Natalia Bidart is a developer from Argentina who is the newest Django Fellow. We discuss her background in computing, her career at Canonical, consulting, and getting up to speed on the Django Fellow role.
Will Vincent 0:00
Hi this is Will. Before this week's episode A quick note from our friends at Djangonaut space.
Dawn Wages 0:05
Hey all it's your friends Dawn wages Sara Boyce, Tim Schilling Sara Abderemane, and Rachel Calhoun, calling in from Mission Control to invite you to join Django and Artspace a Django contributor mentorship program designed to help Jango engineers who are passionate about open code and community contribute back to the framework. together in an eight week program, we explore open issues, strategize on execution, learn about ways to get involved outside of code, share and celebrate our wins, make friends and invest sustainably and what hopefully will be a long career contributing as an open source winder.
Sarah Boyce 0:44
So when programming we often agree that it's better to be explicit than implicit. mentoring new open source contributors allows us to be explicit in saying You are welcome, you are valued and you can do this. We lift people up and share out the opportunities we're privileged with. And ultimately, this strengthens our community and Django itself, because it Django, we're a community of caregivers not gatekeepers. If you run into a problem, where we don't know the solution, but we know who does will connect you with the when an opportunity arises, and other circles will put your name forward. We want to see you grow and lead the next group. Django is for everyone, and everyone can belong at Django.
Tim Schilling 1:29
Let's talk dates, best place to learn about them as our website Djangonaut that space. But since I've your ears, I'll tell you that the 2024 session one program will begin on January 15. And will run for eight weeks and end on March 11. Applications will only be accepted until November 15 of this year 2023. Now that date will be here before you know it. So start working on Manal. We'll be sending invitations to the accepted folks starting on December 1. And we promised notify each individual about the status of their application. Best of luck, and we're looking forward to some very difficult choices.
Sarah Abderemane 2:04
Hey, everyone who would like to contribute to Django or third party projects can apply. We expect people to have experience with Python Django and they should be able to commit five hours a week. Hello, everyone can apply. We prioritize folks who come from backgrounds that are excluded, overlooked or have been excluded in the past. This is to help increase the diversity of Jango contributors as it's a framework for everyone created by everyone. If you recognize yourself in this description, don't hesitate to apply. We are also recruiting navigators and captains. If you would like to be part of the program and help future contributors to grow. A key skill you will need is the ability to listen for things going on say. For example, you may have to help them through some shyness or embarrassment. You should be empathic and comfortable asking open ended questions to let them talk. Finally, you will need to support and celebrate jungles providing connection as needed.
Rachell Calhoun 3:15
So have we convinced you yet? You can learn more at Django non dot space and click on sessions to apply for the next cohort. Want to sponsor volunteer or apply but have more questions? Email us at contact at Django not dot space
Carlton Gibson 3:35
Hi, welcome to another episode of Django chat podcast on the Django web framework. I'm Carlton Gibson joined by Will Vincent. Hello Will!
Will Vincent 3:41
Hi, Carlton
Carlton Gibson 3:42
Hello Will.
Will Vincent 3:43
And this week we've got with us, Natalia Bidart. That is the new Django fellow. Hi, Natalia. Thank you for coming on.
Natalia Bidart 3:48
Hi, thank you very much for having me.
Carlton Gibson 3:50
No, we're very excited. We're very excited. So we always, always, always, always start with a backstory and you're the you know, as a new fellow, you're like, Who is this person? Tell us all about you. How did you how did you find your way into Django and where you are now but like on start from the back? What's the origin?
Natalia Bidart 4:08
Okay, how much time do I have?
Carlton Gibson 4:10
Because we've got an hour so go back.
Natalia Bidart 4:14
So I started with computers. I will say at the very late age I was in my 20s there is in our sort of like a cultural and the social environment that I was seeing, you know, it wasn't that common for female to be involved with computers or LDH. The males that were my same age they used to play games, but um, you know, in family games and Commodore computers, but it wasn't coming from female. And because of I will say, lack of encouragement and lack of self interest in that I didn't get involved in computers. And what I did like, during high school was everything that was related to mass accounting, and economy, and I was really, really convinced that I was going to be an accountant. In fact, I really liked the numbers. So, at one point, I said, I'm going to be an accountant. But then I realized that I also really liked you know, organizing things and having procedures for things. So I started know what I want to really study is system engineering. And I started talking with the Department of my aunt, and he was at the moment studying computer science. In a school in Cordoba, Argentina, which is sort of faculty very, is known for, for being very demanding of his students is difficulty when you're so study, mathematics, physics and astronomy. They were recently as of 10 years ago, at the time, he started the computer science career in there. So he was studying that. And he was like, No, you want to study computer science, no system engineer, and I like why. And he explained, and I was like, okay, but I need to study a lot. I need to put a lot of hours and I'm not built for this. And he was like, no, yes, you should try it. So I started my career, I started a computer science when I was 19. And the first years during the career, you will barely touch a computer, we had all the theory about, you know, politics, and politics and logic and mathematics, discrete mathematics, and all that. And during my second year, we started having a little more of computers. And we have this this subject, subject, which was organization of a computer, you know, a little bit more about the different components and the electronic components and things that you can do with that. And it was really funny, because 111 professor say, he was talking about a computer bus, you know, and a bastis, and a bus that and I was like, what is the bus, and he was like, you know, when you opened your computer, and you saw these little gold strips that you have in there, and I'm like, I've never opened a computer, I have no idea what you're talking about. So anyway, he was an amazing, he's sorry, an amazing professor. He explained all the things and I graduated, and I came to love computer science. I was a student assistant, while I was still studying, I was 10, a teacher system when I graduated, and I was for many years. And sort of in parallel, close to when I was close to graduate. I was sleeping for two months in France in Paris to in an internship at the INRIA Institute, is the Institute of Research of informatic research, I believe it is. And when I came back, while I did my my my my my final work, which is called a thesis in Cordova, but it's a work after a five year degree that you studied computer science. And before graduation, I got asked from I got offered a job from a local startup in Cordova, which was called accept, just like, you know, the try accept close, it was accepted. So they started working with Python at the time, this is 2005 They work with soap, and a little bit of plumb because plumbing was just, you know, a new thing. So I already knew some Python very new way, it was very new. So I started working with them, and I started learning soap and a tiny bit of plum. And then you know, they were like startup and they were sort of like a consulting they were selling you know, our developer hours. And they were working with people from the US so the other project that I was involved with was building media management system for church some part of the church of United States where they will be in presentations they will stream during the mass I'm not sure if mass is the right term for for but I think it is, and these media management system was built in it felt you know, the parameter language. Do you know what that is? I felt it fell. I'm not sure how you pronounce it. You know, a few years
Carlton Gibson 9:42
I've not seen that one. Anyway, carry on.
