I attended PyCon 2009 this year, which was a whole lot of fun. Quite a few people have asked me which talks I liked, so I decided to put together my “top 5 talks” list, in ranked order:
- A Whirlwind Excursion through Writing a C Extension. This talk by Ned Batchelder (author of coverage.py and cog) shows that you can write a Python C extension module in under 20 minutes. This is my top talk because I never thought that my skills in C would be so directly useful in writing Python applications. Considering how damn easy it is to write a basic C extension module, I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason I ever write C code again is to implement some Python functions or types in C. Truly the best of both worlds!
- Reinteract: a better way to interact with Python. Owen Taylor (of GNOME/GTK+ fame) has spent some time over the last few months building a better Python shell. Specifically, it’s a lightweight shell that is meant to be a prototyping or “worksheet” environment a la Matlab, Mathematica, or Maple. Except, you’re running and re-evaluating Python code. It even supports things like in-line graph plotting, but I’ve already used it to experiment with Python web services API. Any Python programmer who has been frustrated with IPython before should check out Reinteract.
- Easy AI with Python. This talk might have gotten the #1 slot for most interesting, but not the #1 slot overall because it seems like this talk has been given at a lot of conferences (not just PyCon) over the last few years. This talk introduces some complex AI topics in a very short time frame, and in a very intuitive way. For me, the neural networks example with Jets and Sharks was particularly impressive. Raymond Hettinger is a great presenter, and if you have some time you should definitely check out his recipes on ActiveState’s Python Cookbook and his How-to Guide for Descriptors.
- Abstraction as Leverage. A talk by one of my favorite Python authors, Alex Martelli (who wrote the best book on Python on the market, Python in a Nutshell), this talk isn’t so much about Python as it is about software engineering overall. But it’s thought-provoking as his talks usually are.
- Class Decorators: Radically Simple. The presenter is the author of the Class Decorators PEP, Jack Diederich. If you like decorators and you are curious about metaclasses, you’ll love class decorators.
Feel free to share your favorites!