monkinetic the blog

PyCon 2015 Day 1: The Lag of Jet

Today was my first day of PyCon, in Montréal, Quebec (my first). I’m headquartered with two other Wells Fargo teammates in the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth (Fairmont de la Reine Elizabeth), a 10-minute walk or so from the Palais des Congrés, where this year’s PyCon is being held. It’s an impressive building, though in the end, one tutorial room and conference hallway look pretty much like another.

Timezone changes (west-to-east sucks) had me up later than I wanted last night, and up earlier than I wanted this morning, but I walked over to the Palais in the brisk 40°F weather to get registered. One coffee later I found myself in the room for the first tutorial session I had registered for, only to find that I had not actually registered. The staff person managing the room was kind enough to let me stand in the back after all the sold-out seats had been filled, so I was able to at least listen and follow along with the notes.

This session was Descriptors and Metaclasses, and dug much more deeply into these advanced topics than I had before. My daily work digging through Horizon’s internals made more sense especially after the presenter – Python Academy’s Mike Müller, who did an excellent job – took us on a tour through the way that Python metaclasses work. My homework tonight while I de-jetlag is to work through the incredibly detailed tutorial notes in iPython notebook and make sure I understand them.

More rest tonight, things begin in earnest tomrrow!