About Us

The Front Range Pythoneers is an active Python users group in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

Activities

We hold a regular monthly meeting every third Wednesday. We also hold a regular monthly sprint, usually on the first Saturday of each month. The next sprints will by on Jython and IPython1, an update of the popular python shell. At this point, it looks like we will be holding these sprints on a regular basis.

Future possibilities include holding an occasional BoulderJam to play with an exciting new technology together, and helping pair mentors with aspiring Pythoneers.

Mailing List

You can subscribe to our [http://lists.community.tummy.com/mailman/listinfo/frpythoneers mailing list]. We also have a [http://lists.community.tummy.com/pipermail/frpythoneers/ mail archive].

Meetings and Sprints

We just happen to have the friendliest bunch of Python people coming to our meetings. So why not come too?

• Date/time: Every 3rd Wednesday, 6-8 PM. Calendars [http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/frpythoneers%40gmail.com/public/basic XML] [http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/frpythoneers%40gmail.com/public/basic.ics ICAL] [http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=frpythoneers%40gmail.com HTML]

• Location: [http://www.bivio.biz/ bivio Software, Inc.], 28th and Iris. Above Hair Elite in Suite S. [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=2701+Iris+Ave.,+Boulder+CO&ie=UTF8&z=15&om=1&iwloc=A Google Maps link]

Sprints are usually held the 1st Saturday of each month, also at bivio.

Next Meeting: February 21, 2007, 6-8 PM

• Location: [http://www.bivio.biz/ bivio Software, Inc.]

• Fernando Perez will present his joint talk with Brian Granger, "IPython: Getting the most out of working interactively in Python": IPython (if you do not know it yet) is an enhanced interactive shell for Python. It provides a large number of features not found in the default shell that make interactive work in Python more seamless and convenient.
• Jim Baker will present "Iterators in Action": Using iterators well can make your code lean and your programming fun. We will distill current best practice by investigating some (mostly) useful examples of iterators in action. With the help of itertools and various cookbook recipes, we'll look at such examples as computing Six Sigma stats, parsing/collating lots of log files, and performing fast prefix lookups of the data your users most want to see (assuming you have a good relevancy scorer, of course). We will even see why Raymond Hettinger must say no so often :).

Other items to talk about:

• BoulderSprint. We had a great JythonSprint, focusing on getting IPython to work on it. The next sprint will be in April, also on IPython.

• Google Summer of Code. One of our missions is to mentor Pythoneers. Does it make sense to add a local component to GSoC 2007 that could take advantage of the universities here?

PyCon: February 23-25, 2007

• [http://us.pycon.org/TX2007/HomePage PyCon 2007] Dallas/Addison TX. List of attendees from the Front Range:

• Matt Boersma
• Eric Dobbs
• Brian Granger
• Evelyn Mitchell
• Sean Reifschneider
• Jim Baker
• Steve Rogers
• Michelle Cyr

!IPython Sprint: April 6, 2007

• [http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/Developer_Zone/Sprint IPython1 Beta]. This would be an excellent opportunity to learn about decorators, Twisted, and other advanced Python concepts while helping getting this shell to beta status.

• Location: [http://www.bivio.biz/ bivio Software, Inc.].

, 28th and Iris. Above Hair Elite in Suite S. [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=2701+Iris+Ave.,+Boulder+CO&ie=UTF8&z=15&om=1&iwloc=A Google Maps link]

Previous Events

Sprint: February 3, 2007

• JythonSprint. Part of our BoulderSprint series. We sprinted on getting IPython to run on Jython (two birds here?), as well as spent time on looking at compiler updates. More will be posted soon here.

• Location: [http://www.bivio.biz/ bivio Software, Inc.].

Meeting: January 17, 2007

• Location: [http://www.churchillnavigation.com Churchill Navigation].

Topics and people attending include the following:

• BoulderSprint. We had a great JythonSprint, focusing on design. Momentum is really building, Jython might actually get the love that Charles Oliver Nutter of !JRuby proposed. More interestingly, there's a chance for people in the dynamic language community to work together on JVM implementations.

• Tom Churchill and Vinny Fiano will demo Churchill Navigation's earth-rendering engine (which looks like Google Earth, only apparently even better and faster ). Vinny (their main Python guy) will explain how they built the glue logic (and why they decided against SWIG) and perhaps some of the implications of using Python as a scripting language in a real-time (60 fps) environment, and the techniques we employed to keep the graphics pipeline from stalling when making an expensive call into their engine from Python.

• Brian Granger from [http://txcorp.com/ Tech-X] will help us think more deeply about concurrent Python programming, especially as seen in a new version of [http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/IPython1 IPython].

Sprint: January 6, 2007

• JythonSprint. We talked about rethinking the existing compiler to converge on !CPython 2.5/trunk.

Meeting: December 20, 2006

Canceled! We were going to plan the JythonSprint and see some demos. But a blizzard intervened. Fortunately, we should be able to do all of that instead in January.

Meeting: November 15, 2006

This was a fun meeting! Even if Jill's has increasingly been high decibel. But we really can't complain about the success of our venue.

