Posted by Tom Weir, Safe Software developer and resident Pythonista
I noted in a recent (Sunday) posting on the Python Software Foundation (PSF) weblog at http://pyfound.blgspot.com/ that the organizers of the Vancouver Python User Group (www.vanpyz.org) have donated over $5,000 to the Python Software Foundation. The donated funds are the proceeds from the Vancouver Python Workshop, which Safe Software was proud to sponsor.
However, we didn't just sponsor the workshop, we also had a great time attending this event as well; over a dozen of our developers and members of our Professional Services team spent their weekend absorbing a wide variety of Python tips and tricks.
Some of the highlights of workshop’s jam-packed schedule, from my perspective, were as follows:
Guido van Rossum gave a great overview of the near, and long-tem plans for the Python language. It’s nice to know that the language is moving forward, but we won't be losing any of the features that make Python great. Guido also gave us some insight into how Google is making extensive use of Python in its internal systems.
Jim Hugunin, and IronPython: The keynote & talks about IronPython turned out to be some of the more popular sessions. Microsoft has spent a lot of time adding Python language support to DotNet, and the information presented at http://www.ironpython.com/ is well worth checking out.
Paul Prescod gave an excellent series of Python tutorials, which provided great training for our some of our staff members who hadn't used Python yet.
Ian Caven gave a truly cool presentation discussing how Python is used at Lowry Digital to digitally restore films. I've seen Ian present before, and he clearly articulates where and how Python should be used in large systems.
Although I’ve identified the aforementioned presentations as conference highlights, I think it’s very important to mention that members of the local Python community who stepped up to the plate also gave an assortment of truly excellent talks. The variety and passion of the talks given was a true testament to the value of community-organized conferences.
Not content to merely sit in the audience, I also gave a presentation www.vanpyz.org/conference/talks/details?code=bjQXNV that discussed some of the technical details of how we've provided access to Python from within FME.
Over the past several FME releases, we've been slowly adding new Python support to FME, and with FME 2007, our Python support is about to hit the big time.
Our upcoming FME 2007 release includes the following Python-related
features:
- A brand-new PythonFactory
- A much-improved PythonCaller transformer
- A new PythonCreator tranformer
- Startup/Shutdown Python scripts (editable in FME Workbench)
- A new code editor in Workbench for editing your Python Code
(I’ll be presenting this information again on Thursday 21 September at our FME Worldwide User Conference in Vancouver BC. If you’d like to view the slides from my presentation, they’ll be available in a few days time from www.safe.com/2006uc. Check out the presentation by Andrew Smith from Lagen Saptial as well.)
Getting started with FME & Python is fairly easy. You need to download a copy of Python (Python 2.4 is recommended) from www.python.org/download.
Then install a FME 2007 Beta (any build number greater than 4138 will do) from www.safe.com/beta/index.php.
Read the new docs and examples at www.safe.com/python.
For more information on FME and Python, see www.fmepedia.com.
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