Transcript: DjangoCon Europe 2022 - Kojo Idrissa

I'm Carlton Gibson.

Um joined server by Will Vinson.

Hello, Will Vinson.

Django Chat, what's that you hit you're saying?

It's a uh podcast on the Django Web Problook.

Totally out of practice.

Welcome back from the summer break, folks.

Joined today by Gojo, who's I've just bumped into a DjangoCon and gave a great keynote there, and we're going to talk about some of the topics he brought up there.

Hey Kojo, how are you?

How are you all?

You've just flown back from um Porto, yeah?

Tuesday in central time as I'm recording this, and I arrived home.

Uh got back to my apartment about 11 p.m.

Monday.

No problem.

Thanks for coming on.

I think I guess year 2019 probably the last time.

So but well, but I don't I think we probably were at DjangoCon US 2019.

I would okay.

Okay.

I was so excited Carlton was gonna caravan and bring his whole family on the train over.

That's like I've done that, the high speed one.

It's so beautiful.

It's that's the fastest in the world, I think.

I saw I read it, I read a thing recently that said that Spain's got the second largest high-speed network in the world after China because they've invested a lot of the EU development funds in that.

Um, and then you know, you can get from Madrid to close to the Portuguese border in sort of similar kind of time, but there's just no connections across.

And so it was going to take me a couple of days each way.

And in the you know, with with my my wife taking care of the kids at home, uh I'm like, I can't I can go away for you know the conference and then the sprints, and then uh but like to stretch it two days either side is is asking a bit much, so I had to fly.

But maybe next time.

I can get to the next one.

I don't know about you, Kodya, but when I first arrived, it was my first um in-person event since the pandemic.

And so we you know, we arrived and we walked into the park where the venue was, and it was an amazing venue.

The portal portos are lovely city, and there's this big conference center dome arena thing, and it was it's like wow, yeah, we definitely needed to make sure that we definitely need to come after they put all their work in to organize it.

We definitely needed to come here.

This is amazing.

But then you get there and it's like, ooh, lot like lots of people, I think five, nearly 600 people in the venue.

And it's like, this is that was a little strange for me.

It's certainly the first day I suddenly got a bit more use.

What how

So I I keynoted uh Pi Texas in the end of March of this year.

And so that's like a two and a half drive in often a two and a half hour drive amusement, so pretty straightforward.

And I usually have been off to some comfort facity, but that was I think I'm pretty sure under 200 people.

It might have been like 125, 150.

So it was, you know, it's so the but that was my first in-person gathering of you know, anyone who wasn't like a family member really, uh, since 2019.

And so, you know, so that sort of eased me into things a little bit.

But then I was also at PyCon US.

Um yeah, it was like a thousand or eighteen hundred.

Um and so and it a very large venue, you know, you know, PyCon is usually in like the city's main convention center.

Um and so, you know, that sort of helped, I guess, with uh, you know, with getting over any potential anxieties as far as like suddenly being being in a crowd again.

Uh but yeah, then portrait was different because this is my first time uh on in in Europe proper or mainland Europe or I I still despite having been there, I still don't know what it's called.

It's uh the the the Europe it is the the European mainland.

From having lived in China, I I think you know the Chinese mainland European mainland, I guess, but I doubt that's what people in Europe say.

We're going to the continent.

Well we say these days we say the king, you know.

We're not talking about that.

Let's not.

Gone, gone.

Gone, if you've got a question, go on.

I mean, like just like when the year changes, people still writing last year's date on things.

It's like it's it's been like what two weeks?

You know, people still saying, you know, I'm sure people are still reflexively saying God save the queen, you know, and then oh wait, no, it she she'd be on Tavan.

I did to be honest, I don't know.

Um being a little bit more than a lot of things.

Yeah, Carlton fled for a reason, so exactly

Like John Locke, for instance, John Locke, famous British philosopher, he had to live in exile for a while or something.

Anyway, so

Um so I I guess so the the the getting uh re-accustomed to being around large numbers of people, you know, was that part was less of an issue.

Um I think it was just really more the sort of you know, just the adjustment to new country, new continent.

Um although it also helped that I was the opening keynote, and so there wasn't really time to be worried about anything other than okay, you know, do I have do I have words to say?

I feel like I have words to say, but can I say those words?

Who can know?

Um and but and then I went and said the words and then I was tired.

And so uh yeah.

Whereas if you're talking at some at any other spot, it's like builds and builds until you talk, and then you can relax.

And I guess I sort of saw other people sort of and I'm not sure if this was scheduling genius on the part of the Jengupendria people or just sort of lucky sandipity, but it seemed like there were you know a number of talks that had at least a somewhat related topic to to my opening keynote, you know, or the you know, more than one of us was on the same page, and I heard sort of references to my talk um over the course of the event.

Um but but then it was also interesting because I know that like I'm that person too.

Like if I were speaking later in the event, there's always this temptation to be like, oh, let me let me include something that I heard in somebody else's talk in my talk.

I mean, and the the virtual conferences are massively better than no conference at all, but this kind of way that the the narrative of the con conference builds over the course of the three days, and that's super.

So I we wanted to get you on because I think your keynote was um uh super important and something that you know is really interesting.

And so perhaps you could you talk about what was your what was your talk and you know

It really probably should have been called improving maintainer experience.

Um but uh but like it sort of both were true.

Uh there were there were two very broad ideas there.

Uh one being that in the open source community we have people who are maintaining the core projects, and we need to we as a community need to try to find ways to better support those people.

Um better support the people uh you know in you know better support them as they do work that supports us.

That's important.

Um uh and then at the same time, sort of the the need to broaden the scope of our contributors, of the different people who contribute to the projects.

Um we have as a community, I think, focused too much on the idea of contributors being only the contributors being limited to people who write code for, you know, so we're you know, for instance, people who write code for Django or people who you know who write code for Python or or what have you.

Uh and the truth is there are a lot of other types of contributions and types of contributors.

Um and so I I'm sort of I never work on a talk because I'm always working on talks.

And so I think the next version of this talk or the next iteration of these ideas might have to be called like let's talk about how we talk.

