Successful Guests vs. Less Successful Guests

Speaker 3
And I think just from my experience with Google Summer of Code is it was always very hit and miss and it always has been very hit. We've had some wonderful successes, you know, absolutely wonderful successes. You know, the JSON field that Sage did who's now working on WAG tail and the Redis cash back end and you know, the list goes on and on the features that have come out of Django of Google Summer of Code. But the mentoring has always been our sort of weak point in that we'd have a mentor and then if somebody was active and they contribute, you know, that would work. But then if people were struggling, we never really had that support network. And I see that what you're doing in Django, or Django not store space is a really good like, you know, there's a there's a there's a discord, there's support, there's check-ins, there's these different roles, this pastoral and the mentoring. I just think it's just a wonderful initiative. I think everything about it is just, you know, really well considered and being implemented just wonderfully. Thank you.
Speaker 1
We're trying so hard. Well,
Speaker 2
what is that? It's that structure of marketplace, right? Because again, like that that panel, which Carlton, I think we both were on that as well. I mean, that's not a new discussion. And it's you need someone to say, oh, right, like you can mentor, like, oh, you need help and just do all all the work to put it together because it's sort of invisible work in a way, but it's challenging and necessary. And otherwise, people just talk about it and don't do it.
Speaker 1
I think that's another thing that I've gained from being part of this. And I feel like that's something that each of us who are in the organizer space, but hopefully we're encouraging that from other people that at the start, it was very much like, oh, we have this idea, who do we need to get permission from to do something here? And it can very easily be that you end up not doing anything at all because perhaps you don't quite get the validation that you want. And there's been, I think, a number of times where people have had really good ideas. And then I think they were hoping that it would perhaps get adopted by by some authority. And when I say some authority, the default is probably the DSF kind of thing. And I think with this, it's been a nice proof of concept that if you want to try something out, like you would a meetup, right? If you want to do a Django meetup, you don't need to get approval to do this. You can just set it up. And I think we can do this for different initiatives in the community that you can start with something small and validate that there is a need for this or there is some value that you're bringing here and then grow it from there and get more support as and when required. And I think that has been a really validating experience that when you say, you know, what kind of like you are the Django community, the community is you. So you can do things if you want something to happen in the Django community, that that's something you can do. So and I think that's been very powerful.
Speaker 3
I think especially over the COVID years, the DSF, the DSF board doesn't have capacity to, you know, take on another thing, to take to be the driving force behind something. They can, they can put a rubber stamp on things if that rubber stamp is necessary. But short of self-organizing working groups materializing, which this is kind of like a self-organizing working group that you've put together, the DSF just doesn't have the kind of the Aristotelian term impetus to get things moving. It is because they're just, you know, it just isn't
Speaker 2
that that power. I mean, that's this is the strength and the weakness of Django and open source communities is it's a democracy in a way. Like we'd be nice if someone just said yes or no to things instead of. And I think on the code side, it's not clear until you get into it. Like who do you ask who, who has permission? And not that anyone has permission, but you know, there's maybe a half dozen people who, you know, Carlton being one of them who can kind of push things in the right direction if they need to go. So the default is, oh, there's this thing called the DSF. And I recognize now, especially not being on the board that they're, when you're on the board, you're so busy doing stuff, you don't spend a lot of time communicating like what the DSF is like, what do they do? What do they not do? So this, it is this higher power, but the reality is it's supposed, it's a volunteer position, it's supposed to be one hour a month. It's not, but it's, and it's really not about code itself at all. It's really just if you come with a fully baked thing and you want funding or you want approval, they can do that, but they're not going to yeah, provide that other support that, you know, people would like, sorry, like your first ticket, right? Can I work on this? It's like, can I set up a mentoring program? Like, sure, you can, like, do it. Yes,
Speaker 1
you just need some kind of auto approved bot that's at the DSF.
