Awkward Array Internals: A Hands-On Hacking Session

[ianna]

When: October 30, 2025 from 09:00 to 12:00
Where: 31/3-004 - IT Amphitheatre (CERN), PyHEP Users Workshop 2025

As part of the PyHEP Users Workshop, we’re hosting a hands-on hacking session focused on diving deep into the internals of Awkward Array — the high-performance array library for nested, variable-length data used widely in HEP.

What we might hack on

React with emoji to vote for the topics you’d like to explore:

• Array internals: content, offsets, tags, and layouts
• Performance optimizations: CPU & GPU kernels, vectorization, JIT compilation
• Numba/GPU integration: accelerating Awkward at scale
• Extending Awkward: new behaviors and custom layouts
• Debugging internals: developer tools, tracing, common pitfalls
• Interop: with NumPy, Uproot, Julia, JAX, PyTorch, etc.
• I want to learn about Awkward: intro, concepts, and guided exploration
• Other: Suggest in the comments below!

How to participate

• Vote with emoji reactions on the options above
• Add specific hacking ideas, issues, or feature requests in the comments
• Link any relevant issues or PRs you want to work on during the session

This poll will help us prioritize topics and organize breakout groups during the session. Everyone is welcome — whether you're curious about internals, just learning, or already contributing to Awkward!

Event page: PyHEP Users Workshop 2025