Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Python Lightning talks ideas

PYPTUG meeting

We are starting our preparation early for our January PYPTUG meeting. It will be in Kernersville again, if we can get the same conference room.

We already have our main speaker set up, but we really want to ramp up participation through lightning talks.

We are also looking for talks for February and subsequent months. These can be 30 or 45 minutes talks. If you are not a PYPTUG member, but you would like to give a talk and you don't mind driving to the Piedmont Triad, contact us ( twitter @pyptug or email us at pyptug _at_ gmail.com ) and we'll try to schedule something.

Lightning talks

A lightning talk can be up to 5 minutes or up to 10 minutes on
something you have learned about Python, a module, your favorite
editor or a project they did with Python.

Some ideas

Just a few suggestions for lightning talks, might stir something in those little grey cells of yours...

-how python replaced matlab at your university
-the ins and outs of the requests module
-paramiko vs sh
-how pythonic are you?
-how easy is easygui?
-dtrace enabled python
-how to program FPGAs with Python
-Python(x,y) saved my life
-all you ever wanted to know about generators
-the details of the _____ algorithm
-how to use mercurial
-my vim-fu is strong
-pep8, pylint and PyFlakes walk into a bar...
-the property keyword
-multilingual support in a python application
-why do you like python
-why do you not like python
-20 modules you cant do without
-python book review
-python blog review
-@decorators are bliss
-@decorators are evil
-ironpython
-pygames for everyone
-the python foundation
-python for iOS
-python for android
-swig
-doctest
-docopt
-nose
-pypi
-pypy
-pipy (just playing, it has nothing to do with python)

But, at the end of the day, you know more than I do what you are excited about. So go ahead, don't be shy and volunteer for a lightning talk!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

A python module for workshops

The PYPTUG python PyHack workshops are about bridging the virtual and the physical, using Python. Since we use the Raspberry Pi, and it is still hard to get a hold of them in a timely manner, several potential attendees were asking if they could still benefit from coming to the workshop this saturday, without a Raspberry Pi.


Definitely

But the answer doesn't stop there. We've made available a RPi.GPIO replacement for testing Raspberry Pi GPIO code on non Raspberry Pi platforms. Meaning, your laptop.

Your laptop will have a split personality

How?

It is a Python module that implements a setmode(), setup(), cleanup(), input(), output(), tracks 54 GPIO states and directions, broadcom and board modes, placeholders for the 4 set_*_event() functions, has some error handling. There is even a debug mode (gpio.debug = True).

Enough to not get an error trying the code for the workshop.

Where?


Head over to the Raspberry Pi Python Adventures blog for the full instructions (right here) on getting this from bitbucket.

Questions?

Leave a comment, we'll gladly help.