Speaker 2
Well, I think I think it's a communication. Yeah, it's a communication thing. I mean, you know, it's a big reason why we have this podcast is because, you know, I'd never been to DjangoCon and suddenly I like almost everyone it seemed to, I'd seen online was there and was, you know, approachable. And it's like, Oh, wow, like, I wish I'd known about that. And then, you know, and that feeds into as well, the newsletter. So there's a Django news newsletter that Jeff Triplett and I run and that you've, we can talk about your contributions, but, you know, Django itself doesn't have a newsletter. Now, why doesn't have a newsletter? Someone has to do it. And I can attest, it's a lot of work to do a newsletter. And it's just everyone on the board already has more than they can do. And so, you know, maybe at some point it can be merged in and if Django in quotes wants to take it on, they can, but, you know, there was a need with Jeff and I thought to have this. And one of my favorite things is that you then just approached us and said, Hey, like, there's all these updates happening. And it's really been interesting because, you know, talking to Carlton all the time, he's telling me how like excited he is about Django and how active issue, you know, track is, but unless you're looking at it, you don't know. And so now this updates to Django section, it's like double digit PR is a week, oftentimes, and new contributors, maybe, so maybe to you, like what was, how is that from your end to adding this new feature? Because right now we just give you permission and you basically do this, do this section, which is amazing. Well, you know, you built that trust, right? Like, reviewing triage team, like I met you at Django on Europe. I forget what the timing was, but, you know, at the end of the day, like, we're not, we're not dealing with lives here. You know, it's like, you can always revoke someone's permission to. So so so true.
Speaker 1
Yeah. See, I mean, it's true. There's so much work that is going on with Django all the time. And I sometimes I wonder whether there's, because there is like a narrative of a story that sometimes we adopt. And I've heard that. And okay, so sometimes track is called the fire hose, for example. And I think there is so much more to Django in like a positive, empowering space where different people are coming up and contributing quite fantastic features. And also even the first time contributors, it's not like there aren't
Speaker 2
that it's very a rare occurrence. It's every week that somebody that's just really jumped out to me, like three or four sometimes new people. Absolutely.
Speaker 1
And so if you want to do it, it's not that you would be one in a million. You might be. But you, but it's a it's an achievable thing. It takes, I think it takes a bit of perseverance and grit more than I think it takes, I don't know, 10 years of Python experience or something like this, you just need to have the willpower and some time that you can continue to to push through the rounds of review and make those changes. And then it will get accepted. It's a process rather than a alone, both genius figure or something like this.
Speaker 3
It's complex, but there's no secret handshake either. It's totally. Do the things, handles the review. The first thing is understand the ticket, right? Because the ticket won't, it's not like there's any tickets which are obvious. You have to get into them and think about them. But as you say, if you do it, if you, you know, it will get accepted. There's no barrier beyond the difficulty of and the time and the commitment.
Speaker 2
Yeah. But I wonder if we, I mean, you know, attribution and validation, as you said earlier, is a problem in terms of like, like, it'd be great if we could have just like a badge on GitHub, like you contributed, like your first, you know, not that we need to gamify it, but like, you know, contributed to Django or, you know, and this is, I'm just thinking out loud, something Django could do somehow to absent the DSF having to maintain a list or something. But, you know, it should be something people, you know, an employer or people can see without you having to like, having a about page and link, yes, Carlton, link to it somewhere.
Speaker 3
Well, yeah, I mean, I mean, I've thought about this loads. I think one of the really exciting things about a mentorship program like Django notes is that it's possible to show people how they can look, you know, just put together a like, this is what I did. And, you know, they can put it on their blog or their CV or their, and that, but being told, Hey, do you know what that discussion you had on track was a good discussion. And that PR that you did, and that you got merged, that's a good thing. And if you, if you write that up as a, you know, these hiring managers, Oh, how have you contributed to some project? Well, there, that story, which is publicly verifiable, but youngsters, they don't know to maximize that. They don't know to talk about the things they've done.
