I hosted a django barcamp this week, in the midst of a hectic schedule of attending a UKOLN DevSci mobile day and the Plone Conference.
I had offered to host one of the events for the local Bristol and Bath Django users group, DBUG, after attending the last one. So when prodded I suggested lightning talks and set about putting together a couple. Having got the ball rolling I thought I should offer to host to. The beer and pizza came for free via Dan Fairs contact at Austin Fraser IT recruitment agency.
It was good fun and quite successful ~ 40 odd attendees, so aside from ending up tidying all the empty beer bottles ;-) I would recommend it.
I did a talk on using Google App Engine, which I will also have to post on in more detail - once I have finally written the accompanying Android app that goes with the GAE site.
The main positive was just how in demand python and particularly django skills are at the moment, certainly no difficulty in getting a job locally that pays equivalent to a University developer post. The positive buzz in commercial python web development also made a nice contrast to the current cold winds blowing through the public sector.
Finally it was a good social occasion to get to meet, and get a bit drunk, with a bunch of fellow programmers, who were interested in the same coding tools as myself.