January 20, 2010
In preparation for PyCon in Atlanta (http://us.pycon.org/2010/about/) in February, three Boston-area PyCon speakers will rehearse their talks for us. It’s a full night, so we’ll start promptly at 7:00. There may even be snacks!
PS: stay tuned for three more speakers on Feb 3…
Python for Large Astronomical Data Reduction and Analysis Systems Francesco Pierfederici
We describe how Python is used in a large astronomy project to automatically process data from several telescopes in both the hemispheres. We introduce the general problem and discuss challenges and lessons learned.
Python’s Dusty Corners Jack Diederich
The talk will be a brief overview of all the features in python that you don’t need to know about right up until the moment you do. The list includes how comparisons work, descriptors, iterators, context managers, namespaces, else clauses on for/while loops (suggested by Hettinger). The narrative of the talk is that these are features that you don’t need and/or shouldn’t use in your day-to-day code but that you need to keep in the back of your mind because other people’s code and the stdlib do use them. As Alex Martelli pointed out in his wonderful talk “Abstractions as Leverage” you can’t successfully function at one level of abstraction if you don’t know what is going on at the next level down. This talk is a whirlwind tour of the next level down.
Tests and Testability Ned Batchelder
Testing software is difficult. Large complex systems don’t lend themselves naturally to automated testing. This isn’t just because they are large, it’s because developers often don’t consider how testable their code is. Testability is as important as all the other -ilities in your code (portability, maintainability, efficiency, etc).
I’ll discuss specific examples to demonstrate how code can be made more testable. Mocks, dependency injection, and crisp API design are just a few of the techniques that can improve your code’s testability and make you a happier person.
Meetup link: https://www.meetup.com/bostonpython/events/12189514/