Meet the PyBay2018 Speakers: Brian Spiering
This post is part of a series introducing the speakers at the PyBay2018 conference in San Francisco this August. It’s a great chance to learn and connect with an engaged and diverse community of Python developers. We hope you’ll join us!
What are you going to be speaking about at PyBay 2018, and why are you excited to give this talk?
I’m going to speak about Keras, a Python package that makes deep learning more accessible. Keras is a high-level API to specify neural network models. It allows you to focus more on the “what” and less on the “how” of building complex models. As a developer, Keras closes the gap between idea and execution for experimenting in deep learning. I am excited to introduce more people to deep learning.
How did you get into programming and Python?
I started programming in BASIC. I immediately started hacking. I wrote a BASIC program that pretended to be the MS-DOS operating system. It replaced the normal operations with goofy versions, like sarcastic error messages.
As a post doctoral fellow, most of my work was in MATLAB. But I needed to parallelize machine algorithms which MATLAB did not do very well. I looked around and found Python has a “low threshold, high ceiling.” It was easy to get started and you can use Python to solve a wide variety of problems.
What’s one of the features about Python you like the best?
Readability. I teach the Python language and teach other subjects using Python. I can write code that the students can read easily. On the flipside, I can read student’s code. We can spend more time on the concepts than on syntax.
What’s your favorite Python library (core or third-party), and why?
I’m talking about Keras at PyBay 2018 so obviously I’m a big fan of it. I love other packages likes Requests, for internet queries, and TextBlob, for Natural Language Processing. All three of those packages emphasize usability. Increasingly, the API is the UI (user interface). I appreciate it when APIs are intuitive.
What’s the coolest or most memorable thing that’s ever happened to you interacting with other Python devs?
I try to get to as many Python events in the San Francisco Bay Area as possible. SF Python and BayPIGgies (Bay Area Python Interest Group) both build welcoming communities. I like meeting people from different walks of life and learn about projects they are working on.
What can you be found doing when you’re not writing code?
I’m usually out on adventures — road tripping and camping with my dog. His name is Lambda, like Python’s nameless function. It is a cosmic joke — his name is nameless.
What’s the best advice you’ve received as a Python developer?
Teach to learn. I teach professionally and have learned the most through helping others. Even if you only know a little bit, I still encourage you to teach others.
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