Transcript: Conferences

Hi, and welcome to another episode of Django Chat. I'm Carlton Gibson. I'm here with Everwood

Will.

Hi.

Hello, Will. How are you?

I'm great. I'm excited today. I think we're going to be talking about conferences, right?

Yeah, we're going to talk about the conferences, what, in the Django scene, in the Python scene

more widely, or just Django?

I think both of them. I mean, this is relevant because you just came back from giving the

keynote at DjangoCon Europe, and I am, as we record, about to head off to PyCon in the

United States, which is 4,000 or something Python people. And yeah, there's a lot to say about

conferences and attending them, watching the videos online. And so we're going to get into

all that today. Maybe do you want to start off? So Django, right? There's a couple main Django

conferences. There's DjangoCon Europe. And DjangoCon US. DjangoCon US, I guess they could

just call that DjangoCon. And then we have DjangoCon Europe. And then next year, there's

going to be a DjangoCon Africa, which hopefully I have an episode about that with some interviews

i did at jangon europe in a few weeks when i get around to editing those um and then i think that's

all the jango australia right and there's like um smaller jango used to have it oh no there's a

jango jango con australia as well which is part of pycon australia um yes i think it's part of

pycon this year but in the past it's been its own thing but is that right i thought they've always

tagged them together anyway yeah that's details the point is that around the world in all these

glamorous locations there are these great conferences you can go to yeah and then on top

of that there's many many more python conferences of which django is obviously a big part of them

um pycon in the u.s being the largest one but pycon australia there's um we'll do in the show

now it's pycon.org you can see conferences regular meetups literally every major city in the world so

there's a lot of things happening out there so let's talk about so let's talk about what it's

like to attend django con europe so you were just there you were giving the keynote so this is the

the big you know what is all you can talk maybe about being the django fellow and giving a keynote

then i can talk about i attended my first django con last fall sort of as a regular attendee and

we can compare and contrast those experiences well okay you say i'm a regular attendee i've been

in the django world for ever and ever but it was only 2017 that i attended my first um django

django event django con europe in florence and i was just absolutely blown away you know this

whole talk about i came for the language i stayed for the community i had no idea and i went to

DjangoCon and I was like wow this is what I've been missing this is super um and you know what

I always say about Django it's got a community unlike others in tech and it really is it's

it's inclusive and caring and just wonderful and so 2018 I went to Heidelberg um and I gave my first

conference talk there uh and then I gave another little talk in DjangoCon US last year in San Diego

and then i i was you know i submitted for the um django con europe this year which was in copenhagen

and they asked me to do the keynote and i was oh one of the keynotes and i was like wow fantastic

super honored just amazingly honored to do that so i gave the first talk which was um nerve-wracking

given that on the morning i got up and i ended up going to the wrong location i looked on the

i looked on the website on my mobile phone and i i just typed in the first address i saw i copied

and paste the first address i saw and it was the venue for the sprints so i'm like you know just

arriving on time and there's nobody there it's like a desert oh my god that's like every every

bad dream ever about missing a test or something yeah except it was real so instead of being at

the conference drinking too much coffee getting overly worked up at the venue i was busy getting

a sweat on running down to the to the um venue but i made it in time and it all went okay yeah

Well, and those videos are up online now for DjangoCon Europe, which is, and this is something I want to promote in this podcast is all the videos are online very soon thereafter.

And in terms of, so you don't have to attend in person to get a lot out of these conferences.

I mean, I watch a ton of these videos.

These are some of the best intermediate advanced level, some beginner tutorials out there on everything Django.

they're unbelievable resource and just going by the number of views on youtube they're usually on

youtube but they're criminally underused i mean it's only like a couple hundred or thousand

for even the best talks um so we'll link to those but um so what is it like so what's the experience

like you mentioned sprints i mean so when i went to jingo con i didn't know what to expect and it

turns out there's usually there's tutorials for like a day or two which are paid things you can

often um attends like half day workshops there's two to three days of talks and then a lot of times

there's another two or so days of sprints where people are working on django itself right is

django con europe that same structure because that's django con us yeah exactly the same like

you can go a day early so um i think on the tuesday before um django con europe there's a django girls

workshop i don't know if there were workshops before but also during the main so django con

europe is a single track conference which is lovely because you're all in the same room you

all go to the same talks i really like it oh yeah jango con us is there's uh two tracks yeah two or