Natalia Bidart 9:43
It's an amazing it's so it's obviously oriented programming language imperative. And it's all the nice theory about programming languages. It's like putting that language but it's not very common. It's not very popular as You can see. So well, I also worked on the programming language. And then the angle was out. It was like 0.9 release. And these startups started using Django for the project. So I started using it as well with them. And well, from then it was, you know, a learning process. And we started using Django a lot. And then the startup had to close because you know, it wasn't working economically, financially. And at the time in 2009, I joined canonical and canonical I joined, do you want to one, team, one to one, right now, it's just the SSL the single sign on service from Canonical. But at the time, one to one was the service that will provide initially file sync capabilities. And then it will also provide music seem sync, sorry, music streaming, content, contact sync and some other features. So I joined the team that was called the foundation's team, we will build the facing server, which was Python and twisted, they went framework that will run on the server, and on canonicals cloud. And then we'll have the daemon that will run on all the tech stuff that will be pure Python, what sorry, Python and twisted, as well. And that will run on all the systems. So we'll be in charge of the team on on the server. It was, I learned a lot the people working in the team were senior or super senior. So I was a sort of like a junior developer still, I learned a lot. And I basically grew from junior to senior senior to senior working with them. It was a very fun experience. And I enjoyed a lot. I was then moved to the one to one dekstop team, where we built dekstop UI for the demon, initially and GDK, which was called the control panel. And then we use spy cute, to be loved. So he also did a little bit of fat by GTK. In pi cute. That was also fun. And very interesting. I learned a lot as well. And then I I enjoy the remote doing server side, not that much dekstop stuff. So I was moved back to our school at the time the online services team. So it was a team that will deal with everything online regarding backend services. And it was so old Python, and perhaps some twisted some Django, and we were in charge of the single sign on service, which was well want to payments at the time, which it was skilled afterwards, and still be in charge of the one to one server services. At some point in 2014, one to one as a product was shut down. The Single Sign On remain and still is being used by canonical. And I was moved to the team behind the package store canonical has had many package stores during the years initially, one that will allow you to upload that packages Debian packages, but not be the usual archives via these custom store provided by canonical where it will be easier to get your Deb package available to users and not needing you know, to go through all the Debian process. And so I was involved in that. And then that package store started morphing. And I believe that's the right pronunciation. That's the right word. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it properly. It morphed into support I mean, kinda like I started developing new for new package formats to you know, share software. So after the depths, it was the click packages. And then soon after, what's the snap packages, which had an initial version, which was very similar to clicks and then a second version, which was completely different two clicks, but but still called Snap, which is what currently canonical offers us as a package format. So easy to use,
Carlton Gibson 14:26
you know, they really liked you to use it.
Natalia Bidart 14:29
I will try to stay away from me. I will try to keep to be you know objective as objective as I can about the topic. So yeah, I was involved in all this morphine the original dango service was was providing the VIP package store morphed into supporting clicks and then in to support the snaps and it was a mess a monster of if everywhere still there. Go. So at some point, it was decided that we were going to try to deprecate this Jango monster, and, and spin off a spin off of many micro services, which weren't that micro sort of like a million services built in Python and flask. So I believe what I left canonical when we needed a half ago, and I think that they're still using a little bit of everything, a little bit of the monster, a little bit of the, the monsters child or derivatives. And but yeah, I decided, Well, during, during my time, in the package store, I became a technical leader and a technical architect of the store. And when I left, a year and a half ago, and was overall, it was a great experience, I learned a lot, a lot, a lot of a lot of things, a lot of regarding technical stuff, developing features from scratch, and then a lot regarding communicating with people being in charge of, of the technical aspect of things and in charge of, you know, teams and how to push a feature forward. And I dealt with, with customers with commercial customers that will use the snap store for for IoT things. And I think that's a fair summary.
Carlton Gibson 16:25
That's amazing. That's amazing.
Will Vincent 16:27
It just the best summary we've had, in doing all our episodes, were just like, we just wind you up and go.
Carlton Gibson 16:34
Well, I also like, though, as well, in that massive, long summary that you've you've, you've touched literally every major Python web framework, you've got Plone you've got so you've got twisted.
Natalia Bidart 16:46
I never used her model, for example, I have no idea. Or pyramid, I believe it's another one. I have no idea either. But yeah, I love to soup.
Will Vincent 16:56
Now it'd be fast. A fast API would be the one now right? Well, yeah,
Natalia Bidart 17:00
I have a tried in pet projects. I haven't used it in anything, you know, serious in terms of stress in it. Yeah, I really liked it as well.
