PyConAu Talk - any suggestions?

General discussions and questions abound development of code with MicroPython that is not hardware specific.
Target audience: MicroPython Users.
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fos
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Re: PyConAu Talk - any suggestions?

Post by fos » Sat Aug 25, 2018 3:55 pm

Very nicely done. I hope the presentation video and the supporting slides remain available.

v/r
Jeff

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pythoncoder
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Re: PyConAu Talk - any suggestions?

Post by pythoncoder » Sat Aug 25, 2018 5:53 pm

@mattyt An enjoyable and informative presentation. As you say, half an hour isn't really enough but the main thing is to convey enthusiasm for this style of coding which you did to good effect. Namecheck much appreciated, BTW. :oops:

If anyone wants to follow this up by reading my tutorial mentioned in the talk it may be found in this repo.
Peter Hinch
Index to my micropython libraries.

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Re: PyConAu Talk - any suggestions?

Post by SpotlightKid » Sat Aug 25, 2018 9:39 pm

My experience with talks of this length, you have to cut all the background fluff and get right down to business. Which propbably means showing some code or demos right away. Maybe there will be some people in the audience, who will get lost, because they didn't have enough background knowledge before, but because the talk is so short, there isn't enough time for them to get bored. In the best case, they will be intrigued and follow up on the morsels for you threw them.

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mattyt
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Re: PyConAu Talk - any suggestions?

Post by mattyt » Sun Aug 26, 2018 9:53 am

Worth noting that Damien's talk on Writing Fast and Efficient MicroPython is also available.

There were also a few others talks that would be of interest to some of you MicroPython folks; I'll pull together a PyCon AU summary after I have a chance to decompress. There was quite a lot of relevant, interesting presentations - and a great deal of productive 'hallway track' discussions.

@fos I intend to keep them up, well, forever I guess. :)

@pythoncoder I was as enthusiastic as I could be given I was running on minimal sleep! And you're very welcome. :)

@SpotlightKid It would be a different talk if I gave it again. However I didn't want to exclude beginners - or even experienced Python devs that were inexperienced with asyncio. But you may be right, a code-first talk would probably be more efficient. I'd have liked to have present more code examples and, especially, tangible hardware demos. Honestly though, I simply ran out of time in preparation!

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Re: PyConAu Talk - any suggestions?

Post by pythoncoder » Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:10 am

Damien's talk is excellent. I commend it to any serious user, and plan to watch it again taking notes.

One approach to presenting asynchronous programming might be to write a synchronous event loop that takes input from, say, ten pushbuttons with debouncing while asynchronously flashing a few LED's with different periods; the code crafted so that input was accepted from buttons during other buttons' debounce periods. Then code the same job with uasyncio (perhaps using my Switch class). I think a comparison of the spaghetti event loop with the uasyncio version would concentrate peoples' minds.

An alternative possibility might be to replicate, for ten buttons, the long press and double-click functionality of my Pushbutton class in a synchronous event loop. Rather a daunting prospect. ;)

I may find time to code something along these lines for the beginners' section of my tutorial.

Another point is that much modern code is event driven. GUI code usually uses callbacks for touch, keyboard and mouse events which implies an event loop running in the background. Most of the firmware I wrote professionally was based on cooperative multi-tasking. It's simply the best way to achieve concurrency without the heisenbug nightmare of threading.
Peter Hinch
Index to my micropython libraries.

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