Fernando's blog

I just returned from the SciPy 2013 conference, whose organizers kindly invited me to deliver a keynote . For me this was a particularly difficult, yet meaningful edition of SciPy, my favorite conference. It was only a year ago that John Hunter, creator of matplotlib , had delivered his keynote shortly before being diagnosed with terminal colon cancer, from which he passed away on August 28, 2012 (if you haven't seen his talk, I strongly recommend it for its insights into scientific open source work). On October 1st 2012, a memorial service was held at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel, the location of his PhD graduation. On that occasion I read a brief eulogy, but for obvious reasons only a few members from the SciPy community were able to attend. At this year's SciPy conference, Michael Droetboom (the new project leader for matplotlib) organized the first edition of the John Hunter Excellence in Plotting Contest , and before the awards ceremony I read ...