Three men enter: PyconAU 2018 talks
We’re going to PyconAU, and we’re giving 3 talks. Pycon is the big conference for Python developers and we’re giving the three talks outlined below. Sadly it’s in Sydney this year, so the epic junket will only be be to Darling Harbour.
If you see us there say Hi!
Workplace Environment sensing with Python is Aiden, Teaching Python to design students is me and Ishaan, and Write Perfect* Code First Time, Every Time is Ishaan.
Workplace Environment sensing with Python
Elevator PitchHave you often wondered where the quietest spot in the office is right now? In this talk, we explain how we built a real-time system that does just that using CircuitPython.
DescriptionWorkplace indoor environment quality is high correlated with workplace satisfaction. Yet the measure of what’s good varies from person to person. In this talk, we discuss the process of developing a system which provides visibility over these factors.
The basic outline of the talk is the:
- Hardware needed for such a system e.g Adafruit circuit playground express
- Use of CircuitPython for firmware development (covering its history, and how it differs from microPython)
- Tradeoffs of CircuitPython (easy learning curve and good for education but not good for use in production)
- Code Walkthrough/demo
- A demo of the system which shows tell us the sound temperature levels in the room
Teaching Python to design students
Elevator Pitch“I’m a designer, why should I learn python?” We’ve been teaching a course to non-nerds for a couple of years and so we’re going to share some of the things we’ve discovered.
DescriptionLearning to program is often a difficult journey requiring patience and perseverance. This journey can seem even tougher if one does not already see the eventual benefits of learning to program. In this talk, we share our experience in teaching the first-year programming course for architecture and design students at the University of New South Wales.
Computer science courses often gloss over the motivational aspects of learning the skill of programming. However, it is quite important to contextualise the benefit for anyone outside the computer science domain.
As part of this talk, we cover:
- how architecture and design students may benefit from programming and those benefits may be conveyed.
- Simple ways of motivating students to keep going (tests, jokes and easter eggs)
- the power of machine learning and data science in providing a tangible benefit of having a programming skill for architecture and design students
- the structure of the program and what worked and didn’t work there
- the practical details of of setting up a Python dev environment that’s flexible yet abstracts away some of the low level details
- open sourcing the course
Write Perfect* Code First Time, Every Time
Elevator PitchWouldn’t it be nice to know if the line you just wrote actually works? In this talk, we look at Python development environments that are especially helpful to when exploring a new code base, learning a new framework or to new-comers of the language.
DescriptionThe traditional method of writing scripts has been:
- Write some code
- Execute the script
- Print variables out to the console to verify the code is working as expected.
However Python being an interpreted language has the advantage of being able to execute code on the fly. Taking advantage of this, we explore a workflow using Visual Studio Code’s Python Extension in being able to execute and verify code before we write it in a script.
This workflow not only cuts debugging time in significantly but also provides visibility in libraries lacking comprehension documentation (as often is the case).
The basic layout of the talk will be:
- Brief comparison of interpreted and dynamic languages
- Walkthrough: How a large percentages of workflows look like. Type code in editor, go to terminal, execute script, observe error, fix
