Easier Classes: Python Classes Without All The Cruft

Trey Hunner

When bundling up data, sometimes tuples and dictionaries don't quite cut it. Python's classes are powerful tools for data storage and manipulation, but it can take quite a bit of boilerplate code to make a well-behaved Python class. In this talk we're going to discuss how a well-behaved class should work and take a look at a number of helper libraries for creating well-behaved classes.

We'll first see how to make classes with proper string representations, comparability, iterability, and immutability. Then we'll dive into helper tools built-in to the standard library and available in third-party libraries.

We'll look at namedtuple, NamedTuple (not a typo), attrs, and the new Python 3.7 dataclasses.

Most of the libraries discussed in this talk are only available in Python 3, so if you're not using Python 3, hopefully this talk will encourage you to upgrade.

A Python conference north of the Golden Gate


North Bay Python is a single-track conference with a carefully curated set of talks representing the diverse Python community and their different areas of interest.

If a topic is less to your interest, or you've met some people you really want to sit down and chat with, we'll have plenty of areas away from the main theatre to catch up and chat.

Our goal is to keep prices as low as possible. That means we won't be catering lunch. Instead, you can look forward to extra-long lunch breaks you can use to explore all of the great food options around the venue.