Note: this post is about AST Python/Scheme, and begins a series of posts about projects developed during Blitzweekend.

Can you present yourself? What is your expertise and experience?

François Pinard: François Pinard has a background in theoretical computer science and in operational research. All along, he waved through studies and teaching, system administration, computer graphics, AI, statistics and databases, computer applications of many kinds, and various languages. He his also known for his long implication in GNU, Linux, and free software matters.

Can you present the project done during Blitzweekend? Where did the idea come form?

François Pinard: The initial project was to build, using Python, a Scheme tree for representing the syntax of any given Python program, studying then using the newer “compile” module in Python. As it worked unexpectedly well, I then extended the project into a framework by which, using Scheme, I could rebuild the Python source out of the syntax tree.

What were your expectations for the event? and objectives?

My main goal was to participate to this experiment of a Blitzweekend, and enjoy it as much as I could. My secondary goal has been to refresh my old forgotten knowledge of Scheme, starting from Python which I well know, while doing something reusable. I also tried, yet without much success, raising up a mixed team from the Python and Scheme communities.

Did you have any special challenges? How did you overcome them?

A particular challenge was to tame myself into using both a laptop and Windows, as I do not often have the opportunity of those :-). It went rather well! The method cycled between careful study, making the proper choices, and throwing correct code right on the first writing if possible, even if this meant resisting the pressure and slowing down :-)

Are you going to continue working on the project? Any plans?

I want to complete the framework to the 74 syntactic tree types, and then address the difficult problem of beautification of the generated sources. I’ll get a mixed Python/Scheme powerful pretty printer for Python sources. Then, I intend to extend the tool for exploring the generation of other languages, as a way of studying and deepening them.

Blitzweekend snapshots, continued from series 1 and series 2

Day3, 10:54am

Day3, 11am

Day 3, 10:54am,

Day 3, 10:53am, AtoB

Day 3, 1:36pm, Tikiwiki

Day3, 3:56pm, Blitzweekend

Day3, 3:56pm, Blitzweekend

Day3, 3:59pm, GoalR

Day3, 4.11pm, Presentations and audience

Day3, 4.11pm, Noogl

Day3, 4.57pm, Audience

Day3, 4.57pm, SneakSend

Day3, 5.07pm, BlitzDirectory

Amidst the Blitzweekend action, it’s easy to forget that Blitzweekend wouldn’t have been possible without the support coming from companies and organizations in Montreal.

We have approached and discuss various companies operating in technology and willing to support the local technology community, and came up with a set of sponsors, which gave financial support for the event, but also worked closely with us to make the event happen and got involved at every stage of the event, and actually met and discussed with every Blitzweeekend attendee.

Blitzweekend’s first sponsor is iNovia Capital, a VC fund doing early stage investments in technology, life sciences and cleantech. We worked with Etienne Lagacé, Chris Arsenault, and Josko Bobanovic. They especially leveraged their MSBi Valoration network to find a venue for the event.
iNovia Capital was featured recently on MontrealTechWatch for their Standoutjobs investement.

Another company who supported us very early is BDO, which is a firm of chartered accountant and financial advisors. We especially focused on having a diverse set of sponsors, and having BDO as a partner of the event fits in this vision. Hopefully, we will see BDO more involved in the local technology community and supporting startups and entrepreneurs very early on the process.

Globalex was chronologically our third sponsor. Globalex specializes in risk management, and is a privileged partner for every entrepreneur and technology startup wishing to manage risks.

Embrase is a business consulting firm supporting technology startups. They recently instigated the first ever StartupCampMontreal, gathering more than 170 entrepreneurs, experts, gurus, startup founders, and investors at la SAT, and is now seen as a major starting point for aspiring tech entrepreneurs who want reach a big market and fine-tune their business plan. For Blitzweekend, they have been giving their assistance and support to teams so that they’d have more solid foundation to build upon.

Finally, we also have Guru, a natural energy drink. To make it quick, let’s just say that Guru is fuelling creativity, work and talent. So far, they have been very popular for the event.

I’d would also like to take this opportunity to thank fellow organizers Mehdi Akiki, Denis Canuel, Raymond Luk, from Flow Consulting, David Massé and also Etienne Lagacé.

Blitzweekend snapshots, continued from post #1

Day 2, 12pm

Day 1, 5.20pm, David Massé talks with an expert

Day2, 5.23pm The Resipricate team, fresh from Toronto (Queen’s)

Day2, 5.30pm, Codesprint and user tests

Day2, 5.35pm: Reverse payement and implementation discussions

Day2, 5.35pm: Carpooling, graph theory, javascript,

Day2, 5.36pm Marketing brainstorming with Alistair Croll (rednod)

Day2, 5.38pm, Fellow organizers, experts and Blitzweekend partners.

