Lightning Talks Day 1

Speaker 1: All right. I guess we can get started with the introduction as uh people file in. We've got a couple people signed up to give talks today. Thank you to everybody who signed up. The first thing I want to do is encourage everybody to give talks tomorrow. So if you've never given a talk at a tech conference or online or anything, a lightning talk is a great low pressure way. to get started on giving talks. It's how I started giving talks uh years ago, and it really gave me the confidence to try to give longer and longer talks. I started with five or ten minute talks. Then I got into giving 20 minute talks and then eventually 45 minutes in keynotes. So um yeah, I strongly encourage all of you to um to consider giving a talk. It can, as I've mentioned before, it can be a talk on anything.

Speaker 1: This is a way for us to show our community's wonderful diversity and personality. It doesn't have to be about Wagtail, it doesn't have to be about Django, it doesn't even have to be about Python or programming. I've mentioned a couple times some of the amazing lightning talks that I've seen over the years. I gave one in Cleveland a couple years ago on my guitar pedals. I collect vintage guitar pedals and gave a talk on uh you know how I had restored some of them and put together my collection. Um I've also given ones on ridiculous stuff that I've done on S3 with slides involving nuclear bombs that say bad ideas ahead. So whimsy and a little bit of humor is encouraged, but really anything you'd like to give. So if you like what you see today and you're not giving a talk today, please feel free to sign up for one tomorrow.

Speaker 1: We would love to hear your voices What is a lightning talk? A lightning talk is a talk of five minutes or less. It can be less. I've seen talks as short as one minute. There was one year that um a a a young prison DjangoCon came up and just said, hey, I really need a job. Here's my GitHub. Here's everything I've worked on. Please hire me. And put up the blip on uh on screen. And it turned out Later that year he got a job. So if you're looking for work, it can be a great way to get your name out there and get to know people and what you're into and what you're passionate about. So five minutes or less, I'm gonna call on people in order. I'm gonna make sure that everybody is here. I know that I see Eric and I know that I have seen Aditya.

Speaker 1: I have not seen Brian yet and I don't think he's on, so we'll give him a couple minutes But we're going to get started with Eric. Eric, do you have slides to share? I believe you may be able to just take the Take the uh ball and roll with it. When there's one minute left, I will wave my arms like this on camera and put a message into the chat saying one minute left. I think that's about the best we can do here without interrupting. So without further ado, I'm going to start the timer and uh turn it over to Eric once he gets going.

Speaker 2: All right, can you see my slides?

Speaker 1: Looks great.

Speaker 2: Okay. All right. Hi, my name is Eric. Django Simple Deploy is a tool for automating the initial deployment of Django projects. is starting to work for WCAL projects as well. Django Symphon Deploy is a plugin -based system for automating initial deployments to any hosting platform. Django Simple Deploy gives Django and Wagtail a deploy command. So let's deploy a simple project. This is a sample project running locally. There is no deployment specific configuration in this project. Alright, so we'll cancel run server. And we'll install Django Simple Deploy

Speaker 2: and the Heroku plugin. All right, and we will add Django Super deploy two installed apps, just as you do for any Django project. Commit that. And now we can deploy it. And yes, we want to do that. All right, so if this works, we'll be interrupted in a moment by a working deployment. All right, so here's a big question.

Speaker 2: What if everybody's first Wide Dell deployment just worked? Full version is this. Installing a plugin installs Django Super deploy, so all you need to install is the plugin for the platform you want to use. You add Django simple deployed to installed apps, just as you do with any Django package. You run the deploy command. The fully automated mode configures your project, commits changes, and pushes your project to the hosting platform. It works for multiple platforms. Two of the three main plugins already have basic support for Wagtail. The DSD VPS plugin, which is currently under development, should support any VPS provider you choose to work with. There are at least five plugins I'm aware of targeting additional path providers that are in development. So Django now has a consistent deployment process across many platforms.

Speaker 2: This is what it looks like to deploy to fly. hio , platform. sh, to Heroku, and to any VPS. To support Whitetail, we need to deal with a settings directory instead of a settings file. This is simpler because we just write to production. py instead of adding a conditional block to settings. py We need to set the Django Settings module environment variable, and that's usually all it takes. Django Simple Deploy inspects the user's project and quickly hands off to the platform specific plugin. Work on both sides of that boundary would be easier if course sets a Wagtail project flag. Wagtail often comes with deployment-specific resources, such as a Docker file. Do we delete that for some platforms? Probably, with confirmation.

