ChiPy WebDev / DevOps SIG presents Web Guild and Design Patterns

Join Chicago Python for our first WebDev / DevOps Special Interest Group (SIG) event in 2020! Thank you to Mintel for hosting and sponsoring food and drinks!

Mintel is hiring! Check out their open positions: https://careers.mintel.com/jobs-technology-and-product-development/

DIRECTIONS TO VENUE

• Check-in at the security desk with your photo ID
• Mintel staff will escort you to elevators.

AGENDA
6:00 - Doors open
6:30 - Talks Start
8:30 - See you all next time!

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Our talks:

Build vs Buy a Data Visualization Platform
by Matthew Hall

A discussion of the architecture of Mintel's data visualization platform and why we decided to build our own.

Bio:
Matt Hall is the VP of Engineering for Mintel's Chicago office. He has been with Mintel since the early days of his career and in that time has worked on a number of Django-based web products.

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Experiences in the Guild
by Sam Mahisekar

The ChiPy Web Guild is a group of volunteers that help maintain the ChiPy.org website.

In this talk, I will give a brief description of how the Web Guild works and touch on some aspects of the ChiPy.org site. We will then go through an example of how team members were able to address a flaw in the ChiPy.org code enhancing user experience. Finally, I will share some thoughts on what I learned and what the group might work on next.

Bio:
Sam Mahisekar serves as a financial controller in his family's manufacturing business. He's enjoyed learning Python with the help of the ChiPy community for the last several years. Outside of work, Sam and his wife enjoy going to ethnic restaurants and fishing with their three children.

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Everyday Design Patterns: Facade Pattern
by Aly Sivji

Developers spend lots of time writing code to integrate third-party packages and APIs into our project. Directly adding dependencies into business logic couples our code to something we do not control. This makes code hard to modify and even harder to test. Changes made to upstream packages require us to update integration code across the project.

This talk demonstrates HOWTO use Object-Oriented programming principles, specifically abstraction and encapsulation, to hide complexity and isolate the impact of changes. By using an API version upgrade as our guiding example, we will: walk through the initial implementation, discuss its limitations, and show how the Facade Pattern improves software design.

The session is geared towards developers of all levels looking for a friendlier approach to Design Patterns. By applying the principles outlined, you will be able to use the Facade pattern to write robust code that is easy to maintain.

Bio:
Aly Sivji is a Canadian ex-pat living in Chicago. By day, he builds backend systems at Numerator. By night, he is a co-organizer of the Chicago Python Users Group (ChiPy). Aly is an active participant the ChiPy Mentorship Program and he loves helping intermediate developers become experts. Outside of Python, Aly enjoys cycling, reading, and rewatching old TV shows.

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Additional talk descriptions to come!