Preview: Pyscript at PyCon 2023

We'll be kicking off the week strong with a full tutorial sesion on PyScript, hosted by Engineering Manager Ted Patrick with contributions by several of the PyScript core team. We'll look at the fundamentals of PyScript, how to configure a PyScript page/app with all the resources it needs, how to respond to events, build and utilize plugins, and use PyScript to bring all the power of existing JavaScript libraries into the Python world. No shortage of exciting things to cover!

I say "we" because I'm fortunate enough to be a part of the team presenting this session, in my own small way. If you want to learn more about PyScript, meet the team, or get involved, this would be a great session to attend. We'd love to see you there!

PyScript team members Paul Everitt and Nicholas Tollervey will be taking a look at Python platforms on the web. If you were inventing a general-purpose Python platform that you wanted others to use and build upon, what considerations might you have for its API, format and function? What does a "file" mean in the context of a web page? How would "virtual environments" work? What is a Web Worker and why should you care?

Both Nicholas and Paul are seasoned experts in plumbing these kinds of foundational questions in their talks - if you're thinking about building something with Python on the Web, whether with PyScript or in place of PyScript, this would be a great talk to sit in on.

PyScript principle software engineer Antonio Cuni will be presenting on Web Assembly - what is it, what can it do, what can't it do, and what's coming in the future. The talk aims to go deeper than a simple "What is Web Asssembly?" to talk about advanced topics like dynamic linking, JIT Compliation, the relationship with Emscripten, and more.

Antonio's background in compilers and interpreters (in particular HPy and PyPy) gives him a great lens to view the underlying technology that underpins many of the Python-on-the-Web implementations that now exist, like PyScript and Pyodide.

Lead PyScript Dev Fabio Pliger introduces what PyScript is today! What is is, what it can do, and how it's grown since its launch at the keynote at PyCon 2022. An overview of the new Micropython runtime, the plugin system, the current API, and so on.

To be honest, there's a huge pile of cool stuff for Fabio to talk about here - squeezing it all into 45 minutes will be a feat! But if you're looking to get deeper into PyScript and you aren't able to attend the Tutorial, this would be the talk to attend.

Mario Munoz is presenting a tutorial on using HTMX and TailwindCSS inside your web designs. HTMX adds interactivtiy, transitions, sockets, and server sent events directly inside of HTML syntax, while Tailwind is an opinioned set of CSS classes for styling. Both of these are meant to increase development speed by removing verbosity in the development environment.

Streamlit is quite a slick data visualization framework, with a hosted solution for data apps as a part of the Streamlit Community Cloud. While this tutorial conflicts with the PyScript tutorial and so I can't officially recommend you clone yourself to attend both, this is one I'm excited to catch on video after the fact.

Professor of Finance Blake Rayfield is giving a talk on the advantages of PyScript from a distribution standpoint, with a focus on the educational space. The zero-install nature of PyScript lowers the barrier to access for folks who don't have the technical background, permission, or time to install Python locally. He'll be addressing what PyScript brings to the table that previous tools didn't, and how future developments can continue to push Python in an even-more-accessible direction.

For the more backend-focused Python devs, Adrian Garcia Badaracco is leading a session on the Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface, a spec and API for writing event-driven web applications. The talk includes writing a simple ASGI app from scratch, then building it up to a featurefull server architecture. If you're looking to squeeze cycles out of your backend, this would be a neat talk to attend.