three like you know um even but i mean it's room and that's fine too rooms right next to each other

so it's all

there but yeah and there's also the hallway track as well so if you're not in the talk you're out

um busy talking but yeah they have these same um they have workshops and then the sprints

afterwards the sprints i always thought the sprints were for experts getting on with super

expert hard thing but it turns out that they're equally for people coming along and contributing

to django for the very first time and so that's you know super if you want to get involved in

django come to the sprints there'll be people to help you help you find a ticket help you work on

a problem you can join in with somebody else's project you can learn how contributing to open

source works so the sprints are phenomenal yeah i would love to do that this year i didn't do that

last year and i think i felt as you did that you know who am i to contribute to django which we've

done our episodes on this but i i believe they they organize the team so it's it's designed to

have a mix of you know someone who is quite experienced in the middle and beginners and

you know there's thousands and thousands of tickets so there's something for everyone so

that's um i hope to do that and that's it's good to encourage people no matter your ability to get

involved and contribute back that way yeah and it's not in the bag yet but i'm really hoping

that for jenga con us this year in san diego we can have a um um like a i don't know what we call

it but a kind of workshop for people who are when the when the sprints start a workshop for people

who are contributing for their first time or need a refresher perhaps oh that would be a great idea

we can we can offer a kind of group environment and a mentoring environment and as I say I don't

know if that's done and dusted yet but that's what I'm really hoping because at the sprints

at DjangoCon Europe I was helping lots of people but I was doing it one-on-one and that doesn't

scale and I was you know I was absolutely exhausted and not getting around all the people that needed

help so if we can do it in a group environment more that would be amazing and then hopefully

we can learn for that in future conferences yeah that'd be wonderful and um hopefully I can help

out in that i mean so in terms of size so i mentioned pycon is thousands of people i think

jango con us was four or five hundred maybe six hundred is jango con europe similar mid yeah like

three hundred and seventy four hundred something like that i think you know it's possible to make

it bigger but um jango on europe's got this single track thing and it's not it's really intimate you

know it's yeah that's what that's what i found it's i mean it's really every almost everyone in

the Django community who I'd heard about or read or seen work was was there and just available you

know either giving a talk or in the hallway and at meals I found yeah the the unstructured time

was some of the best best time because you just have sit down have a coffee with someone who are

you oh I'm you know doing something really interesting with Django or I'm new to Django or

and and DjangoCon US people are from all over the world I'd say it seemed at least half the people

or not for the united states which was fantastic yeah and i think it um like a django con one thing

that's you know i've been to tech events in other communities and other technologies and django and

python as well but you know django particularly the code of conduct's always in place so you know

you're never going to be threatened in a way that you might be at other tech events and there's a

there's a expectation to be open and welcoming and to meet more people and you know so you can

go up to anybody and you can say hello and that's expected and people will come up to you and say

hello whereas other tech environments have been in it's like oh i can't go and talk to anybody

and so for that it becomes really friendly and then you go to your second one it's like oh wow

i haven't seen you since last time you know it's yeah i i agree i and i second that i've i've been

to a few tech events and i think django con was the most friendly the most welcoming the most open

And the most committed, as you said, to a code of conduct and trying to, you know, people very adamant about if there's someone doing something they shouldn't to stop that.

So it's a wonderful environment.

I mean, so I went, so last year I gave, I gave, I submitted to do a talk because I'd never done a, been to a DjangoCon.

And it is, there is some expense involved.

We should mention there's financial assistance they can offer if you're, you know, depending on your situation.

so don't be put off by the fact that it's a couple hundred dollars um to attend uh but in my

case i i submitted a talk i was fortunate enough to be accepted it's pretty competitive for talks

but they want a wide spectrum it's not just advanced people on advanced things i mean i

really appreciated there was beginner stuff intermediate you know the full scope yeah and

they're looking for they've got they're looking for first-time speakers as well so if it's your

first time submitting a talk you can say that in your application and then there's a there's a kind

allocation for that and they're looking for community talks which are non-technical and

then technical talks targeting each level begin them intermediate advanced as you said so submit

and i think yeah and i think too it's uh you know i on my journey of django i think the best time to

teach something is when you're learning it so for me it's a little bit harder for me to give a

beginner intermediate level talk because i've kind of internalized a lot of the things so it's it

It takes a little more work to understand,

oh, these are the points that are confusing for people.

