PYPTUG meeting - February 25th

PYthon Piedmont Triad User Group meeting

Come join PYPTUG at out next meeting (February 25th 2013) to learn more about the Python programming language, modules and tools. Python is the perfect language to learn if you've never programmed before, and at the other end, it is also the perfect tool that no expert would do without.

What

Meeting will start at 5:30pm.

We will open on an Intro to PYPTUG and on how to get started with Python, then with News from the community, PYPTUG activities and members projects.

Main talk: venv

The main talk this month will be "venv".

Chris Calloway will present venv, the new virtual environment creation module included with Python 3.3:

 http://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html

Lightning talks!

At this point, one has been scheduled:

• The Gimp: how to write a plugin in 10 minutes - Francois Dion 

We will have some time for extemporaneous "lightning talks" of 5-10 minute duration. If you'd like to do one, some suggestions of talks were provided here, if you are looking for inspiration. Or talk about a project you are working on.




We'll then wrap up the meeting.

When

Monday, February 25th 2013
Meeting starts at 5:30PM

Where

Note the change of venue this month, possibly a permanent home at Wake Forest University, close to Polo Rd and University Parkway:

Manchester Hall
room: Manchester 241 

Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109

 Map this

See also this campus map (PDF) and also the Parking Map (PDF) (Manchester hall is #20A on the parking map)

And speaking of parking:  Parking after 5pm is on a first-come, first-serve basis.  The official parking policy is:

"Visitors can park in any general parking lot on campus. Visitors should avoid reserved spaces, faculty/staff lots, fire lanes or other restricted area on campus. Frequent visitors should contact Parking and Transportation to register for a parking permit."

 

Mailing List

Dont forget to sign up to our user group mailing list:

https://groups.google.com/d/forum/pyptug?hl=en

It is the only step required to become a PYPTUG member.

PYPTUG meeting - January 28th

PYthon Piedmont Triad User Group meeting

Come join PYPTUG at out next meeting (January 28th 2013) to learn more about the Python programming language, modules and tools. Python is the perfect language to learn if you've never programmed before, and at the other end, it is also the perfect tool that no expert would do without.

What

Meeting room will be open at 5:00pm, giving some time to settle down, meet and greet and to talk Python.

We will officially start the meeting at 5:30pm.

After PYPTUG introductions and related news, we will have various presentations. The main talk this month will be of interest for all those who are ASP.NET or C# programmers looking to expand their tool set, and all those who use Windows for Python development or deployment:

CPython with Visual Studio

Will Sams will talk about Python development under Windows, using Python Tools for Visual Studio.

Lightning talks!

Some time is allocated for lightning talks. Already committed for the 28th:

• Python(X,Y) - to be confirmed
• There and back again: Remote Processes via Paramiko - Ryan Twombly
• Real world connections - Don Jennings
• Brython: Python Utopia? - Francois Dion

If you want to give one (you can choose a 5 or 10 minutes lightning talk), do let us know as soon as possible on the PYPTUG mailing list (we ask PYPTUG members to also join this list):

https://groups.google.com/d/forum/pyptug?hl=en

Some suggestions of talks were provided here, if you are looking for inspiration.

We'll then wrap up the meeting.

When

Monday, January 28th 2013
Auditorium open at 5pm, meet and greet
Meeting starts 5:30PM until 7:30PM at the latest

Where

Note the change of venue this month, the Kernersville location was not available. It is still close to High Point and Greensboro, near I-40 / US-52:

Winston Salem Southside Library
Auditorium

3185 Buchanan Street
Winston-Salem, NC 27127
(336) 703-2980

Map this

It is close to the I-40 and Peters Creek (and US-52 too). If you take
the Silas Creek exit on I-40, turn left on Buchanan and go up until
you get to the library on the left. If you are on Peters Creek Pkwy, turn
on Brewer (on the side where Parkland High School is) and veer left on
Buchanan. Library is on the right.

Mailing list reminder

Membership

Just a reminder that the mailing list for PYPTUG is at groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/pyptug.

There is no complicated forms to fill nor fees to be part of PYPTUG. But, we do ask that you join the mailing list.

RSVP

Sometimes, for special events, we ask for members to RSVP. When that is the case, we will provide detailed instructions through the list and on this site.

For example, for this saturday's PyHack Workshop (#03), we kindly ask that you take the time to RSVP through Meetup.com event 98256872.

PyHack Workshop #03: Python ICU

PyHack Workshop

A monthly workshop using the wonderful Python programming language to do cool hacks, bridging the virtual and the physical. Presented by PYPTUG, in collaboration with Fablocker. We invite anyone who is interested in learning Python to attend.

Last month, Workshop #2 featured the Raspberry Pi, and the RPi.GPIO library.

We connected some motors (DC and steppers) to the Raspberry Pi, and controlled them from Python. We explored modules that help with hardware hacking, and we wrapped it up with some interesting demo involving a toy and some of Bresenham's algorithms.

For those that didn't attend, we know you are dying to get the details. Well, you'll have to wait until next week for more information due to another Raspberry Pi event going on the 9th.

Workshop #3

This month (January), we continue to feature the Raspberry Pi.

The theme will be Python ICU (not the medical kind: I see you), and of course this will involve some webcams (and we will talk about the upcoming camera module from the Raspberry Pi foundation), the Raspberry Pi, and Python.

Along with the Pi and the webcam, we will be using Python and pygame. That's the main portion of the workshop, but we'll also use a phone, a web server and a web framework on top of that. And OpenCV if there is some time left. To do what? You'll have to be there...