Because as I was working on this talk, you know, and sort of discuss some of the ideas with other people, issues came up around language, and and I had some of my own concerns about as far as like using certain terms um and trying to not alienate people and trying to not other people, things of that nature.

So the idea is like even the small differences between a term like a non-code contributor and a non-coding contributor, no non-coding contributions, they sound almost identical, but they can they can have very different meanings depending on uh one's ear.

Um but I I think and just sort of for the sake of play because I'm using these examples, I have used the term non-code contributor in like in my talk and in some of things I've referenced as someone who is a contributor to Python or Django or what have you, but they're contributing by not using code.

And in my talk, I used examples of um some of my coworkers from RevSys, uh, three of whom are developers, one of whom is not.

And so for people who are familiar with the Django community, Android Django Chat, uh, Jeff Triplett, who does the newsletter with Will, and is a former founding member of the Django Bench Foundation, North America, former Django Khan US Chair, and DjangoCon US co-chair, current Python Software Foundation board member, um, him, Frank Triplett, former Django Software Foundation President, uh Lacey Williams Hentil, who is a former Django Klan US chair and co-chair and organizer, um, and then Catherine, who

works at Repsys and does a lot of a lot of administrative stuff behind the scenes to make sure that Django Klan US works and has done similar type of work for the DSF.

Um and so, and the reason I'm using them as examples is because all those contributions that they're doing, uh they're definitely making significant contributions to Django and the Django community, but you know, none of them involve code.

Like three of those people, uh Jeff, uh Lacey and Frank, are developers and are capable of you know doing code contributions, but they're not.

They're making contributions without code.

And so, so then Catherine is not a developer at all.

Uh, but but those are all very significant contributions.

Uh so I contrast that non-code contribution with a term I've heard other people use and say the idea of like non-coding contributors, which seems to, which is almost sort of this like, oh well, people who can't code, and so they have to, you know, do other things that you know people who can't code do because that's all they can do.

And it ends up being this sort of this sort of like, oh, like the the kids table, sort of this is sort of very weird thing.

Um and I

Prime example, and I was I was literally shocked to hear this, um, you to sort of hearing witnesses.

So I was the opening keynote for for this may sound a little pedantic, but uh the repetition is for a point.

I was the opening keynote speaker at DjangoCon Europe, a Django conference full of Django people.

The closing keynote for Django Con Europe, a Django conference in front of Django Khan people, in front of Django people, was uh Haim Kirby, who is the Django Software Foundation's vice president.

And I watched him stand on a stage at DjangoCon Europe in front of a bunch of Django people, as the Django Software Foundation vice president, and say he has never contributed Django.

And I'm like, okay, that's and and and so and this is not to try to you know be pedantic about his words or what have you, but it's sort of a larger cultural thing of he got on a stage in front of a bunch of Django people and said that and and knew that they would and knew that they would he knew how they would interpret it, um, and and was sort of aware that well this is the this is sort of the the commonly accepted viewpoint in our community.

If you have not made a code contribution to Django, then you have made no contributions.

You have not contributed to Django.

And you look at different people's like bios, and it's like, oh Django contributor, and I'm like, okay, well that's that's someone who's like on the technical board or what have you.

And so like we've we somehow as a community have defined contributor as only people who have written code or maybe docs.

But uh what I love is anybody who's involved in Django, involved in the Django community, as soon as you phrase it as as clearly and bluntly as that, that you've got somebody like Jeff or Frank or Lacey or um Catherine, Catherine, or Heim, and you say they haven't, I mean, you know, Frank and Jeff and Lacey have all made commits at some point, but like you say, oh they're not contributors.

That's ridiculous.

It's like we've got uh, you know, this the way of using contributors like this leads to thing leads to conclusions which we all know are false.

So it can't be a good way of uh of using it.

There's the so there was an initial sort of me trying to lay out the problem of why our current maintainers need more help.

Um and so the sort of the first half to third to two-thirds of the talk was focused on code contributions.

Um because there's a problem that I thought needed to be laid out, and then I proposed a solution to this idea of a new role of contributor mentors, um specifically code contributor mentors.

But then the second part of the talk, maybe I guess the the last third approximately, um, was focusing on non-code contributors.

Um or you know, and and again, I've I've been struggling with that language.

Um maybe sometimes using like, you know, code coding, you know, contribu contributions without code.

Uh, because again, I mean like the people that I work with, you know, or like I myself, like, what is it today's the like in two two weeks I leave for DjangoCon US where I'm an organizer, I am the orientation chair, the light and talk chair, and the development sprints chair, like there's no code involved in that, you know.

Um there maybe there could be, but you know, um, but yeah, but just like the you know, or or you know, like I said, we were just I think I said this to people uh in Porto, just you know, while we were at DjangoCon Europe, you know, like you know, as we were sitting at lunch, like there was no code involved in putting those beers on the table, or or you know, or having the food arrive, or or securing the venue, or you know, or you know, getting all making sure all the A B worked, you know, on all, you know, so the the large undertakings involved in putting on Django Conroe or any s

ort of conference, or any sort of or or all sorts of other things.

Um those are contributions without code, but those are still vital and necessary.

I mean like Hans talk about the future of the DSF and where it can go and what it might do.

He wasn't talking about like regression bugs.

He wasn't talking about how like you know, like we need to improve test coverage or you know, or update versions of Docker.

It's it's about the the legal and the financial and the organizational aspects of the Django Software Foundation keeping those things going.

And so I I think those sorts of contributions are often overlooked.

Um and I think because there's the community culture has is too heavily swayed, too heavily centered towards uh software engineering.

Yeah.

And also I'm realizing that I need to.

I've done a talk, a separate talk on this called the Python Spectrum.

Uh, and this idea that there's a range of people who use Python, um, but I'm realizing I have like this graphic that's sort of a uh sort of like a bi-directional error that's that's meant to show a continuum or spectrum.

Now I'm realizing I may need to change that graphic um to sort of to make it more visually clear that software engineering is a a specific use of programming.

So it's like if you've written any code, then you're a programmer.

I mean, like if you've written Hello World, you know, that that that's programming.

You're a programmer, congratulations.

