Sarah is a British developer based in Germany who is a member of Django’s Review and Triage Team. She is also a co-organizer of Djangonaut Space, a new mentorship program to onboard and develop Django contributors.
Will Vincent 0:05
Hi, welcome to Django chat podcast on the Django web framework. I'm Will Vincent joined by Carlton Gibson. Hi, Carlton.
Carlton Gibson 0:11
Hello, Will.
Will Vincent 0:12
And we're very pleased to have Sarah Boyce join us today. Welcome, Sarah.
Sarah Boyce 0:15
Hi.
Will Vincent 0:17
You have sort of quickly become like an indispensable figure in the Django community. Tell us about yourself. You know, let's How did you? Let's, as we always do, let's start with the origin story. I believe you studied maths and university not programming? Yes, correct, correct? Yes. And then how did you find your way to the Django space? And then we'll just go from there.
Sarah Boyce 0:41
Okay, so yes, I did a maths degree. I wasn't on the traditional computer science route. I did have some computer science courses. I enjoyed it. But I also have my internships were in banking. So I did that and decided I don't enjoy it very much. And when I was like, What can I do that is anything else. And I ended up being a project analyst in a consultancy, that is in automotive data. And there was a lot of Excel work involved in being in there. And then anything that's involved with Excel has a variety of VBA, kind of around it. And I was then kind of not intimidated about playing around with things like that. And they had a, like an internal team who were managing those tools. And there was a position that opened up to join that team, and I joined it. And so it was predominantly VBA tools at the beginning. But they also had a internal website, which had all of their timesheets, and their personal development, and all this kind of stuff. And this was a Django web application. Which was maintained mostly by this team. And then they kind of decided that web development was more fun than making VBA tools. And so then it progressed, that we were predominantly doing Django web applications. And that was my introduction to everything in that space. And yeah, and then eventually, I've moved on, I moved on to another job as a back end engineer, also Django, but this time, so previously, it was always like a full Django with Django templates. But at the company that I was at, up until very recently, it was Django rest framework, and react front end. And then yeah, now moving on to
Will Vincent 3:05
what I have to say in the in the hierarchy of degrees where someone says, Yeah, you can figure this out. I think philosophy if you don't like numbers, Carlton, and then maths, math is pretty much at the top like, because they're both, you know, the articulation of patterns.
Carlton Gibson 3:18
We often talk on this show about people who are self taught programmers versus those that did a CS degree, and like, like self taught programming, and so they've always got this little sort of, you know, impostor syndrome thing about how they didn't really do CS but CS grads have that about maths. Like maths is to say yes to CS is to sell to a program.
Will Vincent 3:39
Anyway, I'd like CCS, chemistry, physics, maths, I think.
Carlton Gibson 3:45
It's like, yeah, oh, yeah. Did CS Yeah, I did maths.
Will Vincent 3:49
But I mean, I, I've seen this even hiring people. It's like, oh, they don't have like a formal background. What other physics or math? Yeah, they'll they'll figure it out. Yeah. Well, so what was if you recall, what was that like? So you just jumped in feet first. And because you were coding on or helping on a real project, as opposed to having time to do sort of Kitty projects was really able to learn from your colleagues. Were there resources, or is it too long ago? Or do you remember that like, sort of, Oh, my God, what is what is Django? What is web development?
Sarah Boyce 4:19
I think it's a really unusual team, because everybody was the same. Everybody was pretty new at it. I would say everybody had not done a computer science degree and everybody was learning on the job. And so we all had this very similar pathway. So it was a combination of really great because we were doing like real applications straight away. But there's still a lot of imposter stuff in it because we knew we didn't have that kind of confidence of somebody who's been around In a few more places, and that misplaced
Will Vincent 5:02
confidence, yeah.
Carlton Gibson 5:05
confidence of a bloke.
Will Vincent 5:09
Yeah, confidence of a mediocre white guy. I mean, I was just talking to my, someone I know quite well, this weekend who's a Django developer and he was saying, like, oh my god, he works at a company that jingo code base. And he's like, it's one step away from being on fire. And we wish we could bring someone in and make it better. I was like, that's there. Everything is like, open source, open source is not but everything else is. But there's, that's the same feeling. You know, even you know, he's got years of experience, there's always like, Well, someone must know. But like, you know, Carlton, what does it feel like Carlton ought to know? No
Carlton Gibson 5:38
idea, every app I ever worked on was duct tape everywhere. That's, but that's okay. I was gonna ask you about so you, you know, working with Excel and macros and VBA and all these things. And so what about engineering practices like unit testing? And these other? You know, how do you teach? In that, you know, what was your exposure to those kinds of practices?
