Sarah Abderemane, an accessibility advocate, discusses her journey in learning programming and her involvement in improving accessibility in Django. The podcast covers topics such as decision-making and funding in Django development, the cost and feasibility of rewriting the Django admin, guiding contributions to Django, the role of a back-end developer, working at Octopus, organizing Django meetups in France, and the impact of HTMX and React in front-end development.
Practical experience combined with theoretical knowledge is important in web development.
Clear accessibility guidelines and resources are needed within the Django community to improve website accessibility.
Deep dives
Sarah's journey into web development and programming
Sarah shares her journey into web development and programming, starting with a marketing degree and discovering her interest in coding during her studies. She talks about learning HTML, CSS, PHP, and eventually Python, which she found to be a language she enjoyed. She also discusses the importance of hands-on learning and combining practical experience with theoretical knowledge.
Sarah's involvement in accessibility and Django
Sarah discusses how her interest in accessibility was sparked by a friend with disabilities, which made her realize the importance of making websites more accessible. She shares her journey of getting involved with the Django community, joining the accessibility team, and contributing to projects such as adding dark mode to the Django project website and improving the accessibility of the admin. Sarah also highlights the need for clear accessibility guidelines and resources within the Django community.
The Django Knots mentorship program and Django Paris meetup
Sarah explains her involvement in the Django Knots mentorship program, which aims to help newcomers contribute to Django. She discusses the success of past cohorts and the upcoming cohort, emphasizing the importance of providing support and guidance for new contributors. Additionally, Sarah mentions her role in organizing the Django Paris meetup, which brings together Django enthusiasts in the local community for networking and knowledge sharing.
Potential improvements to Django: Custom user models and serialization API
Sarah reflects on potential improvements to Django, mentioning that addressing the issues related to custom user models and separating profile models from the authentication model is important. She believes that this change would help streamline user authentication and reduce performance issues caused by large custom user models. Sarah also highlights the serialization API as an area that could be improved, making it more integrated within Django's core functionality for easier handling of JSON requests.