I played a small part with a Poster Session on Sunday, the final session day. I talked about how and why we arrived at a Python codebase for my new project, Happify. My poster, below, is an unscientific look at various startup-friendly languages across axes like hiring, readability, produtivity, and performance. I spoke about the state of the NYC startup scene, how Python is on the rise, and why it’s a particularly good fit for small teams that require each member of the team to contribute at every layer of the stack. It was very well-received, sparking some vibrant post-session conversations on everything from Positive Psychology to creative use of Python decorators. My short intro video is here. You’ll see clearly I’d had insufficient sleep ond more-that-sufficient caffeine.

But the best aspect of Pycon for me was getting to know the community of folks that make the language thrive. For years I have been intrigued by the differences between various self-organizing open-source technical communities, with first-hand knowledge of the groups driving Ruby, Python, Scala, Java, and PostgreSQL. I have in mind a long post which will explore their similarities and differences, but I will pen a few words about Python here.

Python has a long history as a utilitarian “get things done” language. It’s wide adoption by academic and scientific programmers, as well as the web application startup scene has proven that its readability, lack of magic, and productivity are important to anyone writing code. Perhaps even more important than out-of-the-gate performance and concurrency. This cross-cutting eye toward utility is very clear at Pycon. Talks and Posters surrounding my own included explorations of computer vision, artificial intelligence, asynchronous evened programming, web frameworks, and even my favorite “Militarizing Your Backyard with Python: Computer Vision and the Squirrel Hordes.” Get the language out of your way, and you can do anything from shooting rodents to making people happier through gaming.

Anyway, I’m excited to be a small part of the Python community.

And a PDF version: PyCon 2012 Poster

In recent years I have seen a tremendous lift in the size of the Python community and the innovation coming out of it, and I am thrilled to be a part of it. On Sunday I’m giving a “poster” presentation on this very topic; I’ll be engaging with the community here on why a Python-based stack is the right fit for our efforts at my new startup, Happify.

Beyond the obvious energy and creativity coming out of Python, my thesis is that NYC is becoming a center of great Python work in startups. Thanks to open-source frameworks like Brubeck.io, a growing talent pool of xooglers and Bay-area expats, and the sheer number of funded early-stage companies embracing Python (for it’s readability, productivity/fun, and good-enough performance), it is a natural and solid choice for NYC startup efforts. I am jazzed about becoming more involved with the NYC Python scene and contributing wherever I can.

If you are at PyCon, please say hi. I’ll post about my experience here when I am back in NYC.

I spent 2010/2011 building the technology platform and team at Bookish, and it was an amazing experience. But, for me it came to an end. I miss the team and the irreverent vision we shared, and the inspiration it brought me. As is always the case, ideas are cheap, money is out there and the hardest part is surrounding yourself with the right set of amazing collaborators.

Last year was busy.

• We worked our butts off on Bookish.
• I started the NYC SproutCore meetup and hosted several events.
• I pursued speaking more aggressively, notably at MySQL Conf and Surge.
• I was quoted in the WSJ and featured on GigOM with a headline that included the words “Harsh Mistress.”
• I mentored at SeedCamp NYC and IBM SmartCamp.
• I wrote a bunch of code outside of work and learned some new stacks and tools for the hell of it.
• I got pretty excited about these wind synthesizer patches and wrote some music, soon to be released into the wild I think. I was quoted on the developer’s site.
• I kept off the 15 pounds I lost in March.
• I learned a LOT.

But there are a lot of things I didn’t do. I didn’t play or write enough music. And although I talked about it a lot and was on the scene, I didn’t found a company. Well, not until mid-December, so that doesn’t count.

So in 2012 I’ll do both those things, and write about my experiences here at least 12 times. I hope you’ll read and comment. Happy New Year!