Day 2, 7pm, dinner

Thanks again to all of our partners supporting the event, mainly iNovia Capital, BDO, Globalex, Embrase, and Guru.

Unfortunately, there is no time left for us to write in detail about particular team, or about the experts, presentations, or development methods.

If you are avalaible, each team will be presenting their project beginning from 4.00pm this afternoon. Address is 1111, rue st-Charles, more info on getting there.

More pictures on flickr. Tag your pictures with #blitzweekend

Day 2: 7.30pm David Fugere, from codegenome, discusses developing Facebook with Ruby on Rails.

Day1, 8pm: a group gathering an analyst, a python programmer, an entrepreneur and a graphic designer.

Day2, 8am: Early development.

Day 2: 8.45pm Josko Bobanovic from iNovia Capital presents 10 tips when pitching to VCs.

Day 2: 9.30pm Brainstorming for a carpooling algorithm

Day 2: 10pm

Day 2, 10pm: Montreal Pythonistas

Day2, 10pm: product discussions

Day2, 10pm: code sprint for TikiWiki

Day2, 10pm: a team designing an entreprise hardware-based directory

Day2, 10pm: development on a XO laptop

Blitzweekend is due tomorrow Friday 29th, and needless to say we are very excited for this event.

If you have missed it, here are a quick list of the people who are going, a list of blogs/media outlets who mentionned Blitzweekend. We also had Computer World interviewing the “team”, and their article got published in Canada/US/South Africa/New Zealand. If you have missed it, there is also a major post entitled Top 10 reasons on why you should go to Blitzweekend.

If I have a final word for anyone reading this blog, just come, find an idea to implement, have fun, and be curious & open on what others are doing. This is how great ideas are born, this is how you find and connect with talented people.

Also, here are some important reminders

Attendees must come Friday, beginning from 5pm. This is where we will do the registration, give out T-Shirts, assign rooms, and give accounts to access the Internet. We will also do some last-minute match-making for those who registered late and are still looking for ideas or team members. This is also when we will kick-off the event, starting with 5 quick and useful presentations. Standoutjobs who also sponsored the 5 à 7 will have their CEO as our first speaker.

For the location, it’s 1111 rue St-Charles, 2 minutes from the Longueuil metro station. You have to take the “Place Charles Le Moyne” exit, and then head for the green-glass buildings to the right. We will be on the ground floor of that building.

One final note: everyone is welcome. In the Barcamp spirit though, you can’t just come and watch. You have to participate, or help co-organize, or be an expert/partner and help the teams.

OK. Here’s the catch. We view Blitzweekend as a grassroots events. However, people were requesting everyday information, so I am publishing now what we have for Blitzweekend, due next week.

This is not a final schedule for the event; and you can view it as a BarCamp wiki page, which just gives an idea of what to expect. Feel free to comment or to add your suggestions.

Location
1111 rue St-Charles, Longueuil, in front of the Longueuil metro station.
Blitzweekend will take all the ground floor of Université de Sherbrooke’s Longueuil campus.

Presentations (tbc)
- The story behind the startup standoutjobs : From idea to launch, by Ben Yoskovitz, Standoutjobs
- Utiliser Ruby on Rails pour créer une application facebook, David Fugere, Code Genome
- Comparaison des différents plateformes Python, Arach Tchoupani, MontrealPython
- Aides et subventions aux entrepreneurs au Québec et au Canada, Yann Rousselot, partenaire, Présent Profit
- Business plans and pitching to investors, Joško Bobanovi? , principal, iNovia Capital

Prizes and giveaways
- Surprise prize from Flow consulting to the winner of the make track
- One full day of consulting at Embrase, which helps startups and entrepreneurs perfect their business plan
- Blitzweekend T-Shirts for those who registered before 18th February

Experts (tbc)
- Guillaume Thoreau, user interface and UXP consultant
- Marc-André Cournoyer, Ruby guru at Standoutjobs
- Yann Rousselot, Présent Profit
- Embrase team for business plans
- Alistair Croll, marketing, founder of RedNod
- BDO, chartered accountant
- 10 more (tba)

Schedule
- Cocktail from 5.00pm Friday 29th February
- 5 presentations, starting from 6.00pm

- breakfast, starting from 8am, March 1st
- launch of the event
- start design and development 9.00 am
- dinner from 12 to 1pm
- Experts avalaible from 3.00 to 5.00pm, by email at hello@blitzweekend.com or twitter
- 10pm, end of the first day of Blitzweekend