Um now you might not think of yourself as a programmer, you might not be someone who programs on a continuous basis.

Um, but you know, so that's sort of anyone who's written any sort of code is a programmer.

As you move towards the other end of the spectrum, you have this very specialized use of programming, which is what's known as software, which is what I call software engineering.

And that's what people who are, you know, and and and I've got you know a bunch of different uh things that delineate that, but when most people think of professional developers, they're usually thinking of software engineering, but especially with Python, that is an increasingly small subset of the community.

And so I mean uh it came up a few times, but just the idea that software engineering is a subset of programming, you know.

So software engineers are a small group of programming of the people who use programming specifically Python for various uses, from it's a small subset of people who use Python to generate some value for themselves, but the community culture is so heavily slanted towards software engineering is the one true way that it leads to all these uh weird things.

It's because if you just take Django, I think the vast majority of Django projects out there are on the programming to the middle end of the spectrum rather than, and you know, and as you get into a bigger team and a bigger project, you take on more and more software engineering practices.

But most of the literature that you read is all about being Google and Facebook and you know these massive companies.

And it's just not appropriate to take on that kind of tooling for the vast majority of Django applications that have ever been written and ever will be written.

So they have an employer and they've s can spend months on a specific thing and then they want to document it, whereas a beginner generally doesn't have the confidence or the doesn't document what they're learning as much.

Um or if you're in the middle, I I know, I think like going who goes to conferences, right?

It's a lot of consultants, freelance people, and then people at big corps because it's it's an investment, right, to to do.

So I think there's the same thing for tutorials to write a any sort of or not even a tutorial, right?

Any sort of blog post is a big investment in time and for whatever reason I think you have the more advanced you are, the more prone you are to write that.

And you know, I find this like I lose my sense of what a beginner is thinking, except that I get lots of emails every day.

That's the only way I have any sort of touch point to remembering all the pain that I went through.

It's like the moment you finish your talk, you know, you're like, okay, here are like the four ways, it's gonna be better.

You know, uh here's how we're gonna communicate this more clearly.

But for me, one of the sort of the danger points there is that by focusing the definition of contributor so heavily on people who make contributions by way of code, we end up largely excluding, you know, or you know, sort of sort of explicitly, but also sometimes sort of you know sort of tacitly or or you know unconsciously, sort of excluding people who could become contributors, who could become contributors without needing to use code.

And so, and it's like most of what Hang was talking about in his in his keynote, like those we need more of those people.

And my contention is, and you know, I think you know this is like sort of where Will and I have similar backgrounds as far as having been like, you know, uh accounting slash NBA people before, you know, um becoming developers.

As I said in my talk, uh I was uh professionally trained in capitalism, and so um you know after you know receiving my professional capitalism training, uh I then became a software engineer.

But there are a lot of people in those spaces who could benefit from Python.

In that's my first sort of serious Python project was in my work as an accountant and automating uh process.

But I think there are lots of people who in the most obvious example of this, we see with that with the growth of data science, and people you know generate all sorts of value with Python and other tools in the realm of data science.

But there are a lot of other people who could benefit from both the Django and Python without having it become their primary focus.

It it is this it is this spectacularly useful tool.

The language itself lends itself to uh to people being able to focus on solving the problem instead of having to wrestle with the language.

And so, you know, and so so that's a much larger percentage of the population using Python and Django, and those people who aren't focusing on being web developers or software engineers as their primary career, have all these other skills and all the summer expertise that we could use in our community as far as you know, with ranging sort of from obvious things like the DSF board and PSF board, but also on you know, on smaller boards like you know, for for the you

know, if there's an organization around GangCon Europe or DEFNA, or like I know here in Texas, there's a Pi Texas Foundation in different organizations like that, or organizing your local meetups, or you know, or helping to solve code-related problems without actually being involved with code.

So this contributor mental thing that I've been thinking about and trying to sort out and talk to Carlton about, um, some of some of that is motivated by my desire to help friends who are you know maintainers of projects, but that is also work that needs to be done, a sort of a uh an issue that needs to be sort of figured out to some extent, but the core maintainers shouldn't necessarily be the ones trying to figure that out because they're already using a lot of their free time.

And again, most of the people are you know using their free time, time not spent with their families' time not spent taking a nap or eating a pie or going on a walk.

They're building software for us.

And so instead of also asking them to figure it's like, oh, you have problems?

Well, use some more of your free time to figure those out.

You know, some there are other people who could be trying to figure out you know decent solutions to those problems, but those are also contributions that don't involve code.

It goes back to the the discussions three, four years ago around the dev the um the dissolution of the old Django core, which became uh Django debt 10 and changed the governance of Django.

And it's kind of natural when you begin a software project and it's you know only a few people in Lawrence, Texas to count the commits, right?

Because sorry, Lawrence Kansas.

I apologize to my um my southern southern middle bit of the North American listeners that I got the states wrong.

Um I'd like to go to Kansas.

Um, but it's natural you count the commits, but then as the community grows, and especially it grows on something like Django side, that all these other aspects come in, and it's how do you count those?

It's and and you know, one hope that there was around um the end of uh the resolution of the old Django core and we this kind of honorary title of a Django core contributor was that we would be able to apply it more widely.

And I think the ball was nicely picking up momentum there, and ideas and lists of you know, some cohorts that that could be applied to were being drawn up, and then obviously the pandemic arrived and well that ground to a hole, but I think that um that's picking up Katie McLaughlin was helping me um pull together a hopefully we're gonna get a list of uh you know, be able to draw together contributors for Django perhaps 4.2, we'll get it up and running.

I tried to do it for Django 4.0, and then the world came along and sort of knocked me sideways just uh at the wrong moment, so that didn't happen.

I got a couple of blog posts that identified some committers, but again, this was just committers.

What Katie's able to do, I mean, and she's given many talks on this subject and works um.

This is a a contribution that doesn't require code.

And I mean there could be some code in the background, but it's not a direct, it is not a contribution of code to Django or to Python, but it is a contribution to those large ecosystems.

And I know she has done a lot of work uh around this idea of um sort of better better highlighting and better surfacing and better tracking people who make contributions without code.

um recognized at all.

