Pycon

So for those who don’t follow Twitter, I was at the major Python conference over the last week. It was extremely awesome, and I had a brilliant time at it. The edge of my depression has been blunted and I was able to function usefully, if stressfully.

Turns out saying you’ll give a 3-hour tutorial on Twisted Python will put you into a fair amount of stress. JUST SAYING.

But the tutorial went well, and I’ve gotten some great feedback on how to improve it, so I’m happy. I saw some great talks, but the vast majority of the value I drew from Pycon was getting to be around the luminaries of my field, around 2500 people who all live and love python, with whom I can swap stories of trimuph and despair.

In a lot of ways, Webstock occupies a similar position where the talks themselves are less important than the people and community, the tight togetherness that grows around and through us.

Inclusive

More than anything, this Pycon struck me as an remarkably inclusive space. Naomi Ceder’s talk on transitioning in the Python community was amazingly heartwarming. These people around me were good people. There’s been work to make the space safe for people like Naomi, people like me. Julie Pagano was safe to speak about impostor syndrome, to share her experience in her career.

I was safe to feel upset about an inappropriate joke, and it was resolved extremely quickly.

Guido only answered questions from women during his keynote.

There were 33% women at the conference, 33% women as speakers. We’re being invited in, included. We’re part of the community through more than just lip service.

And that feels great.