The response to arguments about self in Python is "explicit is better than implicit." In a discussion at Pycon Brazil, I realized that we do need self in the body of a method, but being forced to place it in the argument list is redundant. I'm not actually expecting it to change, but I want to try to establish that this isn't a dumb argument.

Brazilians are very warm and friendly, and PyCon Brazil in Rio de Janeiro had over 300 very enthusiastic and committed Python programmers.

I will be giving a 3-day Java & Python Patterns workshop in Sao Paulo September 15-17, and then the keynote at the PyConBrasil in Rio de Janeiro September 19.

James Ward and I have been working on an introductory Flex book for programmers, which we'll release as soon as we get the legal issues ironed out.

A non-Web-2.0 (TM O'Reilly, Inc.) way of looking at it.

Why does a company full of smart people make stupid decisions? How do we keep it from happening?

If so, this is a call to action.

Microsoft announced a 300 million marketing campaign to stand up to the competitors and critics of Vista. They're going to make Vista good by saying it's good.

The video and slides from last December in Belgium.

The Jython team has been working furiously on this; we may see a 2.5 alpha available for experimentation in mid-July.

I recently had to figure out how to post some videos of locally-written 10-minute plays (including my own) and ran into YouTube's 10-minute limit.

Not only are basic collections (arrays and associative arrays) tightly integrated into the core language, but arrays provide some sophisticated functional programming support. This article also introduces the creation and use of shared libraries and the basics of prototypes.

You can just use it a little bit.

Microsoft has created a really impressive newsreader.

An example of parallel programming using all the CPUs on your computer or cluster. Also shows how to add a Flex user interface.