Django Tales: How Django and Its Community Can Change Lives by Anna Ossowski

First of all, thank you everyone for coming to my talk. Um hello or hello like we would say in Germany. But since we're in Texas, I'm just gonna say hey y'all This is supposed to be a cowboy boot. I wasn't able to find a Texas flag emoji. So if someone wants to make one for me, that would be awesome. My name's Anna Osofsky. Um actually Adam asked me how do you pronounce your last name and I told him I'm just gonna explain it because a lot of people asked me. It's Polish and it's actually one of the easier Polish names. So it's not Osowski, it's Osowski. Okay, I'll tell you more about myself later. And before I start talking, I'd like to thank DEFNA, the DSF, the PSF, and everyone who contributed to our diversity

program. It's because of this diversity and financial aid program that I'm able to be here and talk to you today. So thank you I'm here today to share some Django stories and tell you how Django and its community can change lives. My talk is split up in two parts. In the first part, I'll tell you eight stories of eight amazing women who um Started learning Django and got involved in the community and whose lives were changed by doing so. And in the second part, we'll take a closer look at the Django community itself. Okay, let's start with the Django stories First, I'd like to do a little survey. Now who of you have heard of the Your Django Story interview series on the Django Girls blog? Who of you have read some stories?

Who of you read all of them? Yes. Okay, we have to work on that. And last question, who of you have been featured? Hands up, Adrian. Oh, you're going to be featured. Okay, okay. Sorry, sorry. Okay, awesome. Okay. Now those of you who haven't heard of the interview series, it's on blog. jjangogirls. org. I'd highly recommend that you check it out. I feature one woman a week and I actually just published a new Django story this morning Um, sorry. Some of you may wonder why Django Stories, why this interview series. So we started it for a couple of reasons. The number one reason was we wanted to show that there are a lot of awesome women in the community who do who do Django that some of you may never have heard of.

And the second reason is we wanted to show that there are so many ways which can lead you to rec to a career in programming. You don't need a computer science degree, you don't need a boyfriend who's a programmer. You can start now and learn and be great in it These are all the women we featured so far. There are sixty-five of them, and there are a lot more to come We started the interview series on September 8th, 2014. So tomorrow is actually the Jango Story birthday, which is pretty cool. If someone wants to make a cake and bring it tomorrow then So let's get started with the individual stories.

So this is my friend. Oh, please keep in mind that I just picked out eight. There's a lot more. So if you feel inspired, please check out the blog So this is Dory, and Dory was one of the first Django Girls attendees who got a job after attending a workshop. She's from Budapest. and she studied psychology and philosophy and after finishing her degree she didn't really know what she wanted to do. But she was interested in digital humanities, so one of her friends recommended that she uh look at the Udacity website and she started teaching herself coding. She then applied for the Rails Girls Summer of Code, but she didn't get in, which she was really upset about. But she got into the Django Girls workshop And after the workshop, she went home, she quit her job, and she started

teaching herself cutting full-time And after speaking about Django Girls at a local meetup, she was invited for an interview and she scored her first job. This is what she wrote on Twitter. Doria has now been working at the company for almost a year. She organized two Django Girls workshops in Budapest. She's very involved in the local Python community and she coached at four Django Girls events. And I think she's the first person who coached, organized, and attended a Django Girls workshop. And this is just one example of how Django Girls can turn women not only into developers, but new community leaders. Dory 's actually not very interested in Django itself.

She's more interested in pure Python development. But here's what she says about the Django community. She'd want to be part of the Django community even if Django sucked. So it's all about the community and I actually talk to people all the time and they tell me you know I don't attend these conferences because I'm particularly interested in the code. I come here for the community Next story is my friend King Ress Dory. King Rest from Poland. She just moved to Scotland last week while she'll study computer security and forensics. And like Dory, I met Kinga in Berlin at the very first Django Girls workshops. And I can say it's because of Django Girls that I met my two very best friends.

