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November 12, 2006
Python Ireland meeting
I have been meaning to attend a Python Ireland meeting for quite a while. Last Wednesday I finally got around to it and I was treated to two excellent talks. The first was by Sean McGrath on Jython. This gave an introduction to Jython, with some examples of where it could be useful in a Java environment. The SWT GUI example was particularly good in showing how Jython could compact GUI code for Java applications. Sean also filled in a lot of background around Python on the JVM and Microsoft's CLR and this lead to a lively discussion.
Mick Twomey gave the second talk, briefly, as the Jython discussions took up most of the session, and described the Web Server Gateway Interface (WSGI). This is a rather clever API, developed to modularize Python web frameworks. It essentially applies the decorator pattern to code running in the web framework. For example, if you have a web application that you want to have protected with a password, you could use an authentication module with the WSGI to add that to your application. In a sense, the authentication module is applied as a decorator for the application code. Mick also gave an example of gzip compression. WSGI sounds pretty useful.
After the talks the attendees took a short walk to The Pembroke for a beer and more conversation. This could become a regular occurrence for me.
Posted by JohnC at November 12, 2006 11:24 PM