Matt Massie, president and CEO of Custom-BuiltPCs.com in Ironton, recently attended PyCon, the largest annual gathering for the community using and developing the open-source Python computer programming language.

The event was in Santa Clara, Calif., in the heart of what is known as “Silicon Valley.” Massie was one of more than 2,200 in attendance at this year’s event.

He received two days of training in advanced graphical user interfaces, network programming, game development and web application program interfaces. Training was followed by several days of talks by industry experts from companies that included Google, Mozilla, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Cisco, Microsoft and more.

“Every day we got to eat lunch with a wide variety of people from around the world with the same passion for programming and software development,” Massie said. “It’s a great way to share ideas and learn new skills from one another.”

A popular subject at the conference was “cloud” computing strategies. Interesting demonstrations included lifelike dancing robots, a robot that could play the video game Angry Birds and a preview of a 3D “holodeck,” a series of projected 3D images individuals could interact with.

Open source software means that the source code is available for others to see, modify and to use for their own purposes. Linux operating system was one of the first to use this licensing, allowing small companies to not be tied to monopolized software licensing. Two examples of open source at work today are Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, two extremely popular web browsers.

Massie also visited Intel’s manufacturing facilities and saw demonstrations of how computer’s central processing units are made. Custom-BuiltPCs.com offers a wide variety of services including custom computer assembly, software development, web development/hosting, computer repair, IT services and more.

“This is an example of Custom-BuiltPCs commitment to excellence, not only in computer hardware, but the software on our machines as well,” Massie said.