[lug] May 19, 2003 -- FRPythoneers Meeting

[Jeffery D. Collins]

Monday May 19, 2003 , 7:00PM at Level 3 Communications in Broomfield, CO.

This will be the last regular meeting for the season until next 
September.  We have an excellent presentation/demo planned, and I have 
several recent Python books to raffle off, so don't miss it!


Our speaker this month is Fernando Perez, numerical Python guru, 
frequent c.l.p contributor, CU grad student, and all around nice guy!

Title: IPython, Weave & MayaVi --- Python can be both interactive and fast!

Abstract: I will present three tools which I use for my daily python work.

- IPython (http://ipython.scipy.org) is a replacement for the default 
interactive python shell which adds many enhancements.  It tries to be 
the 'ideal' python shell, exposing direct access to the underlying OS, 
to debugging and profiling tools, and extensive customization options.

- Weave (http://www.scipy.org/site_content/weave) is a module for 
writing inline C/C++ code with access to the local python context.  This 
allows a very easy way to optimize tight loops which may be bottlenecks 
in python with a minimal amount of effort on the programmer's part.

- MayaVi (http://mayavi.sourceforge.net) is a VTK-based program for data 
visualization, written 100% in python.  It is an excellent example of 
how python applications can be 'fast enough' even for computationally 
intensive tasks such as 3-d data visualization, while remaining fully 
scriptable in python.  The key for this is, obviously, knowing where the 
bottlenecks are and making sure those are handled by the VTK core 
(written in C++).

Tools like these make Python, in my view, a formidable (in many ways 
superior) competitor to expensive scientific computing environments like 
IDL or MatLab.  This talk should be, however, of interest to anyone who 
uses Python even outside of the scientific computing community, as the 
focus will be on efficient interactive work and handling of problematic 
bottlenecks with weave.


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Meeting Information - http://fr.co.us.pythoneers.org/meetings.html

Driving Directions -

 From US36, exit at the 96th Street exchange (also
marked Interlocken Blvd) and head south (towards the new Flatirons
Mall.)

Alternatively, if you are coming from the south and want to avoid the
construction on Hwy 36... come up Hwy 93, Indiana, or Wadsworth. Turn
onto Hwy 128 (east from 93 or Indiana, west from Wadsworth just before
36). Then turn north on 96th (not Interlocken) and continue below.

 From 96th Street turn west (or right - away from the Sun campus) onto
Eldorado Blvd.

The entrance to the conference room is in Building 2000. These doors
will be locked, so arrive shortly before 7pm to ensure entry. Proceed
upstairs to the second conference room on your right.


--
Jeffery Collins