Living Code

Just a reminder for Pythonistas in the Vancouver area: The Vancouver Python and Zope user group (VanPyZ) is tomorrow (Tuesday, April 1). Paul Prescod will be talking about metaprogramming in Python. Details and directions are on the VanPyZ site. And, as usual, we'll be heading out to the pub afterwards for more discussion.

Hope to see you there!

The March Vancouver Python and Zope User Group meeting snuck up on me.  It is tomorrow night, March 4th, in the conference room of the Bentall Five building.  Same location for three months in a row, that's got to be some kind of a record!  For anyone who has not attended recently and would like to, there is a map on the VanPyZ website. Tomorrow's talk will be by Brett Cannon:

The once and future Import: How import works in Python 2.6 and beyond, and what it means for you.  

This should be interesting. The import mechanism has some interesting hooks, and Brett has been re-working it for some time now. Also, the recent meetings have had a great turnout with lots of good conversation, both during the meeting itself, and afterwards at the pub. So come on out, if you're in Vancouver.  And if you're not in Vancouver, well from whereeveryouare import yourself.  See you there!

The next Vancouver Python users' group meeting will have a special guest: Adrian Holovaty, lead developer for the Django web framework. The meeting will be on Tuesday, February 6th from 7-9 pm, hosted by Sophos at their Vancouver office.

To prepare for this, there will be workshop before-hand to learn more about Django. The introduction to Django web framework workshop will be a hands-on tutorial on February 4th from 1-4 pm, also at the Sophos office. To make this event even more special (at least for me) it happens to be my birthday, when I get in touch with Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Details on both events can be found at the VanDjangoJam page. Thanks to Paul for organizing this, and to everyone who has volunteered to help out.

On Tuesday, October 3rd, at 7 pm, the Vancouver Python and Zope user's group (VanPyZ) will be hosting two speakers. Paul Prescod will be discussing full-stack web frameworks in Python, and I will be presenting OS X programming in Python. This will probably not be a repeat of my presentation at the Vancouver Python Workshop (PDF slides, for anyone who is interested) but using Drawing Board and the InputManager hack to show how you can use PyObjC to build new applications in Python quickly and extend existing Cocoa applications easily. My focus these days is on how to take control of your computer and make it work for you, rather than the other way around.

The VanPyZ meeting will be at the Uniserve office, where Paul and I now work, Suite 1550, 1055 West Hastings Street, in Vancouver, BC. Mark Mayo took time out from his new baby (congratulations, Mark!) to create an Upcoming event for it. We'll be going out for drinks afterwards, so come hang out with the Vancouver pythoneers.

After much delay, my slides are finally up from the VanPyZ talk last week.

Using Python and Cocoa on OS X

Again I'm using Eric Meyer's S5 tool for HTML slides, but it still ends up being a large download because it includes a completely unneccesary quicktime movie. My daughter and I have been playing with iStopMotion and this was one of our first forays into claymation.

The reason it's in the slideshow, is that movie making is now completely accessible to an eight-year-old, and I want to writing games and other programs equally accessible to her.

Still a ways to go...