We travel together, we organize workshops together We chat pretty much every day and Kinga organized two Django Girls workshops. Last month she organized one in her hometown, Krakouf. And her mom and her grandmother applied to attend the workshop and got in. Her grandma actually broke her arm and her leg, so she couldn't come, but she really wanted to And her grandma said her biggest motivation for attending a Django Girls workshop was to show people that you're never too old to learn something new, which I think is really, really awesome. And yes, I do believe we can call that one of Kinga's biggest successes when it comes to Spreading the love of coding. Kinga also wrote a really great article last month for Model View Culture.

If you don't know Model View Culture, Please check it out. It's a great tech online publication. I've written for them before as well. Her title was How the Glorification of Software Developers. uh compromises tech companies. It's such an important topic, so please read the article. Who of you have read the article? Yes, great. Awesome. When I asked Kinga what she loves about Django, she said that the community is friendly and open to new learners. Oh, and actually I've been trying to convince Kinga for almost a year to do an interview for our interview series, and she was always like, no, I don't know enough Django, my story's not inspiring, I'm boring. So three weeks ago she finally agreed, so please tweet her and tell her that you'd love to read her story

so she actually commits to it. This is Adrian. Adrian, can you wave? She she's here. I met Adrienne uh on Twitter and at at Pi Tennessee in person where we were both speakers. And Adrienne's a professional chef by training. And about a year ago, she started teaching herself coding and started her blog called Coding with Knives. where she teaches where she shares cooking recipes and talks about her journey of learning how to code. So please check it out. It's awesome. And a few months ago, Adrian did something very brave. She quit her job at a local Atlanta University where she worked in administration because she wanted to concentrate on coding full-time. And since then

she's She gave two talks at DjangoCon Europe. She speaks at Pi Atlanta. She took on the organization of Pi Ladies Atlanta. And she's organizing Django Girls Atlanta, which is happening at the end of September. And they're still looking for coaches. So if you want to help out Please get in touch with Adrian. Oh, and Adrienne also has a tradition. Whenever she comes to a conference, she'll bake yummy vegan cookies. And I think she baked some yesterday. So if you want cookies, keep an eye out for Adrian. And Adrien told me that she loves about Django, that the community is open to welcoming people of other professions. And I can only second that. This is Andy.

Andy's also here, I believe. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. And um Andy's programming career started when her dad discouraged her from starting a career in science. Andy was into video game programming, then she was into 3D animation, and she ended up studying graphic design and then changed her major to web development, I think. And uh during and after college, she had several jobs as a PHP developer, front-end developer, and Python developer. And this year, Andy organized two awesome workshops in Mexico, which were a huge success. And at the same time, she started teaching herself Django. And after only three months of experience with tutorials, she scored her first job as a Django developer, which is really, really cool.

And then at the Django birthday party, Andy gave her very first conference talk about the mysterious Python community in Mexico. And with the help of Jeff Triplett, she scored her she she just scored a job in Salt Lake City where she works as a um Django developer, which is really, really cool. So I do think it's safe to say that Andy definitely proved her father wrong. Andy also loves about the community that it's approachable and friendly and she told me that she's really happy that she switched from PHP to Django. This is Erika. Erika is from Slovenia, and after high school, Erika went to beauty school and became a hairdresser. And after working in that job for a while, she then sh

switched to sales, which she didn't like, and then she started working um at as a social worker for a project which helped young drug addicts find their way back into society. And during that job she would always teach them Um, I want to do fill in the blank with what you wish to do in life and I'm willing to work hard to get there. So she decided to practice what she preached and she f went back to school She had to finish two degrees and at the age of 27 she enrolled in college to study computer science. And after college, she got involved in the Jengu community And she works as a Django developer and she's very active in the community in Slovenia. Here's what Erica says.

I think that statement is really, really powerful. Django would have never reached its heights if it wasn't for its community. It's almost like Django is a software framework And the Django community is a framework for the successful tech community. I think that's something we can be proud of. This is Sylvie. Sylvie is an economist by training. And she worked in the field for eight years, and last year she started burning out. She didn't really like her job anymore. And her family actually has a pretty strong back of tech background. So when she was 12, she started teaching herself coding for a while until she got distracted by other things. And so at the end of September last year, Doria and I were organizing Django Girls Budapest, and Sylvia applied and got in

