`int` is to `list` as `float` is to `tuple`
Okay, so that's plainly preposterous. How is int related to list at all, much less float to tuple? Sure, int is a collection type—just one that you can't iterate over—wait, what? int is a collection type‽ What's going on here?
Join us for this keynote to find out what this all means, and why it all matters.
It's easy to get caught up in all the superficial details we are presented with or forced to learn in order to get our work done. We may even relish the opportunity to collect hundreds of little facts that we can show off to our colleagues and coworkers.
But by the fifth time you show someone the four or five or six ways to merge two dictionaries, or the eighteenth time you tweet about why hash(-2) == -2 but also hash(-1) == -2, or hour six in your explanation of why it makes sense that int is actually a collection type, well, by that point you really start to wonder: why does this all matter? Does it all matter? How does this provide any real value to me in my life?†
And yet, lurking behind each one of these seemingly superficial questions is a great depth of knowledge and understanding, spanning topics that are, in fact, immediately relevant to you, to your work, and to your life. You just have to find them.
In this keynote, we'll discuss a deliberate process and a structured framework for distinguishing “knowledge” and “meaning” from “mechanics” and “detail,” and see how each one of these nonsensical or pointless questions can be the starting point for a richer understanding of the code we write and the world of programming we inhabit.
† It took less than fifteen minutes for Thomas Caswell (Matplotlib, Bluesky) to reach this point when I started going on about such things, and he is to be given credit for this bizarre yet surprisingly apropos analogy. list is in fact similar to int in the way that float is to tuple.