Sarah Boyce 6:00
Well, exactly. So this is kind of part of the reason that it's, it was missing, because in VBA, you don't really have unit tests or this kind of stuff. It's very much. And I do think it's an interesting thing, because not only were we looking after tools that we had made, but we would also be dumped with tools that other people had made. And there's sometimes these kind of math man in dark room crazy thing that they've created. And it's got obviously no tests, and it makes sense to them. And you have no idea why it's doing this. And it opens up an email at some stage, and it does all sorts of things like it can open up Internet Explorer and click around and then add in a, say, and without any tests.
Carlton Gibson 6:55
The entire business is run on it.
Sarah Boyce 6:58
Yes. Um, yes, everything is important, like all of the reporting is somehow coming out of this tool. And, yeah, so some of these practices that now it seems madness to not have, it, just it just kind of wasn't there. And we did get there. But some of those lessons were card learned.
Carlton Gibson 7:25
i Okay, but that's the best way to learn them. Right? You may be agile scars, that you
Will Vincent 7:32
it's like children, Carlton, right. Like no one listens to you until, you know, they like get a boo boo.
Carlton Gibson 7:38
Don't stop me on that.
Will Vincent 7:42
I just see the same pattern everywhere. And maybe it's because yeah, you're just someone has to either really want it or have something bad happen to, like, impress upon them that like no, this is actually matters. I
Carlton Gibson 7:55
was when I was a junior one influential comment that was made to me was like, why are you why are you really, you know, speaking to a colleague, are you really diligent about writing the tests, and they're like, Well, I can either write the test, or I can open the browser and manually click around in the application to make sure it was working. And I'd much rather do that.
Will Vincent 8:17
So let's see, I want to we have a whole long list of things to talk about. Maybe we
Carlton Gibson 8:22
currently no segue there, though. But so you. So you know, with that background, you obviously did learn all the testing, because you turned up on the Django issue tracker, and, you know, make massive, massive contributions. And you clearly have all the engineering chops and all the good practices and all those things. So, you know, there's a there's a pathway.
Sarah Boyce 8:43
I mean, it's interesting, because part of the I think part of the reason that I really wanted to jump into open source and to Django was because of this lingering, imposter, jittery feeling that you have. And back when you had this belief that there are real developers out there, and there are people who are kind of pretending to be it somehow. And you want us to get rid of that feeling and establish yourself as someone who is legitimate and not somehow faking, don't build into this role. open source contributions have this thing about them where it makes you sound or feel like that you kind of know what you're doing because you are confident enough to do it in public and that other people can see it or, and all sorts of other reasons, I suppose. And I, I wrote this goal that I wanted to try and do some, any open source contribution and then ultimately, a contributed to Jango with kind of my, I don't know, like a stretch goal kind of thing. And it took some time for me to actually get there because whenever you open it open track up, it took me some time to, I guess, find a process that works for me to find tickets that I felt like I could pick up. But then once you get there, then then it starts to become like, like a job where you can figure it out, and you've got a routine and, and your setup, and then you can repeat it. And but yes, I appreciate that, especially with things like Django that tests are essential, and that it couldn't function without the quantitative test.
Carlton Gibson 10:58
I think good thing, people come up with these issue requests, and they're like, you know, can I change this? And you're like, well, let's change that and see what breaks and there'll be half a dozen tests that break and then there'll be a PR that added them and there'll be a ticket discussion that was to why that's the way it is. And then you say, Well, no, we can't do that. Because of xe without the test suite. It just be impossible. It's 3000 or something on tests. I don't know how many there are.
Sarah Boyce 11:21
I checked, it was 16,000 tests.
Carlton Gibson 11:25
There's quite a few more than I just said.
Sarah Boyce 11:34
Yeah, it's a bit crazy. Yeah.
Carlton Gibson 11:37
I always say when they do sorry, well, I did in the contributing to Django workshop, I've run a few times always trying to say to people, look, it's not about two hours, we've got workshop, it's not about getting anything necessarily done. It's just getting that taste of a ticket and getting enough into a ticket to see that you could understand it, and that you could offer something back because people feel intimidated. Does that resonate with your experience? Yes.
