BayPiggies November 20 -- AI +Testing, AI +Agents, Teaching Python, PyBay recap

BayPIGgies... in-person at SAP Labs in Palo Alto!

IMPORTANT: SAP requires all registrations be completed in advance - and will email you prior to the event -- so no last minute registrations will be honored, and no walk-ins will be allowed. Registration will close on Tuesday 11/18/25.

**Please RSVP here on Meetup and also fill out the Google form so you can receive the SAP form before the event (REQUIRED): https://forms.gle/k5VcneCK9baPnUen9**

Announcements:

• Python conferences, PyBay and others
• Giving BayPiggies talks

Schedule:

• 6:30 Register and Refreshments
• 7:00 Welcome + Announcements
• 7:05 Short talk - PyBay recap
• 7:20 Lightning Talk - Popular Python Packages Series
• 7:30 Lightning Talk - Teaching Python from Square One
• 7:40 Talk - Don’t Make Assumptions About Assertions: Even with AI you still have to write your unit tests
• 8:10 Talk - Engineering Generative Agents: From Simple LLM Wrappers to Robust Systems
• 8:50 Wrap-up

**** Short talk *****
"PyBay recap" presented by Chris Brousseau

**** Lightning talks *****
"Popular Python Packages Series - presented by Karen
Another highlight of a trending Python package everyone should look at.

"Teaching Python from Square One" - presented by Maxine Guo

Although the core concepts of the language have mostly stayed the same, the people learning Python are now surrounded by computers and AI. This changes how they learn new topics. I will explain methods to teach Python for complete beginners and cover topics ranging from teaching tips to keeping students engaged, how to explain foundational topics, the order for introducing these topics, and example projects. Using my experience learning Python and teaching middle schoolers, I will provide a new perspective on Python education.

Maxine Guo is a student at Peterson Middle School.

**** Talks *****

"Don’t Make Assumptions About Assertions: Even with AI you still have to write your unit tests" - presented by Liz Acosta
We’ve all been inundated with opinions, takes (both hot and cold), thought leadership, and rants and raves about the merits, misfortunes, and malevolence of AI in coding. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, as a developer, you likely won’t be able to avoid AI. And yes, you still have to write your unit tests – more so now than ever. This talk hopes to help you strike the right balance between leveraging and leaning on AI by taking a closer look at the most important part of a unit test: The assertion.

Liz Acosta is a film student turned social media manager and content creator turned engineer turned developer advocate. She loves pizza, plants, pugs, and Python. She is particularly interested in the intersection of tech and community, and one of her favorite things to do is find ways to turn complex concepts into casual conversation.

"Engineering Generative Agents: From Simple LLM Wrappers to Robust Systems" - presented by Jeff Fischer
Generative Agents are everywhere in the news, but moving past the hype and into reliable real-world applications is the hard part. While wrapping an LLM is easy, building an agent that reliably solves non-trivial problems is a significant engineering challenge.

In this talk, we'll dive into the practical engineering side of building effective AI agents. You'll learn:

• Common Architectures and Popular Frameworks to consider for your specific use case.
• Essential Practices for Testing, Debugging, and Evaluation to ensure reliability.
• Real-world Challenges and Trade-offs in agent design.

I'll use two open-source agents I've built as case studies to demonstrate how to overcome these hurdles and turn a proof-of-concept into a robust system.

Jeff Fischer is the Senior Director of ML Products at C3 AI, where he focuses on building Agentic AI application platforms. He's an engineer at heart who's spent years diving deep into software systems, programming languages, and data science. He holds a PhD from UCLA and has led engineering and product teams at companies large and small.

Thank you, SAP Labs, for sponsoring and hosting this month's meeting!

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Personal Donations: Please consider supporting future BayPiggies events and Python in the Bay Area at the link below via the Bay Area Python Association and the Python Software Foundation:
https://psfmember.org/civicrm/contribute/transact/?reset=1&id=43