DjangoCon US 2024 Perspectives

Speaker 1: I'm in Durham, North Carolina for DjangoCon 2025, getting the perspectives of people who have attended the event maybe for the first time and a few others who this is a return visit. And with me for this conversation is Sayam. Sayam, how's it going?

Speaker 2: Oh it's going pretty well. How about you?

Speaker 1: I'm I'm doing good. Tell me is this how how many DjangoCon USs have you been to?

Speaker 2: Oh um well I think this is my third one.

Speaker 1: Your third one? Okay. Yeah. Uh what what keeps bringing you back to DjangoCon?

Speaker 2: Um quite honestly I would say the community itself, which is very inclusive to be honest, and everyone is so inspiring. There are tons of information you can gain from DjangoCon, specifically what's going on in the Python world, what's going on in the Django community. So uh for example, um Simon was talking about his plugy thing, right? Oh

Speaker 1: I was really excited about that.

Speaker 2: Yes. So I was like, okay, now I have one more thing to go back and figure out how does that work, right? So Yeah, I've been I've been involved with uh Django for over a decade now and it's always interesting coming to DjangoCon Uh exploring new things, what people are doing, knowing that, and then you know, just learning things.

Speaker 1: You mentioned being involved in Django. Are you like a contributor to like Django Core project or do you have like your own like packages that you're maintaining or

Speaker 2: um So I am a bug triager for CPython, which is C Python contributor. I've been a contributor to Core Django and I am maintainer of DjangoProject.

Speaker 1: com. Wow, so like you got you're not just like in the Django community itself, but like also like the greater Python community. Have you have you been to many events like outside of like Django Cons as well or

Speaker 2: Um I've been uh to a few PyCons. Um I've been in the organizing committee of PyCon India for More than three years. Okay. Yeah. So it it has been a great experience.

Speaker 1: Your involvement in like Django Con in or not DjangoCon, like PyCon India and you know having attended some of these other events Um I f I feel like you you probably have a really good eye for like a good conversation or a good hallway track. I I think that that's one of the things I really love about different types of Python events is You know, a smaller regional like single track event. You know, the hallway track feels like it's invaded constantly by talks, but then like, you know, these larger events like PyCon US Like you're always walking five or ten minutes to the next the next talk or you know, walking through the expo hall and like having a conversation with someone. Are you do you feel like you're more of like I want to go check out all the talks or do you feel like you you really want to take time in the hallway and like connect with people?

Speaker 2: Uh well I don't have anything in mind like okay, I want to go To all the talks, that's I I don't feel like it's a good, you know, um use of my time to be honest. Um because it's more of like okay, uh if there are one or two talks, I definitely want to attend those Right. So I maybe, you know, add them to my calendar so that I could get a notification. I can get there. But otherwise I do focus like, you know, um if there are talks that I cannot somehow attend to or if I have some other things to do I just make sure I can, you know, always go and watch them online. However, the main thing I like about Django Khan is you get to meet a lot of people, right? So I think That really helps.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So I just go around meet people uh tell them what I am doing, uh know more about them, what they are doing, and then tend to learn uh you know what peep other people are actually doing in the community. Because Django Khan is a place where you know you really realize that how diverse the community is. So Both in terms of the people and the projects they are doing. So that really makes it, you know, um a really good place to hang out with people, know what they are doing. Yeah.

Speaker 1: So you you mentioned like all the different things that you do. Like have you considered giving a talk at DjangoCon? Have you spoken at DjangoCon before?

Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Um I have spoken at DjangoCon um Uh I've actually spoken in twenty eighteen and then in twenty twenty-two.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: So yeah.

Speaker 1: Cool. I think it's it's always interesting like speakers. I've I've spoken at uh one Django Con and then I usually I'll give like a lightning talk at Django Con. Um I'm more of a lightning talk person myself. The acceptance rate is higher, you know, for Django. So you For those that don't know, like when you do a lightning talk, it's like a five-minute talk. Um usually they're like volunteered right then, right there. And uh DjangoCon just uses a spreadsheet, so like if you want to present on something You kind of just like go to the spreadsheet and put your name down and then you get a slot to talk about it. So it's really a great way. Maybe you have an idea for a talk and you just want to like f field a little bit of interest for you know whether or not you should spend more time and energy on it.