Sarah Boyce 12:03
And I do think that I am seeing this pattern, again and again, with some people. And you can tell that it is a person who is not sure, because they will ask for validations and permissions quite often they will ask for permission to to look at a ticket. They'll be like, oh, is anyone working on this? Can I pick this up? The answer is always yes. But you and I did the same. My first comment is going, Oh, can I work on this? Is this allowed? And and then there's people who are saying, you know, I've had a look at this. And I think it might be this and this? And it's a question. I was like, Sure, maybe it might be? Why not. And I think having that confidence that to be honest, if you at the start, you just need to write a test that validates either the new feature or the bug that you're trying to fix. And then if if you've got all the tests passing, it works in my opinion, and then you just need someone to go through it with a fine tooth comb and make sure that it it is following all of the style guidelines and any other kind of ideas and stuff about it. But yeah, well,
Will Vincent 13:29
so that experience, there's well, two things and you can pick which one. So maybe Jenga, not space. So what is this new program that you're actively involved with that we will have a link to that sort of trying to, I think, mimic and have help others go through that journey you just described without doing it in the dark?
Sarah Boyce 13:48
Yes, exactly. So there have been a few people who've been pushing for mentorship in in Django for for some time, and Django is already involved in Google Summer of Code. And there are perhaps some other initiatives that Django is involved in. But this idea of Jango having its own mentorship, program or idea around it or support space has been something that a lot of people have wanted. And in the last Django con us I wasn't there a conference, there was a panel discussion around I think it was called the future state of Django or something like this. And mentorship was discussed there, again, and there were two people there who are organizers of juggernaut space. They basically founded it pretty much after this discussion. And they are Dawn wages and Rachel Cahoon. And yeah, they just kind of decided that everyone's talking about it, why don't we just do something they did. And they also acquired Sara abdomen, I think fairly early on. And they started having some ideas and progressing it. And then there was a point about six months ago now probably where myself and Tim Schilling kind of got involved and we have helped start with this first program. Now, what is the Juggernaut space program? So the concept is, we take about six to eight Janga knots. And that's the term we're using for the participants of the program. And they will be assigned a navigator. There's a space theme with this quite heavily though, the navigator is someone who has experience in the Django contribute code contributing space. So they are familiar with track and the review process and can give some kind of tips and tricks and guidance. They don't need to know everything, no one knows everything. And they don't need to know all the nuts and bolts that somebody could ask anything on any ticket, and they would know the answer of that. But then we also have a role of a captain and they are kind of our pastoral support. So they kind of give this personal touch and community element of the program that we have in Django and hope to bring that to the participants. So and part of this is also to try and share the responsibilities out as to what we hope would make a positive experience that it's not just down on to a couple of people, and that we can hopefully have more ownership across a few people, and then that will make it a bit more sustainable. And
Carlton Gibson 17:16
I think there's just been my experience with Google Summer of Code is we've, it was always very, very hit and miss in it always has been very good. We've had some wonderful successes, you know, absolutely wonderful successes, you know, the JSON field, that sage did, who's now working on wagtail, and the Redis cash back end. And you know, the list goes on and on and features that have come out of Django, Google Summer of Code. But the mentoring has always been our sort of weak point in which you know, we'd have a mentor, and then if somebody was active, and they contribute, you know, that would work. But then if people were struggling, we never really had that support network. And I see what you're doing in Django. As Jane Austen spaces are really good. Like, you know, there's there's a, there's a, there's a discord, there's support, there's check ins, there's these different roles, this pastoral and the mentoring, I just think it's a wonderful initiative. I think everything about it is just, you know, really well considered, and being implemented just wonderfully.
Will Vincent 18:14
Thank you. We're trying so hard. What is that strike? Is that structure of marketplace, right? Because again, like that, that panel, which, Carlton I think we both were on that as well. I mean, that's not a new discussion. And it's, you need someone to say, oh, right, like, you can mentor like, oh, you need help, and just do all, all the work to put it together. Because it's sort of invisible work in a way, but it's challenging and necessary. Otherwise, people just talk about it and don't do it.
Sarah Boyce 18:45
I think that's another thing that I've gained from being part of this. And I feel like that's something that each of us who are in the organizer space, but hopefully, we're encouraging that from other people that at the starts, it was very much like, oh, we have this idea. Who Who do we need to get permission from to to do something here and it can very easily be that you end up not doing anything at all because you perhaps you don't quite get the validation that you want. And there's been I think, a number of times where people have had really good ideas and then I think they were hoping that it would might perhaps get adopted by by some authority. And when I say some authority, the default is probably the DSF kind of thing. And I think with this it's been a nice proof of concept that if you want to try something out, like you would a meet up right if you if you want to do a Django meetup, you don't need to get approval to To do this, you can just set it up. And I think we can do this for four different initiatives in the community that you can start with something small and validate that, that there is a need for this or there is some value that you're bringing here, and then grow it from there and get more support as and when required. And I think that has been a really validating experience that when you say, you know, what kind of like, you are the Django community, the community is you so you can do things if you want something to happen in the Django community, that that's something that you can do so, and I think that's been very powerful.