And this this isn't you know that hope so hope you know she's making massive progress there, so hopefully um that will come together, or you know, or it will come together, it's just you know when it comes together for which particular release.

But then that should give us the the center for saying, well, okay, but also in this time period, you know, this conference was organized.

Who you know, who were the team there and who and then start to call those people out and recognize them and say, hey, that was important.

And then you know, who was on the the the Django Um Software Foundation board?

Well, and what did they do?

And then we can start to say, well, you know, in your city, who pulled out who organized the meetups, and we can just start to build a wider recognition um culture.

And the thing with recognition is that um you identify can identify the jobs that are done, you can then give recognition for them, but you can then start to codify what the job actually is because do you realize the Django translation team, who are never recognized by anybody in the whole 17 years of the history of translations in Django, that do you know that they they do all this and that one day they might not turn up for work for whatever reason, and rightly so.

And uh because I say work, it's not paid, it's all volunteer for all of this time.

What work is it they do?

And so, if we if we do need to give them more support and we do need to make sure that there are other people around who know what that work is, that we can draw up a sort of a checklist of of what the work is and then a call for volunteers to help do it.

It's a kind of self who can then go on to be recognized, right?

It's a it's a it's a self-perpetuating cycle for a healthy community, a healthy ecosystem.

And with let's see.

So one of the one of the bits of information that I referenced to in my JengaCon Europe keynote, there was, you know, I was sort of synthesizing that these in different places, but one of them that I thought was very important to include was Naomi Cedar's PyCon US 2022 keynote, where she talks about, you know, sort of the idea of our community being a gift economy, or you know, sort of a gift-based ecosystem.

And I think that is important from the standpoint of one of the problems that has come up in much the same way that like you don't want to build your community around responses to you know a limited number of bad actors.

Like for instance, like this one guy tried to put a bomb in his shoe on a plane, and now we all have to take our shoes off forever at the airports.

Um, you know, so you don't want to sort of key in on that too much.

But I think Naomi's points as far as wanting our community to remain the sort of gift economy, and that not just a transactional thing, is important.

Um, and you will sometimes have bad actors uh as far as you know code-related contributions who will try to make a code-related contribution just so they can sort of say, ooh, look what I did, or have it as line out on the resume.

So um and that is it is that is a concern.

And so I and I I agree with Nancy that we want to keep things focused on on you know as close to a gift economy as we can.

However, um and I bring that up because sometimes when you start talking about recognition, there's a concern that people, if there's more recognition, people will start doing stuff for recognition.

Yeah, I think I

I I think the larger issue is that by recognizing, um by increasing the recognition of these people who are making contributions, you know, that don't require code, it also allows you to highlight the areas of need within your community, your community project.

It's like, okay, we have, you know, so let's say you can over the course of a six-month period, you can see 100 commits to Python and C Python, 100 commits to Django.

Okay, you those are just clear, and you know, obviously you can see those.

They're easy to look at.

It's data that's easy to capture.

But then if you can look over and see, oh, well, wait a minute, we have like 200 people who are making these contributions that don't require code.

Okay, well, like clearly that stuff that was done and needed to be done, like, what is that stuff and who is doing it, and how can we make sure that it continues to happen?

Because like nobody, you know, we definitely try to make sure that the new code contributions continue to happen.

Uh, and and we have tooling around that.

But okay, well, what what's this other stuff that is happening that's going on and that makes things work?

And that people, you know, what's this work that people are doing?

But we we need to make sure we're aware of that and so that we can continue to have that work being done and and try to improve the way it's done and make the lives of those people easier and make the lives of future uh non-code contributors easier.

Like I've uh based on this podcast, some former board members have reached out and been like, oh yeah, we wrestled with that issue before, um, and I didn't know they were on the board because there's no listing anywhere.

Same with translation team, right?

Like uh actually quite a quite often there's emails into the the DSF board saying how do I you know help, and so redirect them to what used to be the Google group, now the forum, but it's it's completely hidden.

Um so just in terms of like doing something, right?

Like, you know, the first step is okay, even if we had passport members, you know, um Django Con organizers, translation team, there's many, many more people to add, but you sort of need to start somewhere, I think, rather than not do anything with it.

You can't you can't not you can't not do any of this because you can't recognize everybody.

You have to start recognizing someone who's gonna be able to do that.

I mean, it'll be a it would be a lot of people, but I think if you had like current, we could delineate, as you've both been saying, you know, conferences, organizing, helping, mentoring, you know, however we define it, and then also have you know scroll down to the bottom past ones, and then it can be a little bit on people to add themselves.

But um

She said to me that um look, if we can just focus on recognizing some people from say a fixed release, say the next release coming out.

But uh, you know, if we can do it for one release and then do it going forward, that's better than worrying, well, you know, did we really capture everyone in the whole history of Django?

Isn't and like being paralyzed rather than fact we haven't been able to do that.

Well, it'd be nice to do, but don't be blocked by it from even starting.

And the reason why I mean the re the let me bring it in the way that it's appeals to me is because for quite a few years I've been worried about the on-ramp to contributing to Django, and I've narrowly thought more about code contributors, but I think it would apply across the board.

But it can be difficult to get going, started get going to you know, contributing.

It's it's you know, Django is not now a project where there are really low-hanging fruit which you just come along, snip off, and you've contributed a major new feature.

Um and as you said, as like you know, as a as a Django fellow, part of my role is to help um could get people on board and help new contributors, but there's only so much time that I can allocate to that.

So in that space, uh, could you just say a little bit more about the contributor mentors and you know

So the idea of contributor mentors is it I I am not uh I'm sure I I didn't I'm not the first person to think of this, but I I'm using sort of my own my own terminology here, uh in my own very limited, you know, partially big thinking on this.

But the idea being what we currently have is you know, with Django and with Python, and with most other open source projects, we have like the core maintainers who have like the that primary responsibility of making sure the next version of Django or the next version of Python gets you know released is in good working order and gets built and gets released so that the world can use it.

And that's their primary responsibility.

Um that is the primary burden that rests on them.

When you have, as an open source project, you have new people who want to sort of make contributions for various reasons.