Speaker 1: Um but it's definitely less preparation than coming up with like a 30 minute you know, talk or and also there are no questions. So if you're if you're very like, I don't I don't want to answer questions, I just want to show you the cool thing and then leave. Um you can definitely do that in the lightning talks. Um what are like some of the talks this year that kind of got your attention?

Speaker 2: Um so one is Simon's talk on the pluggable system, of course. Uh there was uh another talk um on end to end testing that was really cool. Uh there's a third one which I am not able to attend because I am here. Oh no. Yeah. Which is which is going on with the WebRTC. So I plan to, you know, watch it online

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: I think that is one of the cool things is that you can you know, you'll you'll have your list of talks that you want and just like schedules always conflict at some point in time. Um the fact that they make the videos, you know available online after the conference and you know shout out to the production team like they have like a full production team that comes in and sets everything up. Um so like us with like a a camera and you know a small light and a banner, you know, they've got like someone on the camera with like multiple camera angles and different lenses and like a chime into the screen. So uh it's it's a really high quality um presentation that you get so I feel like you don't miss a lot by not going to the you know the talk in person although

Speaker 1: there are some of like the you know if you have questions that you want to ask and things like that that that come with being in the room

Speaker 2: Yeah. Um

Speaker 1: I guess like the other side of that too is like the live stream. You know, if if you're not able to actually attend in person, you know, we don't talk about this a lot because we're here, but You know, they have an entire live stream where you can watch the conference virtually and you know that that does require, you know, we we have to pay for those things, but At the same time, like I they work really hard to have the Slack community there and active, but they're also working to make sure that the stream quality is good and that you know you're not you don't feel like you're getting like the second rate product like it's just as important as the the in-person event itself.

Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. I think uh the only thing watching the talks online as you already mentioned is you know if you want to ask a specific question you you can't really do it you can probably you know comment and hope that the author will see it and someone will reply to you. But yeah that you know that is overcome by the online version of Django Con. So if you're not um you know able to attend the offline version Do check out the online version because you get a chance to ask any question that you have from the speakers themselves and you know that really helps.

Speaker 1: Yeah So I've been asking everyone this question, so I'll ask you the same question as well. Um so this is the last year that we're in Durham, which you know I'm I'm sad about. Because Durham's close. You know, for me, travel-wise, it's easy. But also Durham, I've just like fall in love with the city. Like it's a really cool city. What are some of the things that you hope to get out of Either a venue or just from the event itself?

Speaker 2: Uh from the event I would say, you know, um so one of the best things I learned um, you know, um I like about DjangoCon are the sprints. So I'm always and always looking forward to sprints because that gives me an opportunity to um you know meet other open source fellows, uh learn from them See what they are doing, uh see if I am interested in something that they are doing and then I can, you know, go and contribute. So uh That's one of the things I'm really looking forward to. So and uh the second thing I'm looking forward to are the lightning talks because I believe that those are like um you know, uh the best thing about the conference because you get to learn a lot of things in a very short span of time and that indicates like

Speaker 2: okay You know how diverse the community is, how diverse the projects they are doing, and not only on the technical side of things, but also on the non-technical side of things, you tend to learn a lot with the lightning talks.

Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, what advice would you give um our friends here uh who might be considering joining us for DjangoCon US 2025?

Speaker 2: Uh well one of the advice I can surely give you is uh if you're planning to come to the conference do consider staying for the sprints. and uh try to contribute to any open source projects that you like. One of the best things I can tell you is uh pick up a project that you use in daily life uh and that's the way you won't lose motivation ever to contribute to that particular project and um yeah meet people um and I know like contributing to open source um Seems a very daunting task at first, but believe me, just start small and over the time you won't even realize but your smaller contributions just adds up and you know you'll be making a great impact.

Speaker 1: That's awesome. I hope you take some of that advice and uh I also hope that we'll catch you at uh DjangoCon 2025. But thank you so much for joining me in the conversation.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much for interviewing me.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. We'll see you next time.