Carlton Gibson 20:53
I think especially over the colleges, that DSF, the DSF board doesn't have capacity to take on another thing to take to be the driving force behind something they can, they can put a rubber stamp on things if that rubber stamp is necessary, but short of self organizing working groups, materializing which this is kind of like a self organizing Working Group who've put together the DSF just doesn't have the kind of the audacity and impetus to get things moving. It was because they're just, you know, there just isn't that. That power there. I
Will Vincent 21:27
mean, that's this is the strength and weakness of Django and open source communities is it's it's a democracy in a way, like would be nice if someone just said yes or no to things instead of. And I think on the code side, it's not clear until you get into it. Like who do you ask who, who has permission, and not that anyone has permission, but you know, there's maybe a half dozen people who, you know, Carlton, being one of them, who can kind of push things in the right direction if they need to go. So the default is, oh, there's this thing called the DSF. And I recognize now especially not being on the board that they're, when you're on the board, you're so busy doing stuff, you don't spend a lot of time communicating, like what the DSF is like, what do they do? What do they not do? So this, it is this higher power, but the reality is, it's supposed it's a volunteer position, it's supposed to be one hour a month. It's not. But it's, and it's really not about code itself at all. It's really just if you come with a fully baked thing, and you want funding or you want approval, they can do that. But they're not going to provide that other support that, you know, people would like. Sorry, no, you're like your first ticket, right? Can I work on this? It's like, Can I set up a mentoring program? Like, sure, you can, like, do it?
Sarah Boyce 22:41
You don't need some kind of auto approve bot? That's
Will Vincent 22:45
why I think I think, I think it's, yeah, it's a communication thing. I mean, you know, it's a big reason why we have this podcast is because, you know, I'd never been to Django con and suddenly, like, almost everyone, it seemed, who I'd seen online, was there and was, you know, approachable, and was like, Oh, wow, like, I wish I'd known about that. And then, you know, that feeds into as well, the newsletter. So there's the Django news newsletter, that Jeff triplet, and I run and that you've talked about your contributions. But you know, Django itself doesn't have a newsletter, now, why doesn't have a newsletter? Someone has to do it. And I can attest, it's a lot of work to do a newsletter. And it's just everyone on the board already has more than they can do. And so, you know, maybe at some point, it can be merged in. And if Django in quotes, wants to take it on, they can. But you know, there was a need with Jeff and I thought to, to have this. And what one of my favorite things is that you then just approached us and said, Hey, like, there's all these updates happening. And it's really been interesting, because, you know, talking to Carlton all the time, he's telling me how like, excited he is about Django and how active issue trackers, but unless you're looking at it, you don't know. And so now this updates, the Django section, it's like double digit PRs a week, oftentimes, and new contributors, maybe some maybe, to you like, what was how was that from your end to adding this new feature? Because right now, we just give you permission, and you basically, Do this, do this section, which is amazing. You built that trust, right, that triage team, like I met you at Django con Europe, I forget what the timing was. But, you know, at the end of the day, like we're not we're not dealing with lives here. You know, it's like, you can always revoke someone's permission. So surgery.
Sarah Boyce 24:31
Yes, see. And it's true. There's so much work that is going on with Django all the time. And I, sometimes I wonder whether there's because there is like a narrative of a story that sometimes we adopt, and I've heard that and a case so sometimes track is called the fire hose, for example. And I think there is so much more to Django in like a positive, empowering space where different people are coming up and contributing quite fantastic features. And also even the first time contributors, it's not like there aren't that it's very rare occurrence. It's every week that somebody
Will Vincent 25:29
that has really jumped out to me like three or four, sometimes new people.
Sarah Boyce 25:34
And so, if you want to do it, it's not that you would be one in a million mean, you might be but you but it's a, it's an achievable thing it takes, I think it takes a bit of perseverance, and grit, more than I think it takes, I don't know, 10 years of Python experience or something like this, you just need to have the willpower and some time that you can continue to push through the rounds of review, and make those changes and then it will get accepted. It's it's a process rather than a lone, Wolf genius. Or something like this.