- breakfast, 8am, March 2nd
- Experts avalaible from 1.00 to 2pm
- 4pm, end of the time given to teams
- each time present, each attendee vote by email at to hello@blitzweekend.com
- Feedback by panel

Team presentations
- must have a working demo
- tell about development, design of product, challenges during Blitzweekend and then tell what actions were taken to overcome these challenges
- if it’s a commercial project, present market and business plan

Panel for commercial projects
- Etienne Lagacé, iNovia Capital
- Vincent Guyaux, Embrase
- Hang Le Hong, Globalex

Partners
iNovia Capital, early seed VCs
BDO, chartered accountants
Globalex, insurance and financial services
Flow Consulting, business consultant
Embrase, business consultants for startups
Guru, energy drink
Université de Sherbrooke, Longueuil campus

Registration
Go to the wiki and add your name to the list of attendees. (password is c4mp)

Important: Register before Friday 22nd February, otherwise you won’t have a wifi connection.

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We’ve received lots of attention around blitzweekend, and now is the time for a gathering.

If you are interested into participating, if you are also just curious, if you are looking into helping, if you want to meet the organizers and sponsors, we are inviting you to come join us and have a drink at the Blizzarts bar, 3956a bvd St-Laurent, starting from 5pm, next tuesday Feb. 12th

I have already contacted a lot of people for this and it looks we will have a great mix of people. Registration has just been opened on facebook

Standoutjobs is kindly sponsoring the 5 à 7 and will be giving away drink tickets.

First, a little history:

The idea of organizing Blitzweekend was first thought about in early august last year. I have come to democamps and barcamps and I found them fantastic, and eye-opening on what can be done in Montreal. There is some little bit of magic on having developers, bloggers, coders, designers and entrepreneurs interact in an open setting and see what others are up to. It gives you invaluable feedback, you get to connect to talented people, and above all else, you get genuine interactions.

Now, what if we push the model further, and actually invite attendees to actually make and build during the event? Back then, StartupWeekends were making headlines, and initiatives like TechStars, ycombinator with their startup school as well. And so was born Blitzweekend.

I got quickly feedback on blitzweekend, and we have now Denis Canuel, Mehdi Akiki, Raymond Luk and David Massé working together to make this happen.

We have a date for blitzweekend, Friday 29th Fedb, and the weekend of March 1st and 2nd, and also have a great space to hold the event.

There is something candid, stupid, or call it craziness, in holding an event the like of blitzweekend in Montreal. This is the kind of event you only hear about coming from Northern California. Here in Québec, activity is an order of magnitude far less than what’s seen in the Valley or in Boston, and most days, people don’t have a f***ing clue what you are talking about when you mention Ruby on Rails or words like technology entrepreneurship. And it looks a loosing bet to think of gathering in Montreal 100+ talented developers, designers and entrepreneurs and challenging them to make a working product in just 48 hours.

But I am taking the bet. Yes, it’s crazy, but I also see something grandiose in holding blitzweekend in Montreal. And today, I am calling you to help us making Blitzweekend happen. One, you can blog about it. You could also tell directly your friends about. We have a website, and we also have a blog. Two, you can also register if you are interested. Even if you consider yourself just a potential attendee, please register.

I am reflecting today about the work we have done in Montreal for the past year, and I know we can’t make it alone further without your help. If you can do something, thanks in advance.

Now, to finish, there is only so much we can say, write or do. I know people who are not sure yet about the event’s format, and I am gathering feedback today. So here it is: my email is heri@madmedia.ca — feel free to contact me.

Well, you’ve all heard about blitzweekend, and we have now the official date: we will be holding the first ever blitzweekend at Université de Sherbrooke’s Longueuil campus, on March 1st and 2nd.

Blitzweekend is very similar in essence to startupweekends, in the sense that we challenge attendees to build a technology in 48 hours. However, this will be radically different, as we will have teams, instead of having all attendees working on the same “startup”. Having teams will spice things up, and we will also see more — more results, more failures, but also more successes, diversity and excitement.

We are very excited about this. It’s a huge opportunity for designers, developers and entrepreneurs to team up together and surpass themselves. It’s a huge opportunity for Montreal. It’s a huge opportunity to create brand-new technology. If you are planning a startup, it’s THE event to go to in March. If you are involved in an existing startup, it’s a great opportunity to meet talent. Think from today about creating a team and finding an idea.

Of course, this is just the beginning. We will be rolling more announcements and updates on the blitzweekend blog soon, but I already want to thank today iNovia Capital, which has been key in making this happen.