Um and the issue then is the only people to really sort of help those new potential contributors are the core maintainers who already are who are already doing in most cases a lot of volunteer work on their own to make sure that we get new Django, new Python, that PyPI keeps working, blah, blah, blah.

And so how so that so that A puts an increased burden on our current maintainers, which increases the risk of them burning out, which is not good for any of us.

Um, but then B, it also makes the experience of trying to sort of sort out how to contribute to the projects, i.e., how to help all the rest of us for free, um, it makes that process more difficult, you know.

And so like if you want people to help you for free, you want to try to figure out the easiest way to have that those people show up and help you for free.

And so my idea of a code contributor is to sort of have in if you try to look at it visually, you have, you know, at one level you have the core maintainers, and like they have the primary responsibility of making sure that you know the software you know gets is in good working order, gets released.

And then you have lots of new people sort of coming in and trying to interact with them to make contributions.

The idea of a contributor mentor is someone is a set of people who are sort of between those two groups and who is A can have a focus on helping new people get started so that the the primary maintainers of projecting, and again focusing on this is on uh on a an actual on a software side, um, make sure that the primary maintainers of the core maintainers, or you know, they call different things different projects.

Make sure the core maintainers aren't having to, you know, to focus as much of their energy on that because they have this primary responsibility of putting the software out.

Um so they can help new people uh get onboarded and figure out how to make contributions and what to do, and and maybe also sort of you know help with some triaging of tickets and things of that nature.

There's it in it the specifics will vary from project to project.

But essentially sort of acting as a buffer between the primary project maintainers and like new active or new potential contributors.

And I think that the new potential contributors part is important because there are people who will be excited about open source and want to show up and make a contribution, and then maybe sort of once they've done it once, okay, you know, they've done it once and that now they're fine, and they'll they'll go off and might not ever come back, might come back three years later, you know, what have you.

Um but to have the core maintainers have to divert a lot of their attention to all these people who who in many cases are transient, um attention is a limited resource.

And the core maintainers of any project as human beings um have limited attention.

On a slightly on a related but slightly tangential philosophical rant, um, one of the reasons so many people are distracted today is because we have these little attention stealing devices in our pockets all the time.

You know, that are that's

That's what they are?

Children?

But you're you know, even the smallest child won't fit in your pocket.

And so, you know, um and then the trick is like the children also have these little devices in their pockets as well.

And so now yeah, so so you know, you have three kids, each kid has a detention distract you stealing device, and you have one of your own.

Um, so it just turtles all the way down.

Um but and and so at this point, large corporations have have focused on monetizing attention.

That's how important and valuable the resource attention is.

And we have our our project managers who you know who, again, as human beings have a limited amount of attention, um, and so trying to give them back some of their attention while also providing additional attention to people who want to contribute.

Again, to people who want to come and help us for free.

And so, you know, let us provide attention to those people who want to come and help make sure that their new versions of Django and their new versions of the pipeline and to try to help make that process as easy as possible.

Um, and so the reason it's it's sort of uh a bit half-baked is yeah, I I am I'm still trying to sort out the details of it.

Uh, and and so my experiment will be to try to make myself a contributor mentor for uh for Django, um, and then try to, again, back to what we were talking about as far as trying to recognize um people who are contributing without code.

Um, instead of trying to come up with a perfect solution, maybe try it for one Django release and then you know you can iterate on that going forward.

That's the approach I'm going to take with this contributor mentoring.

So try to figure out what I can do and and you know, can I make myself this, can I put myself in this role that I have in my mind and then iterate on that?

So it may not be that you can play the role yourself, but maybe as sprints chair you can help drum up some people who would.

So at the at this at the sprints um 2019, so um 2019 DjangoCon Europe, I tried to um do uh help help new contributors who come along to Sprints get started, you know, get downloading Django, running the test suite, finding a ticket, this sort of thing.

And I didn't have a collective way of doing that, so I did it sort of table by table, group by group, and I did I was just destroyed, I was blown and blown out, and there were still people who were like twiddling their thumbs, didn't have anywhere to go, not anything to do.

And so um uh at Jancon US we ran a workshop in 2019 and it went really well.

We had four tables and we had some, but what I realized the diff we had there, which I didn't really notice at the time, was like um sort of veteran hands, um, sort of placed in the audience, so to speak, on the tables helping.

And like Smiley Chris was one of them as one of the people, and they were they were working with the the people, the the the genuine new contributors going through, and you know, they obviously you know SmileyChrist obviously knows how to run the Django test, he's been around forever and a day.

But because he was there, he was able to go through it and it worked really well, and then I was able to get around the groups.

Um, having run it just in Porto this this weekend, it was good it went really well as well, but I was finding actually I was just too many calls on my attention all at the same time.

And there gets this I have this line that if you look at a ticket, you become the world expert.

So a new contributor always asks me, how is it that I can as a new contributor, how can they um have a voice in what the solution should be?

And the answer is because if they investigate it, they at that point when they've spent you know a couple of evenings and they've worked through it and they've really come up, they know more about that ticket at that moment than anyone else in the whole world.

And so they might you know they may not be the most experienced contributor, but the other contributors will listen to them because they know more, and that's how it becomes a conversation between the person working on it and the you know everybody else who's in the Jan community, rather than just, hey, you have to implement it this way, like the you know, the senior dev told you what to do.

It's it's not like that.

And in in the in the sprint circumstance, because I'm busy trying to go around so many places, I can't load the individual ticket into my brain in order to have a meaningful conversation with them at the level they're at.

They're much they're far in front of me, and I can't I haven't got the capacity at that moment to catch up.

Whereas if there were you know two a few senior, you know, more experienced developers, Django developers around in the in working through with them, those people would be able to go on the journey with them through the ticket and um and and and input meaningfully and help them get closer to a to a resolution in that day.

And so the in that kind of thing, you know, works very well at development sprints, and and and and that's what and so I think so so part of the idea behind contributor mentor is to try to have that role happen offline, you know, and asynchronously.

Because like I I don't I'm not sure that that is a thing, or or that's the thing, or that we we have so we definitely have people who could fill that role.

Um, but perhaps some of them don't want to, or perhaps some of them aren't aware that, hey, like this is a thing that needs to be done.