Carlton Gibson 26:24
And it's quite, it's complex, but there's no secret handshake, either. It's totally Yes. You know, do the do the things to handles the review, the first thing is understand the ticket, right? Because the ticket, it's not like there's any tickets, which are obvious, you have to get into them and think about them. But as you say, if you do it, if you know, it will get accepted, there's no barrier beyond the difficulty of and the time and the commitment. Yeah,
Will Vincent 26:49
but I wonder if we, I mean, you know, attribution validation, as you said earlier, is, is a problem in terms of like, like, it'd be great if we could have just like a badge on GitHub, like you contributed, like your first not that we need to gamify it, but like, you know, contributed to Django or, you know, and this is, I'm just thinking out loud, something Jango could do somehow to absent the DSF having to maintain a list or something. But, you know, it should be something, you know, employer, people can see without you having to, like, have an about page and link. Yes. carthon link to it somewhere. Well,
Carlton Gibson 27:23
yeah, I mean, let me I've thought about this loads, I think one of the really exciting things about a mentorship program, like Django notes is that it's possible to show people how they can look, you know, just put together like, this is what I did. And, you know, they can put it on their blog, or their CV or their and that being told, hey, you know, what that discussion you had on track was a good discussion, and that PR that you did, and that you got merged? That's a good thing. And if you if you write that up, as you know, these hiring managers, oh, how have you contributed to that project? Well, they're that story, which is publicly verifiable, but youngsters they don't know to maximize, that they don't know to check, talk about the things they've done. Or some
Will Vincent 28:03
people don't have the, I guess it's confidence to do that. Like there's to a couple people, I mentor, and I'm constantly like, you should just for yourself, write up this thing you discovered because like, I promise you, you're gonna forget it in six months, or you know, and they, they just don't lie. When you were saying, Sarah, you're like, I wanted that validation? Like, yes, yes. Like this with Carlton I always saying like, in some ways, it's the easiest way to prove your chops is to contribute to Django, it's like, well, you could probably write for our little app, doing whatever if you can contribute to Django, because the standards are going to be a lot higher. But many people don't, you know, power through the barriers that you did have, like, Can I do this? Should I do this the time? But yeah, in some ways, it's the easiest way to get hired, I would think. And
Sarah Boyce 28:50
I think it's part of the program. What I hope from it is, we are really trying to celebrate each of the achievements that our Django knots are, are having. And we are hopefully, we're trying to be the voice for them until they learn to have their own voice because there is so much. It's very, it's all well and good to say, okay, you can make a blog post about this thing, but it's kind of like learning in public. And any piece of code that you wrote two years ago, and you read it now and you go, Oh, that's awful. And so every blog that is also probably very similar, but you go, Oh, I can't believe I thought these things at that time. And then I thought this was clever. And I think having that kind of habit or those ideas that that this is going to be a useful resource or something that is going to benefit you. Is is intimidating, especially when you feel like you don't have anything particularly interesting or new to say, or that you've just kind of validated that you you have only just learnt something that you feel like everybody already knew for a long time now and you're just publicizing that you you're new to this or something like this. And I think contributions to an open source library, there's a there's a pride in it because it shows that you're giving back to something and a, it shows that you are willing to put in some effort into things that we all benefit from. And it somehow gives you permission to, to brag a bit about yourself, because there's a little bit of of feel goodness about doing this. And Django is obviously a well known library, and there is some status element of saying, Oh, yes, I did this. And that's a very good thing to point to,
Will Vincent 31:02
or but I think you're, I'm a little bit older than you are like you're perfectly placed in your programming journey to do this, and that you have the expertise, but also remember, and are kind of in that middle ground. Like one of the issues I found less so in Django, but in other places is most of the Pooh Bahs in charge, have lost all perspective for the beginner experience, because they've been doing it 1020 years. So it's, it's like this abstract thing. So it's not that they don't know, but it's just, it's like, oh, I remember childhood, like, oh, yeah, like you just like, just as a child when like, just just make up make a PR, but you know, when you again, like when you write something down, like in the moment, you discovered, you have those frustrations, that point of view that you're not going to have same like your first contribution to Django, so you sort of need in a way, like someone where you are where you're just like, you know, this is a problem, I'm gonna do something about it. And then in five years, you're like, oh, yeah, it is a problem. Someone should do something about it, but like, you're gonna have different problems. Because they're, it's, I think it's fantastic. And I think that's why I always tell encourage people to write as they're learning, because that's the best time. I mean, that's kind of, for me, like, for me, the problem I have now is that I'm almost too familiar with things to write from that beginner's mind. But like, when you're a beginner, you're asking questions that you're like, oh, everyone knows this, like, no, they don't like, and if they do, they won't Google for it and find it, you know, so, but carthon, you still have empathy and compassion for people somehow,
Carlton Gibson 32:30
I try to I try to. That's because I do Tai Chi, and you can't do Tai Chi, without a beginner's mind.
Will Vincent 32:38
There you go. There you go. You have to practice you have to practice it, it is it is a muscle.