• Steve Rogers showed up for his first meeting with us. He credits seeing the [http://zyasoft.com/pythoneering/ Pythoneering blog], now that it's included in the [http://www.pythonware.com/daily/index.htm Daily Python-URL]. It's good to have the visibility. With Steve around and fresh from [http://sc06.supercomputing.org/ Supercomputing 2006], we talked a lot about parallel computing paradigms in Python, among other things.

Meeting: October 18, 2006

• Discussed possible proposals for PyCon2007. The basic consensus was that it was a great idea that for PyCon "we're especially interested in presentations that will teach conference-goers something new and useful." In particular, we all would like to see talks with more useful takeaway code, not just talks saying, hey we are doing great things with Python. Trust us .

• Began planning of BoulderSprint, which apparently has been a burning desire for JimBaker for a while.

Guide to Front Range Pythoneering

People

• [http://amath.colorado.edu/faculty/fperez/ Fernando Perez], CU Applied Math, and Brian Granger, [http://txcorp.com/ Tech-X], both work on [http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/ IPython].

• Eric Dobbs, [http://www.bivio.biz bivio Software, Inc.], works on PyQScimpl as a contractor with Tech-X. SciPy 2006 [http://dobbse.net/thinair/2006/08/scipy/ presentation] of PyQScimpl.

• Fred Clare and Mary Hall, [http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/ NCAR], are behind [http://www.pyngl.ucar.edu PyNGL].

• Jeffrey Whittaker, contributed this [http://www.scipy.org/Wiki/Cookbook/Matplotlib/Maps plot] to matplotlib for geospatial projections of data.

• Yeong-Shang Log, [http://casa.colorado.edu/ CASA], is exploring space with the [http://www.stsci.edu/hst/ Hubble Space Telescope] in [http://www.stsci.edu/resources/software_hardware/pyraf/stsci_python Python].

• [http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~martin/ Jim Martin], [http://www.colorado.edu CU Boulder], teaches [http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~martin/csci5582.html Intro to AI] and [http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~martin/csci5832.html Natural Language Processing] in Python. The NLP class uses the [http://nltk.sourceforge.net/ NL toolkit].

• [http://verbs.colorado.edu/~mpalmer/ Martha Palmer], [http://www.colorado.edu CU Boulder], teaches a [http://verbs.colorado.edu/mpalmer/ling5200/ class on linguistics] in Python.

• Ravinder Singh and Scott Kelley, [http://www.colorado.edu CU Boulder], teach a [http://mcdb.colorado.edu/courses/6440/index.html class] on bioinformatics and molecular biology, using Biopython.

• [http://oubiwann.blogspot.com/ Duncan McGreggor], [http://pymon.sourceforge.net/ PyMon] and other projects.

• [http://rmi.net/~lutz/ Mark Lutz] has taught over 170 [http://home.earthlink.net/~python-training/ Python training sessions].

• [http://www.softwaresummit.com/2005/speakers/smith_mitchell.htm Mitchell Smith] led the adoption of Python at [http://www.arraybiopharma.com/ Array Biopharma].

• [http://uche.ogbuji.net/ Uche Ogbuji] keeps us honest about XML.

• Joe VanAndel, [http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/ NCAR].

• [http://www.ophinity.com Demian Neidetcher], currently at [http://www.avaya.com Avaya], wrote a simple web gallery in Python called [http://pix.sf.net pix].

• [http://www.jim-baker.com Jim Baker], [http://www.zyasoft.com Zyasoft] maintains the [http://zyasoft.com/pythoneering/ FR Pythoneering blog]. He also likes iterators. A [http://www.tummy.com/journals/entries/jafo_20060817_003823 lot]. Jim also co-founded Empact Solutions and [http://www.bizlogix.net BizLogix] and is now at [http://www.bivio.biz bivio Software].

• [http://www.tummy.com/journals/users/jafo Sean Reifschneider], [http://www.tummy.com tummy.com, ltd.], maintains many projects, including the [http://www.tummy.com/Community/software/python-memcached/ Python client] to the ever-useful [http://www.danga.com/memcached/ memcached].

• [http://shrogers.com/weblog Steve Rogers] does systems engineering at [http://www.seagate.com Seagate Technology].

• [http://www.churchillnavigation.com Churchill Navigation] in Boulder builds high-end navigation systems with a high-level Python interface.

Please help expand this local guide! (Also feel free to remove yourself from this list, if that makes sense personally.)

Groups

There are some other great groups in the area that we interact with on a periodic basis. Shared membership helps here!

• [http://dim.com/~sms/bsc/ Boulder Software Club]

• [http://www.agiledenver.org/ Agile Denver] organizes more formal meetings. [http://agile.meetup.com/24/ Agile Boulder] is a monthly meetup that's taken a lightning talk focus, well worth checking out.

• [http://www.boulderjug.org/ Boulder Java Users Group]

• [http://boulder.pm.org/ Boulder Perl Mongers]. They don't meet formally often - perhaps 2 or 3 times in the last 6 years? - but doesn't prevent other modes of meeting like hikes and disk golf.

• [http://rubyforge.org/projects/bdrg/ Boulder-Denver Ruby Group]

Please add your favorite group here if it seems relevant to local Pythoneering.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to [http://tummy.com tummy.com, ltd.] and their principals, SeanReifschneider and Evelyn Mitchell, for generously hosting our web site and mailing list.