My step-by-step guide to becoming a Django core contributor

Speaker 1: I'm a software engineer and I've been working with Django for over four years now, as well as React on some other libraries and frameworks. I've sadly had to use Node as well for the backend sometimes Uh I'm also a newbie jango contributor, which is kind of why I'm here, but I'll talk about this later And yeah, some fun facts about me is that I enjoy drinking mate, which is a traditional South American drink. So you may see me around with my mate And my thermal. I'm a passionate football or soccer fan. I go see my team play every weekend. And I love cats. I'm a cup person. I always love when people share cup photos with me So yeah, if you have a cat and just want to share your pictures, please do. And now I wanted to just do a quick audience poll, like about you, because I share about me, so I think it's fair.

Speaker 1: Uh how many people here, like if you can just raise your hand, have contributed to Django. Okay, just a few. Cool. How many people here think they may be interested in contributing to Django at some point Okay, cool. I mean if you're not interested, I hope I can convince you to be, but you don't need to or you can just go, that's fine. So yeah, cool And so kind of first I wanted to talk about why I'm presenting this talk today. Uh so if you had told me a year ago that today I would have several PRs merged into Django, I wouldn't have believed it. Uh contributing to Django felt like something really far out of reach for me. I thought I don't know enough Django to contribute. I'm not experienced enough. There's people who have been contributing to Django since I bit

Speaker 1: I was like five years old. So like how can I contribute And well I was wrong and I kind of want to convince you that you can too. Uh yeah, and I think that this past year contributing and kind of learning the processes and everything.

Speaker 2: My growth is there, yeah.

Speaker 1: Oh, sorry. Okay, there we go. Uh yeah, I forgot what I was saying, but yeah, this past year has given me some I think experiences and learnings and insights that I just wanted to share with you today and talk about basically my My experience as a new contributor and yeah hope to convince you that uh if this is something that sounds interesting to you, that you're more than qualified and that you have know enough to start your journey as well. And yeah, it's basically the presentations structured in a kind of step by step uh format. So step one This was definitely my step one and I think uh it's

Speaker 1: this is it for a lot of people. Uh I think we all encountered uh situations in life where we doubt ourselves or we think we can't do whatever it is we want to do. And I mean I think everyone's felt like this at some point in their lives. And I think we all or a lot of us feel imposter syndrome sometimes uh where we feel we aren't qualified or like that we don't deserve whatever credit we're getting or we're not qualified to do something that we're already doing or that we might have to do. And yeah, I just oh sorry, wait, I lost my cursor. Okay. Yeah. So if you think uh there's no way I can contribute to Django, well welcome. Uh you're already at step one And I'm sure we can get through a couple of the steps just in thirty minutes.

Speaker 1: So then I met the Django community and when I first met the Django community I was uh really surprised by how warm and diverse and welcoming it was. Uh I didn't know anyone around but still felt like I was safe as place where I could drive and grow and get to know people even if I didn't know them And there's like many ways to get involved with the community. DjangoCon is a great place to do so. So if you're here in person or online, you're already at step two. Uh the first time I met this community was actually at DjangoCon US last year. So yeah, awesome place to be today Uh you can also join uh local Django meetups or junk Django social events in your local area, which can be great ways to like meet the Django community near you

Speaker 1: And uh you could even start one of these events uh if there are none. I think there's a Django Social booth downstairs. Uh they probably have a lot of information on that We have a great uh Discord server that's really active and people like ask all kinds of channels. There's channels like from getting started with Django and asking for help with just Django questions Two channels specifically dedicated to contributing and to asking for help uh getting started. There's like yeah a ton of resources. So if you're not on the Discord server, I really recommend that you join it and check it out Uh there's also the Django forum, which is another great place for community discussions and questions. So yeah, and I also linked the awesome Django website, which has even longer lists. Oh no An even

Speaker 1: longer list of ways to get involved. Wait. I think I need to like step away from the computer because it's the yeah.

Speaker 2: cambiado la parte.

Speaker 1: Creo que ahí está bien, me parece que es el cable nomás. No. Ok, no lo toques. Okay, yeah, we're back, sorry. Okay. So uh oops So yeah, after meeting this amazing community, uh I was kind of able to overcome the imposter syndrome And uh how do you do this? I think the answer is probably simpler than one may think. It's with help. So yeah, I got encouragement from others and started to think, hey, maybe I could contribute to Django. Maybe this is something I could achieve.