Speaker 2: There are several requirements for using Django simple deploy in addition to what was shown earlier. You need to be using Git, you need to have specified the dependencies for your project, you need to have the platforms. CLI installed, if appropriate, and you need an active account on the platform. Jengo Simple Deploy provides a consistent initial deployment process. All the deployment-specific configuration is contained in a single commit. A typo, stale doc, etc. doesn't cause your deployment to crash. Ultimately, initial deployment is no longer a sticking point in Django and Wigtail. There's a configuration mode only mode as well. In the configuration only mode, you do each of the steps that automate all would do for you. All configuration is still automated though, so there's a much lower chance of making a mistake than using a manual configuration process.

Speaker 2: So here's what it looks like using configuration-only mode for deploying to fly. io. You install the plugin at Django Simple Deploy to installed apps. You create an empty project on fly, then run deploy. It configures your project, but doesn't commit or push anything. You get to inspect the changes that were made, and you can customize any configuration choices that were made. You then push your project to the host, you run the platform's open command, grab the deployed URL, and open it in a browser So Django now has a deploy command, which means Wagtail does as well. Check out documentation. I'm going to spend Friday morning focusing on Wagtail support in core and in some of the plugins. Please join me if you're interested. And my

Speaker 2: yes, and it worked. And so if this were longer than a lightning talk, we'd log into the admin and see that it's actually working, but it always does. So thank you all.

Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you, Eric. That was fantastic. Second time I've seen it and it was uh it was nice with the Wagtail additions. All right. So uh next up we have Adica on the future CMS, Wagtail at the intersection of human creativity and AI. And I believe you should be able to just share your screen and unmute and take it away. Are you getting the uh S to unmute? There we go.

Speaker 3: Good evening, sir.

Speaker 1: All right.

Speaker 3: Do you have a Oh

Speaker 1: sorry, do you need to share slides or anything?

Speaker 3: Uh no, I just uh have something material to set out. So yeah.

Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead. Whenever you're ready, take it away.

Speaker 3: So yeah, it's all about exploring the vagtail. It's about my lesson experiments and life insights, which I like. I've been using the vagtail for the past one month or so. So uh as a beginner, as a beginner exploring the backtail, I have discovered that even small experiments can teach big lessons. about technology, creativity and life. In this talk I'll share my learning journey with Vactail ideas for the future and ideas for the future, web development, motivational reflex on growth and perseverance and my aspiration to contribute for the GSOC 2026, which is my next aim uh in the future. So uh for the hello everyone. My name is Adity

Speaker 3: Shravastav. I'm a first year uh bachelor 's in technology student here in India And exploring Wagtail for the first time, even as a beginner, I have realized that a Wagtail isn't just a CMS, it's a playground for ideas, experimentation, and learning Today I want to explore share my journey, some early lessons, creative ideas and live insights I have drawn from exploring Wagtail. So as I explored the Wagtail, I noticed a few things that are true for both technology and life Stream fields taught me flexibility. Sometimes there is more than one way to structure content or solve a problem. Accessibility features reminded me that even small details can make differences. In websites and in the way we treat people.

Speaker 3: Experimenting with automated workflows showed me that trial and error is part of learning. Mistakes are just the stepping stones. And even small experiments can teach big lessons if we pay attention. And for thinking beyond the CMS So while exploring Vagtail, I began imagining possibilities beyond traditional CMSUs and beyond coding itself. And uh AI the so the first thing which I went through AI assisted personalization. Technology can guide people, but humans must decide. like what is ethical and meaningful, a lesson about responsibility and about the global collaboration tools. So giving beginners safe safe spaces to experiment reminders that everyone starts somewhere.

Speaker 3: Sustainable web practices. Sustainable web practices. So optimizing the resources teaches us that small actions can have a big impact. And VACTale shows me that innovation, collaboration, and responsibility in tech reflects the principles we can apply in life, stay curious, act responsibly, and always try to make a positive impact. So about the last but not least, one of the most valuable lessons is the power of community. Watching talks and learning from contributors worldwide like you all. uh made me realize that the growth comes from asking questions, uh sharing knowledge and supporting each other. Even as a beginner, I feel inspired to contribute whether through documentation, testing, or in the future

Speaker 3: uh gsoc 2026. Backtail reminds me that small starting small is okay but consistent effort and curiosity leads to meaningful Contributions of my advice to fellow learners is simple explore boldly experiment often and embrace mistakes as learning opportunities. And open source cont opportun communities like Wagtail isn't aren't just platforms. There are ecosystems for learning, growth and impact. I'm grateful for this opportunity and excited for the future and eager to contribute alongside. the global amazing global opportunity. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I love that line about it being a playground for creativity. That was uh that was a wonderful way of putting it. Alright, we have one more lightning talk for today. Megan Voss is going to talk to us about how we got stuck with the QWERTY keyboard. And then I will close up by encouraging more people to sign up for tomorrow. Please take it away, Megan.

