This is a fantastic idea. Zed, if you want others to hang out in the room and make themselves available for when people get stuck, just say so. I would help, and I'm sure others would too.

Echoing the sentiment this is a fantastic idea. Count me in for helping out too as needed.

Sure, that'd be great.

We should do t-shirts too. :-)

"i teach python ask me how!"

This is awesome. Count me in as well.

How many pycon attendees don't already know python?

I don't think I'd drop $300 + travel to attend a conference where I didn't understand the subject matter.

The ones that don't know Python going into it are typically locals. I had lunch with two Atlanta residents last year that were big C# guys but their job wanted them to learn Python. They sent them to a few tutorials and picked out a few talks that they wanted them to learn about, then the rest was up to them.

This number is lower, but I've talked to a few newbies that travel to PyCon as an educational tool paid for by their company. They've usually done a tutorial or two on the web, but they'll load up on the in-person tutorials and then hit whatever relevant talks they can find.

Companies send their employees to the training sessions, and since they're already there, they sometimes have them attend the conference too.

It's less that they don't "know" python - but rather that they only know a little. I know when I attended my first pycon, while I had been using Python a bunch I could have stood to spend some quality time in Zed's class, and generally sucking more knowledge out of things via the offer Zed is extending.

Also, more and more we are seeing people new to Python come in the Django door (as well as other frameworks) - these people may be comfortable with Django as a RAD framework, but don't quite yet consider themselves "python programmers" and so courses like this can help them.

Showing this kind of respect to noobs is admirable.

I respect that Zed is doing this but I have one question about the post.

'... so that nobody picks on you ...'

This will be my 6th PyCon and I have _never_ seen anyone being picked on. Anyone care to enlighten me? Otherwise it seems like newbies aren't welcome (not true) and can't handle it without a guide.

I have to concur: that's the one bit I disliked about the post. PyCon has always been very, very welcoming and friendly to me and many others.

I would guess he was just being sarcastic.