Past list view

After an optional 6pm dinner at Figo Pasta at the corner of Howell Mill Road and Huff Road, we will meet as usual in the spacious and comfortable auditorium of the GTRI Food Processing Building at 7:30pm for our monthly meeting. Expect discussion, problem solving, and talks that introduce aspects of Python both basic (for newcomers) and arcane (to keep the experts awake).

Building an IVRS using Django and Twilio regular talk by Venkata Mahalingam

Continuous Integration short talk by Alfredo Deza — "I have been doing some research about Continuous Integration and Python and I wrote a small piece of code to simplify having CI without having to build a massive engine like BuildBot. It is intended for very small projects mixed with high iterations. Develop in one window, and see your Auto-test engine test your code in the other!"

Template Languages regular talk by Brandon Rhodes — "Python is a great language, but the moment you want to use a web framework or write an XML file, people start talking about template languages instead. Why learn a second 'language'? What do templates do for a web application, and how can they help me if I never write for the web? Can templates help me with system administration too?"

Sklyar Saveland will give a several-minute lightning talk on Pinax, a web platform built atop Django that provides dozens of features and abilities in the areas of authentication, user management, and basic social networking (blogs, twitter integration) that each site would otherwise always have to write for themselves.

Brandon Rhodes is, at the moment, our other volunteer speaker, and will be talking about the Sphinx documentation system and how he uses it to run the entire PyEphem web site.

(Update: we were going to have Carl Karsten present to talk to us about PyCon audio and video, but due to schedule complications he is still at the O'Hare airport outside of Chicago and his new flight will not even take off until around the time our meeting ends. So Carl will not be presenting tonight!)

After an optional 6pm dinner at Figo Pasta at the corner of Howell Mill Road and Huff Road, we will meet as usual in the spacious and comfortable auditorium of the GTRI Food Processing Building at 7:30pm for our monthly meeting. Expect discussion, problem solving, and talks that introduce aspects of Python both basic (for newcomers) and arcane (to keep the experts awake). The meeting will kick off with ten minutes of notes and news in the regular "Nuts and Bolts" talk by Brandon Rhodes, then proceed on to our main presentations.

Testing and Test Coverage with Nose — Alfredo Deza introduces us to the popular "nose" test harness for Python, describing how it has helped a recent project and how its coverage tools helped him get insight into how well his tests were actually exercising his code.

Choosing a Testing Framework — Brandon Rhodes draws on the research he did for his recent IBM Developerworks series of articles to explain why there are several Python testing frameworks on the market today, and how to choose which one fits you best.

Web Testing — Someone (maybe Brandon if no one else volunteers) shows what it looks like to download and run Selenium, and how web testing assures the behavior of your application where it's most important: out in front where the user can see it.

Mercurial with Google Code — Alfredo Deza returns to the stage for an interesting lightning talk about Mercurial, the ascendant version control system in Python land, and how it is already secretly supported by Google Code if you know to pull the right strings.

Details:

After an optional 6pm dinner at Figo Pasta at the corner of Howell Mill Road and Huff Road, we will meet as usual in the spacious and comfortable auditorium of the GTRI Food Processing Building at 7:30pm for our monthly meeting. Expect discussion, problem solving, and talks that introduce aspects of Python both basic (for newcomers) and arcane (to keep the experts awake). The meeting will kick off with ten minutes of notes and news in the regular "Nuts and Bolts" talk by Brandon Rhodes, then proceed on to our main presentations.

Lightning Talks: What have you been doing with Python lately? Have any stories about what you've accomplished, or what you've been told when you've asked if you can use Python? Come share with the group!

PyCon Round Table: the biggest Python event of the year, PyCon, happens late this month in Chicago! During our Thursday meeting, those from our Atlanta group who are attending PyCon will form an impromptu round table, to take suggestions from the audience about who they should try to talk to, who they should see speak, and what questions they should get answered while there. When they return, they can describe their thoughts, answers, and experiences on the mailing list, and also talk about them at the April meeting if they want. Let's take advantage of this annual event not just as individuals, but as a community!

Python Employment: members of our community have expressed concern to me about finding employment as their companies downsize, lay off, or disappear. We will have a forum where we talk about how we found our current jobs, where we might plan to look for jobs in the future, and what the standard resources are for finding Python-related positions.

Nuts & Bolts: Brandon will do his usual fifteen or twenty minutes on topics surrounding Python. This time: three pieces of Python 3 syntax to avoid; and, how to remember what order "for" clauses are executed in list comprehensions.

Details:

After an optional 6pm dinner at Figo Pasta at the corner of Howell Mill Road and Huff Road, we will meet as usual in the spacious and comfortable auditorium of the GTRI Food Processing Building at 7:30pm for our monthly meeting. Expect discussion, problem solving, and talks that introduce aspects of Python both basic (for newcomers) and arcane (to keep the experts awake). The meeting will kick off with ten minutes of notes and news in the regular "Nuts and Bolts" talk by Brandon Rhodes, then proceed on to our main presentations.

"The State of the Python Community"
The chairman of the Python Software Foundation himself, Steve Holden, will deliver a talk considering the state of the Python here at the beginning of the new year — our strengths, our weaknesses, and how we can stay connected.

"Why People Choose Plone"
The owner of Atlanta business ifPeople, Chris Johnson, talks about the Plone content-managment system: why his customers choose it, how it can be integrated with other tools like Salesforce, and what it is like to set up and theme a Plone web site for the first time.

Details:

After an optional 6pm dinner at Figo Pasta at the corner of Howell Mill Road and Huff Road, we will meet as usual in the spacious and comfortable auditorium of the GTRI Food Processing Building at 7:30pm for our monthly meeting. Expect discussion, problem solving, and talks that introduce aspects of Python both basic (for newcomers) and arcane (to keep the experts awake). The meeting will kick off with ten minutes of notes and news in the regular "Nuts and Bolts" talk by Brandon Rhodes, then proceed on to our main presentations.