Description:

When I started using Python for scientific computing, it was simply a tool that helped me get the results I needed. It was a simple tool with a large and helpful community. Most of my code was simply an working amalgam of solutions found on Stack Overflow. I didn't take the time to learn about the fundamentals of the language, the tools that the language provided and the best practices. Only after I started working professionally did I take the time out to learn Python at a more basic level.

As professional software developers, I think our job is to not just write code that works but to write code that uses the best practices. It's our duty to keep ourselves up to date about the advancements in the language and understand the language and the ecosystem at a more fundamental level.

Towards this end, I will talk about a few language fundamentals such as attribute access on classes, decorators and closures in Python. I will talk about best practices such as using list comprehensions instead of explicit for loops. I will introduce a number of packages in the standard library that help write better Python code such as argparse and Path. Finally, I will introduces resources that helped me better understand the language and the ecosystem such as online documentation, books and talks by experts.

Prerequisites:

No prerequisites are expected from the audience. This talk will be accessible to developers with all levels of experience.

Content URLs:

N.A.

Speaker Info:

I'm a Scientific Software Developer. I've been using Python professionally for just over two years. I was using Python for almost 3 years before that for scientific computing. I have a B.S. & M.S. in Physics from IIT Madras. I've given a number of talks in the Pune and Chennai Python meetups. I've also conducted workshops at SciPy India, PyCon India and a few other locations.

Speaker Links:

More information about me and my work can be found at - http://rahulporuri.github.io/ I occasionally blog at https://rahulporuri.blogspot.com/ I'm @rahulporuri on twitter and you can reach out to me personally at rahul.poruri@gmail.com.