WYLUG

Talk:

Tom Hall: Why I love Python

A talk on the programming language Python, in 3 parts (feel free to leave in the interludes if you have had enough)

Part 1: Past, Present, Future.

A bit of history and the design of the language, a look at all the implementations available today, quick tour of built-in and commonly used modules and future plans.

Part 2: Language overview

A quick tour of the language: builtin types, control structures, using modules etc.

Part 3: Recent Magic.

Some relatively recent changes that make programming Python even more pleasurable. Decorators, Generators, List comprehensions, Iterators, Functools and anything else I can fit in. Again a whirlwind tour, but you should be impressed and want to read up on these some more.

Date:

• Monday, 08 Oct 2007

Times:

• 6:30 p.m. Tea and coffee and chat.
• 7:00 p.m. First talk or presentation.
• 8:30 p.m. (ish) Pub and more chat.

Location:

Directions:

• Getting to Leeds and Leeds University.
• Campus Map showing entrances and car parks.
• Location of E. C. Stoner Building on Campus.

Talks:

• The XO Laptop from the One Laptop Per Child Project
• The CMake buildsystem generator

The XO Laptop

The XO is a low-cost, small, durable, and efficient laptop computer. It will be shipped with a slimmed-down version of Fedora Linux and a GUI called Sugar that is intended to help young children collaborate. The XO-1 includes a video camera, a microphone, long-range Wi-Fi, and a hybrid stylus/touch pad. Human power is planned, allowing operation far from commercial sources of power.

Its design goals are:

• minimal power consumption, with a design target of 2–3 W total power consumption;
• minimal production cost, with a target of $100 per laptop for production runs of millions of units;
• a ‘cool’ look, implying innovative styling in its physical appearance;
• e-book functionality with extremely low power consumption;
• the software provided with the laptop should be open source and free software.

Further details:

• The XO Laptop (Wikipedia)
• The OLPC Project (Wikipedia)

CMake

CMake is a cross-platform build tool like the autotools or SCons. Unlike the autotools (which generate makefiles for the *IXes) or SCons (which calls compilers directly) CMake generates buildsystems for a variety of IDEs (it can still do makefiles, though).

I will be providing an overview of basic CMake usage from both a user’s and a developer’s viewpoint, comparing and contrasting CMake’s behaviour with that of the autotools.

Date:

• Monday, 12 Nov 2007

Times:

• 6:30 p.m. Tea and coffee and chat.
• 7:00 p.m. First talk or presentation.
• 8:30 p.m. (ish) Pub and more chat.

Location:

Directions:

• Getting to Leeds and Leeds University.
• Campus Map showing entrances and car parks.
• Location of E. C. Stoner Building on Campus.

Talk:

• The Lua Programming Language: It’s Cool

Lua is a remarkably expressive programming language, given its strong focus on simplicity. Although not widely used, it has come into its own as a scripting language within applications, especially games. Its straight-forward C API makes it easy to embed within software written in other languages, and its small size and fast virtual machine make it an appropriate choice for performance-critical applications.

Date:

• Monday, 08 Oct 2007

Times:

• 6:30 p.m. Tea and coffee and chat.
• 7:00 p.m. First talk or presentation.
• 8:30 p.m. (ish) Pub and more chat.

Location:

Directions:

• Getting to Leeds and Leeds University.
• Campus Map showing entrances and car parks.
• Location of E. C. Stoner Building on Campus.

Talks:

• No Volunteers, So Far

Date:

• Monday, 11 Sep 2007

Times:

• 6:30 p.m. Tea and coffee and chat.
• 7:00 p.m. First talk or presentation.
• 8:30 p.m. (ish) Pub and more chat.

Location:

Directions:

• Getting to Leeds and Leeds University.
• Campus Map showing entrances and car parks.
• Location of E. C. Stoner Building on Campus.

Subject:

• August Social Meeting

Date:

• Monday, 13 Aug 2007

Times:

• 6:00 p.m. Early doors … Beer and chat.
• 6:30 p.m. Food, including vegetarian options.

Location:

Directions:

• Victoria Hotel, Leeds (Google Map).