I again back to the idea of people who are contributing without code, you know, one of the values of recognizing those people is there's like, oh, you you recognize, hey, the huge work that is being done that needs to be done.

We didn't know it needed to be done because someone was just making it happen and I didn't see it, I didn't know it.

And so and I I know like in Porto, I spoke to people who were who started to think about it from the that standpoint, it's like, oh, you know, that's a thing I could do, but like I didn't, I didn't really know that that was a thing that was needed per se.

Or or maybe they're doing it like on a on a small scale, like with people that they know with people that they work with, um, but sort of not realizing, oh, hey, this is the thing I could be doing.

And that was one of the points of the talk was to try to uh to try to get that idea out there and to point out to people, hey, like if you're making contributions, if you're making code contributions to Django, that's fantastic.

Or Python or whatever uh whatever project, that is fantastic, and we're thrilled that you were doing that.

Uh consider perhaps being someone who helps other people make code contributions to your project of choice so that the maintainers of your project of choice don't have to bear that burden themselves.

You you can you can help some of that.

And and the truth is, so people who were just uh in Porto with us um at this at the development sprint on day one, who made maybe like their first contribution or second, first or second code contribution, those people would be excellent code uh contributor mentors for people who are trying to make their first step, make their first approach because they're familiar with the process, as well as people who have been making code contributions over a longer amount of time, but but who also might have the mindset of I would like to help people make

code contributions.

Um so I think that's important, but also and I think this was sort of was sort of uh heavily impressed upon me just by being a Porto, we we really, really need to change the way we talk about what it means to be a contributor because there are all sorts of other problems that came up um in like in me talking to people about my talking and about some of the language involved as far as like so there's the idea of like you know non-coding contributors being vie

wed a certain way, or uh there's uh a concept I introduced from Nadia Eggwell's book.

I referenced Nadia Eggwell's book, Working in Public, that talks about how open source software is maintained, and there's a lot there.

One of the issues that she talks about as far as the production side is the side of what's called what she calls a casual contributor, which is someone who, in the analogy she uses like people who might like record like a tornado or some sort of news event on their phone in the center to the local news station, and the news station uses that.

Um, those people aren't planning to become reporters or cinematographers.

Um, you know, they're just there, they made that one contribution, and then they're gonna move on with their lives.

You have casual contributors in the same way with code, with uh with you know, with uh software projects, but each of those terms can sometimes make people feel uh sort of sort of excluded, especially, you know, and I spoke to a a couple people about this at um at PyCon Quarter.

And so th this idea comes to me partially from those conversations.

Um the idea that if you have sort of a cat you if you call somebody casual contributor or a non-coding contributor, it's somehow it it it has the potential in some situations to sort of to to diminish what they do because they haven't taken on this full software engineering thing.

So like Will I believe I couldn't remember this but I I feel like you and I I think we met at uh Django Khan US 2018 and so one of the things I know that Will was one of the things I remember Will talking about was the idea of making web development easier for people you know in in general.

And so and the question of tooling around that and and I I feel like you and I were both at lunch and you know talking about how that should be simpler and someone at the table was like well but do we want this do we want those people in our community if they're not going to learn all these such and such tools and I feel like you and I both in in stereo answered like yes because like you know like you shouldn't you shouldn't have to you know you shouldn't have to know Docker and Kubernetes and and you know Puppet and and you know and you know all this all this infrastructure's coach to

ols to know web development.

And and so so so to bring that back to this idea of changing the way we talk about things um we need to I I feel like that's kind of the problem the same situation the same underlying problem that causes people to be worried about being labeled is like code contributors or casual contributors or non-coding contributors is the same underlying problem that makes the DSF vice president go on stage and say he's never contributed to Django.

So I I feel like that's a thing that needs to be that sort of cultural thing needs to be addressed within our community because there are so many different ways that people contribute and and they all need to be and I don't say this in a like woo woo let's you know everybody get the participation trophy sort of way I say this in a from the standpoint again as as someone professionally trained in capitalism um like yes like like the salesperson or or who you know whoever you know the people who contribute code they are necessary but without the entire rest of

the team the whole thing doesn't work.

You know I mean like as as great as Michael Jordan was he didn't win any championships by himself you know so

event organizers about all these things.

So okay

One thing that a co uh a contributor mentor needs to have in mind is a kind of mental list of all the different jobs that get done.

So at the beginning of the contributing guide we've got writing code translating or writing documentation but we haven't got all the other things

So code contributions and non-code contributions are are are two different things and require different sets of skills and different mindsets and so um so so for instance you when you when you when you point out the contributor guide that's the contributor guide to the Django to the Django software project that to the specific actual code base of Django but like like the things you know the time and the like the DSF members uh the the DSF board members are doing that sorts of things th

ose are contributors to contributions to the larger Django project that don't involve code and so there are different there are different there that there are there are different things there.

And so I'm thinking of this idea of code contributor mentor and a a non-code contributor mentor or or some other language as far as helping people make having a class of people these contributor mentors writ large but some of the contributor mentors will focus on helping people make code contributions and some of the people will focus on uh helping folks make non-code contributions um and the we talked about it before sort of the the code cont

ributions are for lack of a better term easier because it's it is easy to see sort of what you know what needs to be done and what is done and how the non-code contributions cover a much wider range of topics and you know and a much more amorphous um but but the help is needed on both sides because again in the same way we see and and you hear about open source maintainers having burn out that sort of thing what like like what the three of us know because we have been involved in these different boards and things of that nature

is that people on the non-code contribution side burn out as well you know the DSF PSF board members uh conference organizers things of that nature those people are burning out as well and so you're trying to make sure that you know help is there for them or so that you know there's like a a new generation of people uh being brought in to make those sorts of contributions or and and to solve these new problems because again Django's what 17 18 years old now um there are issues that Django has

to face now that Python has to face now that didn't exist 10 years ago 20 years ago and so new ideas are needed there and and that's where those those people who are contributing without code and come from backgrounds other than software engineering can be so can be super super valuable because we need that you know we don't need just software engineers trying to try to solve other problems because a lot of these problems you know they're organizational problems they're financial problems they're marketing problems they have nothing to do with software engineering and so a bunch of software engineers probably aren't the best people to solve it.