And she was so inspired that each day after working for eight to ten hours, she would come home and start working through Python and Django tutorials. And she did that for a while, then quit her job and just started volunteering for the community. And um She's now super active in her local community. She organized a second Django Girls Budapest edition. She's on the organizer team for Django Con Europe, which will be held in Budapest. And three weeks ago, she was offered her first job as a Python developer. And keep in mind that she only started with Python and Django in December, so I think that's pretty remarkable. Sylvie also says that since Django Girl, she hasn't only become a developer, she's become strong and brave

too. And she was really surprised when she entered the community that people were helpful and willing to explain things at no cost. because apparently in the economy community people will only really share knowledge in exchange for money. And this is Jordan. She's the newest Django girl And professionally, Jordan works in social media, but she says her dream has always been to become a Disney princess. That's what she says. She says she just modified it from wearing a crown to wearing a suit. And she wants to work on the corporate side of Disney one day. And Jordan

attended the Django birthday in Lawrence, and she said that changed her life because she realized that coding was more than just changing some numbers and letters to make some box appear. And Jeff Triplett then point then encouraged Jordan to start learning Django. And she's now working through Hello Web App. and learning HTML and CSS along the way. And her goal is to build a Disney character search website. I think that's pretty cool. Um When I asked Jordan what she loves about Django, she said Django has a personality, it's welcoming, it's helpful, it's contagious. It's the first part of this coding world. that didn't feel like numbers and letters and incomprehensible data on a screen to me.

And Jordan lives in Lawrence, Kansas. She was to work for the Lawrence Journal World for the past three years where Django was born. So she thinks it must have been fate. Okay, now I told you all of these great stories. So I think it's time to talk a little bit about myself. I don't like talking about myself, but it all has a reason. So Okay, so I got a degree in English and theology, and after finishing my degree, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. But I had a friend at that time who was a Python developer and he was always very enthusiastic about Python and the community. And one evening I just asked him out of the blue, do you think I can learn how to code? And he was like, sure, everyone can learn how to code. And he gave me

uh the link to the Python Code Academy tutorial and that's how my story with code started. Um I was always one of those girls. I liked math. I liked problem solving, but I wasn't as great in it as great in it as I was in English or humanities. So clearly to me and my family my strengths weren't in science. They were in a different field. But I really like coding and I decided to give it a shot. So I went to um PyCon last year, then I went to EuroPython. Um what else did I do? Then I I gave my first conference talk at Pi Tennessee this year. I'm the DSF Grants Chair. I was I became a director of the

Python Software Foundation. I run the Yorjango Story Interview Series. I'm the leader of the PyLadies Remote Group. I was recently ordered offered a job to work for Eldarion. And I'm not telling you this to brag about myself at all. I'm telling you this because it would have not happened had it not been for Django girls and the Django community and so many people helping and encouraging me. So thank you everyone And you may think that going from an anticipated career in to uh from English and theology to a career in programming might be a little weird. I thought so too for a long time until I watched the Django Birthday Talks. Two in particular. There's the one by Andrew Gutwin, The Django Conspiracy, and one by David Ryan, born in the LFK.

And I discovered that there's a little bit of a Django conspiracy in my own story. So this guy is Langston Hughes. He's an American poet who was famous in the 1920s during the Harlem Renaissance and in the last year of my college, I spend a lot of time with Langston because I wrote my thesis on him and guess where he grew up in Lawrence, Kansas. So maybe me discovering Django was fate as well after all. So all of these girls I think are superstars to me and I find their stories to be so inspiring. And some of those stories may sound like fairy tales, but there was actually a lot of hard work and how do hard work involved in all of them. So I think these stories prove that Django can definitely change life

change lives and has changed a lot of lives, including my own. In order to keep the interview series going, we need your help though. So there's only really two criteria you have to meet to participate. You have to be a woman and you have to work with Django in any way. It doesn't matter if you work with it professionally or just build websites for fun. So if you are an awesome woman and would like to do an interview, please get in touch with me. Don't be shy. All your stories are inspiring. Or if you know of someone, please um please reach out to me as well. Okay. So we've seen that the Django community definitely Definitely played a big role in all of these stories I presented to you. So let's take a more in-depth look at the Django community itself in the second part of my talk.