Carlton Gibson 32:42
I remember, like when I very first began vividly being stuck for like days, because I had the wrong version of my programming language installed. And I didn't even know about versions, I didn't know how to get a different version of it installed. And I didn't know, you know, it was, I was destroyed by it. I didn't have a support network to ask by. But I remember not knowing anything about anything about anything. And so I try to maintain as much as I can. And awareness of what it's like coming to it from the outside.
Sarah Boyce 33:19
Yeah. And I think, to be honest, we all continue to learn if we keep okay, you can choose not to, you can, you can definitely choose to, like I'm comfortable at this thing now. And I'm going to only do this thing now. And and that's completely fine. You've earned your your stripes and you can, you can stay there. But there is infinite capacity for you to continue to learn. And you can push yourself to get back into that position where you feel stupid again. It's not that hard to feel it again. And it's also nice to see how far you've come at the same time. And I think even with with this program, there's so many things that that i i hope for it because at the at the minute it's around, getting getting people into Django and into that space and helping them identify with it that they can be a Django code contributor because it is kind of an identity problem in some cases that people somehow feel like it's too prestigious or it's it's, there's a fancy thing around it and hopefully we get them feeling like this says something they want to be a part of, and that this is there's a team in this and that they're working with real people here who really care about other people and really want to see you succeed. And that you can be one of those people who are also working on really interesting problems, but also working with some experienced, talented, wonderful people, and you can be this experienced, wonderful person too. And, and you probably already are, you know, and you will have almost everybody has some experiences and some special skills that they can bring on board. And then with it, there's also still levels in, in my head, there's still like a journey from going from like a first time contributor to on the other end of the scale, some form of CO main maintainer, or fellow or whatever you want to call like, the one on the other, the other end of the scale, and there is still like on this milestones going through it. So it's all well and good when you got your first contribution in, but there'll be a time where you are able to help other people get a contribution in and that you feel comfortable reading someone else's code and saying, Oh, I feel like this, and this doesn't fit with this thing. Or perhaps it would be better like that. And there's other steps there that I think you go counter. Yeah,
Carlton Gibson 36:44
well, I just want to say, because you'll remember, we haven't talked about but you're a member of Jango is triage and review team, which is explicitly about having community members who are active on GitHub, active on track helping with the massive task of triage, and review and get pushing up on PRs and issues forward and being able to having more than expertise and just say, the two fellows can have, you know, being able to comment sensibly on a, you know, that's it's a really important role. I mean, it's one I think we should in the community, we if we could somehow give it more kudos, that would be an important thing, because actually, it's, it's in a way you can be more important for helping driving Django forward than coding itself. I mean, so you talk about your perhaps your experience there. And as well.
Will Vincent 37:36
How did you get tapped tap to join?
Sarah Boyce 37:38
Oh, is from Maria say, I need to give lots of kudos to Mona. She's been a very big advocate for me. And he's reached out to me on several occasions, and I was pretty much a nobody. And he's helped bring me here. And so I will always be very grateful to him. But yes, so review and triage team, what is it? It's, it's initially, I would say, it's a validation of the work you've already done, and kind of a way that Django can give recognition to active contributors, because there aren't that many tools that we have to recognize people. And that's something we can develop. But this is one way to give that recognition. And then what do we have? So on the Django discord, there is a channel four, contributed, I think it's called contributor discussions. And there's also contributors getting started. And both of these channels is a chat that you can go into, and you could talk to some people who are actively working on Django. So if you're a first time contributor, you perhaps want to be in the Getting Started section and people will respond to you. And I would say, think about what you're asking because sometimes I would say the question is better on a ticket, or better to be, then later move to the ticket because I think there's better history and documentation of if this was a valuable discussion, and I think there's I think moving to Discord is pretty new, and there's a lot of value in it, because you get that. That validation. So back when I was saying sometimes people are just there and they're going, I want to be able to Can I assign myself to this ticket, right? This is not a valuable comment, because it is just a person is looking for some kind of social validation. And you can get that validation on the discord and people can be like, yeah, absolutely. And it doesn't need to You, you know, and I don't mean to say that in any form of criticism way,
Carlton Gibson 40:06
you're going to help solve the ticket 12 years later if the tickets still open.
Sarah Boyce 40:10
Exactly. That's, that's what I mean. And but, but this kind of encouragement is still really useful. And I think it's quite humanizing to have other people who are on more of a live time chat, who can be you're talking and they talking back to you. And you can see that they're typing, and all this kind of stuff, rather than you write a comment somewhere. And then three days later, you get an email that someone's replied, and then you check it and all this kind of stuff, it's, it feels like the gods that be happy.
