The slides for my "Python best practices" talk at the "libre software meeting" in Dijon 10 days ago are now online after some minor polishing.

Unfortunately for non-french speakers, they are in french (but with a faire dose of english quotes and technical lingo ;) ) but I hope you will enjoy them anyway.

I don't consider the talk to be finished, there are many more things I'd like to add over time. You're very welcome to send me your comments by email (sf at nuxeo dot com)

I thank Stefan Holek whose talk on "choosing good names" at EuroPython 2005 was an inspiration for this talk.

And, BTW, it's official now:

Great day for the European Democracy today: the software patents directive proposed by the European Commission, backed by the European Council, initiated by the European Patents Office and BSA, and supported by a horde of corporate lobbyists has been rejected.

The directive was rejected by a majority of 648 votes against 14, something unprecedented in the EU history.

For more information about the news, read:

• Michel Rocard discourse just before the vote (in french and english), also available as audio (MP3)
  
• FFII's press release about the vote

Jean-Marc's slides for his Europython 2005 talk are now online.

One great thing about his talk is that he's come up with a "Top 10 reasons to use CPSSkins" which are:

• 10. modify your site design without restarting the server
• 9. cache page fragments without setting up a Squid
• 8. create a design that works on all CSS2-compliant browsers
• 7. do tableless design without spending hours on it
• 6. respect Web standards without reading the W3 specs
• 5. create visual variation across your site
• 4. prevent content creators from altering the site's design
• 3. allow content creators to be more creative, but not too much
• 2. focus on form and content and not just on technique
• 1. don't reinvent the wheel, spend time on real development

One can read more background information about CPSSkins in Jean-Marc's last year talk (but this was before the introduction of portlets into the framework, so things have changed quite a bit this last year).

I think that CPSSkins doesn't yet have the success it deserves, probably because people don't yet get the whole advantage they can get from using it, and this is a shame because it is really a terrific product.