Carlton Gibson 17:11
So can I ask then what attracted you to being a Django fellow or being a Fellow in that role?
Natalia Bidart 17:18
It's a good question. So as I mentioned, I, you know, I have a naturally tend to try to organize things, organize people organize, work, organize features. And at the same time, when I left canonical, I was extremely, extremely burnt out, I was like, I don't want to work ever again. Work. So for me, I was in a privileged position in that, I could say that, and I could decide to do that. My partner was still working. And, and, you know, I was able to say, Okay, I don't want to work for a year for two years, or four or five years. So that was one thing that helped me be in a position that I could choose. Now I can wait. And I can also decide from the point of view of what I really wanted to do. I always loved tango. And I wanted to keep involved with NGO. At the time, I didn't, I didn't, it didn't occur to me to start, you know, contributing to the NGO, that is something that are retrospective, I would have loved to do. In a waste fling, why in a minute, that I started to work in six months after I quit with rough seas revolution system, the, you know, the consultancy, the consultancy, for the NGO services, in it realized how much I love working with the NGO. And then in February, almost a year after I resigned, I saw the opening for failure, and I read the description. And I was like, You need to try it back. You need to you know, keep the order of things, you know, you have to keep the backs in in shape and the PRC shape. And you have to deal with security issues. I also did that. While while in canonical, I was part of a response team when we got our reports of malicious apps and stuff. So well, I can do these. And this is Django and it will be contributing to the anger in the movie get paid to contribute. Yes, I mean, I couldn't see a reason why I wouldn't, you know, send my application to that. And I was super excited and I started gathering recommendation letters from people. And I put together a put together my application and send it in a cabinet position and I was extremely happy. I fell in I feel so lucky, so fortunate to have this opportunity. And then when when I started actually, you know the fellowship If I didn't feel so use useful, but that's not the question that you asked. So I wouldn't get into that yet. This is why I, I this No.
Carlton Gibson 20:15
Okay, but that's you, I'm not gonna let that one just hang. So it's like, it's, it's, it's quite a difficult role, right? There's a lot to it, and it's not. So how do you find starting? How is it like, you know, coming fresh to it and being like, Oh, wow, because I remember that I remember when I started, I was working on rest framework, but I was working on Django, and I was working on some other packages, but I wasn't working on Django, and Django is a much different beast from, you know, maintaining a third party package. And so I had Tim giving me help, I had Marish give me give me nice little comments from, you know, from on the side, I had a lot of people helping me, but I needed that help, too. And it was important to me, so, you know, it took a while to find my feet, how?
Natalia Bidart 21:00
Well, for me, I'm when people I know, people I care about asked me about how are you feeling I am and I'm saying I feel useless. I feel like I'm wasting the DSF money. Why they say mean you're, you're like ideal for this role. And I am like, I use this analogy. I usually use analogies to explain things. And I have this one for for this specific particular situation. I feel like using Django is for example, like driving a car or driving you know, you might know how to drive stick, you might know how to drive an automatic car, you might know how to drive different models, a bigger car, smaller car, a truck, or perhaps a motorcycle, you know how to try and you might have, you know, the longer that you have been driving, you might have more experience, you know how to drive in, in a freeway or how to drive you know, in a small road or a road without any any pavement? Is that the right word? I think. So if you're an experienced driver, you know how to do these things. But Allison, I feel like I need to fix a car engine. And like, I don't know how to do that. I mean, it's like, again, I report. The yellow cable is should be tied to the red cable and it's not. And I'm like, what does the yellow cable to what is the red cable? I don't know, I know how to drive this thing very nicely, but I don't know how to fix it. So all of a sudden, all sudden, I am you know, opening the car. There's not a trunk hood. Yes. Thank you. And I'm looking at the engine in our mind. Okay, I know that this is you know the refrigerant liquid. And I know that this is the radiator. And I know this is the engine, but I don't know anything else. It's like, I can see if a cable is now not connected. But I don't know how to reattach it. So that's how useless I feel at the beginning. I feel like someone with a previous record of contributing to the anger might have been more efficient from the beginning. More useful from the beginning. And in doing these things, I feel like I at the beginning I feel like I was doing everything wrong, you know, commit messages format of things format of doctoring format of I don't know. thief's replies. The choices that I chose on dropdowns everything and while I understand it's a learning process where I have you know conversations with you California and other people you were all super encouraging. And I have learned a lot in marriage was super helpful and other people were super helpful in the community is great. They will never told me you're wasting DDS money. I'm only telling that myself, you know. But yeah, that's basically the situation.
Carlton Gibson 24:02
Yeah, I mean, I remember when I started had exactly, because I wasn't country I wasn't, you know, a patch in Django or two patches in China. That was it. I wasn't a contribute. I wasn't maintaining Django when I started as a fellow I got the role because of my work and the other packages and then you know, first day IWRM ticket Ah, okay, let's dig into the why now? I don't know. And the code you know, we got black these days, but it was rap, you know, wrap this full stop here. You know, the former T I did a PR this week Emeritus, please wrap the comment to 79 cars. This is years later. Like, yeah, it's just like that. It's just like,
Natalia Bidart 24:44
I know, but still. I was coming from a leadership position or technical leaders leadership position. I was coming from a position where I was very comfortable. And I was very sure of the decisions that I were making off the things that I was making well As someone come to me saying, how should I do this? I always have the answer. And I was very confident, you know, all of a sudden, I find myself in a very uncomfortable position where I feel like I don't know anything. So that's a personal challenge, you know, there's some things that I need to work on and that I need to, to adapt to. And again, all the people surrounding me has been nothing but supportive. So yeah, it's more of a personal learning, actually. And I embrace it. It's great. Yeah.