And I think it's a supportive group, because even the people who have been contributing for quite some time, they don't always feel very confident in the things that they want to do. And they want to talk it through with some people, and they want to check that. What do you think this is a good idea, and all this kind of stuff. And there's a difference between doing that kind of chat rather than it's some kind of proposal that's on the Django developers mailing list, which is hoping to get some kind of voting system on or so there's kind of like different types of communication in there. And I think what I like about the discord is, you feel the can, or at least I feel the community element a bit better there. Because you can even get the very small interactions of the heart, the thumbs up emoji and all this kind of stuff where you're getting kind of validation in a subtle way, which is not as what's the word like surgical or clinical or something like that?
Will Vincent 42:02
It's, it's probably also generational a bit. And that, I mean, you know, Carlton, and I are on the other side of 40. And, like, I prefer email. Well, I prefer chats with people I already know, but discord, maybe? I just not. I know that that's like what the kids use, and I, you know, your articulation of it being an actual conversation and emojis just like I would text with someone I know, is much more encouraging and validating than a normal discussion. But I think so I think there's no Django doesn't have one canonical place where everyone goes, which is good and bad. Right? Because I agree that the official mailing list seems seems super intimidating. And then yeah, Discord is more humanizing. I mean, I remember when I was on the board, the discord because the disk, you know, part of it is what can Django maintain like, the discord, I believe, is not official, like they asked for permission. And we said, you know, we should have one but need to make clear, it's not like, maintained by the DSF. Because we don't have someone ownership if something goes awry, because those things can happen. But yeah, I think we should probably have more like, How does someone find out about the discord? Right? Like, or people often aren't on the discord and the mailing list? There's very few people who were crossing between those. I just thinking out loud here. But I think my you articulate it in a way that makes it makes a lot of sense to me? And I don't know, maybe there is an answer, maybe it's just different people in different realms.
Sarah Boyce 43:30
Because, for me, in terms of, I've always worked, okay, in my professional career, I've always had slack. And it feels quite similar to having a slack. And so it feels like I have, I have a team. And I've got a team here. And I feel like I'm part of something. And I think without that, being in the review and triage team would have felt just like a title that I've achieved or some badge of honor that I've achieved, but now I can see what people are doing in different ways, because it's easy for me to see PRs that people are raising, because I'm also writing about it each week. But in terms of like, you know, people engaging in different discussions and, and things. I find it easier that than I find the mailing list intimidating personally, and that might be a very personal thing. No,
Will Vincent 44:40
I think I you know, I think the problem is that, yeah, the problem is that one email someone sends late at night, may or may not have the tone they intend, and then it comes down like the voice of God and it just completely stopped someone in their tracks when the reality is, they may not have intended it that or you know, there's like to 19 other people in the room who can say you know what, that person, that's just kind of how they are, and we love them. But don't take that as gospel for how the rest of us feel about certain things. You know, like, because this will sometimes happen with great contributions to Django that the majority of people are excited about and someone who's a big Pooh bah doesn't particularly love it. And they might say something and not realize how it comes across. So I think I also
Sarah Boyce 45:29
think that's fair,
Will Vincent 45:30
Carlton like, right, I mean, I've seen quite
Carlton Gibson 45:33
I think the the mailing list has had its day, to be honest, I think what we've got going on with the forum for the more asynchronous comments, does have emoji, and it's quite easy to follow. And if somebody posts in the wrong channel, it's very easy to move into the right channel. It's well moderate in Ken there is just absolute wrong, you know, there, and then with the discord for the bots. So I have to admit, I hate synchronous. I hate chat. I hate live chat. When I was a junior, it was all Skype, and then it moved to slack. And I couldn't just never get any work because I was always just have to have conversation with Boss saying and won't be on Skype, or it won't be on what we
Will Vincent 46:08
do to avoid that, Carlton, right. Exactly. So often, they're like, oh, there's a slack. And I'm like,
Carlton Gibson 46:13
but I've got this code set up just on my phone. And I've managed to filter it. So it's only the channels that I want to and I check it a couple of times a day, and I've managed to okay, I found a way that I can do this cool. So it can teach an old dog new tricks. Yeah, but the forum really works for me. And I think the mailing list, just, I think it's, you know, there's still very low traffic there. But I certainly won't, we'll never start a thread on the mailing list again, over the forum. You know, I did make that decision. A while back. And I think the forum is the way forward, it's a much nicer UI, it's a much nicer environment, emojis help, you know, replies, threaded replies, everything about it, it's just much better. I
Will Vincent 46:57
mean, same with members. This isn't your your DSF. member, I assume, Sarah, right. Are you? Yeah, okay. You know, the 200, or something of us that there are, you know, there's communication issues, because there's just like an email. And it's our, I think mimics in some ways, sometimes some of the less good things are the official forum or email channel. But perhaps, perhaps we should move that to the forum or tender
Carlton Gibson 47:19
if it would be possible to have a even on the forum, because I guess the point about the DSF Members list as it is private today, set members. So is there a possibility for private, a private channel or private?