Speaker 1: And yeah, I think something I learned during this process was uh to not be afraid to ask for help or to ask for guidance from others. Uh like I said there's a lot of resources in the Django Docs and in the Discord server and and a lot of places on how to get started with contributing. But also I don't know if you see me around the hallway and just want to chat about your experience or how you could get started as well Please do like reach out. Happy to chat and to try to answer your questions. And I will not know the answer to all your questions, but I can try to help you find someone who may know them So yeah. Uh after getting some encouragement from uh some people, I decided to join Django Kong Contributor Sprints uh last year at Django Kong US And I when I arrived at the conference I didn't even know what contributor sprints were, like

Speaker 1: never heard of them. And so if you haven't, basically people just get together to contribute to Django or Django-related packages And like the really cool thing about this is that you don't need to be an experienced contributor to join. Uh you can just go and show up and there's usually a lot of really amazing kind people who will help you and explain things and yeah, help you out. So Uh yeah, and like as kind of personal stories that I opened my very first pull request for Django in the sprints last year. So yeah, sprints are a great way to get involved and maybe start your contributor journey. Maybe you can even make your first PR. And they're happening this week on Saturday and Sunday. I think you need to sign up. Check the website of the DjangoCon Europe for more information. But yeah, I hope to see you there.

Speaker 1: So I had opened a PR for Django in the sprints, but I still wasn't too confident in my abilities to contribute beyond that. So it felt really different to contribute in the sprints, like uh surrounded by people who are helping me and asking and I was asking questions and oh no, is it gone again? Sorry. No no thank you. Okay. Uh we're back. Yeah. So uh like I was saying, I really wasn't confident in my abilities to contribute beyond that just because it felt really different

Speaker 1: to be like in a uh in person space with people around me to help me out and I could have questions and I would stuck and I would say hey like what do I do here and things like that then being back home on my own and saying okay I want to contribute to Django but I kinda don't know how like what are my next steps And so during DjangoCon and at the sprint, I have learned about this program called Juggernaut Space. Uh if you don't know what they are, uh Djangonaut Space is a free, a week group mentoring program and it's meant for members of the community who want to level up their Django. contributions. Maybe you've never contributed before and want to start. Maybe you have like occasionally but aren't sure how to make it into a regular thing. Uh so yeah, it's basically an amazing program where you get people that like kind of mentor you and guide you through the process of contributing

Speaker 1: And uh yeah, I was actively encouraged to apply by multiple people and I did it and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank them because I wouldn't be here giving this talk if it wasn't for them. So yeah, uh I'm going to name them because some of you are here. So thank you Rachel, Tim, Tivo and Natalia, 'cause you all said you should totally apply and now I applied and I'm here. So yeah. Uh I have the link. I'll send my slides to the Slack channel later so you have all the links. But yeah, uh please check it out. It's really wonderful. And I'll be talking for quite a few minutes about this because it was a great experience. So I got accepted and basically the work the way it works is you get assigned to a group of people who are like you who want to contribute but aren't quite sure how who may need help with it

Speaker 1: and you get a navigator and a captain who act as mentors uh through the process. These are like just wonderful people who are volunteering their time and effort to help you out and to get you started with the contribution process. Uh you have weekly meetings where you can check in with your team, ask for help. You have one-on-ones with your captain who also just make sure you're doing good, you know that you don't need any help. And yeah, it's basically a safe space to ask questions and to make mistakes. Making mistakes is part of the process, so yeah, it's good to have a place where you can do that without being scared of it. Um something that I wasn't expecting was that a lot of my questions weren't code related. Like of course you can ask code and technical questions. But I found that sometimes the more complicated things were knowing how to navigate the processes and expectations for contributions

Speaker 1: Um I was also surprised by how hard it could be to actually find a ticket to work on. Like yes I want to continue. Like okay, what do I do? Uh the other track can be really intimidating. So Sometimes finding a ticket that matches your skill set and your experience and the time frame that you like have available to dedicate to it, like that can be harder than actually making the code change. Maybe the code change is three lines of code and it took you a week to find the ticket Uh yeah, so just something that I wasn't expecting and I learned. And just as a disclaimer, this doesn't mean that you can only become a contributor if you join Django of Space Uh totally up to you. Maybe this does not sound like something that would be fun for you or interesting. Maybe you don't have time to dedicate to the program because it does take a couple hours a week. Uh maybe you apply but aren't selected in this session.

Speaker 1: I need to wait for the next one. For whatever reason, you can totally still contribute. Uh I'm just saying what my contributing journey looks like, but yours can be totally different But that said I think Django Not Space is an amazing program. I'm really grateful to been a part of it and like check it out and consider applying. So yeah, well in Juggernaut space I started to contribute. Um yeah, you can work on tickets and make pull requests and do all the code things, but contributing is not just code And yeah, I wanted to point this out because this was something that I also didn't know before I started contributing. Uh you can also report issues. You don't need to only fix them. Just uh you know creating a proper ticket is also a contribution Um you can post in the Django forum. You can like comment on existing threads. The community is really active there as well as in this Discord

Speaker 1: server. Maybe what you know can help someone else. You may be able to answer someone else's question, even if it doesn't feel like it. And yeah, uh speaking of questions, one of the most important things that I learned during this whole process was to not be afraid to ask questions. We're all learning, no one knows everything, and even if you think something is a dumb question or a stupid question, like there are no such questions. As long as you're asking it politely, respectfully, and in the right place, uh every question is valid. And to make this point I actually have like a real life uh story. After opening my first PR for Django, I had noticed there was no pull request template in the GitHub repo. And I was just surprised because I was really used to having a template to tell me, you know, kind of what to write. In the pull request description.

