Question Driven Development using Python

Keynote address at PyBeach 2025 conference in Santa Monica, CA on Sept. 27, 2025

Transcript

1. Driven Development Question Carol Willing PyBeach 2025 Sept. 27, 2025 Guide your Python code and career to success
2. Start with a question why
3. Pragmatic Python © 2023 by Carol Willing is licensed under CC BY 4.0 Hi! I'm Carol Willing.
4. Contributions Developing tools, processes, and organizations to foster learning Enabling no-install notebooks with JupyterHub and Binder Improving Python's docs, usability, and governance
6. What should we explore
7. Driven Development Question
8. Communication Python AI Driven Development Question
9. Driven Development AI Question
11. 1 Inquire
12. Where to start with AI Pick a free tool Try to break it Try multiple tools Sandbox your work Take care with your credentials
13. 2 Experiment
14. 59 precious years on this planet
15. 59 precious on this years programming for fun 49
16. 59 precious on this years programming for fun 49 years experimenting with AI 38
17. 59 precious on this years programming for fun 49 years experimenting with AI 38 years coding with Python 13
18. 59 precious on this years programming for fun 49 years experimenting with AI 38 years coding with Python 13 my experiments continue using AI for science today
19. 3 Challenge
20. What is working well Visualization of unfamiliar codebase Explanation of logical modules (such as event handling)
23. What is working well Visualization of unfamiliar codebase Explanation of logical modules (such as event handling) Iterating through a complex environment setup
24. Claude Code
27. What could be improved Generating new code Refactoring of existing code Surfacing recent approaches and new tools Isolating bugs Hallucinations
28. Do the results make sense
29. Do the results make sense
30. Accurate Biased Conclusions Do the results make sense
31. What is my conclusion AI is a tool. AI is not a person. A person chooses an AI tool. An AI tool has limitations. Fit the tool to the job. Minimize the harm done by the tool.
32. 4 Repeat
33. What should I do next llamabot Eric Ma SciPy conference talks Katharine Jarmul Simon Willison Hamel Hussain Hugo Bowne Anderson marimo and Vincent's youtube shorts Audrey Roy Greenfeld
34. Inquire 1 3 Challenge Experiment 2 4 Repeat QDD
35. Communication Python AI Driven Development Question
36. Python Driven Development Question
37. How to choose your Python version
38. 38 https://devguide.python.org/versions/
39. How should we install Python
40. uv python install 3.13 https://docs.astral.sh/uv/
41. uv python install 3.13 https://docs.astral.sh/uv/ uv python install 3.14t
42. How do we try a Python library
43. uvx ruff check code.py
44. uvx mypy code.py
45. uvx ty code.py
46. How do I create a successful Python project
47. Use tools and templates uv / pixi (GPU) linters and formatters pre-commit pytest and playwright CI: automate the boring (but important) stu ff type checkers (mypy, ty, pyre fl y)
48. Where can I follow Python's development
49. https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/06/python-language-summit-2025.html Python Language Summit 2025 blog posts https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/06/python-language-summit-2025.html PEPs (Python Enhancement Proposals) https://discuss.python.org discuss.python.org (Discourse forum) https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/06/python-language-summit-2025- python-on-mobile.html iOS and Android https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/06/python-language-summit-2025- packaging-governance-process.html Packaging Summit and Packaging PEPs
50. What if my project needs more speed
51. • timeit or magic %timeit • cPro fi le (deterministic pro fi ler) • Pyinstrument (statistical pro fi ler) • py-spy (sampling pro fi ler) • pyperf (https://github.com/psf/pyperf) • GPU: CUDA, numba, cuPy Profile and Optimize
52. Profile running processes with py-spy py-spy Search fit (implicit/als.py:159) calculate_similar_artists (lastfm.py:79) fit (implicit/als.py:163) _get_similarity_score (implic.. _get_similarity_score (implicit/recommender_.. argpartition (numpy/core/fromnumeric.py:757) _wrapfunc (numpy/core/fromnumeric.py:51) calculate_similar_artists (lastfm.py:95) similar_items (implicit/recommender_base.py:203) <module> (lastfm.py:161) visualize with fl ame graphs https://docs.ray.io/en/latest/cluster/kubernetes/k8s-ecosystem/pyspy.html https://github.com/benfred/py-spy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8s2fzqA07s Anthony Sottile, Sentry usage installation
53. Free-threaded Python 3.14t Python JIT (coming soon) https://py-free-threading.github.io/
54. Ask Moshe https://opensource.com/article/23/3/python-loves-rust Prototype in Python and move performance bottlenecks to Rust. - Moshe Zadka
55. Communication Python AI Driven Development Question
56. Communication Driven Development Question Connect and collaborate
57. How do I maintain, contribute, learn, teach ...
58. Understand your Motivation => resilience and persistence FOMO => your path Imposter => believe
59. How do I avoid reinventing the wheel https://learn.scienti fi c-python.org/development/ https://learn.scienti fi c-python.org/development/guides/repo-review/ https://www.pyopensci.org
61. Who can help
62. Who can help
63. PyBeach 2025 friends
64. When to take a break
65. Time and energy https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExOWpwdWNoN3p2Zjc2aW5jdzJqcTFwbXBuY21yaTd4YXpiZmd5eGtqMSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/ 1NPUvnQQSqeWv0KT8J/giphy.gif
66. How to communicate well
67. Yes and... Use improv to keep conversation productive.
68. Communication Python AI Driven Development Question
69. Inquire Challenge Experiment Repeat
70. What motivates us
71. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do. – Donald E. Knuth, Literate Programming (1984)
72. "Build tools that welcome, documentation that empowers, and communities that include." Carol Willing
73. How will you guide your Python code and career to success
74. Do I believe you will succeed
75. Yes, and...
76. enjoy the ride
77. enjoy the ride
78. enjoy the ride
79. Driven Development Question Carol Willing PyBeach 2025 Guide your Python code and career to success https://speakerdeck.com/willingc/question-driven-development-using-python
80. https://speakerdeck.com/willingc/question-driven-development-using-python