But if you've just, I mean, people will give talks,

for example, if they want to learn something

and they don't know it, they'll say,

oh, I'll submit a talk on this.

And then I'll be forced to, you know, become an expert in it.

And going through that process, they'll be able to see all the gotchas that a beginner would go through.

And I find those are the best talks when someone guides your hand and says, look, here's this tricky thing here and here's how you get there.

So in no way should people think you have to be an expert to give a talk.

If anything, I think it's almost harder maybe to give a talk as an expert because it's easier to assume people are on your level when they're not necessarily with knowledge.

Yeah. And also who are you talking to, right? So the expert is always, not always, but the trap,

the danger is that you're talking to the other experts and then your talk becomes

more kind of uninteresting because it's too hard. And it's much better to give a talk that's

targeting the beginner, the advanced beginner, the intermediate.

Yeah. Everyone kind of looks up a little bit and level in terms of what they want to speak

about and to whom? I mean, I remember, so my talk was on authentication, Jenga REST framework. And

I remember being touched that you were in the audience, you came up and said hello before.

You know, that's a perfect example, right? I mean, who am I? I barely know Jenga REST framework and

the, you know, co-main maintainer and, you know, this big poobah is there in the audience. And,

you know, but there's still things people got out of that talk at an expert level. And then a lot

of beginner intermediates, I think just having someone go over the scope of whatever topic it is

is interesting. And I remember a lot of people came up to me after the talk asking really

great questions. And if I could answer them, I would. And if I couldn't, because I had so many

people ask me questions, I could connect them with other people. And that experience actually

really brought about the idea of there should be a podcast on Django because just my experience at

DjangoCon itself was so illuminating and so interesting and wanted to highlight chats about

jango you know regardless of level of of people and people are people aren't putting on airs either

i mean if people know something they'll say it and if they don't you know they'll say it too so

oh but yeah i mean and this like this what you come to see is that the people who you've sort

of held up as oh wow that's so and so and they've been contributing to jango for well since before

version one and they're just a normal person and they're really nice and modest and humble and

you know yeah yeah no exceedingly so and i i think the environment too is um you know there are

there's cocktail receptions and stuff but a large number of people don't drink there's no pressure

around that which when i was in silicon valley there certainly was pressure to to drink at tech

events so there's a really nice mix of if you want to have some drinks you can but plenty of people

don't and everyone's just really really nice um and so you know i came away from that experience

really energized about Django, about the work that I was doing. People had read my book and

told me about it, which means a lot more than just seeing numbers on a screen.

And so I heartily recommend going. It is an investment of time. There is a little bit of

money, but it's a huge benefit. And you meet so many people and those relationships continue on

well after the conference. Yeah. And then, as you said earlier on as well,

there's the videos online. So you're constantly trying to learn and trying to develop and trying

to build your skill base and there's only so much reading of books you can do and whatnot those

videos are super and they'll be like half an hour long talk on um i don't know everything well i'm

just trying to think of one from jango con europe so there's one on the security headers that you

can set that all that jango will set for you which make your website more secure well adam johnson

who's one of the core contributors gave a a short talk at jango con europe in copenhagen on the

security headers so you know you can watch that talk and all of a sudden you know what settings

to set on django and what they do and how they make your project more secure and that was something

you could do on the train or on the you know you could queue that up to watch it whenever yeah no

i i make it a point to i will i mean maybe this is just me but and i'm i can be obsessive but i i've

watched all the django con videos from the last well yeah five years or so i wasn't gonna say

but yeah but but again the numbers of if you look at the numbers of people viewing it it is

insanely low. It is so low. It is crazy. I mean, for example, I just found out that the talk I gave

last year was one of the more popular talks at the conference, which is great to hear, but it only has

two, three thousand views online, which to me, you know, I mean, that's what we're getting like a

week with this podcast. People are not looking at these videos. They're fantastic videos. You should

go check them out. And often the slides are attached as well. And I mean, so this most

recent DjangoCon Europe, Tom Christie, creator of Django REST Framework, had a really in-depth talk

about sketching out Django Redesign as the title, talking about async and the work he and others are

doing to bring async to Django, to APIs. But very educational, really walks you through like,

you know, why does this matter? What are the challenges? What are the things he's working on?

