Library of Video Lectures

A collection of video lectures suitable for projection at fledgling usergroup meetings to supply initial presentation material.

The video should be of high quality - readable on a large screen with audible sound, and given by a speaker who knows his stuff and presents well. Flash-based video, as found on youtube.com, is often of low resolution. Use the downloadable video formats for presentation.

You can find a list of audio-only presentations on the PythonAudioMaterial page.

• Iterators, Generators, and Descriptors by Guido van Rossum, October 29, 2003 (1 hr 24 min 38 sec)

  This is a "What's New in Python 2.3" talk delivered to the EE380 course at Stanford.

  Python 2.2 and 2.3 added significant power to Python's competence in the construction of highly advanced class libraries, primarily through the introduction of two new concepts: iterators (a generalization of for loops) and descriptors (a generalization of customizable attributes). This talk presents the principles and some examples of these additions, and shows how they are useful for lowly scripting tasks as well as for advanced class library authors.

• Python 3000 by Guido van Rossum, July 2006 (1 hr 6 min 41 sec)

  The next major version of Python, nicknamed Python 3000 (or more prosaically Python 3.0), has been anticipated for a long time. For years I have been collecting and exploring ideas that were too radical for Python 2.x, and it's time to stop dreaming and start coding. In this talk I will present the community process that will be used to complete the specification for Python 3000, as well as some of the major changes to the language and the remaining challenges.

• Better, faster, smarter: Python yesterday, today ... and tomorrow by Alex Martelli, October 12, 2006 (1 hr 2 min 35 sec)

  A presentation to the Bay Area Python Interest Group, giving some historical introduction on Python 2.x and how it is developed, and then moving on to the features of Python 2.5.

• Introducing Python by Arlington Career Center Multimedia and Yorktown High School, November 2006 (23 min 50 sec)

  A light-hearted introductory activity for a computer science course, this video contains interviews with luminaries from the Python community interspersed with A Python Love Story.

  A joint, interdisciplinary project between Arlington Career Center Multimedia and Yorktown High School Drama and Computing, the Python Project builds on the successful use of Python as a teaching tool in Yorktown's Computer Science Program. It was shown at the 9th and 10th International Python Conferences.

• How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People by Ben Collins-Sussman & Brian W. Fitzpatrick, January 2007 (54 min 55 sec)

  By two of the authors of Subversion, Ben and Brian present on the social and organizational elements involved in protecting the attention and focus of your group, and how to build a healthy community. They relate the bikeshed story and then launch into how to deal with those people who, often unintentionally are selfish, uncooperative, and disrespectful. These people can silently poison the atmosphere of a happy developer community. Come learn how to identify these people and peacefully defuse them before they derail your group. Told through a series of (often amusing) real-life anecdotes and experiences.

  Although the talk is focused on development teams, many of the principles relate to general communities such as usergroups. And of course many usergroups will run a group project or two and could benefit from these tips in that way as well.

• Python 3000 (2) by Guido van Rossum, February 14, 2007 (1 hr 25 min 54 sec)

Since the renewed Python 3000 effort was announced at PyCon 2006, a lot has happened. We've implemented about half of the promised changes in a branch, we've solidified the schedule, there's a refactoring tool that can do source-to-source translations, and we've produced several gigabytes of discussion about language change proposals (most of which were deemed too radical in the end :-). In this talk, a preview of a keynote to be given at PyCon 2007, I'll discuss the Python 3000 road map, status, and what this means for the average Python user.

• Advanced Python or Understanding Python by Thomas Wouters, February 21, 2007 (1 hr 15 min 43 sec)

  The Python language, while object-oriented, is fundamentally different from both C++ and Java. The dynamic and introspective nature of Python allow for language mechanics unlike that of static languages. This talk aims to enlighten programmers new to Python about these fundamentals, the language mechanics that flow from them and how to effectively put those to use. Among the topics covered are duck-typing, interfaces, descriptors, decorators, metaclasses, reference-counting and the cyclic-garbage collector, the divide between C/C++ data and Python objects and the CPython implementation in general.

• Python Design Patterns, Part 1 by Alex Martelli, March 2007 (58 min 47 sec)

  Design Patterns must be studied in the context on the language in which they'll get implemented (the Gang of Four made that point very strongly in their book, though almost everybody else seems not to have noticed :-). This talk explores several categories of classic "elementary" DPs in a Python context -- Creational, Masquerading, Adaptation, and Template.

• Python Design Patterns, Part 2 by Alex Martelli, April 2007 (44 min 28 sec)