SyPy Meetup - CoffeeScript & Test Driven Development

Last night was the September gathering of the Sydney Python Users Group.

The meeting started with a lightning talk about CoffeeScript (http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/) which is a little language that compiles into Javascript. CoffeeScript borrows some of it's syntax from Ruby, Haml and Python. The javascript it generates uses only the good parts.

Then Vaughan Allan (@vornstar) gave a presentation on TDD with Python. It was a good introduction of what TDD is and the benefits. Slides are here. Dylan Jay followed this with a case study on how he used TDD for Google App Engine project. Q&A became a vibrant discussion about the pros and cons of TDD, best practices etc which proved to me how valuable the monthly meetups are.

Thanks to Google for the venue, food and drink.

Malaysian Open Source Conference 2010

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from June 29 - July 1 there will be the second Malaysian Open Source Conference. This conference is organised and run by OSDC.my. The conference has three tracks:

• Business - Presentations to introduce Government and Business to Open Source.
  
• Developer - Modelled on OSDC, presentations by Open Source developers for developers.
  
• Community - Presentations for users of Open Source software.
  

There are also tutorials, BOF's and user group meetups. The tentative schedule can be viewed here.

The Open Source community continues to grow in Malaysia, and last year's conference was excellent, so I have no hesitation in recommending this event.