October 2014 PRPIG Meeting

On October 16, the Puerto Rico Python Interest Group (PRPIG) will celebrate it's recent acceptance as an affiliate of the Open Source Initiative, with a new series of user group meeting cohosted within the University of Puerto Rico. PRPIG will be collaborating with respective campus student associations for computer science (AECC, initials in Spanish), to produce user group meetings for students. 

The user group meetings will feature introductory Python sessions by students and user group members. The October PRPIG meeting will be held at Universidad de Puerto Rico en Bayamón, #170 Carretera 174 Parque Industrial Minillas, in the Reception Hall at 7:00pm.

On November 20^th, PRPIG will collaborate with the UPR Rio Piedras chapter of the AECC to produce the “Puerto Rico Intellectual Property Summit.” The user group meeting will feature sessions from the UPR Law Clinic, Startups of Puerto Rico, and Ferraiuoli LLC. Sessions anticipated include the Puerto Rico implementation of Creative Commons 3.0, intellectual property protection for startups, and a side-by-side comparison of software licenses.

These student collaborations Provide teens with the opportunity to build skill proficiency in open technologies not typically covered locally in the standard proprietary software driven, technology-based degree programs. For participants, they gain valuable skills that will help prepare them for future education and career success.

PRPIG Gains Affiliate Membership in Open Source Initiative

August 24th, the Puerto Rico Python Interest Group (PRPIG) was formally accepted as an affiliate member of the Open Source Initiative (OSI).  With this honor, PRPIG joins a litany of IT (FLOSS) giants, such as Mozilla, the Python Software Foundation, The Linux Foundation, Debian, and the Drupal Association.  #humbling

"We are pleased to have prPIG join our community,” 

said Patrick Masson, general manager of the OSI.

“prPIG captures the very essence of the Open Source movement, where communities of practice self-organize around common goals to share and co-create. prPIG is helping set the standard for peer-driven development across Puerto Rico while also contributing to the larger Python community."

prPIG offers free workshops and seminars to educate about and advocate for the benefits of Open Source. To grow our community and increase our reach we will continue to build bridges among different constituencies, focusing especially on high school and university students.

Victor Vasarely Meets Tina Turtle

I've been playing around with Python Turtle, with the intention of adding finished scripts to trinket.io.  A few months ago, I was successful in porting Victor Vasarely's "Plastic Alphabet" in Python and Tk.  So, as soon as I learned about trinket.io, I've been trying to port the script into Python and Turtle.

After using brute force to get some boxes drawn in Turtle.  This weekend I was able to finish the algorithm to get Turtle to draw columns and rows of boxes.  Needless to say, but the power of trinkets is that you can develop Turtle using your preferred Python IDE, and then simply cut and paste the script into a trinket. Enjoy!

Another trinket.io example

One of the many uses of trinket.io is engagement and measurement. For example, If you're teaching a class on Python, you could simply paste a trinket into your blog or website, and then, with each session opened by a client, the visitor has their own interactive Python environment.


When participants have finished the assignment, they can share the result on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Linked In, Reddit, or Hacker News.  Pretty cool, don't you think?  This portable Python environment really changes everything.  It's a whole new way of engaging with the user group.

Using Trinket To Share Interactive Python

Just discovered this service for posting interactive Python.  Here is a sample from the Trinket website.

Sample Chapter - Head First Python

PRPIG Offering free access to O'Reilly Python Book Samples

As part of the O'Reilly User Group program, we have access to a library of O'Reilly book samples.  I'll be

sharing some of them that I think might be helpful for our community.

The first is Head First Python.  If you've been struggling with getting started, perhaps the Head First series might be able to help.  Designed and written using a completely new approach to teaching complex topics, the Head First books offer a fresh perspective on learning Python.

Head First Python - Sample

Less than 3 weeks!

#PuertoRico #Python #userGroup hosting an evening of #LightningTalks on February 20th: http://mstrb.us/1n75Kk4

Next python user group meeting is 2/20/14

February prPIG Meeting

Puerto Rico Python User Group Celebrates First Anniversary

One year ago the Puerto Rico Python Interest Group (prPIG) was founded on one purpose; to create a sustainable user community based on software development in Puerto Rico. On February 20, 2014 we will celebrate our first anniversary with an open format meeting with lightning talks from the community.

prPIG is looking for volunteers from the community that are willing to give a short introduction to their favorite Python library, some popular modules we'd like to see include: math, decimal, datetime, time, dateutil, re, sqlite, json, urllib2, pyquery, and sh. Suggestions are also welcome.

During their first year, the Puerto Rico Python user group hosted 18 events, and established an active community online. According to founder Kevin Shockey, “prPIG has successfully established an online network that is helping to sustain our software development user group in Puerto Rico. We've gained many new partners and collaborators in our first year. They have really helped us and we look forward to more collaborative opportunities.”

The February meeting of prPIG will be held at 7:00pm in 2nd Floor Conference Room, Puerto Rico Science, Research, & Technology Trust, Rd. 21, Río Piedras.

Note: prPIG is kindly sponsored by the Internet Society, through their Community Grant program. We are deeply grateful for all of the support we have received so far, it has been well beyond our wildest expectations.

More on the Python Software Foundation Code of Conduct.

I found this in the Python Software Foundation's explanation of the new Code of Conduct. I'm particularly interested in their(our) effort to grow a more diverse Python community. This section resonates with me:

"we can advance towards a more diverse representation, one that we see throughout the rest of the community being increasingly populated by women, students, and with the popularity of pocket-sized computers, children will soon be in the ranks." 

