas Here are some of the projects that people are planning to work on.  You can work on anything you want!  This is just a starter list to get your ideas flowing. Building a Pyramid-powered website to represent the Python community in LA as a whole, including SoCal Piggies, LA Django, and LA PyLadies - https://github.com/lapython/pythonla Food truck tracking - https://github.com/estherbester/Neighborhood-Food-Truck-Tracker XBOX Kinect hardware hacking with Python Happy hour menu web scraping Work on some part of pyladies.com.  If you have a cool idea for something that can benefit the PyLadies community, e.g. a member directory, woman-friendly company directory, etc., let Audrey know and she'll give you a free subdomain of pyladies.com to use. P2PU - http://new.p2pu.org/en/ - code at https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta Django Packages/Packaginator Django Uni-Form Web recipe software Delivery menu web scraping (yes, we really do love food) Data processing, analysis, visualization, etc. with Opani.  Dirk from Opani will be one of our volunteer mentors, helping with this - http://opani.com/dirk/ Twitter API fun Contributing to Python Core - see http://pythonmentors.com/ if you’re interested in this and want to get a head start from the friendly Python Core mentors Cleaning up any reusable Python code you might have, and packaging it up as a PyPI package Building your own website with any of the Python web frameworks Writing games with PyGame Drawing pretty things with the Python Imaging Library or PyCairo Going through the Learn Python the Hard Way independently, with help from mentors whenever you have even the smallest question.  There are no stupid questions.  First-time coders are strongly encouraged to do this.   Going through other online tutorials on your own.  Come with a positive attitude and a desire to focus and work hard, and we’ll help you with whatever you get stuck on.  It’ll be like getting free Python tutoring from our mentors. Something else of your own.  Bounce your ideas off of one of the mentors if you need advice on how to proceed.  We’ll help you. And remember, if you contribute to an open-source project or make your project open-source, you’ll receive a free limited-edition PyLadies or PyLadies Supporter t-shirt. Need more info? If you have particular questions or suggestions for the event, please email katharine (at) pyladies (dot) com for more information.  Visit http://www.pyladies.com for more events and information. Oh, and like us on Facebook to keep posted on more upcoming events!