Speaker 1: And so I asked my Django space team, hey, do you know why this is? And I was kind of thinking to myself, this is probably a really stupid question. I'm sure this is a really obvious answer, like really simple question, right? So they said that's a good question. Maybe you can ask it in the Django Not Space Discord server. So this is a screenshot of me asking it in the uh Django space discourse server. I was like, Hey, why don't we have a pool PR template? It was quite scary for me to open my first PR and notice okay, the description field is blank. I have to put in information here and I don't know what to put. And I was at the sprint so I was able to ask uh to ask people, hey what should I put here? But I thought it'd be maybe it'd be a good idea if we could have a sort of uh explanation for newcomers or people who just maybe forgot what to put.

Speaker 1: So yeah, I asked in the Django not space discourse server and I was told hey that's a good question. Maybe you can post it in the Django forum to see what people think So this is a screenshot of me asking in the Django forum. Uh and up until that point I had never asked anything in the Django forum and it felt scary, like really scary, because it was like this big public space, like the whole Django community could see my question and could say, Oh, that's a Stupid question. Like that does not happen. It did not happen. People like were talking and it was a really constructive conversation and some people agreed and some people didn't and it was fine. Like it was a Yeah, I shouldn't have been scared, but it it can be scary uh to speak in this like big public spaces. And while there were a lot of people who didn't agree, I think more than uh the ones who didn't, a lot of people did agree and thought it would be um beneficial to the community.

Speaker 1: And so eventually after many weeks and many conversations, a pull request uh to add a pull request template. That's a mouthful to say. And uh after like many many comments and many suggestions, it was merged. Uh you can see it's one file. It's not even code, it's one markdown file. It has forty-three comments. Um And yeah, I wrote this as an example of how just asking a question can cause a positive change. Uh in my personal opinion, this has been an improvement to the contributor experience. And although yeah this PR has no lines of code, I think it's my contribution that I'm most proud of. Like out of all the PRs I submitted. And it just started with me asking a question that I thought, uh, this is probably a really stupid question And if I hadn't asked a question then this wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 1: So yeah, like moral of the story, ask your questions. Uh you don't know, maybe not all your questions w or your ideas will end up with a merge PR. But that's not the point either because even having the discussion in the first place is really I think really great for you and for the community in general. Of course, some ideas people propose don't get accepted and that's also fine, but you should still propose them and ask them. So yeah, that was little like side bar story time. Uh so yeah, after finishing Junganot space um I applied to join a Django contributor team. In my case it was the accessibility team just because that was my interest and what I had mostly been working on as part of Django. space Uh you can apply to join any established contributor team of your interest after you have become a DSF member.

Speaker 1: And yeah, just as a disclaimer, uh you don't need to join a team to keep contributing. Uh you can totally keep contributing in many other ways, uh like yeah, not necessary, um just what I didn't. And yeah after some time I was accepted in the team. And now I'm here. Uh I hope to keep contributing and keep joining team meetings and learning more about accessibility and yeah, still still there. Okay. Accessibility and open source and Django contributions. Um and yeah. Something I think that again I learned is that um it's uh you learn a lot more than just Django on code, right? Uh you learn a lot of things contributing and I think that's an amazing part of it that again I wasn't expecting.

Speaker 1: And just because this has been my contributing journey so far, I'm just getting started. Like I said, really new contributor. Maybe a couple years I can do another talk and I will have more steps and more slides But yeah, basically uh that's what I've been doing this past year or so. And yeah, in my experience it contributing to Django has been an amazing learning opportunity. If this sounds like something that's interesting to you I hope this has motivated you a bit to look into it and maybe think, hey, maybe I could do this and if uh you weren't interested at the beginning of the the talk, I hope that maybe I have convinced you that it may be more interesting than you think. And you learn learn a lot about the inner workings of Django and Django under the hood and all that. Like you can get really into the nitty gritty details if that what you want. But I think more importantly you also learn about teamwork and collaboration and community.

Speaker 1: And that's just as important as like all the technical stuff. And yeah, I hope I have convinced you that you too can start contributing to Django or other Django packages. And I also want to point out that just because my contributor journey looks like this, uh it doesn't mean that yours has to. Uh every person has a different path. that they take and that's totally okay. Uh your journey's your own