Saturday 2:35 p.m.–3:05 p.m.
Exploring is never boring: understanding CPython without reading the code
Allison Kaptur
- Audience level:
- Novice
- Category:
- Python Core (language, stdlib, etc.)
Description
Have you started to read the source code of CPython but not gotten as far as you wanted? Maybe you want to understand more about CPython but don't know where to begin. I'll present a number of strategies for getting more familiar with Python under the hood that go beyond "just read it!" This talk isn't about contributing - it's about getting into the code base and discovering interesting things.
Abstract
#### How to not read code
This talk will cover three strategies for exploring codebases that go beyond "just read the code!". I'll outline each strategy, provide tools that are useful for each one, and give a short demonstration of answering a real question using that strategy.
1. Code as nature & the programmer as naturalist (with inspect/cinspect)
2. Science! Hypothesis-driven exploration (with timeit)
3. Code as architecture: Guided tours (with ack)
