ROC.py 10/2014
This month’s ROC.py was dedicated to interfacing Python with other languages. This was fantastic in concept, but there was one small problem - the bulk of the presentation was on “writing Python extensions in C, Fortran, etc.”. Though the information was interesting and useful, the presentation itself was a bit lacking. Much of the time was spent waiting for builds, and the presentation was very C-heavy. For me, this was fine, because I’m reasonably comfortable with C, but I know that a lot of other people are less proficient and could have problems. My biggest frustration with the meeting, though, was that it left no time for lightning talks. A friend and I both had great plans for presentations - mine was on using existing C libraries, which was extremely relevant to the topic of the month. I already brought this issue to the organizers’ attention, and they said that they would attempt to have a meeting devoted to “larger-than-lightning talks” like ours. Overall, I’d give the meeting a 5/10.