🐍 Canberra Python Meetup - Pipe-ifying Python by Alex Mirrlees-Black

• 🌐 Network over 🍕 pizza and drinks 🍺🥤 with fellow Python users 🐍
• 👀 Watch a presentation
• 🗣️ Discuss the presentation
• 👥 and maybe hit the local pub!

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Pipe-ifying Python: The how and why of interpreter hacking

Have you ever thought about adding a feature to the Python language itself?
If you have, or just want to learn a bit about how Python works under the hood, we will step through the story of adding a small feature to a fork of Python, learning about compilers and interpreters along the way!

In languages such as OCaml and Elixir, a pipe operator (`|>`) can be used to thread the return value of a function through to the argument of the next, to reduce nesting and improve readability: it lets you turn `x |> f(a, b)` into `f(a, b, x)`. Frustrated by the lack of such an operator in Python, and armed with some previous experience in compilers, Alex started a side project to fix the problem herself!

In this talk Alex will step through the story of how and why she added this feature to a fork of Python she nicknamed 'Pypethon'. We will explore some of the internal workings of the Cpython interpreter, focusing on lexing, parsing and the abstract syntax tree. We will also explore why you might want to make changes to the interpreter, the design challenges you can face when adding new language features, as well as potential tradeoffs. No experience in compilers required!

Alex Mirrlees-Black (she/her • @scibuild@mathstodon.xyz) is a student at ANU, currently completing her honours in computer science. She has been a long time lover of languages, both for computers and people, and is always willing to share her passion for niche programming language features.
When she isn't dreaming of syntax trees and compiler optimisations, Alex enjoys playing the organ, board games, baking and being snobby about tea ☕.

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📢 Interested in presenting? We'd love to have you, submit here!
💬 Want to chat? Get in touch via slack!

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Thanks to our sponsors: Linux Australia and ANU!
Want to sponsor our costs for pizza and drinks, and meet our enthusiastic members? Get in touch!