PyCon US 2011

API lessons learned from a decade of core Python development.

Friday afternoon lightning talks

Spend ten minutes each learning to work with Counters, named tuples, new string formatting, and the LRU cache. Learn the basic API, see how it works under the hood, enjoy a simple example, and then have fun pushing it to the limit in interesting ways.

The control of the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) requires a complex set of coordinated activites by a team. Early in the MER mission the author automated in Python much of the task of one of the operation positions, the Payload Uplink Lead, for 7 of the 9 cameras on each rover. This talk describes the MER rovers, the operation tasks and that implemented system.

HTSQL is a URI-based high-level query language for relational databases; it is written in the Python language. HTSQL is a wonderful complement existing WSGI- based applications, making it trivial to create interactive dashboards, complex reports. We use HTSQL as a REST query interface for data integration and ad-hoc reporting by technical users or accidental programmers.

Dialectical changes in America are influencing expression online. This talk will discuss a current project which is using the Natural Language Toolkit to develop up to date reference materials to measure and monitor online natural language.

Montréal-Python is a user-group formed in 2007. It has since then grown into a thriving community with code sprint and regular meetings attracting over 50 attendees. This talk will present history of the group and will highlight the key factors behind its success with the hope to inspire others to replicate that accomplishment.

Saturday afternoon lightning talks

Saturday morning lightning talks

Introduced in Python 2.0, unicode became the default string type in Python 3.0. It took 8 years to switch to unicode, and since Python 3.0, a lot of bugs has been fixed. The switch to unicode opened many questions. Should Python support both bytes and characters for filenames? What to do with undecodable bytes? etc.

Blender 2.5 (a free and open source software 3d graphics suite) includes a new BPY python API which is usable for scripting modeling, animation, etc. Learn to use this API to speed up your workflow, create procedural graphics, and cool new tools.

Learn how cool it is to write command-line tools using IronPython and Visual Studios. In this talk we cover why command-lines tools are important for .NET shops, how to write one, and finally, how to distribute it as a standalone .exe.