PyCon 2018

Posted on Sat 19 May 2018 in Python

I was at PyCon from May 9 - May 15. It's my fourth PyCon US, and has been very special to me in many ways. (Also my busiest yet!)

Representing Zapier

Thanks Zapier for fully supporting my trip to PyCon, and for allowing me to take the time away from work for more than a week. The significance of this, for me personally, is that for the first time I didn't need to apply for financial aid in order to attend PyCon.

With Zapier's support, I was able to stay for two days of sprints. It means I get to contribute for open source for two full days! 😆🌮

Python Language Summit

I attended the Python Language Summit for the second year. This time I presented two topics. I had planned to do a lightning talk too, but by end of the day I was too exhausted, so no lightning talk from me.

The language summit was open to Python core developers, and by invitation only. There was no recording, however there will be an article by Jake Edge from LWN. I presented two talk topics at the language summit. I'll leave you in suspense as you await the LWN article.

A little side anecdote, when I first became a Python Core Developer last year, a couple core devs and a BDFL each told me about the language summit. And each one of them warned me of a certain incident happened at the language summit in the past. To protect the identity and the integrity of the folks involved, I won't say what the incident was.

Throughout the year, I kept hearing of the same incident mentioned by several other core devs. So I came to think of it as an urban legend.

Anyways...

There might have been two new urban legends born at Python Language Summit 2018.

Tutorial

I gave a tutorial at PyCon. I think it went quite well. I definitely can be a better instructor next time, but I believe the attendees had fun and learned many new things.

I wanted to thank my friends for coming and helping out at my tutorial. Many attendees faced technical difficulties, and I would not have been able to attend to them one by one. Really, it would not have gone as well without their help!

So thank you friends: Jane Williams, Matt Davis, Ned Deily, Victor Stinner, Stéphane Wirtel, Eric V. Smith, Christian Heimes. You're all the best! Thanks Carol Willing and Guido van Rossum for dropping by, and special thanks Brett Cannon for the cameo!

Talks

I gave a talk, What is a Python Core Developer. Poured my heart out, and felt really good afterwards. Thank you everyone who came to my talk, (and for the standing ovation 🙇🏻‍♀️).

I only managed to go to a several keynotes and talks:

Sprint

I felt quite productive during the sprint days!!

Over the course of two days I made these contributions to open source:

  • Created python/miss-islington PR #88: Assign the failed PR to be backported to the core dev who merged it
  • Reviewed and merged python/core-workflow PR #238: Change single quotes to double quotes in get_author_info_from_short_sha to fix error in Windows
  • Reviewed and merged python/devguide PR #363: fix: fixed typo in the setup dev guide
  • Reviewed and merged python/cpython PR #6609: bpo-22069: Flush is implied also when write contains a carriage return
  • Reviewed python/cpython PR #142: bpo-1025395: Fix email.utils.parseaddr to handle multiple hops
  • Reviewed python/cpython PR #6883 bpo-21475: Support the Sitemap extension in robotparser
  • Created pycqa/pylint PR #2091: Add a new check: logging-fstring-interpolation
  • Created pycqa/pylint PR #2092: Fix weird indentation in contributing guide
  • Created python/devguide PR #362: Add link to zulipchat in communications page
  • Released cherry_picker v1.1.1 to PyPI.
  • Discussed the documentation for PEP 557 with Eric V. Smith and Ned Deily.

I slacked off too!

I still found time to chat and gossip with other folks during the sprint days. Thanks Ned Batchelder, Anna Ossowski, Jeff Triplett, Ernest W. Durbin III, and Guido van Rossum for being available and lending their ears.

Regret

I had wanted to help writing the documentation for PEP 557, the dataclasses module. In the end I was not able to help with anything. Thank you Eric V. Smith for writing up the proper documentation. Check it out here.

Eric also gave me a crash course of the dataclasses module. No better way to learn about it from the creator himself!

Rainbow Roses

I ordered a dozen rainbow roses to be delivered to my hotel room. They're very lovely. I think I will make this a new ritual. 🌹💐

One of the roses didn't make it, that's why there are only eleven in the photo. 😛

Poison

In total, I had 11 shots of tequila over the period of 7 days. Eric Holscher started to make a comment about it and James Bond and martini... 🤐 I'm much less exciting than James Bond!!

At dinner one evening with Victor and Guido, I didn't see tequila on the menu. So we ended up with this cute drink that has only 12% alcohol. 😭

Wat?

  • Dave Beazley included >>>F"Yes!" in his talk slides. I didn't realize that he'd been reading my tweets. 🤭
  • The number of people who proudly wore their PyCascades t-shirt at PyCon truly amazed me. Thank you!!! 🙇🏻‍♀️
  • All the folks who said hi and told me that they know me by reputation... 🙇🏻‍♀🙇🏻‍♀🙇🏻‍♀🙇🏻‍♀

Photos

Other favorite memories from PyCon 2018.

  • The dessert at PyLadies lunch (on Mother's Day).

  • PyCascades founders, 4 out of 6: Sebastian Vetter, Don Sheu, Eric Holscher, and myself.

  • Met up with my brother and we ate lots of seafood at Boiling Seafood Crawfish.

  • I didn't recognized my hero at first (never met him in person until PyCon), but he recognized me. 🙈

  • Python Language Summit chairs handover/initiation meeting.

  • My luggage was searched by the TSA. 🛃 #PyNutella

Until next time

I tried to include as many memories as I can into this post, but I'm unable to include everything. 😥

I got to chat and met with many many more people: all the Python Core Developers, Python BDFL, open source project maintainers, PyLadies members, speakers, and various members of this community. It's been inspiring and I learned a lot from all of you.

PyCon 2018 had been very very busy, intense, special, and lovely. Thank you organizers, volunteers, sponsors, and all the wonderful Python community for these memories.

🌮

Python conference PyCon sprint