Carlton Gibson 25:30
Super. And just from the outside from one, watch what you do, and I'm just like yet knocking out the park every week. So super.
Will Vincent 25:39
Let's talk about like a security bug fix release. What was, you know, because that would be one of the early things you would do? What was that? Like? Like, how do you do it? Right.
Natalia Bidart 25:48
My first security is going to be tomorrow.
Will Vincent 25:53
So I guess I saw your I saw your announcements, so that were this will come out a little bit after but yeah, that'd be October 4, when it comes out.
Natalia Bidart 26:00
Yeah. So well, right. Sorry. It will be October 4, which is tomorrow for me. So the second release that happened since I started being a fellow Wow, was a security release. And that was already the assignment because we have one month each fellow. So one month me and one month, Marius. So in May, it was Marius turn, and there was security release. So he said, Okay, we should, you know, screenshare and I will walk you through the process. So he did all the things. I took all the notes that I could. But he mentioned that at the time, I didn't even make it a regular release myself. So I took a lot of notes of things that I had no idea what were they and what was part of a security release, and well wasn't part of a security release. And is everything super relevant? Where can I messed up, you know, this process? And, and I didn't have the view yet. Anyway, I took a lot of notes. And then it was sort of like a faith thing that I didn't have a security release during my term. It was like, on the month, I was like fingers crossed. Security issue. We were coming up. We were having security, you know, our reports. So we will investigate, we will agree. The whole security team will agree you're not on a path forward. And what the decision was this not a security issue. I was like, Yeah, because next mitre but last month, last month, there is September, we have this report. And and actually I say I mean, so for different reasons that I cannot discuss yet. This needs to be a security issue. So I said, Okay, this is going to be the month that I'm going to the security release. And we'll see how that goes. But I'm not sure if you want to propose another question. Or if I can just build on top of you.
Will Vincent 28:05
Yeah, build build. Okay.
Natalia Bidart 28:07
So I think that you said how is it like, you know, lit releases the minor releases and the main releases. And this is a little bit of a follow up of what I say about how I feel being a fellow. I still feel so since during the first few months, as a fellow, I felt extremely frustrated for the things I already shared. And I was working actively towards reverting that, you know, I talked to people, I tried to focus on things that I felt I was adding value to No, and that helped a lot. And but since then, and still, I sort of have this really like I'm I'm always a little bit behind of things. You know, some sometimes my use Mesa call me like, yeah, right now we're in this part of the process. And I'm like, Oh, are we really? Yeah, I try, you know, I'm like, ruining the train from behind. And I always barely catch it. I think I'm still catching it. But I'm in for the alpha release. I I will be super honest. And this is I think the why of what I'm going to say is it's a mixture of different factors and things. I wasn't quite I didn't quite understand what was to be a release manager at the time. And I wasn't quite I didn't have a clarity on what I I had to be doing. Preorder the alpha release. In retrospective i It's hard for me to forgive me, myself. forgive myself for not having that clarity in that. I mean I know, I know, it went well, I know that it's a learning process. But now, you know, with with information that I have right now, I felt like I should have been taking care of new features a little bit more actively than I did. Prayer. They are fabulous. I did have the clarity. And now I know. And I mean, when when Mario's mentioned this allow, I was like, Well, of course, this obvious what I didn't think of is this sooner. So you know, I started putting all my energy towards that. And but yeah, I'm gonna feel it. The answer is, I'm always a little bit behind of things. And I'm just catching up all the time. And I try to do my best.
Carlton Gibson 30:46
I was follow it. I was following for five years. And I always felt like that, like, it's just how it is. And an alpha release is just the hardest thing in the world. Like, it's, there's so many moving parts, so much to do so many bits that aren't automated and difficult to work out exactly what you have to do from the checklist, and where are the things that you just have to do it? Several times, it's a learning process. And I just think, wonderfully, like you just, you know, everything, everything about it just went really smoothly. And you know, you because you're in Argentina, like you've time, so it's well behind, but like, you know, you put the release out, and I didn't know whether it was gonna get that day or the next day. But you know, when I woke up in the morning, it was like, you've got, you've got obviously got it out, and you're late your afternoon, and it's just super and glitchyness. So I just Anyway, keep saying the same thing. You're doing a great job. And it's just lovely to hear your experience, because it's just mirrors mine. Exactly. It's like it's just, you've got that feeling. I never ever ever got away from that feeling like an alpha release is just
Natalia Bidart 31:49
now I need to be worried. Am I going to feel like behind? But
Carlton Gibson 31:54
you're, you're a much more solid professional, and I am you'll be you'll have it all down in no time at all.
Natalia Bidart 31:59
Well, thank you. I think we're both very solid professionals, and maybe in different ways, but
Carlton Gibson 32:04
okay. Well, welcome to the
Will Vincent 32:08
so I've heard Carlton mentioned, but for you. Are there any particular features or new things in five Dotto that you're excited about? Or that were challenging? Like, you know, being on the inside? What was that? What was you know, what's your perspective?
Natalia Bidart 32:21
I have like a mixed feelings toward that. The answer to that question, because I have like two things. One thing is the one that I was the most involved with. So I started to grow, you know, some some, I was very fun to the thing that I that I invest in, this is something that Nick and Tom started, which is, you know, supporting dictionaries for choices in model feel. Choices, because we already had and make sense of things. So supporting dictionaries as as any mapping for the finding choices, that is something that is new. And there was a lot of work put in that and I push it to the final line in, in that feeling of you know, completing something, and having that merge was was amazing. So I have this special place in my heart for that feature.
