Talk proposal: Understanding API Dispatching in NetworkX

[Schefflera-Arboricola]

Title of the talk

Understanding API Dispatching in NetworkX

Description

Hi! Have you ever wished your Python libraries were faster? Or wanted to fundamentally improve a Python library by rewriting everything in a faster language like C or Rust? Well, wish no more... NetworkX's API dispatching mechanism redirects your plain old NetworkX function calls to a FASTER implementation present in a separate backend package by leveraging the Python's entry_point specification!

NetworkX is a popular, pure Python library used for graph(aka network) analysis. But when the graph size increases (like a network of everyone in the world), then NetworkX algorithms could take days to solve a simple graph analysis problem. So, to address these performance issues, a backend dispatching mechanism was recently developed. In this talk, we will unveil this dispatching mechanism and its implementation details, and how we can use it just by specifying a backend kwarg like this:

>>> nx.betweenness_centrality(G, backend=“parallel”)

or by passing the backend graph object(type-based dispatching):

>>> H = nxp.ParallelGraph(G)
>>> nx.betweenness_centrality(H)

We'll also go over the limitations of this dispatch mechanism. Then we’ll use the example of nx-parallel backend as a guide to understand various NetworkX backend and backend configuration features.

Finally, I'll conclude with a brief overview of how this API dispatch mechanism could be integrated in an non-graph-related Python libraries, such as an array-based or data-centric libraries, along with the potential challenges that may arise during integration. This will be followed by an interactive Q&A session.

Slides from the previous versions of this talk - https://github.com/Schefflera-Arboricola/blogs/tree/main/archive . But, this one will be different!

Thank you :)

Table of contents

• Graphs and what is NetworkX?
• Dispatching in General
• Dispatching in NetworkX
• Other Dispatching related things
• Dispatching in other projects

Duration (including Q&A)

30 min

Prerequisites

• Some basic Python... should know what classes and objects are
• Curiosity

Speaker bio

Hi, I'm Aditi!

GitHub - https://github.com/Schefflera-Arboricola
Slides - https://github.com/Schefflera-Arboricola/blogs/blob/main/archive/PythonPune_December2024_Meetup.pdf

The talk/workshop speaker agrees to

• Share the slides, code snippets and other material used during the talk

• If the talk is recorded, you grant the permission to release
  the video on PythonPune's YouTube
  channel
  under CC-BY-4.0
  license

• Not do any hiring pitches during the talk and follow the Code
  of
  Conduct

[raukadah]

Thank you @Schefflera-Arboricola for proposing the talk. As discussed on Linkedin, We will be scheduling it for Dec 15, 2024 (Sunday) December Python Pune meetup.