 I hope that prPIG can embrace that future...

January 2014 Meeting CFP

On January 16, 2014 the Puerto Rico Python user group will kick-off the new year with our first

meeting.  We are looking for speakers who can share what they know about Python or related FLOSS topics.

The theme of the meeting will be tools.  We would especially like to see lightning talks that give new users an overview of the typical tools a user needs to get the most out of Python and free software.  

Sample tools include: IDLE, Eclipse, Python Tools for Visual Studio, GIT, IRC, Xen or other virtualization software, the GNU toolchain (GNU Make, GCC, Binutils, or GNU Autotools).

Python Parranda - InstallFest

On May 11th, the Puerto Rico Python Interest Group (prPIG) is proud to announce our first ever

Python Parranda.  The Parranda is part Python InstallFest and part Meetup/Sprint. It will be Saturday morning from 9am till 12pm at the Telegrafo building on Ponce de Leon, San Juan, Puerto Rico.  

The group decided that getting the Python community ready for the upcoming Puerto Rico Tech Summit. what was most important need.  The Tech Summit, 06/06/13, is sponsored by the Puerto Rican Government, and it’s CIO Giancarlos González.  The first of it’s kind, the Tech Summit is a direct outreach to the Puerto Rico software development community to participate in access to governmental data; especially the Government Hackathon being held simultaneously with the summit.  

The data being made available for the hackathon is a direct result of the MOU Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla signed on 2/28/13.  Following President Barack Obama’s lead, Governor Garcia requested every government agency to make an API within 90 days.

Note: prPIG is kindly sponsored by the Internet Society, through their Community Grant program.  We are deeply grateful for all of the support we have received so far, it has been well beyond our wildest expectations.

Puerto Rico Python UG will host a look at Blimp in next prPIG meeting

Puerto Rico Python is pleased to announce our next meeting.  The meeting will be April 9th at 6:30 in the offices of Vasa Consulting.  Be advised that this is a new date.  Our normally scheduled Wednesday meeting was not possible, because the conference room was already booked. 

We will start a new content track with this meeting.  From now on, all meetings of the Puerto Rico Python Interest Group (prPIG) will include a tutorial or demonstration from a group member or a specially invited guest.

Our first tutorial will be offered by the co-founders of Blimp, a project management web service built in Python.  You can get blimp at http://getblimp.com.  prPIG members Giovanni Collazo and José Padilla will be offering us a long behind the curtain at their software development stack.

Our "Hack the Hackathon" meeting was a smashing success.  You can watch the recording and see the fluid flow of great ideas.  The prPIG "Hackathon" meeting from 3/27 is available from Youtube via an On Air Google Hangout.

Although we are still seeking a date to lock in our first Python Hackathon, what we have decided on is the content.  The prPIG Python Hackathon will consist of three tracks. The first track will be a Python Install Fest; anyone wanting to install Python can bring their laptop and prPIG will make sure they walk away with a working version of Python.  

The second track will be tutorials given by prPIG members.  The final track will be a Python Sprint.  Using the Hacker League, prPIG will host a Python hacking contest.  More details of the hackathon will be available soon.  

An example of the type of content that prPIG will strive to produce in our Hackathon was recently created by one of its' members.  Robert Rosario produced "Screencast de como comenzar un proyecto de Django + Virtualenv;" thus completing one of prPIG's original goals, generate Python-related content in Spanish.  

Programming iOS with Python

Obviously, this is a VERY hot topic, so we'll definitely be looking into all aspects of using Python to program apps for iOS.  While this review of Pythonista is about using Python on iOS, it is still applicable. Excerpt:

"An app for programming Python on iOS called Pythonista ha[s] some smart ways of getting around some of Apples restrictions. And one of the nice things you can do is home screen shortcuts, making your scripts available directly from your home screen of your iOS device."

Thanks to Jacken's Blog for the tip!

Making Bacon

Come all ye Phythonistas!

The feedback from the meetup last night, is that Puerto Rico is ready for a software development community. With pleasure, prPIG is here to serve.

I'd like to announce that we will hold the 1st Puerto Rico Python Interest Group meeting before the end of the month (2/28).

Tentatively, the meetup will be at the UMET Cupey campus, unless someone would like to volunteer a location in the SJ Metro area? With WIFI por favor? :-)

Thanks for the leadership of Axel Rivera!  It was great networking with other Pythonistas!

Don't forget to like the prPIG Facebook Page!

First Puerto Rico Python Interest Group Meeting

Long live Puerto Rico PIG!

2/06/13 @ Ficus Cafe at 8pm

We will conduct our first meeting on February 6th at 8:00 pm at the Ficus Cafe in front of the Puerto Rico Convention Center.  Alex Rivera, founder of Startup After Hours Puerto Rico, has graciously allowed me a few minutes to introduce prPIG to his community during their scheduled meetup.

My objectives are simple. First, in order to prepare for the meeting, I wanted to launch a minimal viable product website and email mailing list, which I completed yesterday.  That's why I reached out to Alex, because...

An second, I wanted to get the word out as quickly as possible. At the event I will share the mission of the prPIG community, invite new members (free), and review the types of activities we have planned.  I hope to see you there!

P.S. I'm in the process of getting us listed on the Python Foundation Local User Group page of official list of Piggies on the Python Foundation Wiki. Soon it will be official, Puerto Rico will have their very own Piggy!(*)

(*) The Python Foundation refers to their local user groups as Python Interest Groups (PIG).