Carlton Gibson 33:17
God, I just want to say that that was a great finish off because that PR was sat there for a year and a half or two years while it was sort of just bumbling away of all this is really hard to finish. And you picked it up and took it well over the lot. So yeah, well
Natalia Bidart 33:29
in then with Nick's work, he took the normalization of choices to the next level in his PR. So with that work, groundwork in place, he was super easy to provide support for cannibals for modal field choices. So you can now define your collateral for for that, and that is something that is a user as a driver. Of course, I have wanted for a long time, because I have concrete use cases for for that. So that's one thing that I really appreciate about the release. And then the other thing is, yes,
Carlton Gibson 34:10
good. I just wanted to ask them that Did did you result How does that work out with migrations? Because one of my sort of bugbears? I know we had a half conversation, but I didn't follow up quite how it finished. But one of my bugbears is you change the choices and then you get a migration. It's like do I really want a migration for this? I don't know how did that wrap up? So
Natalia Bidart 34:27
are you familiar? I just got familiar with are you familiar with how the color will default is defined in migrations for a modal field? You can have a callable for the default. So basically,
Carlton Gibson 34:39
it's the callable path, it's the whole input path for the Yes,
Natalia Bidart 34:42
so basically, so I mirror that. When you define a callable for a default, what you will get in migration is the actual import path of the function or method that you're defining for that default argument. So the migration see serializer already had all the machinery in place for saying, okay, so this is a function, I will do the magic necessary in order to serialize this into something that works, the only thing that I needed is on one hand to say on the model M, than when you have a choice. In the deconstruct method of a field, it was really important, you know, to be sure that the choices was returned in the deck, this deconstruction result as the function itself, because for supporting dictionaries and the normalization of choices, Nick sorta uses a wrapper around functions for very specific reasons. So we need to unwrap that into provide a function in the deconstruct module. And then the other point, which was a little bit parallel thing, but it was a nice thing to have. One of the use cases for having collaterals for choices will be to have, you know, computations that might be potentially expensive, either CPU, CPU bound, or E are bound to be cash. So you might use the cash decorators from the Python standard library. So if if you use those, the serializer, for migrations will fail, because you will not see the function as a function, you will see the specific type that is returned by the cash decorators of Python. So we added support for that we actually make the support for that. And that just worked? Does that answer your question?
Carlton Gibson 36:36
It does, because I think I can change the implementation of my function without generating a migration. Brilliant. So that's what I want.
Will Vincent 36:45
So yes,
Carlton Gibson 36:48
sorry, that's a deep dive there. So what was the second thing?
Natalia Bidart 36:53
The second one, yes. The other one that I really, really like I wasn't involved in nor in discussion of a feature, not a discussion of the design, not in any of the reviews. So I might get as more details wrong, but you know, having the compound fields where you, you're able to, I love that. I mean, I have many projects that define the user full name as a property where you combine the first name and the last name, and you know, all this logic, whether one of the two is empty, and you will not have space in between or the order or whatever. And being able to define that as a as a field. I mean, I think that's amazing. That's just I was,
Carlton Gibson 37:36
I was thinking about it today that ties in with the, with the lookups. So I had a, I was looking at enumeration, and I've got a property which picks it is it is it one of one two, or three from the enumeration. And to have a, you know, a generated field that had that all, you know, the other option is to have a lookup, which encapsulates that logic just makes your code a lot cleaner, you know?
Natalia Bidart 37:59
Yeah, absolutely. And in the past, I have tried to work around this, the lack of this feature, which is now available, by having either annotations on the overriding the default preset and having annotations in there, but that will not provide the same attribute name at the instance level. So if you just forget, you will not get, you know, the same attribute calculated attribute on the instance. So you will need a property, but the property cannot be named, they will the same string that you use for the annotation. So I love that feature. And of course, I mean, the the DVD falls, I think that's great. I haven't had the specific need myself. Actually, I think I have I haven't given enough thoughts on how the feature score could solve the challenges that we have I have had the professional level, you know, when Matt when adding columns, to big tables, so I'm pretty sure that there's a benefit there. But I haven't, you know, put in the time to thinking about that. But I'm sure that I know that that's an amazing and great feature. And it was an enormous effort from the people involved into getting that in. So I think that's, that's also amazing. Yeah, I
Carlton Gibson 39:21
mean, both of those tickets were open more than a decade, right? Yeah. Yeah. So not non negligible. can just step back there. Can I ask sort of, have you got a take if you've got a thoughts on like, despite the fact that Django is really old, that these massive new features are coming in? Sorry, what's the question? I missed the question, do you have a take on like, you know, despite the age of Django that these,
Will Vincent 39:47
I suspect it's around how do we communicate this to other people like right on the inside, you see it and you work with it, but people on the outside, don't know how active and vibrant Django is, as opposed to other frameworks that are 20 years old. than pretty much dead?
