ACCU Conference 2005 - Advanced Python Course Program
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This course is intended for intermediate Python programmers who want to 
raise their knowledge of modern Python to an advanced/expert level. 

The course will begin by discussing in detail how Python 
works behing the scenes (what really happens when you 
write a for loop? what really happens when you access an attribute?
what really happens when you define a class?) and explaining a few
tricky/subtle points. Then, I will move to examples of real life use 
cases where the advanced techniques explained here have been useful to me, 
as well to cases where I have decided *not* to use those techniques. 
To keep the attention of the public, as well as for exemplification
purposes, some time will be spent discussing a few cool hacks and recipes 
from the second edition of the Python Cookbook.

The six hour course is split in three sessions on the same day.
The session titles are:

 1. Loops (i.e. iterators & generators) 
 2. Objects (i.e. delegation & inheritance)
 3. Magic (i.e. decorators & metaclasses)

Lecture 1 is probably the most useful to the average Python programmer;
lecture 2 is of interest to programmers who wants to unveil the secrets 
of the new-style object model; lecture 3 delves into the dark side of Python.

Lecture 1: Loops (i.e. iterators & generators)
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- the seemingly trivial 'for' loop;
- iterables and iterators;
- ex: read_data
- generator-comprehension;
- generators;
- real life ex: generating HTML, walk
- parsers;
- the itertools module;
- ex: chop, skip_redundant
- sorting iterables;
- iteration caveats;
- final ex: adder

Lecture 2: Objects (i.e. delegation & inheritance)
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+ delegation

  - descriptors;
  - relationship between functions and methods;
  - staticmethods & classmethods;
  - ex: MultilingualAttribute
  - properties;
  - ex: crypted passwords; 
  - customized attribute access;  
  - ex: kwdict, DictWrapper, XMLTag
  - __getattr__ subtilities;

+ inheritance

  - subclassing builtins; __new__ vs. __init__;
  - private & protected variables;
  - multiple inheritance;
  - usage of super and a few caveats;
  - ex. DictMixin, ChainMap, interp;
  - operator overriding;

Lecture 3: Magic (i.e. decorators & metaclasses)
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- decorators:
- ex: tracing, memoize, timed, HTMLgen;
- metaclasses: why you should know they exist;
- a typical usage: tracing
- real life ex: logfile, check overriding, private/public
- additional real life ex: cmd, plug-in;
- playing with the language: restricting access, super sugar
- a few evil hacks (properties, PEP312)
- caveats: meta-attributes vs. class attributes;
- ex: __name__ (and super)
- why you should not use metaclasses in production code;
- metaclass conflicts;