Alex Hall

Playing with Python's internals

This talk will look at two of my libraries which stretch the limits of what's possible with Python:

1. birdseye, a debugger that records the value of every expression for easy viewing, and
2. sorcery, a framework for writing magical functions which know the context in which they are called.

They work by inspecting and manipulating Python's inner workings: execution frames, code objects, and most importantly the Abstract Syntax Tree (AST). I will give an overview of these concepts and explain how some parts of the libraries work.

This is for people interested in peeking under the hood of Python from within Python, i.e. no C and no messing with the interpreter.

Creative ideas specific to Python

Come talk about your craziest and most creative ideas that only other Python programmers could understand. Let's talk about decorators and descriptors, meta-classes and magic, reflection and recursion. It can be something you've implemented yourself, something you want to implement, or something you're not even sure is possible but you wish someone would implement. Maybe you'll find someone else interested in doing just that.