What even is the community? So COLIN says communities have standards, values, and rules. That kind of defines the community. When we look at the Django community, we have standards, values, and rules as well. We have For example, contribution guidelines, we have rules when it becomes to becoming a DSF member, but we also have values like diversity, friendliness, respect, being welcoming. considerate an understanding, which we documented in the code of conduct and the diversity statement. But if you look at communities, there's something that all people of a community have in common. So what do we all have in common? It's pretty easy. We all love Django. Whether we love the code or the community, there's something we all love about Django.

So let's take a look at what's really awesome about Django. Why Django? You heard some answers in the first part of my talk. If you're interested in reading more answers again, check out the interview series But I also asked on Twitter, and here are some of the answers I received. And a lot of them are pretty similar. And just to sum it up, people like the excellent documentation, they like the code of conduct and the willingness to enforce it, and that people are welcoming, friendly, and supportive. So let's do a little survey again. If I would have asked you what's awesome about Django, who if you would have given the same answers? Yeah, that's quite a lot, so I guess that that's accurate.

Um have you ever heard people say, I came for the framework, I stayed for the community? If I who of you would say that's true for them? If you look at your own Django story, who of you would say it's true for them? Yeah. And Andrew actually told me that he um He didn't really do Django and then he was asked to do to write a Django book and he told them well I'm not gonna write a Django book before um I don't like experience the community and he told me he wrote the book for the community. Okay, so I think we all agree that there are a lot of things that are awesome and that that Django does right, but Now comes the butt, like Lynn said this morning, we're not done yet. There are things we can do better, so what are those things?

I asked on Twitter again, and here are some of the answers I received. And I like to take a closer look at two of them. Contributing to Django is not beginner-friendly. Having a few beginner-friendly books with mentoring included would help. I was a little confused when I read that statement because people talk about how beginner friendly Django is all the time. And then I thought about it for a while and I did some research and I tend to agree with it So what what I did is I went to the Django Project website, I clicked on Contribute to Django, and when you do so, you find a bunch of information. uh sign up for IRC, sign up for the mailing list, um how to contribute your first patch. But there's something missing

which is really crucial. We don't have mentor information We had speaker mentors for DjangoCon. Why don't we have code mentors for the Django project? Think about it this way. One evening you decide I want to contribute to Django. And then you start working on your first patch and you get stuck and you need to ask someone a question, but you don't want to ask the mailing list, you don't want to ask on RC. because you don't know the people, you don't know if they're friendly, you don't want to sound stupid, you don't want to waste their time. I'm like that. I hate asking questions in front of a bunch of people So you don't ask a question and then you don't finish your finish your patch. And that way we might potentially lose contributors. And I think there's an easy way to fix that. It's much easier to just ask one person and we could easily fix that by adding mentoring information to the website.

I then had a look at the easy pickings. There were five of them at that time and they were all unclaimed, which was pretty good, but there were other times when I looked when all the easy pickings were claimed and they were still all hard to me. And that's one reason why I haven't contributed to Django yet, because it's still hard. So I think if we had if we would save the easy pickings and had mentors who could w walk beginners Through the steps of contributing your first patch or fixing a bug, we would gain a lot more contributors And uh someone else said that Django should offer more opportunities for sponsors to give back so that Django can grow faster and better. And they didn't mean that sponsors should give back by

uh giving the Django project money, they meant that sponsors should um let their employees work on Django for free. f for a couple of hours a month. So if you own a company, give your employees some time to work on Django for like, I don't know, half a day a week, a day a month I think that's a great idea. Next improvement, let's take a look at our core team If I count it correctly, there are currently only three women on the core team. For a long time, there was only one woman, one woman on the core team, which was Karen Tracy. I think we can do much better than that. On my slide you can actually see 50% women, and I think that should be our ultimate goal.

So how can we achieve that? If you went to PyCon this year, Guido gave a keynote and he said he would personally take the time to train two women to become Python core developers over the course of the next year. If each member of the core team took some time to mentor someone from an underrepresented group, we could reach that goal in no time. Also, I would like to propose to change the name Core Team to Support Team or something else. Django Girls did that recently, and I think it Mm it meant a lot to me and I think that change made a huge difference. So if you look at the core of an apple, the core is kinda like the heart of the apple which helps the apple grow. But we all do that for Django.