Natalia Bidart 40:01
Yeah. Okay, that's a good question. And my answer might be a little bit wider than the question. But there are some things that I think that are relevant for that. For example, I have this colleague from Cordova that were just visiting Cordova during September during spring break. Because this spring, in this part of the world, and you know, I got together with some people from from the university years and imprints, and I said, like, I am super happy, I just released alpha alpha one for Django for the world. Okay, so they asked questions that I didn't quite understand. But then I realized they were asking, what's the feature that drove the release of 5.0. Like, instead of, of knowing that there is a release cadence that in the releases are going to happen with whatever features that are made it in, they thought that the decision of were releasing, a big new major version is based on Okay, we have these set of things that we want to accomplish, and only when we get this ready, for example, say, so we want to provide a sink across whole stack, so we're going to work towards a sink, and that will be the angle six. So some people think that when there is a major release is because there is a specific feature that was planned, developed and completed, in order to, I will say justify about I think that's a third term, justify the release. And I'm so no, no, no, this is something that is planned and everything that gets in, it's there. So I mentioned, you know, many of the things, but I think that there was that confusion. And I sensed that this also might be unfair, a feeling of disappointment in that response in that, you know, like, then why would I go to Django five? If there is nothing like concrete, the specific that I can say, I'm growing now younger, five and has this thing. And I was like, you have all these other things? Yeah. But if I don't meet them, it's like, well, but so it was like an awkward conversation in those terms. Of course, but I feel like, perhaps communication in that front is something that could pay off. You know, I'm not sure how, and I've been thinking about this thing about communication from the demo community to the hanger project as a whole. And I'm stuck a little bit in in things that are not working, I could list things that are not working by the half contract proposal to make that criticism constructive. They only have criticism right now, another thing that's fair, more sorry, my position.
Will Vincent 43:04
I mean, this is this is something we always ask guests, you know, if you could, you know, be in charge and wave a wand, what would you change? I mean, for me, especially as a, as a content creator, dealing, you know, I'm beholden to the release schedule of the dot O dot 1.2. And then the next thing I think it's, I would love to revisit that decision. Because I I often hear people don't assume that there's some major thing. And it's just Nope, it's whatever made it in on time. And we have an LTS policy. But people assume rightly, that five O is like, this huge, huge thing versus for two, and it's not always the it's often not the case. So you know, for example, like what Python does pythons on? Three point 12 just came out today, that'd be a lot clearer. And it makes people feel like they're not so far behind. And it would clear up a lot of confusion. But I think Sony was if I could wave a wand, my in my top five is changing the version numbers for sure.
Natalia Bidart 44:06
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think this will be I don't know. 4.6. You will be way clearer. When compared to find out zero.
Will Vincent 44:18
Okay. Good. violent agreement all around. Yes.
Natalia Bidart 44:21
And then Regarding your question about the magic wand.
Will Vincent 44:26
Oh, yeah, please. Yeah.
Natalia Bidart 44:29
I'm digging myself into a hole here.
Will Vincent 44:33
But this is, you know, this is what this this is one of the things about the Django community is that, you know, it's there's online chatter, and then there's Django cons of people can go, but there is, it's not often that people can just have a conversation about it. And, you know, I think others might feel the same way.
Carlton Gibson 44:52
Before you say you you imagine what I think the communication point you've made, I think, you know, we can just acknowledge that we've I think historically we've not done On the best job in communicating, and that's, that's okay. But you know, we've done other things really well. And you can't necessarily do everything, right perfectly every time. But
Natalia Bidart 45:10
so the this thing that bugs me is that I, during the I must almost 13 years of canonical and we use jungle in why we kept an eye on releases and security releases because you know, we were running servers running Django, so we needed to be very mindful of that. I mean, again, this is like a shared responsibility. But we didn't have any visibility or have news on the anger. And we maybe didn't follow the anger on the right channels, perhaps Twitter or thing or or our news feed. But it's like, I never got this trigger that will prompt me to think, Am I following Django in the right channels. So with other things that I it's not that I don't care about, with other things that are less important to me. It's like, I guess the I get this, you know, reminders that are there. And I get to decide whether I want to know more about these things or not. With younger, it's like now that I am super involved, I see a lot of things happening. But I had this feeling and the sad, absolutely subjective measure that I'm going to provide, I don't know, only 10% of the people using Django get access to this stream of information. And I will say 5%, I don't know, I feel like from the whole users of Django, a very small subset is getting to know all the things that are going on. Yeah,
Carlton Gibson 46:49
absolutely. Right.
Natalia Bidart 46:50
With issues with features, with releases with the help needed with. I don't know how to contribute how easy it is or how not easy it is how they can you know, come in and help. I mean, it's fair that anything that you do, actively requires in time investment, and not everyone has it, and I can speak for myself regarding that. But then there is also no lack of lack of lack of information. And I really am not sure what to suggest to do differently. Because I don't know, is it like buying Twitter spots? To turn or to advertise tango? No. Is it? I don't know. Having YouTube pay time to advertise single? No, I don't know. I don't know what it is. I don't think those are. But I would like to see more prominent Django things happening in the tech flow, a tech war sorry, of information. And I don't see that Hymas
Carlton Gibson 48:01
talks about homos that DSF President has talked about, it's one of the four things that the DSF is meant to do is to promote the usage of Django. And perhaps that's the one that's been left. Historically, you know, no blame to anybody, but there's just won't be left at this times point from he made in Porto is Django con, your talk now is that, you know, there's one thing that DSF could do, maybe not, you know, the current board and the current structure, it would need some thought as to how that would happen. But B to actually promote Django more, you know, try and sort of shout from the rooftops that actually, it's really cool. And there's lots of progress. And, you know, there's new features and
Will Vincent 48:39
