Python Northwest Meeting - 7pm Thursday 20th September 2012

[Safe Hammad]

Hi All,

Once again we're careering toward a Python Northwest talks meeting on Thursday 20th September.  I'm sure many of you have been thinking to yourselves, "What can I talk about at the next meeting?"  Judging by the lively conversation in the watering hole after last meeting, I'm know there's plenty to talk about!

Several of us are probably planning to attend PyCon UK later this month.  Perhaps you're one of the main speakers, or more likely, perhaps you're toying with the idea of giving a five minute lightning talk.  What better forum to practise your talk on than the friendly Pythoneers of the Northwest :)

If you'd like to speak this month but you're not sure what about, then maybe you'd like to explore what's new in Python 3.3 and tell the rest of the group.  Or maybe there's a "killer" library you find yourself using in most projects.  Any other suggestions?

Best,

Safe

Safe Hammad

http://safehammad.com

@safehammad

[Dave Hughes]

On 13/09/12 16:12, Safe Hammad wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Once again we're careering toward a Python Northwest talks meeting on
> Thursday 20th September. I'm sure many of you have been thinking to
> yourselves, "What can I talk about at the next meeting?" Judging by
> the lively conversation in the watering hole after last meeting, I'm
> know there's plenty to talk about!
>
> Several of us are probably planning to attend PyCon UK later this
> month. Perhaps you're one of the main speakers, or more likely,
> perhaps you're toying with the idea of giving a five minute lightning
> talk. What better forum to practise your talk on than the friendly
> Pythoneers of the Northwest :)

Sadly I won't be making PyCon UK this year, but I've had a few ideas for
talks recently...

>
> If you'd like to speak this month but you're not sure what about, then
> maybe you'd like to explore what's new in Python 3.3 and tell the rest
> of the group. Or maybe there's a "killer" library you find yourself
> using in most projects. Any other suggestions?

As a result of some spare time projects there's a few things I could
whip up a 5-10 minute talk for. Anyone feel free to let me know if any
sound vaguely interesting:

* Python's optcomplete package (aka "the best thing since bash
programmable completions"). Musings on optcomplete, why it rocks, and
why it also needs some love (or "why you probably shouldn't look at the
code").

* GTK vs Qt4 (or "Glade vs. Qt4 Designer" or "battle of the Python GUI
frameworks" or "why I still prefer command lines"...)

* Generating PDFs the old fashioned way (aka "how to generate LaTeX
easily"). Shameless self-promotion of a little spin-off from my
ElementTreeFactory stuff which does a similar thing for LaTeX

* Experiences with making a code base compatible with both Python 2 & 3
(so far without using Six!) (or "a good reason to ditch compatibility
with everything before Python 2.6")

* Unit testing GUIs (well ... PyQt based GUIs anyway ... because that's
all I've done ...)

I could probably do something on graphing frameworks - mostly matplotlib
but I've been playing with Qwt a bit recently after discovering it via
Veusz. For that matter, I could do something on writing Veusz plugins,
but it's a bit of a niche product (mostly for scientists).


Cheers,

Dave.

[Safe Hammad]

An embarrassment of choice!  I'd love to hear about what you feel most passionate / excited about, though for the record, I'm quite interested in Python 2/3 compatibility, PDF generation and optcomplete.  You mentioned Veusz last month and it looks like an interesting project.  Perhaps we could have a brief demo whatever you decide to talk about!

I'll rummage around my most recent personal projects and see if I can weigh in with a short talk to keep you company :)

Looking forward to tomorrow...

Safe

 

Cheers,

Dave.

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[Ben Nuttall]

Wish I could make it! Plenty of interesting topics there, Dave.

Hope to catch a subset of you in the pub afterwards. I'll tweet when I'm on my way over.

Ben

[Dave Hughes]

On 19/09/12 21:42, Safe Hammad wrote:
>
> * Generating PDFs the old fashioned way (aka "how to generate LaTeX
> easily"). Shameless self-promotion of a little spin-off from my
> ElementTreeFactory stuff which does a similar thing for LaTeX
>
> * Experiences with making a code base compatible with both Python
> 2 & 3
> (so far without using Six!) (or "a good reason to ditch compatibility
> with everything before Python 2.6")
>
>

> An embarrassment of choice! I'd love to hear about what you feel most
> passionate / excited about, though for the record, I'm quite
> interested in Python 2/3 compatibility, PDF generation and
> optcomplete. You mentioned Veusz last month and it looks like an
> interesting project. Perhaps we could have a brief demo whatever you
> decide to talk about!

Well, didn't have much time yesterday but I've blatantly skived today
and thrown together a couple of (5? 10 minute?) talks for this evening
(I've no idea how long they really are because I haven't practised them
yet), on Python 2 and 3 without 6 (does that make it -1?) and generating
PDFs the easy way (with LaTeX ... did I say easy? hmmm).

Both include live code demos (oh god it's all going to go horribly
wrong) and seeing as how my netbook only has an HDMI out, I've arranged
to steal a tiny HDMI projector from the uni (ahem).

> I'll rummage around my most recent personal projects and see if I can
> weigh in with a short talk to keep you company :)

Excellent!


See you all this evening,


Dave.

[Safe Hammad]

> An embarrassment of choice!  I'd love to hear about what you feel most

> passionate / excited about, though for the record, I'm quite
> interested in Python 2/3 compatibility, PDF generation and
> optcomplete.  You mentioned Veusz last month and it looks like an
> interesting project.  Perhaps we could have a brief demo whatever you
> decide to talk about!

Well, didn't have much time yesterday but I've blatantly skived today
and thrown together a couple of (5? 10 minute?) talks for this evening
(I've no idea how long they really are because I haven't practised them
yet), on Python 2 and 3 without 6 (does that make it -1?) and generating
PDFs the easy way (with LaTeX ... did I say easy? hmmm).

Skiving for the greater good :)

See you all later ... Safe