Python Core Sprint 2024: Day 3

Coffee

Today I joined a group to have breakfast at Meta’s cafeteria. The cafeteria has an Espresso machine that we have to operate ourselves. So, I learned how to use the Espresso machine on the spot, and made myself cappuccino. This was the best cup of coffee I’ve had in the last 5 days.

T-strings

I chatted briefly with Lysandros about PEP 750. He mentioned that they will be re-working the proposal based on community feedback so, and also said it will not be called a “tag” anymore, but T-strings, it could look slightly different than what’s shown on the PEP today. Jim Baker should be here starting tomorrow to work on the PEP.

I’m looking forward to see the updated proposal.

I don’t know why, but T-strings made me think of T-virus from Resident Evil 😝

PyLadiesCon

PyLadiesCon conference organizers met today to discuss our progress, keynote selection, sponsorships, ticketing, etc. The conference is coming along! Stay tuned, subscribe to PyLadiesCon RSS Feed, follow them on Mastodon, X, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Python Ladies

Selfie of the Python ladies at the Python core sprint, and photo taken by Gregory P. Smith.

In the photo: Dawn Wages, Emily Morehouse, Joannah Nanjekye, Mariatta, Parul Gupta, Savannah Ostrowski.

Q&A with DiRs (Developers in Residence)

There was a Q&A session with the Developers in Residence. The Developers in Residence are hired by The PSF to work full time to assist with core Python development. The roles are/have been funded by companies like Google, Meta, Bloomberg, etc (I lost track of which company is sponsoring this role nowadays, sorry)

Some of the things discussed:

  • What are their responsibilities and their focus area?
  • How do they balance working for Python and being sponsored by external company. Petr said his work is unbiased/not influenced by the sponsor. (Personally, I think that such “bias”/“employer influence” already exists somewhat, but not with the DiRs. There are other core devs who are paid by their employers to work full time on CPython, so how is the DiR role any different? Anyway, that’s just my unimportant comment. This is my personal blog, so I can comment on anything)
  • Russell mentioned that in DSF (Django Software Foundation)’s case, when they set up the Django Fellows role, the role has to be focused to administrative and community management, because as a 501 org, activties like “software development” is not considered “charitable” activity, so is there such constraints with the PSF’s Developer in Residence? Perhaps this is a question that should be answered by PSF instead of by the DiRs.

Should more people get to vote in Python Steering Council Election?

I’ve asked this question before, and today I asked if anyone at the sprint want to meet and chat about this.

As of today, 90 people in the world gets to vote in Python steering council election. Is this 90 people really the only group of people who should vote? It just felt too restrictive and limiting to me.

Some of the arguments I’ve heard before were along the lines of “the core team members are the people who know best for Python”, and “the people who know best about Python would already by core team members”.

I actually think those two statements are False. I truly believe there are people outside of the current core team members who have the skills to make good languge decisions for Python. It is possible such people simply do not want to become a Python core team member (because it comes with a lot of responsibilities and commitment). Just because they are not a Python core team member, does not mean they are not suitable to decide for Python, and does not mean they should not be given voice.

So the question becomes, who else should we include in the election? And that’s what I’m trying to find out.

In addition to all this, I’m also questioning: “are core team members really the right group of people to vote in Python Steering Council election?”. Here’s what I think (again, this is personal unpopular opinion): The current team is not actually very diverse. Not only that, there have been people who have voting privileges, and did not cast their vote. Though this is quite normal in elections. But on top of all this, I have heard one time, one of the voters said that they voted for everyone, which in my mind is actually the same as not voting at all. So if there are people within the core team who are not taking their responsibility seriously, then … should they continue to have voting right?

Again, these are just my personal thoughts, and I’m sure I’m in the minority among core team members for thinking like this.

During our chat today, there are a few points being discussed:

  • The fact that there is no guarantee to Steering Council continuity, (and yet continuity is desired) it might caused people to vote more conservatively and preferring candidates who have served in SC before, instead of voting in riskier/newer SC candidates. This has actually been discussed before, so perhaps we need to keep discussing and come up with a path forward.

  • Does expanding the voter pool the right approach to solve our problem (if there is even a problem)

  • Do other people really want to vote? Maybe the people who we think should be included as voters aren’t even interested in voting? I thought this was a great question and I wondered about this too. Prior to our meeting, I have posted a new Discourse thread asking exactly this.

I really want to hear from various group of people about this topic. As mentioned, most core team members currently probably don’t really see the need to expand the voter pool, and therefore most of them will be unmotivated to keep this discussion going. But I care about this, so please give me this opportunity to give more Python community members to have more voice in the core Python development.

Please leave your feedback on my Discourse thread. Feel free to share this link with anyone who you think should know about it. Or let me know who else to reach out to.

PyCon US Handover meeting

Elaine (the next PyCon US Conference Chair) and I met (on video call) to chat about PyCon US Chair responsibilities. I spent time during the sprint to write up a documentation for her and for future conference chairs, share some advice, we also discussed of what could be improved/what should/could change, etc.

Elaine asked interesting questions which I wasn’t even thinking about before: How do I feel about the experience? What’s the takeaway from this experience? What are the things that I like/learned?

Took me a few moment to think about this, but these are my thoughts about being a PyCon US conference chair:

  • I realized that this position comes with power
  • I get to use this power to make things happen
  • There are things about PyCon US which I did not like, and things I think needed to change. Being able to actually make those changes, and make things work the way I want it to be, (instead of simply complaining to the void), is something I feel good about.
  • I get to use this power to do more outreach, to advocate for, and to build my the communities I care a lot about, specifically the underrepresented and marginalized group members

Python conference t-shirts

Don’t worry, I’m still paying attention to the Python Fashion 😎

Python conference/Python-themed t-shirts worn by Python core devs today:

  • PyCon US 2023 (Mariatta)
  • PyLadies CZ (Petr)
  • Black (Hugo and Jason)
  • Python Pizza (Łukasz)
  • PyCon US 2021 (Thomas)

Dinner

I ate dinner alone in my hotel room. I ordered Beef Teriyaki combo from Tokyo Stop Teriyaki which was recommended by Ben Berry. I had heard about “Seattle Teriyaki” from Ben during one Conference Organizers Chat, so I’m happy to finally tried it.