well, yeah, well, there was a panel at Django con Europe on this, this this year that Haim was at? And the problem is that's work. The problem is that, you know, and we've, we've made this point before, but the DSF is kind of the only body place that people think can decide things, but it already has his hands full. And it's it's just seven members, ostensibly one hour a month. So, you know, working groups. I mean, the point I made in that in that panel, and it's part of why I stepped away from the board after three years, because I don't want to I want people with new energy to come in is that we need you know, we, we probably I think we need an executive director or someone in a paid position to do all these things and maybe decide because people have lots of ideas, but we're all busy and it's hard. You know, a lot of these things are real work. So part of the Django news newsletter, which I do with Jeff Triplett from reps This is to fill that need. And because being on the board, I could see that there wasn't anyone really to do a newsletter. And then even if we did like to say I started an official Django newsletter. Well, I wasn't going to be on the board indefinitely, then that becomes part of the basket of Django things that have to be done right, just like new code features as a fellow like you putting the onus on future people so much the way we have third party packages, that's sort of to me how I think of the Django news newsletter, how I think of this Django chat podcast. But it's, I can attest, both of those are real work. And I think, you know, Django like for example, do you think Jango could benefit from a third fellow? Would that, you know, would that speed speed up development? You know, like it? Absolutely,
Natalia Bidart 50:27
yes. But more so. And it's something that I keep thinking, and it was a, it's a recurrent thinking, and he was something that bugged me at the beginning. I wasn't sure, I mean, how to prioritize things, there is so much to do, how do you prioritize things, when when I was working on in a commercial environment, it was sitting, I had a manager, and we have very clear, you know, goals. So it was very easy for me to prioritize things and get to the different things in an order that I felt added value to, to the ultimate goal. And I could leave, I could lead people in order to you know, follow the that those priorities and and add value, I could make suggestion or choose a few things, but it's solely like this ultimate goal. Being a fellow I sometimes, you know, think okay, I should change the release our documentation. So you know, only thing that you said, Carlton, about, what are the three, the alpha release tag, which are securities, so I will do a complete refactor of that, and having, you know, even checkboxes or a template that you can copy and paste and have somewhere else, and you can click all the things that you did automate things, we can automate, like, a lot more of what's already automated. And then I Okay, but there are a lot of tickets, three tickets, trials, a lot of open PRs, in a feedback to community members contribute, I think, is super important. Because if you have someone putting in time to provide to try to contribute, and you are not acknowledging that is engaged in providing feedback, that is not only waste not wasted time, the time that the other person put there is not been valued in the sense of having value from that. But also, you know, perhaps that contributor discouraged get discouraged about continuing contributing, because they feel like they are not getting you know, enough attention. So there are many things that can be done. And you know, and perhaps, you know, thinking about a proposal, how to communicate better, writing more blog post, I write things and try to publish in the different channels or No, seek more opinions about how to communicate, where would you like to see come in a news about Django, but then as a fellow, and I'm also part time as you work as one, what do I do first? Where is the most valuing? I mean, how do I decide and I don't have a manager? I mean, there are good reasons for that I'd have a manager or someone you know, to, to brainstorm what I discuss for knowledge, of course, but it's unclear where the money is best spent, I don't have that answer. And I would love to have it with another fellow, maybe they could be. Maybe this is just me. Like, I don't know, rotation about writing content, where content is not you know, content, like the the marketing word, word, but more like, going through the recommendation, fixing sample, automating things, fixing dogs, specifically for for, for developing Yanko for listening. And the other two might, you know, devote to triage and tickets and reviewing prs. And, you know, making that a round robin thing if, or maybe someone enjoys doing something more than others, or feel that they are more value, maybe go in that direction? I don't know. I think that's something to evaluate, if possible, at all. But
Carlton Gibson 54:04
I think I think one thing to take out of everything you've said is that there's just more work than the fellows can do. And so, you know, one thing that if God said, Oh, well, the fellows could do it, the fellows could do it. The Pharaohs could do it. No, they couldn't, they literally can't take on more work than they've already got any more than the board can. So if we want these things to change, it needs to be people from the community coming forward and helping to offer that that work. And even if that needs a bit of input from the board or input from the fellows, it can't be like, Oh, well, you know, we've got these this structure, and that takes care of an infinite amount of work. No, it barely copes with the work bits already got it. It does a very good job. And it keeps going and Django is super stable and has all these wonderful monthly releases and all the rest of it, but there is a limit to what's doable with the resources we have in hand now. Yeah,
Will Vincent 54:53
well, but that's why having fellows with different backgrounds is so important because you bring different things decisions, you know, get really the fellows, I think have a much bigger role than most people realize, right? I mean, it's, you and Maurice are contracted for time. And it's like, here's this pile of work and, you know, go for it, right? Like, you can get individual feedback, but there is no manager, it's, it's really on you to decide those things. And yeah, it's a bigger role than it seems from the outside for most people. Yeah, I will have
Natalia Bidart 55:27
to have someone say and guiding towards priorities. But I understand. I mean, I understand the struggle. So far, I have been focusing on enabling the community to do things. I mean, trying to do this, you know, seeing that the machinery works, trying not to put oil on the on the on the gears that are not working properly. And I'm trying to focus on that, because I feel that that aspect adds value, even if I don't know the internals of the RN, and I cannot do clever things with DRM. Yeah, I think that, yeah. I think Fela will surely help. I'm not sure if that's feasible, though. If you
Carlton Gibson 56:05
needed if what really wanted input, you could ask reach out to the steering Council or the fellowship committee or, you know, other people. And you know, that there are a lot people who would apply. I think
Will Vincent 56:18
it's herding cats a little bit, though.
Carlton Gibson 56:22
Yes, it is.
Natalia Bidart 56:24
Thank you. Yes. I mean, in a way, you see, I'm not imposing in that way, but a little bit, you know, trying to find answers that perhaps hadn't done or not there, and how people think of things that
Will Vincent 56:41
ask for forgiveness, not permission, right? Yes.
Natalia Bidart 56:44
So I've been going with that. Motto. And yeah, I've been trying, you know, to do, from my point of view, what is the most value whether I do this or that, and I will try to follow that. That, okay.
