Leipzig Python User Group - Archive 2010

Forty Sixth Meeting, Tuesday January 12, 2010

Markus Zapke-Gründemann introduced the modules xml.sax and xml.sax.handler. They are useful for fast processing of large amounts of XML data. It was an interesting talk about the method of event-oriented parsing with SAX. We enjoyed an exhaustive explanation of the sample program.

The next meeting will be February 9, 2010. Stefan Schwarzer will rehearse his presentation for the Chemnitzer Linux Tage titled "Robustere Python-Programme" (More Robust Python Programs).

Forty Seventh Meeting, Tuesday February 9, 2010

Stefan Schwarzer rehearsed his talk for the Chemnitzer Linux Tage titled Robustere Python-Programme (More Robust Python Programs). There was some constructive feedback. Furthermore, we talked about planned our booth at the Linux-Fest Chemnitzer Linux Tage .

The next meeting will be March 9, 2010. Mike Müller will talk about PyCon 2010.

Forty Eighth Meeting, Tuesday March 9, 2010

Mike Müller summarized what happened at PyCon 2010. The focus was on topics such as different Python implementations such as CPython, Jython, IronPython, and PyPy, web development, migration to Python 3.x, and testing.

The next meeting will be April 13, 2010. We will evaluate our booth at the Linux Fest Chemnitzer Linux Tage and plan improvements for next year.

Forty Ninth Meeting, Tuesday April 13, 2010

Again, there were two new participants. They came from around Jena, a city about one hour away. We intensively discussed several topics. We talked about how to make posters and other materials to present our user group at trade fairs and conferences. We did some early stage planning for a bar camp in Leipzig. This was inspired by the bar camp by the user group in cologne. We should get a decent number of people together. Just counting the regular user group goers in Leipzig and Berlin and some people we know would likely come from cities within 2-hour-traveling distance makes it worthwhile.

The next meeting will be May 11, 2010. Julian Moritz will give a talk about CouchDB.

Fiftieth Meeting, Tuesday May 11, 2010

Julian Moritz gave an interesting talk about CouchDB. Important concept when working with CouchDB are JSON, HTTP, no schema and parallelism as well as using the map-reduce approach for queries. He had to answer many questions of course focusing on the use of CouchDB with Python. This time 13 people showed up. Again we had three newcomers.

The next meeting will be June 1, 2010. Please not. This one week earlier than our regular second Tuesday of the month.

Fifty First Meeting, Tuesday June 1, 2010

Christina Theune of gocept gave a very interesting talk about the ZODB. The co-developer of ZODB povided plenty of background information besides demos about the usage. It became very clear that the ZODB is a real object database not just a "relational database with an object curtain".

The next meeting will be July 13, 2010.

Fifty Second Meeting, Tuesday July 13,2010

Mike Müller talked about the EuroSciPy conference in Paris. The number of attendees has more than tripled since the last conference 2009 in Leipzig, Germany. This shows the increasing interest in Python for scientific an technical purposes.

There were two days filled with tutorials for beginners as well as advanced users about the usage of NumPy, Scipy, Matplotlib, Mayavi or version control, testing and extensions in other languages. The following two days were packed with interesting talks about Python in diverse fields such as mathematics, physics and biology as well as GIS and software tools for the scientific work flow.

The next meeting will be on August 10, 2010.

Fifty Third Meeting, Tuesday August 10, 2010

Stefan Schwarzer gave a short report about EuroPython and Mike Müller summarized OSCON. Markus Zapke-Gründemann gave a talk about distribute, pip and virtualenv. We had a lively discussion about this topic that was interesting for everybody.

The next meeting will be on September 21, 2010. This is one week later than the usual second Tuesday of the month because of an overlap with the DZUG-conference in Dresden.

Fifty Forth Meeting, Tuesday September 21, 2010

We met one week later than the usual second Tuesday of the month because of an overlap with the DZUG-conference in Dresden.

Stefan Schwarzer talked about the Unified Modeling Language (UML). The interesting presentation ignited a fruitful discussion that covered even more aspects of UML. A class diagram with VioletUML demonstrates the how the UML can be applied.

In addition, we talked about PyConDe, the German Python conference, and the meeting about this topic at the DZUG-conference.

The next meeting will be on Oktober 12, 2010. Markus Zapke-Gründemann will talk about "Celery - Eine asynchrone Task Queue (nicht nur) für Django".

Fifty Fifth Meeting, Tuesday October 12, 2010

Markus Zapke-Gründemann gave the talk "Celery - Eine asynchrone Task Queue (nicht nur) für Django". The slides are available as PDF or at scribd. He nicely explained the possibilities for parallel and cron tasks of Celery. A spam filter in Django for blog entries served as an example. The potentially time consuming filtering is asynchronously handed over to an external service. The user interface of the web application stays reactive during this time.

Then we talked about PyConDe 2011. We concluded that Leipzig would be a good location for it. We are going to submit an application.

The next meeting will be on November 9, 2010. We will have a sprint to improve the content and setup of the python.de web site.

Fifty Sixth Meeting, Tuesday November 9, 2010

We had a sprint to improve the python.de website with information about Python in German speaking countries. We use the Python-based CMS Plone. Everybody is invited to contribute. The portal can be reached at its temporary location http://python.inqbus.de and will evntually move to python.de. You can register yourself to get write access. If you think you need more user rights please e-mail Maik Derstappen (maik [_DOT_] derstappen [_AT_] derstappen-it [_DOT_] de).

The next meeting will be on December 14, 2010.

Fifty Seventh Meeting, Tuesday December 14, 2010

We prepared our booth presentation at Chemnitzer Linuxtage 2011. We will improve our poster. Furthermore, we will put all Python-related booths (Python, Django, Zope) together to utilize synergy effects.

Another topic was a case study comparing a C++ with a Python program both solving the same problem. The Python program needs only one third of the lines and is much easier to read an understand.

The next meeting will be on January 11, 2011.