I’ve left to pursue a remarkable new opportunity that I can’t discuss quite yet; not because I don’t want to, but because, dammit, they won’t let me! It’s got some key facets that ultimately pulled me away from the killer team at OI: it’s in a space that will impact everyone I know, it challenges me to build apps that I will want to use every day, the scale will require some clever architecture that’s stretching my thinking, and it presents a true startup-business-building challenge for me. BTW, we’re hiring Scala and Ruby developers, so get in touch.

I am beyond proud of what we have accomplished at Outside.in, and of what the team I’m leaving continues to build there. The OI platform is in great shape. The public API is impressive and live and it’s one of the best out there, powering hyperlocal for huge sites like CNN.com. The next phases of its evolution are in the best possible hands. I’m incredibly thankful for the experiences of the past 2 years, and grateful to the team that made them possible.

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Originally uploaded by andyparsons

Contentment in the laundry room. This is me testing wiring up Twitter to this blog.

I’m doing a casual study for a personal project  on how many variant user experiences there are for interconnecting Web apps I use frequently, and how unifying standard practices to cut down on clicks and enhance security could help data flow more freely.

After looking at this stuff for a bit, I felt like Izzy looks in this image.

There are too many impediments to interconnectivity.

But that’s OK; it forced me to consider which ones were important. Those I read daily were top of mind and easy to find. Those with which I play pound-the-weasel of unread items are useless anyway.

I urge you to try this. On purpose. If you can recover your blogroll, it’s no fun.

• I don’t know what Web x.0 means anymore. But while we figure that out, the holy grail for everyday Web use is filtering and organization of data of interest, along axes that make sense. Outside.in has nailed this from day 1, choosing geographical proximity as that axis.
• The OI platform stack has to scale massively. In prior roles I’ve sometimes said that the technology I’m helping build has scaled beyond “consumer app numbers.” OI already has those numbers, and needs to cleverly grow fast as an aggregator, publisher, API provider, and Web app. This is my idea of fun.
• The news business is shifting even as I write this. More agile, community-centric news delivery and filtering are already here, and traditional new businesses are adapting or facing extinction. OI offers  Big News and all authors, small and large, the platform they will embrace for distribution and monetization of local information. In short, our timing is absolutely perfect.
• Technologies in the worlds of Natural Language Processing and Semantics are coming of age, and OI is making practical use of them in very creative ways. I may even have a few ideas about this up my sleeve.
• Amazing team! Founders Steven Johnson, John Geraci, and Cory Forsyth created an incredible startup energy, and our CEO Mark Josephson is taking that a few notches further. The dedication, smarts, and creativity of this group of people is awesome.
• Mark and our Board are the ideal leadership team. I’ll save the “why” of this for another post about startup leadership, but it’s a big part of why I’m here and putting my all into it, every day.
• I can walk to work!

So, I’ve been on the job 2 weeks, enjoying every minute of learning the technology and development process VP of Engineering Cory has built to date, and getting to know the stellar team of engineers, product and business folks. It’s also been enough time to validate all of the drivers for me deciding this was the place for me, and that is truly a great feeling. As I have shared with the oi team, this is the “calm before the storm…” We are in the war room strategizing how to reveal some new technologies and business lines that have been brewing in HQ at 20 Jay Street, DUMBO. Stay tuned and get ready, I think we’re gonna turn this thing on it’s head!

I’ve been teaching her a little bit about science and encouraging her questions. But really, I am passive, watching her formulate theories and test them. Our freezer is full of “samples” from the last Brooklyn snowfall.

She is learning to learn by testing, to come up with an assertion she believes to be correct, and then by observation rule it in or out. The application to programming and building systems is obvious, but easy to forget. I’ve sometimes fallen into the trap of assuming something is true, and relying on that assumption without a proper assertion and test. With the overwhelming amount of reading material available on what works and what doesn’t from “cloud computing” to scaling Ruby, from development environments to search algorithms, it’s easy to fall back on assumptions, most often and dangerously someone else’s assumptions. Watching my daughter’s inner scientist emerge has been a good reminder for me.

I now assert, and have proven, that even New York City snow is made of ice crystals and melts at room temperature.