I mean, just a fantastically comprehensive talk. Because, you know, that's an area for me that I'm

not that knowledgeable about, but we're all going to need to be.

And he really went through the full scope.

It's still new.

And like, so, you know, I had conversations at the conference about async around.

around tom's talk and the question why do we need this well the first thing is there are some

services which need the high throughput of an async service and python needs to have a solution

there so you can't you know we shouldn't have to change language because we need an async solution

whether we need these high yeah python has this so django right and then so why should django have

it well django should have it at a basic level because it's the batteries included web framework

right you shouldn't have to change web framework just to get a basic async endpoint now you know

Maybe Django won't have all the async features in the world, and maybe there's a reason to step to a different async framework for that.

But Django has to have a basic solution there, because the batteries included Python web framework.

And that's why, you know, so it's a kind of interesting development.

And all of that came out of Tom's talk.

Well, that brings up another thing about doing talks, which is that the review process is anonymous.

So it's really not the case of people picking their friends for these talks. The proposals are anonymously reviewed. So just because you're some big name doesn't necessarily mean your talk will be accepted, and they intentionally want a wide variety of people. So that's meant to be an encouraging statement.

I mean, I remember when I submitted my talk, I was, yeah, again, like, who am I? But they want first-timers. They want regular contributors to Django, not just the same people at every conference.

Yeah. And, you know, do submit. It's a great, you know, it's not going to make you, it's a great way of boosting your profile. It's a great opportunity to do something. It's a great, you know, learning opportunity. It's just super. But I mean, it's not going to give you anything in a way, you know, you're not going to become famous or anything like that because it's Django.

Yeah, and it doesn't take that long to submit either.

I mean, at least DjangoCon US is, you know, it's a title, it's a short description,

and then a slightly longer description.

And then, you know, quick, who are you?

It doesn't take that long to do.

No, but it's a really good...

I believe it's May 20th.

It's a growth opportunity.

Yeah, so May 20th.

May 20th this year for...

May 20th, yeah.

I mean, so you do need to get it in by that time.

And I hear you've already submitted.

That's cheeky.

Well, this is why I mentioned the anonymous thing.

So when you submit, they use a service called Paper Call, and there's an option to make your submission public, I guess, so you can share with family and friends or whatever.

And so I did do a tweet saying, hey, I've just submitted, here's the title of my talk, which actually, so it's fine to say you submitted a talk, but putting the title in there abuses that anonymous process.

So I took that tweet down.

so that was a good lesson learned you know because i i don't it shouldn't matter who i am

for the talk so submit the talk you know do a tweet saying i submitted a talk and everyone else

should but you know it's not a popularity contest um so don't you know i guess don't put the name

of your talk in a tweet or a blog post yeah okay because that undermines the take was the takeaway

undermines the review process but that's fine i mean i guess yeah so and what else i told i talked

about we sort of mentioned it but the important thing at the conferences is the hallway track as

well so you know what's the fate you're out there oh what was your favorite talk oh it's this one

and you build up and yeah that's what i i saw the um you know jango luminaries i read online

they never seemed to be in a talk they were just in the hallway the whole time so there i think

that is like the after a couple you you know you realize the hallway track is the because all the

talks are online so yeah it's a mix for for everyone i mean i sat in all the talks because

that's that's how i am but plenty of people say oh well i'll go to a couple talks and i'll see

the rest online and you know just the chance to have one-on-ones or um go get a meal with with

someone is really what's what it's about so any other what else should we say i mean you should

go to conferences you should watch the talks you should submit they're not scary it's incredibly

friendly people don't use these enough the jenga con europe talks are all out now on youtube um

there was i guess there's there's one more we talked about beforehand uh doxer didn't happen

did you want to highlight that one yeah it was supos um by mikey ararel it was another um one

of the day's key keynotes it was just super it's like you know about documentation and how you make

your documentation stronger and for me it's one of the big things because jango's open tickets

the number three category is documentation tickets and you know jango's docs are just super but if we

could somehow focus on those and get that that number down that would be a massive chunk of

tickets which aren't necessarily technically difficult in themselves but they need again love

and time and effort and you know so her talk i i really liked it um it's called doc so it didn't

happen again that's available on youtube now all right well uh i think we've given our piece on

this yeah yeah no we can go over and say the other things go to the conferences they're great yay

but they are yeah all right well everyone thanks for listening this week we'll be back with future

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