There will be a Pi configured for anybody to log on to it and test their program on it. Or you can bring your own setup. Having said that, any laptop and, optionally a USB webcam, should do the trick, since no GPIOs will be harmed in the making of this Workshop!

Prerequisite

All experience levels are welcome. You might have just done a Hello, World program in Python (or not even that), or at the other end of the spectrum, written your own package. All will learn something new.

It is recommended to create an account on BitBucket if you plan to follow along with your laptop and Raspberry Pi. If not, don't worry about it. The bitbucket repository will be posted on the PYPTUG mailing list before the event, and on this site after the event.

You might want to give your Raspberry Pi a unique name, and follow these instructions, to set up zeroconf on your Pi: bonjour-zeroconf-avahi.html

When

Saturday January 12 2013
At 3pm-6pm EST

PYPTUG GROUP Calendar

Where

1020 Brookstown Ave #17
Winston-Salem, NC 27101 

The door is on the side of the building. See also the fablocker.org website for more detail on the location.

Meetup RSVP

If you have a meetup account (it only takes a brief moment to create one if you don't), please RSVP for PyHack, on saturday January 12 2013:

http://www.meetup.com/Fablocker/events/

That way we have an idea of how many people will be at the workshop.

We also encourage you to join our mailing list if you plan to attend, as we communicate pre and post workshop links to bitbucket and things like that.

The PYPTUG mailing list is at:

https://groups.google.com/d/forum/pyptug?hl=en

Python Lightning talks ideas

PYPTUG meeting

We are starting our preparation early for our January PYPTUG meeting. It will be in Kernersville again, if we can get the same conference room.

We already have our main speaker set up, but we really want to ramp up participation through lightning talks.

We are also looking for talks for February and subsequent months. These can be 30 or 45 minutes talks. If you are not a PYPTUG member, but you would like to give a talk and you don't mind driving to the Piedmont Triad, contact us ( twitter @pyptug or email us at pyptug _at_ gmail.com ) and we'll try to schedule something.

Lightning talks

A lightning talk can be up to 5 minutes or up to 10 minutes on
something you have learned about Python, a module, your favorite
editor or a project they did with Python.

Some ideas

Just a few suggestions for lightning talks, might stir something in those little grey cells of yours...

-how python replaced matlab at your university
-the ins and outs of the requests module
-paramiko vs sh
-how pythonic are you?
-how easy is easygui?
-dtrace enabled python
-how to program FPGAs with Python
-Python(x,y) saved my life
-all you ever wanted to know about generators
-the details of the _____ algorithm
-how to use mercurial
-my vim-fu is strong
-pep8, pylint and PyFlakes walk into a bar...
-the property keyword
-multilingual support in a python application
-why do you like python
-why do you not like python
-20 modules you cant do without
-python book review
-python blog review
-@decorators are bliss
-@decorators are evil
-ironpython
-pygames for everyone
-the python foundation
-python for iOS
-python for android
-swig
-doctest
-docopt
-nose
-pypi
-pypy
-pipy (just playing, it has nothing to do with python)

But, at the end of the day, you know more than I do what you are excited about. So go ahead, don't be shy and volunteer for a lightning talk!

A python module for workshops

The PYPTUG python PyHack workshops are about bridging the virtual and the physical, using Python. Since we use the Raspberry Pi, and it is still hard to get a hold of them in a timely manner, several potential attendees were asking if they could still benefit from coming to the workshop this saturday, without a Raspberry Pi.

Definitely

But the answer doesn't stop there. We've made available a RPi.GPIO replacement for testing Raspberry Pi GPIO code on non Raspberry Pi platforms. Meaning, your laptop.

Your laptop will have a split personality

How?

It is a Python module that implements a setmode(), setup(), cleanup(), input(), output(), tracks 54 GPIO states and directions, broadcom and board modes, placeholders for the 4 set_*_event() functions, has some error handling. There is even a debug mode (gpio.debug = True).

Enough to not get an error trying the code for the workshop.

Where?

Head over to the Raspberry Pi Python Adventures blog for the full instructions (right here) on getting this from bitbucket.

Questions?

Leave a comment, we'll gladly help.

PYPTUG November meeting hg repository

The November PYPTUG meeting was very nice, and we had a nice location. The conference room was full of antique furniture (chairs, couches, desks, libraries). The laptops and projector didn't even feel out of place, strangely enough.

webpy presentation

web.py - the antiframework framework

The code for this month's PYPTUG meeting (Monday, the 26th of November), is available on bitbucket. More specifically, the code for the web.py talk. This is good background information for those who will attend PyHack Workshop #03 in January.

Solid Hg

Assuming you already have mercurial:

$ hg clone https://bitbucket.org/fdion/pyptug

It is in the webpy directory.

The presentation is under pyptug/webpy/diapos (from diapositive, the original word describing what are now known as slides). The file is: presentation.html

Diapositive

In case somebody wants to generate similar slide shows:

It is generated from the file slides.md, which is markdown: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ and then you run it through landslide ( http://adamzap.com/random/landslide.html ) and it'll generate an html file for you. There are other, more advanced programs that do more fancy animations, but this will run pretty much on any browser, and any computer (in other words, it runs on a Raspberry Pi, no problem).

More

When / if screencasts are available, I'll post them to the blog. I'll check with David if the iPython notebook is on bitbucket, and if so I'll post that link too.