List of videos

Python supports functions as first-class objects. This means that functions can be assigned to variables, and passed to and from other functions, just like any other object in Python. One powerful application of this is the decorator syntax, which makes it easy to apply one function to another at compile time. Decorators offer a simple and readable way of adding capabilities to your code. This tutorial will teach you how decorators work, and how to create your own decorators. Being comfortable with using and creating decorators, will make you a more efficient Python programmer.

The Summit is a gathering of teachers and educators focused on bringing coding literacy, through Python, to as broad a group of audiences as possible. Schedule: -Education Summit Committee Host and Welcome, Elizabeth Wickes and Meenal Pant -Chalmer Lowe, Meta-talk: future directions for the education community -Zoë Wilkinson Saldaña, Engaging learners in critical data science practices -Jeffrey L. Olson Jr, Foo and “Bar” Must Die - Teach Less and Do More with Context, Predictions, and Playtime -Piper Thunstrom, Building to be Teachable: Why we embraced a principles driven development process -Lightning talk: Matthew Jansen, Python, Open Labs, and the University Library -Lightning talk: Meg Ray, Python in Education

The Python Trainers Summit is a new hatchery program for PyCon 2020! As Python grows as a language, both in popularity and complexity, so too must training for existing users. While this area does fall under education, one-off short form training and professional development have unique needs, questions, and expertise. Being related to education, but not always identifying primarily as educators, many trainers are isolated from the broader community of expertise on teaching and learning. Many operate as independent freelancers, so they may lack a network of colleagues to connect with and learn from. This means that they are missing out on key discoveries and practices from the traditional education community, and the educator community is missing out on the expertise of teaching adult professional learners. -Elizabeth Wickes, Host and Welcome Remarks -Reuven Lerner, The business of training: An introduction -Trey Hunner, My teaching setup: the pros and cons -Moshe Zadka, Giving a Tutorial at a Python Conference: Unexpected Challenges -Karen Word, Adapting In Person Trainings to Online

Presented by: Harry Percival Classic testing tutorials usually present code that’s free of side-effects and external I/O dependencies, but the real world is seldom so straightforward. We find ourselves reaching for mocks to keep our tests isolated, and that often leads to tests that are hard to understand and maintain, and we start to question their value. When we substitute integration or end-to-end tests to assure ourselves that things work in the real world, we end up with test suites getting slower and slower, and instead of a “test pyramid” we end up with an “ice cream cone”. This talk proposes a cure: if we stop ourselves from using mocks, cold turkey, we will be forced to think more carefully about how to design our code, how to separate business logic from integration and I/O concerns. The talk will cover patterns like “Functional Core, Imperative Shell”, the use of Dependency Injection and hand-rolled fakes as an alternative to mocking and patching, and show how they can help us get better-designed code, more maintainable tests, and a healthy test pyramid.

Presented by: Allison Parrish When Lewis Carroll wrote “Jabberwocky,” how did he know how to spell “Jabberwock”? Why are some words (like “cellar door”) considered to be pleasant, while others (“pulchritude,” “regurgitate”) ugly and harsh? In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to use Pincelate, a Python library and machine learning model, to analyze the sounds of words, and generate new words with particular phonetic characteristics.

An interview with Startup Row Aiko AI

Prior to earning his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 2006, Robert Erdmann started a science and engineering software company and worked extensively on solidification and multiscale transport modeling at Sandia National Laboratories. Upon graduation, he joined the faculty at the University of Arizona in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Program in Applied Mathematics, where he worked on multiscale material process modeling and image processing for cultural heritage. In 2014 he moved permanently to Amsterdam to focus full-time on combining materials science, computer science, and imaging science to help the world access, preserve, and understand its cultural heritage. He is Senior Scientist at the Rijksmuseum, and is also Full Professor of Conservation Science in the Faculties of Science and of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. He has been using Python since 2001 and teaching Python since 2006.

Saron is the founder of Disco, audio courses on tech topics. She's also the founder of CodeNewbie (acquired), a podcaster, a developer, and speaker.

Akshay Sharma is executive vice president of artificial intelligence (AI) at Sharecare, the digital health company that helps people manage all their health in one place. Sharma joined Sharecare in 2021 as part of its acquisition of doc.ai, the Silicon Valley-based company that accelerated digital transformation in healthcare. Sharma is an entrepreneur, founder, and experienced leader in engineering technology with a focus on healthcare. Since he initially joined doc.ai, he has been integral in the creation of core mobile app offerings including Passport, a privacy-based health-at-work solution; Serenity, a mental health digital offering; NetRunner, an edge computing and inference AI app; and Genewall, a genome app that deals with bioinformatics on the edge. He is passionate about developing and applying poly-omics data combinations to healthcare and life sciences as well as developing AI to assist in medical data understanding. He has built products, technology, and teams focused on edge computing (mobile/MCUs/sensors) and privacy (computations/inferences/learning), and holds several patents in this space. With doc.ai, Sharma previously held various leadership positions including chief technology officer (CTO), and vice president of engineering, a role in which he developed several key technologies that power mobile-based privacy products in healthcare. Prior to joining the company, he also founded and co-founded several businesses including Swast, a startup focused on doctor-efficiency within the Indian healthcare ecosystem, and PixelSimple, a company engineering nextgen media streaming systems in the U.S. and Bangalore. In addition to his role at Sharecare, Sharma serves as CTO of TEDxSanFrancisco and also is involved in initiatives to decentralize clinical trials. Sharma holds bachelor’s degrees in engineering and engineering in information science from Visvesvaraya Technological University.