We all help Django grow in some way. So we're all part of the heart of Django. So why do we only call that small team of people core team? I think we could by changing the name that it would be a lot more accurate. So let's start thinking about that. I would suggest support team if you have a different idea. I'd love to hear from you. Next suggestion. I would like the DSF to open up their membership and I actually already proposed that to them So so far we only have two membership categories. There are the corporate members and there are the developer members. And the corporate members are members because they Donate to the DSF and the developer members are appointed in recognition of their contributions to Django

And I don't like systems that appoint people because I don't think those systems are very open. Because it's awkward to nomin your to nominate yourself And even those people that I'm friends with, I'm not sure if they're uh DSF members, so maybe I wouldn't nominate them and someone else wouldn't nominate them and so they will never become DSF members which is unfair. And in our diversity statement we say we are well we welcome everyone. So a logical consequence for me would be to open up membership. The PSF did that um a couple of months ago, I believe. And what they do is that everyone can become a basic PSF member, which means you don't have voting rights. But everyone can um sign up to be a contributing member, so you have to agree to the code of conduct

and self-certify that you contribute to Python or the T PSF for at least ten hours a month. And if you if you look at yourself, I'm sure there are a lot of us who contribute to Django for way more than ten hours a month. So let's start thinking about that. I would also again like to propose to rename developer members to just members or contributing members because I think it's misleading Because not all of us are developers, we don't all contribute code, but we all contribute to the Django community in some way. So I think we can find a better name for it And sometimes it's kind of like you have the developer members and then you have a different membership category. And it's kind of like that if you're not a developer member, you're only a second class member.

So I think we should really change that. Next improvement. Sometimes things become political in open source communities, and that creates barriers to contributions. I have not experienced that in Django yet. Some of you may have experienced it, but I have have experienced it in a subcommunity of the Django community, and that led me to feeling very unwelcome and thinking about leaving that project and only contributing very little nowadays. So sometimes what happens is that people create a project And then they open source it because they kind of want people to contribute their time to make the project bigger, but what they sometimes don't want to do is to listen to people's suggestions and that doesn't work.

And I don't think we really want that to happen. So I think we shouldn't only we do a lot We have a lot of initiatives that bring new people to the Django community, but I think what we what we should really concentrate on is keeping those people that are already community in the community that we should make sure that they actually stay in the community. There's a pretty easy way to do that. Just listen to people and make sure that you actually hear them And there's a big difference between listening to people and actually hearing what they have to say. So when someone makes a suggestion, you should acknowledge the problem, thank them, seek help, and see how you can improve things. And I'm not saying that you have to do everything that people suggest, but just make sure that you give them the feeling that you hurt them and yet that you think about it.

So if you decide not to do it, at least take the time to say, hey, I hurt you. I thought about your suggestion. I don't want to do it because, and then tell them the reason. And the reason shouldn't be no because I said so Okay. Oh, and I also want to point out so um I think you should Treat your contributors as friends, not as employees, especially if you don't pay them. And I think that sometimes happens And I think it's really, really important that we try to be kind to each other because you may be the founder of a project, but if what if it wasn't for a lot of other people contributing, your project wouldn't be what it is today Which leads me to the next point.

Money. We should really start talking more about how we can fund open source projects like Django more sustainably. And Russell Keith McGee he opened the conversation about this in his PyCon Australia talk. He's giving the talk again at DjangoCon. In Corey Benfield, he wrote an excellent excellent article about it. So if you have time, watch Russell's talk and read the article. And I just want to point out that this is not about people getting rich from um contributing to open source. This is about creating equal opportunities because All of us who are able to contribute to open source, we have the time and money to do so. There are other people who need to put in those hours at their day job to make money to make a living. So by paying people, we contribute

we help them contribute to Django or other open source projects. And like Corey says, it turns out that time and wealth are disproportionately possessed by the young white middle class and male. We really need to change that. So how can you help? Of course, if you have the financial means, it would be awesome if you would contribute to initiatives like the DSF DEFNA Django Girls or the Django US and EU financial aid programs. But there are a lot of things you can do which don't cost any money at all. First thing which is so important is just be kind. If you're walking around DjangoCon and you see someone looking kinda lost Or sad, just walk up to them, introduce yourself, ask them, do you want to come to lunch with me?