Speaker 2
Well, some people don't have the, I guess it's confidence to do that. Like, there's a couple of people I mentor and they're, I'm constantly like, you should just for yourself write up this thing you discover, because like, I promise you, you're going to forget it in six months, or you know, and they, they just don't. So that's why when you were saying Sarah, you're like, I wanted that validation like, yes, yes, like this, what Carlton and I are always saying, like, in some ways, it's the easiest way to prove your chops is to contribute to Django. It's like, well, you could probably write for our little app doing whatever if you can contribute to Django, because the standards are going to be a lot higher. But many people don't, you know, power through the barriers that you did of like, can I do this? Should I do this the time? But yeah, in some ways, it's the easiest way to get hired,
Speaker 1
I would think. And I think it's part of the program, what I hope from it is we are really trying to celebrate each of the achievements that our Django knots are, are having. And we are hopefully, we're trying to be the voice for them until they learn to have their own voice, because there is so much. It's very, it's all well and good to say, okay, you can make a blog post about this thing, but it's kind of like learning in public. And any piece of code that you wrote two years ago, and you read it now and you go, Oh, that's awful. And so
Speaker 2
every blog that
Speaker 1
is also
Speaker 2
probably very similar that you go, I can't
Speaker 1
believe I
Speaker 2
thought these things at that time and that, Oh, I thought this
Speaker 1
was clever. And I think having that kind of habit or those ideas that that this is going to be a useful resource or something that is going to benefit you is, is intimidating, especially when you feel like you don't have anything particularly interesting or new to say, or that you've just kind of validated that you have only just learned something that you feel like everybody already
Speaker 2
knew for a long time now, and you're just publicizing that you
Speaker 1
you're new to this or something like this. And I think contributions to an open source library, there's a there's a pride in it because it shows that you're giving back to something and it shows that you are willing to put in some effort into things that we all benefit from. And it somehow gives you permission to to brag a bit about yourself because there's a little bit of feel goodness about doing this. And Django is obviously a well known library. And there is some status element of saying, Oh, yes, I did this. And that's a very good thing to point to. Well,
Speaker 2
but I think you're, I'm a little bit older than you are, like you're perfectly placed in your programming journey to do this, in that you have the expertise, but also remember and are kind of in that middle ground. Like one of the issues I found less so in Django, but another place is is most of the, you know, PUBAs in charge have lost all perspective for the beginner experience, because they've been doing it 10, 20 years. So it's, it's like this abstract thing. So it's not that they don't know, but it's just, it's like, Oh, I remember childhood, like, Oh, yeah, like you just like, just a child would like just just make up make a PR. But you know, when you again, like when you write something down, like in the moment you discovered you have those frustrations that point of view that you're not going to have same like your first contribution to Django. So you sort of need in a way, like someone where you are where you're just like, you know, this is a problem and I'm going to do something about it. And then in five years, you're like, Oh, yeah, it is a problem. Someone should do something about it. But like you're going to have different problems. Because, um, so I think it's fantastic. And I think that's why I always tell encourage people to write as they're learning because that's the best time. I mean, that's kind of, for me, like, for me, the problem I have now is that I'm almost too familiar with things to write from that beginner's mind. But like when you're beginning, you're asking questions that like, Oh, everyone knows this like, no, they don't like. And if they do, they won't Google for it and find it, you know, so but Carlton, you still have empathy and compassion for people somehow.
Speaker 3
I try to try to ask us because I do Tai Chi and you can't do Tai Chi without a beginner's mind. There you go. There you go. You have to practice it. It is it is a muscle. I remember like when I very first began vividly being stuck for like days because I had the wrong version of my programming language installed and I didn't even know about versions. I didn't know how to get a different version of it installed. And I didn't know, you know, it was, I was destroyed by it. I didn't have a support network to ask by for. I remember not knowing anything about anything about anything. And, you know, so I try to maintain as much as I can, an awareness of, you know, what it's like coming to it from the outside.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I think to be honest, we all continue to learn if we keep, okay, you can choose not to. You can you can definitely choose to like, I'm comfortable at this thing now and I'm going to only do this thing now. And that's completely fine. You know, you've earned your stripes and you can you can stay there. But there is infinite capacity for you to continue to learn. And you can push yourself to get back into that position where you feel stupid again.
Speaker 2
And
Speaker 1
I feel
Speaker 2
stupid all the time. So it's
Speaker 1
not that hard to feel it again. And it's also nice to see how far you've come at the same time. And I think even with this program, there's so many things that that I hope for it because at the at the minute, it's around getting getting people into Django and into that space and helping them identify with it that they can be a Django code contributor. Because it is kind of an identity problem in some cases that people somehow feel like it's too prestigious. Or it's it's it's there's a fancy thing around it. And hopefully we get them feeling like this is something they want to be a part of and that this is there's a team in this and that they're working with real people here who really care about other people and really want to see you succeed and that you can be one of those people who are also working on really interesting problems, but also working with some experienced talented wonderful people. And you can be this experienced talented wonderful person too. And and you probably already are, you know, and you will almost everybody has some experiences and some special skills that they can bring on board. And then with it, there's also there's still levels in in my head, there's still like a journey from going from like a first time contributor to on the other end of the scale, some form of co maintainer or fellow or whatever you want to call like the one on the other, the other end of the scale. And there's still like almost milestones going through it. So it's all well and good. When you got your first contribution in, but there'll be a time where you are able to help other people get a contribution in and that you feel comfortable reading someone else's code and saying, Oh, I feel like this and this doesn't fit with this thing or perhaps it would be better like that. And there's other steps there that I think you
Speaker 3
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