Speaker 4: All right, let me get my sharing Sit up here and then we can start the timer. Let me find You know what, let's just do this. Doo-doo. All right. Can everybody see my slides? All right, y'all, let's start this off then. I'm gonna talk to you today about how we got stuck. with the QWERTY keyboard because the what what y'all think it is turns out it's not the case

Speaker 4: So um first of all, like I think most of y'all know me in this room. I am a member of the Wagtail Core team. Uh if you are not receiving the Wagtail CMS newsletter, I'm just gonna point out that it's an excellent resource. great community news. You can find it at wagtail. org slash newsletter. Now first thing, QWERTI is not ergonomic At all. It is actually a pretty terrible keyboard layout when it comes to the health of your fingers. And this is a graph from the Carpal X project, which is a great project that looked at all of the different keyboard layouts and kind of measured uh

Speaker 4: how they compare to when it comes to the amount of effort that you have to put in. And also like, you know, things like the distances and the stroke path and things like that. And as you can see on this graph, QWERTY requires a lot more effort than a lot of the other layouts. That are listed in this graph. Probably the most familiar ones you see here are Dvorak and Colmac. And so it's kind of surprising that we are continuing to use a keyboard that is layout that is essentially really bad for most of our hands. Now, most of my information on this comes from this article here, which is from Smithsonian magazine,

Speaker 4: which looks at kind of the original legend of the CWRT keyboard. So the original like the legend is that the reason why we have QRID is that the different like when typewriters were first made, of course you had to worry about whether or not the different pieces of the typewriter would clash together or not. And so the theory was that the reason we have QRI is it avoided a lot of the common um A lot of the common conflicts in early keyboard design. And that is actually not true at all. So the original keyboard design uh was actually so key the like the keyboard design

Speaker 4: that became popular was originally created by Remington. Which if anybody in the United States is familiar with Remington because they are one of the most common manufacturers of firearms in the United States. Yes, we can thank a gun company for QWERTY And so the um like the reason that Courtney came about wasn't because of a technical reason, it was actually a design decision. Because the original person who filed the patent actually filed another patent for a more improved keyboard. And ultimately they decided not to go with it. And by the time, you know, we were like more generations of

Speaker 4: typewriters were coming out and things like that. Remington definitely started noticing like modern companies do today, that, you know, they were making a fair bit of money off of training people how to type on these keyboards and things like that. They didn't really have any motivation to change the QWERTY layout because they were making a fair bit of money off of it. Um, now you think that that would have definitely affected things when we transitioned to being in a more modern computer situation, uh, but honestly, it just stuck. Uh so yes, we can thank a design decision at a gun company for getting stuck with this horribly unergonomic keyboard. Now for me, like I've had to invest a lot of time in thinking about this

Speaker 4: because I started about a year and a half ago having issues with typing. And I had to go down a long uh journey into figuring out ways to make my body feel more comfortable while typing. And ultimately the outcome that I came with is uh right now I use a ZSA Voyager keyboard that honestly has been the difference between me working and not working on some days. It is an excellent piece of hardware and it's very portable. You can see that photo on the right is actually one I took on the train on the way to Wagtail Space last year. And so I was able to pull it out on the train. And they they've done some amazing things. They're actually coming out with a trackball version this year.

Speaker 4: I'm super stoked about that because that means I can get rid of my horrible mouse positioning And you can do some great things with it. I can add one new demo to it after I uh X out of my slides here, but let me just share a couple resources real quick. Uh this is the link to the Carpal X project. Uh also this is a link to a transitional layout. I'm gonna I'm slowly but surely working my way into the Colmac layout and there's a transitional layout called tarmac that you should definitely take a look at. You can also check out some other mechanical keyboards at ZSA and at Kinesis. And I'll show you just real quickly uh one reason why uh they're kind of cool.

Speaker 4: Um I see Tebow asking a question. Yes, easier to move from one to the other. Tebow's question was transitional layout, making it easier to move from QWERTY to Colmac. Yes, that's what tarmac is. Tarmac is a way for you to kind of transition between them without losing as much productivity. So, and let me grab a spotlight real quick and show y'all kind of my newest uh thing with my keyboard. I now have them mounted. So I actually don't have a keyboard tray anymore. I just have my armchairs and these are hooked onto my desk And it has made a huge difference for my shoulders. I absolutely love it. So stay away from QWERTY

Speaker 4: if you can. Learn a new layout. That's my time.

Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Megan