Carlton Gibson 56:59
For me, one of the great rewarding things of doing the filler, Rob was that it was very autonomous and very, you know, you've got to choose, and you've got to make those judgments. And you were trusted to do so. And, you know, so you have to you have to repay that trust by good faith. But that, you know, over time, that was like, Yeah, okay. You know, really? I found that really rewarding. I don't know,
Will Vincent 57:23
I think what, I know, several members of the steering Council, for example, feel I mean, of course, most of the people there are in lots of other roles within Django, but that specific body is not, doesn't do much. You know, I've maybe I can talk offline with you, you know, I think there's the car like, while we had these elections, and here we are, and, you know, it's kind of like, unless there's this like, really antagonistic thing. That body, for example, isn't doing a ton. But yeah, but it all comes down to a community thing. That's one of the challenges, how do you make things happen, but it's also just, you know, again, that Django has a third party package system, I think I, in marketing, you know, the newsletter with the podcast, like, we can adopt that mindset, and no one's gonna stop you from doing the work. And then over time, either it's put into Django or it's not, but it can still be useful. I mean, it's one of the things I thinking about Django that's astounding is that our conferences are volunteer run, like that, like no one does that, that I'm aware of, like, especially tech conferences, which often are a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of work and a lot of money you have to deal with. And that's something that DSF deals with trying to help Django con US Europe now, Africa. But it's, it's almost an astounding thing. Like what you have a conference of hundreds of people in a different location. And it's just like people in the community do it. Like out of the goodness of their heart, because that's, you know, speaking of real work, that's crazy, real work. That has to do to do one, let alone. So yeah, but it's communication. There's so many things like that within Django, translation teams, all this stuff that just people aren't aware of. And yeah, how do we communicate that? I don't know.
Natalia Bidart 59:12
Going to see you and take a call yours.
Will Vincent 59:14
Yes. You're going to be there? Yes. Yes. I think Carlton's staying home. No,
Carlton Gibson 59:19
I can't make it this year. I've had something of a year and I'm going to take the autumn off but hopefully next time you come in you can we get to Django con Europe next spring.
Natalia Bidart 59:29
They will I mean I'm currently planning around that around that in that positively start okay. I mean yeah, yeah.
Carlton Gibson 59:39
Well, if you make it there, I'll definitely be there. So if not the next
Natalia Bidart 59:43
with the family. We love Spain. And if we can we're going to call with a family so yeah, it's not I would try to be there.
Will Vincent 59:53
I'm just gonna say one thing at the Django con is at no we're pretty close to time is that there are these Sprint's at the end And, and one of the proposals that has been coming around, is there a way to have sprints outside of the Django cons, you know, either online or dead, you know, dedicated weekends. And that seems like things like things momentum is building around that as something that would really help the community. And yeah, just say that as a positive thing, we've listed some maybe negative things, but that's a very positive thing. And I, I expect they'll be more conversations at Django con us around actualizing. That idea. That's
Natalia Bidart 1:00:31
good. In fact, the I have participated of Django sprints many years ago, more than 10 years ago, in your in all locations, it was at the end of sprint, in the context of another event, for example, in Argentina, there are these PI camps, which are really camps around Python. And we got together in very nice places, which are not with tents, but with, you know, with, with with housing, and we call in for three years, and many times have been, you know, like a group of people interested in Django, we have done Django sprints. And then the first PyCon us that I went to, which is in Atlanta in 2010, I went to the Django sprint that was run inside within the Python sprint. So I think that's also something to consider, you know, organizing general sprints in the context of a bigger thing, because he may help.
Will Vincent 1:01:31
Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's a it's a thing that happens in other frameworks and languages. So it's not us inventing, reinventing, inventing the wheel, it's reinvent, whatever, you know, I mean, it's some doing something that is already been invented.
Natalia Bidart 1:01:43
Yeah, okay. Yeah.
Carlton Gibson 1:01:45
Okay. I think we're, I think we're up to time now. So Natalia, is there any? Well, we've got you, and you've got the you've got the mic? Is there anything else? We didn't call out? Anything you want to say? Or, you know,
Natalia Bidart 1:01:57
we had an urgent that to discuss inclusion, which is a topic that I'm very passionate about. Actually, I'm giving a talk in general con us about that topic. And I will not discuss that in this in this space, perhaps in the future. But that will be that will be great. I think it's it's important to discuss and then reflect and keep bringing it up. Okay,
Carlton Gibson 1:02:28
well, Have we got time to do it now or not? Well,
Will Vincent 1:02:33
I Well, I think he's tired. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Maybe after, after it comes out, we can have you back on and have a link to it.
Natalia Bidart 1:02:41
Right. I mean, I think that will be great. Because after the talk, if all goes well, I hope we will have you know, perhaps more concrete material that we can grow and discuss. We could have I have been preparing the talk and have already, you know, live in a lot of things out of the talk are compressed topics that we can you know, dig deeper. So some Yeah, maybe after.
Carlton Gibson 1:03:08
Let's have you back on after January con. We can talk about that. That would be amazing.
Natalia Bidart 1:03:14
Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you very much for the invitation. I have really enjoyed talking to
Carlton Gibson 1:03:19
you know, really good talking to really good.
Natalia Bidart 1:03:23
And so looking forward to see you in.
Will Vincent 1:03:26
I know Yeah, that'd be exciting. That'd be so exciting. And I will
Natalia Bidart 1:03:30
see you next year in Europe. Carson in some way or another. Yeah, one way or the other. One way or another.
Will Vincent 1:03:37
Yeah. Well, we are at Django chat.com. That's where to find us new episodes coming every two weeks and we'll see everyone next time. Bye bye. Take care. Bye bye.