I mean you know thinking of myself I mean how did I get roped in I learned Django I wrote about it I gave a talk and then it was at the conference and at local meetups where I got a sense of the community and then saw the needs and you know that just hasn't been there with COVID.

So there definitely is on the non-code side a number of people uh hanging on who I think are ready to to move on and mentor people but um hopefully there will be part of the from these conferences and other things more people who want to come in and join and help out.

So I think point I guess it's I think it's a little worse than it would normally be.

It's this it's still a challenge but it's it that's why it feels more acute um I mean the board right we've had the same board the last uh Django Software Foundation board the last two years there are multiple people who aren't going up for re-election so there's a real chance there to have you know new blood and new ideas that will come up in the fall and and all these other areas as well translation and all the rest.

I came away thinking oh yeah we needed that and that's it was so good just to you know rebond with people and reconnect and meet new people you know and the disappearance

the rest of you I haven't got any channel which I can reach you via because we can talk about something on the podcast and Will and Jeff can put it in the newsletter and the mailing list for the individual members but that's not the entirety of the Django community so how it what what might we do that would be a low you know a low maintenance easy thing to to to do that how might we have a channel which we can reach more

oh good I

Let's have the whole if you're hot if you're if you're hot take the mic take the mic

And I'm sure uh I guess at some point my talk will sort of become just one one big talk.

This idea of a lot of the the Django or Python community's interaction with the rest of the world a lot of that happens at the local level, uh it's like at the local meetup level.

And as Will pointed out, you know, here over the past couple of years, you know, a lot of those things have have sort of gone away.

Like there are a number of local meetups you know that don't really meet anymore, or you know, might have to be reconstituted or what have you.

But like most people aren't and probably shouldn't.

Like most people using Python and Django aren't and probably shouldn't be interacting with the PSF and the DSF.

There's not necessarily like a reason.

You know, for like if you downloaded Django and you're you know building a site for you know your you know your town's volleyball league, like you know, you don't necessarily need to talk to, you know, uh you don't need to talk to anybody on the DSF board.

You know, like you know, that you don't need that.

But as far as what Hans mentions about as far as okay, how do I reach these other people?

That that sort of outreach and connection I think comes from the local meetup.

So like I know like I have attended all these various things because I went to my local Python meetup uh here in Houston.

Okay, so words meet on upstairs.

Um I went to my local Python meetup and and met various people, um, and you know, they had certain attitudes as far as how people use Python and use Django and contribute and that sort of thing.

And I know in in other cities and in other places, it's that same thing.

So my the initial thing is like we we need to change kind of how we talk about this and stop having our culture be so software engineering-centric.

And so like even within people who write code professionally, I have seen like in my own local Python meetup, um, you know, as the shift happened towards like web development and not just web development.

So we had a Python meetup in Houston, it split into a Python and a Django meetup because as Django became more popular, there are lots of people who use Python for non-web stuff and didn't want to sit through a bunch of you know Django talks.

And so we had two different meetups, but then even within just the the straight Python meetup, there was a sort of a split between people who were you who were sort of following newer, you know, developing software engineering trends like Docker and containerization and things of that nature.

And then there were other people who were like, well, I've been writing Python since like 1998, and I've never needed to use Docker once.

So like, you know, like you know, who who are these people who are gonna tell me that this is the way?

Um and so there's definitely a lot of sort of leaning in one particular direction.

So I think that needs to change.

Um, because I think that's all that's how word gets back.

Um you know, word from DjangoCon Europe and from DjangoCon US.

People who the people who attend that then go home to their local meetups.

They go back to the to the the Munich Python meetup and to the the London Python meetup and to you know the you know what Lawrence Kansas doesn't have meetup, I guess RevSys is the Lawrence Kansas Python meetup, um, you know, to the Houston Python meetup, and they share those ideas with the people.

So so that's kind of how you know that that's sort of a sort of the diffusing approach.

Um but the the the and just the the really hot part of the take is we need to stop being jerks, and and we need to normalize not being jerks.

Like just just because somebody's not a professional software engineer doesn't mean they can't be part of our community, and we have to get past that.

There's there's a certain amount of hero worship that comes up, uh you know, oh it's you know, like people who who are sort of enamored of the uh of you know sort of the very heavy software engineering approach, and not recognize that you can use Python and Django to solve a wide range of real-world problems without having to use all the software engineering tooling.

Um and so I I think that that's just part of me, just sort of changing the way we talk about this stuff, and then and that makes its way back out to the broader community.

Um but but I think also also just sort of recognizing that like a lot there are a whole bunch of people who can use Django and Bedford from it and don't need to, you know, Hein doesn't need to talk to them and they don't need to hear from him.

Because like if if you didn't, you know, as long as I can download Django and it works and it does what I needed to do, like you know, but you know, thank you, mysterious Django people, you know, for making me this offer.

Or or Will, why Django is free, why aren't your books free, Will?

I love that one.

But there is there is this guild this guild mentality that some people have around, you know, oh I have a CS degree and it should be hard, and you know, it's a big world.

I mean, honestly, when I hear people getting on a high horse about something, as it's just insecurity um personally.

I mean, if you meet keeping, I mean it's you know, so you take it for what it is, but it doesn't it doesn't have to be that way, it shouldn't be that way, it doesn't need to be that way.

That's fine, right?

It is a it's a different personality, it's a different thing.

Um but but I and when we talk about when I'm talking about the community culture, I'm glad you brought that up, I I think that's something that gets missed is that there are people who have a personality such that they want to be mentors and they would like to be mentors and like to be encouraging to people, but the example that is all you know, it it's uh I I'm the black guy, so I'm just gonna have to go there.

Sorry, not sorry.

Um, but you so you talk about sometimes issues of representation, and when we look at within just our software communities, what is seen is again uh the culture being heavily biased towards software engineering, but then also being heavily biased towards this individual genius contributor sort of thing.

And and that's kind of that's that's what people coming into the community kind of think they need to be aspiring to.

And the reality is there's plenty of need for you to be to show up and be someone who is kind and friendly and nurturing and supportive as a software engineer.

