PuPPy Presents its 1st Annual Benefit featuring Guido van Rossum

PuPPy Presents its 1st Annual Benefit

A historic discussion of programming language creators about

the past and future of language design.

April 2, 2019, 5:30 - 9:30 PM

The Collective Seattle

400 Dexter Ave N.

Seattle, WA 98109

Featuring Language Creators

James Gosling - Java

Anders Hejlsberg - Turbo Pascal, C#, TypeScript

Guido van Rossum - Python

Larry Wall - Perl

Summary

PuPPy, Seattle's Puget Sound Programming Python user group, presents its 1st annual charity event. The event will feature the creators of C#, Java, Perl, Python, and TypeScript in a conversation about programming language design. 

The charity event brings together this unique group of computer science pioneers, unlike any event held before. These great minds come together for what will surely be a fantastic night of discussion, as the panel delves into the past and future of programming language creation. The event will attract innovators and engineers from Seattle, the nation’s fastest growing technology hub.

The event is a benefit for CSforALL, a non-profit organization that represents more than 500 members who are educators, content providers, funders and researchers who share a vision for all students in the U.S. to learn computer science. CSforALL provides leadership and guidance that helps the K-12 education community implement computer science initiatives, draw from best practices and connect with national organizations to expand access to all students in the U.S.

The event follows in the spirit and culture of PuPPy, the producers of this benefit, as an inclusive community. The very first PuPPy meeting 54 months ago was a mini-conference that featured discussions on allyship and helping more women join the ranks of software professionals. 

Event tickets and further details are available at: http://bdfl-gift.pspython.com.

Speakers

Cyrus Habib - Washington State Lieutenant Governor - Opening remarks

Cyrus Habib was elected Washington State’s 16th Lieutenant Governor in November 2016 at the age of 35. He had previously been elected to the State House of Representatives in 2012 and the State Senate in 2014, where he was Democratic Whip and a member of the Democratic leadership team. As Lt. Governor, he is President of the State Senate, serves as Acting Governor whenever Governor Inslee leaves the state, and oversees an agency whose key issues include economic development, trade, and higher education.

A three-time cancer survivor, Lt. Governor Habib has been fully blind since age eight. His parents immigrated to the U.S. from Iran before he was born, and he is the first and only Iranian-American to hold statewide elected office in the United States.

Carol Willing - Moderator

Carol Willing serves as a Steering Council member for Project Jupyter. She received the 2017 ACM Software System Award for Jupyter's development. She is also a member of the inaugural Python Steering Council, a Python Software Foundation Fellow and former Director; a core developer on CPython, Jupyter, nteract, AnitaB.org’s open source projects, and PyLadies; a co-organizer of PyLadies San Diego and San Diego Python User Group; an independent developer of hardware and software. Weaving her love of art, music, and nature with wearable soft circuits, she is developing an open hardware project to assist an in-home caregiver with gentle, compassionate support of a loved one with Alzheimer’s.

James Gosling - Java

James A. Gosling, O.C., Ph.D. (born May 19, 1955, near Calgary, Alberta, Canada) is a famous software developer, best known as the father of the Java programming language.

In 1977, James Gosling received a B.Sc in Computer Science from the University of Calgary. In 1983, he earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and his doctoral thesis was titled "The Algebraic Manipulation of Constraints". While working towards his doctorate, he wrote a version of emacs (gosmacs), and before joining Sun Microsystems he built a multi-processor version of Unix[1] while at Carnegie Mellon University, as well as several compilers and mail systems. Since 1984, Gosling has been with Sun Microsystems.

He is generally credited as the inventor of the Java programming language in 1991. He did the original design of Java and implemented its original compiler and virtual machine. For this achievement, he was elected to the United States National Academy of Engineering. He has also made major contributions to several other software systems, such as NeWS and Gosling Emacs. He also co-wrote the "bundle" program, a utility thoroughly detailed in Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike's book, "The Unix Programming Environment".

Anders Hejlsberg - Turbo Pascal, C#, TypeScript

Anders Hejlsberg is a Microsoft Technical Fellow and has been designing and implementing programming languages and development tools for over 35 years. Anders is the lead architect of the TypeScript open-source project and the original designer of the C# programming language. Before joining Microsoft in 1996, Anders was a Principal Engineer at Borland International. As one of the first employees of Borland, he was the original author of Turbo Pascal and later worked as the Chief Architect of the Delphi product line. Anders studied Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark.

Guido van Rossum - Python

Guido van Rossum is the creator of Python, one of the major programming languages on and off the web. Recently Guido retired as Benevolent Dictator For Life (“BDFL”) of Python, a title seemingly stolen from a Monty Python skit. Details of his decision were featured in an Economist article. Guido thankfully has joined the Python Steering Council. This five-person group will give guidance to the future roadmap of the Python programming language.

Van Rossum moved from the Netherlands to the USA, in 1995. He met his wife after his move. Until July 2003 they lived in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC with their son Orlijn, who was born in 2001. They then moved to Silicon Valley where Guido worked for a variety of companies including Google in the past and currently at Dropbox (spending 50% of his time on Python!).

Larry Wall - Perl

Larry Wall was educated at various places including the Cornish School of Music, the Seattle Youth Symphony, Seattle Pacific University, Multnomah School of the Bible, SIL International, U.C. Berkeley, and UCLA. Though trained primarily in music, chemistry, and linguistics, Larry has been working with computers for the last 40 years or so. He is most famous for writing rn, patch, and the Perl programming language, but prefers to think of himself as a cultural hacker whose vocation in life is to bring a bit of joy into the dreary existence of programmers. For various definitions of “work for”, Larry has worked for Seattle Pacific, MusiComedy Northwest, System Development Corporation, Burroughs, Unisys, the NSA, Telos, ConTel, GTE, JPL, NetLabs, Seagate, Tim O’Reilly, the Perl Foundation, Broadcom, and himself. He is currently serving as Artist in Residence for Craigslist.

About CSforAll

https://www.csforall.org/media-faq/

CSforALL, shorthand for “Computer Science for All,” is the central hub for the K-12 national computer science education movement. CSforALL is the community organizer of school districts, nonprofits, government agencies and corporations that share the goal of rigorous, inclusive and sustainable CS education in the U.S.

About PuPPy

https://www.pspython.com/app/

PuPPy is a fun and friendly user group dedicated to proliferating a diverse and talented Python community in the Puget Sound region. We are devoted to exploring Python-based programming knowledge, embracing new and experienced members from all walks of life, and helping those members to achieve their professional goals.

Event Leadership

Ruthe Farmer – Event Chair - Chief Evangelist for CSforALL

Carol Willing – Moderator -- Steering Council member and developer for Project Jupyter and Python

Lorena Mesa – Vice Chair -- GitHub Data Engineer - Software Intelligence Systems | PyLadies Chicago Organizer | Python Software Foundation Director

Eloisa Tran -- Fundraising Chair -- Founder of the Women in Data Science WiDS, Data Scientist for City of Bellevue