Jackfield, the web, and Python

you may know me from lugradio -- any listeners in?

Web developers (picture)

Desktop developers (picture)

Jackfield!

Konfabulator

how many web developers? how many desktop developers?
the web is eating the desktop's lunch
Applications are moving to the web and away from the desktop
Applications such as...

email moved -- hotmail (1997?)

wikis, wikipedia, information resources

word processors

spreadsheets

there are not that many apps moving from web to desktop
stuff that the web's good at is not appearing on the desktop
no desktop e-commerce, for example
Picasa, which Sam uses, has integration with commercial printers
Rhythmbox has hookins to magnatune
KDE has "new hot stuff"
mugshot?

world of warcraft -- not on the web yet, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility the web is taking over

so how can you become a trendy web developer? trendy web developers
get bought by yahoo

microsoft vista wow picture
one of the hugest things in desktops
if they're not excited about this huge new desktop thing, why do we care?
Ballmer makes a million dollars per second
get bought by google, buy a yacht -- business plan is "blog about it"

why is the web cool and the desktop not?
no skinny lattes

new languages are trendy
not quite as cool as rails because they have DHH

and we have Guido

who is as cool as a blazing furnace

I didn't choose Python because it's cool
because I'm this guy

rapid development

dilbert cartoon

a widget is an OperaWidget
subclass of WidgetBase

sadly it's easier to say than it is to do

Python code to talk to the OS
JavaScript to run the widget itself
they communicate much like a webpage

most of the apps are clocks, mind
obviously for small apps
the sort of thing that applets are used for now, sometimes
applets are hard
on the desktop, need shaped windows, cairo, barrier to entry, even though the bones of the app (ask for the time) is simple