Like so you could be a software engineer who is kind and friendly and supportive and mentors other software engineers to do software engineering stuff, or you could be someone who makes code contributions.

Perhaps you're not intending to be, you know, have a career as a software engineer, but you can if you if you have the mindset and the personality of someone who wants to help other people and be kind and supportive and help other people grow and help yourself grow in the process, then you could become, you know, you you could try to work towards becoming a code contribution mentor and help other people do that sort of thing.

But I don't know that we we're seeing these examples of you know, kind, helpful, supportive people in our coding communities.

You know, we're not seeing those examples.

We're seeing like the the individual lone genius, you know, I'm antisocial and I don't like to talk to people because I'm too smart for that, because I'm doing Wikicope things that you know normal mortals wouldn't understand.

The sort of like the angry the the the the angry Unix wizard you know archetype that we had that existed like in the 70s and the 80s or what have you, it seems like that's that's sort of got pushed forward into the sort of lone genius developer mindset.

But but the reality is like like there is there is no lone genius in Python or Django.

Like there wasn't just like this one really smart person who just you know made all of Python or Django by themselves and continues to do that.

If they were a jerk, they wouldn't have had people help them out.

I mean exactly that

It was it wasn't

I'm trying and I I'm thinking it

I mean that that's kind of what it is.

I mean it's it's people helping each other, you know, do a very complicated thing, build you know, build this this very large complicated software that's used by billions of people all over the world.

And it's not just this one long genius thing, but but we don't we don't see that part.

We you know what we see is what sort of gets pushed, uh the sort of the community culture and the community narrative that gets pushed.

And and some of it is also is definitely a side effect of US culture, I I can say.

But even like sort of within our group specifically, um, there's so much emphasis on like you know being a brilliant developer or a 10x developer.

I think fortunately people don't say that anymore, I I don't think, but you know, like being a 10x developer or a code ninja or you know, whatever, whatever.

Um but the reality is if you want to be friendly and kind and supportive to people in a software engineering community, you can do that, or in a programming community, just using Python generator solved tools, you can you can that that is a valid approach to take.

Yeah.

Most white-collar professions, you're just you hire someone that's like you got the credential, go sit in an office, deal with patients.

Oh, you're a little bit of a jerk, I don't have to deal with that.

But coding, if you're if you have a jerk, you know, if you have a bad apple in the mix, it's gonna pollute everything.

It's so much more about communication, I would say, than many other fields where you can just kind of be solo get a credential and and do it.

You know, you have to collaborate so much more.

So anyone who's a bad Apple.

I mean, I think of some of the people when I ri was at a startup and had to fire, it was probably the most brilliant programmer, but he wasn't good to work with.

And we were going around and saying, Hey, this new thing, who wants to work with him on it?

And the entire group, no one raised their hand.

And we're like, okay, well, you know.

That's not gonna work with that.

That's not gonna work, you know.

So I I I I don't know, I I hear what you're saying.

I don't I don't get that same sense, but uh I'm not on Twitter as much.

I hope it's not still that case, or I hope new I I can see how new people might feel that you know it's Linus or all these people, but even someone like like John Carmack, like he he's not necessarily a jerk.

Like he's pretty, you know.

Uh yeah, so I hope that goes away.

Now now he's now he's mellowed out, maybe perhaps.

It seems like he was like he was fine just sort of doing what he did and living his life.

Um so things have definitely changed as far as you know how we interact with the community again.

Again, the the pandemic has changed so many different things, and I think we are we are continuing to figure out what those things are in and how to adapt to them.

But but I I feel like a lot of it comes down to uh us as members of a community working to ensure that our community culture is both.

I think it was Capital Moss.

Was it Capital Moss who said it maybe?

That's where I heard it from.

This sort of idea that any community culture that's not sort of tended or or maintained tends towards toxicity.

Um and I and I feel like we might have gone a little bit too long without you know have without a little more tending, or or maybe overlooking an area of community culture that needed to be tended or maintained.

This idea that, okay, you know, we can't have everything be so heavily slanted towards software engineering as the one true way to use Python or Django.

And also, hey, you know what?

Like people can be kind and collaborative in all sorts of ways.

Like you don't have to just like if you want to be kind and collaborative with Python or Django, you don't have to just limit it to like pilators or Django girls or to some sort of like community service thing.

Like you can be kind and collaborative while helping people work on tickets in Django, or while helping people work on tickets in C Python, or while helping people figure out how to secure new funding for the PSF or for the DSF so that we can continue to have a development residential, we can continue to have Django fellows.

Like you know, you can be kind and collaborative in all those different ways within our community because that's how we roll and that's what we do.

So I remember that was one of my first thoughts on Carlton.

I was like, that was very kind of him.

I mean, I would have been fine if you called it out, but

no, no, Ombre.

Just giving a talk.

Excuse me, I've got a comment.

It's more a comment than a question.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, no, that's horrible when that happens.

But it um, you know, such a you know, such a good important topic that we're desperate to have you on and kick off the new season with you know chatting about.

It's good to talk to you all just sort of in general, but also just good good to sort of talk to Carlton after you know having just seen him recently in person, and like I'll see him in a couple in a few weeks.

I I just saw Carlton like you know a few days ago, but it's been last month's 13 months, so it'd be good to see you all here in person uh

What are the dates?

Because I think there's just a few tickets available if people still rap towards it.

Um it is it is the 16th to the 21st of October, um, with the talks are so tutorials on the 16th, talks 17th through 19th, and sprints 20th and 21st.

And you can get hybrid, you can get online hybrid tickets if you can't attend.

So if you if you and so I I point out to the Jengo County Europe, like you know, it'd be nice for them to come, but I also realize it's it's a little late, you know, a month before the event to try to plan a trip from Europe to Noran.

Um but you but yes, they're also uh it's a hybrid event, so there are online tickets available.

So that is uh always a thing.

Um yeah, I I have different dates in my head because I'm arriving, I'm you know, moving back for the different times, uh uh as a conference organ as a conference organizer, and then you know, as a rush employee, I'm we've made a good thing.

So thank you, Kojo.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.