Do you want to go to the next session with me Just be kind, smile, tell them they're awesome, tell them you appreciate their work. Kindness is so easy to achieve and something we so often forget. The next point is encourage people Encourage people to start learning Django, encourage them to submit their first patch to Django, encourage them to submit a talk proposal, even if they think they have nothing to say and you think they do Encourage them to come to a conference with you. If it hadn't been for so many people encouraging me, I wouldn't have done so many things. I wouldn't stand here, I wouldn't be on the PSF board, I wouldn't Be involved with a DSF, I wouldn't work for Algerian. It's all about encouraging people. Help connect the dots

All it took for Jeff to do was to guide Jordan in the right direction, give her the right resources, and now she's learning Django and she's super motivated. All it took for my friend to do was to tell me, yes, you can learn how to program and to give me that one link. If he had told me no Anna, I don't think programming is for you, then I wouldn't stand here today. If someone's looking for a job and you know someone who's hiring, just connect the two. It doesn't take a lot of time and effort, but it makes such a huge difference in someone else's life. Be a mentor. This is Baptiste explaining something to Kinga during the Django Sprints at PyCon. A lot of you may know Batiste, he's awesome. He holds the record when it comes to coaching at Django Girls events. And

he's an awesome mentor. And I believe that it's every expert's obligation to spend their time for help to help beginners. If you think about it this way, when you started learning Django, there were other people who knew more than you. And those people helped you and they took some time to explain things to you. And that's it's because of those people that you are where you are today. So I think you should spend your time to volunteer and help other people. Just start giving back. It doesn't have to be a whole day, just an hour a week is enough. I'll give you an example. So my friend Ian, I met him at Pi Tennessee. He lives in Wisconsin. I live in Germany, so there's a seven hour time difference. And each Wednesday he gets up an hour earlier, so we can pair

program before he has to start working. And it's working really, really great. I know that I can ask him questions. He doesn't make me feel stupid and he learns because I'm asking questions. So mentoring isn't only super rewarding, you'll also gain great teaching skills. And one tip I can give you the best the first step to being a good mentor is asking a lot of questions Don't assume just ask. Ask your mentee, do you know that? Don't assume they know concept X and Y. Just ask them, do you know that? And that way you'll give them the opportunity to say no, because if you assume that they know something, they might feel uncomfortable to say, oh I'm sorry, I don't know that. So just ask questions Same goes for beginners. If you're a beginner, ask lots of questions.

Nicole Harris says, asking questions isn't just about helping yourself, you're also teaching the community. how they can better help beginners. If you don't understand, then your teacher, the community, the docs need some improvement. It is not a reflection of your intelligence or ability to learn So by asking questions, you help the community. You help us understand what we need to do better. So I can only encourage you to ask lots of questions. And my final suggestion is to organize a Django Girls workshop in your town or to coach at a Django Girls workshop. If that's something you like to do, I'd love to chat with you about it. I promise it's a lot of fun. Just to give you an idea of Django of what Django Girls has achieved for the Django community in the past year. This was Django Girls in July 2014.

We had a workshop in uh Berlin and oh Sorry, and in Australia, and this is Django Girls in May 2015. But you know there's still a lot of space left on the map So consider organizing a workshop yourself. Here are some stats from last month. There were 26 upcoming events, 54 past events, almost 5500 applicants, over 1,600 attendees total in 37 countries. So Django Girls has been really successful, but in order to keep on growing, they really need your help. That's all I have for you today. Thank you so much for listening and thank you to everyone who helped me

And thank you to everyone who's helping other people in the community. You're all awesome. I won't be doing a Q<unk>A because I prefer chatting to people in the hallway track. But I'll be around all week, so please tweet me, come up to me. I love to chat with you. So now it's time to say tschüss like we would say in German or goodbye in English. But since we're in Texas, I'm just gonna say bye y'all. Thank you and have a great rest of the day. Enjoy Django Khan.