Will Vincent 47:31
I'm pretty sure there, I'll look into that. But that might
Carlton Gibson 47:34
be a good idea to improve it. But I mean, so the DSF membership is meant to be again, that community sort of acknowledgement of you contribute contributions, and then it's meant to be, it is Jiang, it's like to the PSF fellows, like people who've contributed to the Python ecosystem, and the Django Software Foundation individual member is that same, like, you know, you've done yet you've done a good stuff for Django, and I don't think we advertise that enough, either. Well, it's
Will Vincent 48:00
ever again, to the point where we always like to ask, where you have your magic wand, you know, what do you want to what do you want to change about Django with from where you sit, cuz I always find this interesting. Code community, you know, like, dictator, dictator for a day.
Sarah Boyce 48:17
I quite like the steam of this communication element that we were talking about. So I do think we can really make some improvements there. I think that would be a good improvement, having it on the on the forum. I want to give kudos to Ken I think this was I will eventually get to what my magic wand but I do agree that I think it's the moderators and it's the ownership of those two, of the forum and of the discord is stronger than I think of the mailing list. And because of the work that certain people are doing, and it's great work in both of those areas, people feel it's rare that people will ask a question or say something, and that it goes completely unanswered. And there's some confidence in that, that that there are people there who were looking after it and are gonna be like, Yeah, good question. Perhaps it's been asked before look over here or something like this, and they kind of prune it and and there's a niceness in that that it feels quite welcoming, in my opinion. So yeah, having this way that we can communicate amongst the the DSF as a group a bit better would be really interesting because it has, I have been, I have tried a couple of times and I've made some progress with some some some messages on the DSF mailing lists, but it isn't always as easy and perhaps inviting as it could be not as active as it perhaps could be. And I think there is an element of and I understand if these are people who have already contributed, there's no kind of what's the word? Requirement, thank you that you need to do any more, you've already done enough. And and I appreciate that. But there are still a lot of people who are very passionate and excited and still active in this community that I think could direct that in into different spaces. And I don't think that the DSF membership is only full of people who are gone and burned out with Jango. And I appreciate the I appreciate the validation of giving me this, but I I've had enough. So I think that would be really exciting, because there's a lot of a lot of things and a lot of stuff that we can still do. And that that's exciting to me, sometimes
Carlton Gibson 51:16
worry that we don't get the controls into the hands of the people who are active. Like
Sarah Boyce 51:23
it's hard. It is also hard, because there is I appreciate there's this element of trust with the people. And how did you define the point? That it's sufficient, right, that it's not this random person who's come along, they did two things, and perhaps, you know, that, that they're gonna go away immediately, or that perhaps they do represent some of the values that we care about with Django and all this kind of thing. And I think that's hard to, but once it's there, I think you should give permission and stuff very willingly, because I think a lot of people can do some really interesting things.
Carlton Gibson 52:17
Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, and the good news is, there's
Will Vincent 52:20
lots to be done, and not enough people to do it. So I think we can and should be more aggressive and trying and again, it's just code, like can always change permissions. And, you know, but it's unbelievable. You know, it's not just code, but I mean, it's, you know, but it's, it's also it's very self regulating, and that people can see what you're doing. So it's, it's, I don't even know how you could be like a bad actor over time. Like, what would you gain? What what would be the point like? It's, yeah. Well, we are on, unfortunately, up on time, Sarah, but so nice to have you on the podcast. Thank you for having me. And we'll have to have you back. Again, soon. I know you have new things in the works. So we can talk about them, then. But we'll have links to everything. Is there any? What's the best way if people want follow up discussion? I guess is it emails a discord, what's the best way?
Sarah Boyce 53:15
You, I think I prefer if you email me, and I will get back to you. So at the UI, you can share my email. You can message me on Discord if you want. I found this process a little bit interesting, because they have to friend request you first. But otherwise, he
Carlton Gibson 53:37
could do that. That's it direct messages on all things.
Will Vincent 53:42
Just a bad idea. Yeah, okay. Well, I'll have links to GitHub profile and other things where you can find her email. And so thank you, everyone. We are a Django chat.com And we'll see everyone next time. Bye. Take care. Bye bye.