Mia is Vice Chair of the EuroPython society, a regular conference speaker, podcast host, and software engineer. We discuss what to expect at this year’s event in Krakow, Poland in July this summer.
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Will (00:00)
Hi, welcome to another episode of Django Chat. I'm Will Vincent with Carlton Gibson. Hey Carlton.
Carlton (00:04)
And I will.
Will (00:06)
And we're very pleased to have Mia from EuroPython join us today. Welcome, Mia.
Mia (00:11)
Hi, hello everyone and thank you for inviting me.
Carlton (00:14)
No, thank you for coming on.
Will (00:15)
Yes. So maybe
let's start with a quick pitch. EuroPython, when is it? What do people need to know so they can attend? I'll be there. You'll be there. Everyone should be there.
Mia (00:24)
Yes,
exactly. Everyone should be there. EuroPython will be hosted this year in Krakow in July. For those who don't know EuroPython, it's a week of all things Python. So we have two days of tutorials, three days of talks, and we have two days of sprints. This year, sprints will be shared with EuroSciPy. ⁓ And after that, will be EuroSciPy in Krakow too. So in case you would like to spend two weeks in...
the beautiful city of Krakow, have an opportunity ⁓ to be there. EuroPython is a very big conference. ⁓ guess that most of ⁓ our guests know DjangoCon, which is a smaller conference. EuroPython has five to six tracks, depending on which year. ⁓ Apart from talks, we also have open spaces where if you have any idea, you can just write it.
on a whiteboard or you can write it ⁓ digitally and then you can just gather with people and have some informal discussions. We also have summits, we have social events, speakers' dinner and all fun evening activities. We have piloted sessions, sessions for beginners, also for advanced users. So yeah, it's going to be a fun week.
Carlton (01:39)
DjangoCon Europe was held just last week or week before in Athens. had 300 people, just over 300 people there in person. How many people will be in crack?
Mia (01:51)
So typically there are around 1500 people at EuroPython on site plus a few hundred online. We don't know how many people will be there, but we expect that there'll be around 1500 probably like in previous years.
Carlton (02:04)
Okay, so
it's about five times as big.
Mia (02:08)
Yes, exactly. It's quite big.
Carlton (02:11)
Okay. So I guess if you're going to be there for all that time, you've got to manage your energy. What's your number one tip for getting through the week?
Mia (02:21)
Yeah, so I think it depends. I'm a night owl and I really like spending my night outside in the afternoons and in the evenings, so I usually skip morning talks. ⁓ I believe there will be lots of people who like mornings, so they go somewhere ⁓ every morning to listen to talks, open spaces, et cetera. I think it's very hard to...
Carlton (02:33)
Right, okay.
Mia (02:44)
because there's so many events and so many things happening. There many talks, there are many open spaces, informal events, activities in the evening. So I think you can get very easily overwhelmed if you try to attend everything. So you go there every morning at 9 a.m. and then you spend the whole day ⁓ at the conference and then in the evening you go for some drinks and whatever, and then you come very late. ⁓ So I think it's very hard to do it all. my tip is, I think it's always good to think about what are your
topics, what would you like to visit, maybe watch talks or maybe some other events or something and then to plan the rest according ⁓ to your energy and how you feel there in general because it's very hard to be everywhere and to attend all these events.
Carlton (03:31)
So marathon,
not a sprint, especially if you were going to stay beside Paik on afterwards.
Mia (03:36)
Yeah, right.
Carlton (03:38)
And if I'm a first time attendee, what's your top tip for a first time EuroPie? Because I've been to a few Django cons, but never been to something quite so large. How do I handle the step up to the bigger environment?
Mia (03:52)
Yeah, I think EuroPython is a very friendly and it's a community conference. So I don't think it's that different from DjangoCon. Of course it's bigger. So this is one of the things that might be different to you because there'll be so many rooms and the halls are bigger. All the venues are bigger. ⁓ I do see how it might be intimidating for someone coming there for the first time, but we also have orientation session for first time attendees. So if you are there for the first time, you can come to the orientation session where you will get some
advices, where to go, what to see. But in general, we always remind our attendees of the Pacman rule, which means that if you are standing somewhere with a group of people, you should always leave an empty space. If someone would like to come and join, then they can just fill in the gap. ⁓ And my experience in general is that people are very nice and friendly and you can just go and talk to everyone. I think open spaces might be more interesting for first time attendees because they are small.
So you are there in a smaller group of people, so maybe like, I don't know, 10, 20 people, depending on how many are there. So it's a very nice opportunity to chat with some people. You can all introduce yourself. You can talk about topics you're passionate about. It can be something about tech, maybe your favorite technologies, maybe something like that, or it can be even something unrelated. So I think that's a nice opportunity how to talk to people. Apart from that, we also have community booths.
So this is a section with many communities where you can go and talk to them. Every year we have the Django Software Foundation and we have also some other ones. For example, we have Pi Ladies, we have National Pi Cons, we have other foundations and ⁓ OSS nonprofits. So if you're a member of some community, for example, if you're a Pi Lady or if you're a DSF member, you can also go there, chat with people, ⁓ find out what are they up to.
So I think this is a nice ⁓ experience as well. I would maybe like to ask Will about his experience because last year Django celebrated 20 years, if I remember correctly. And we had a small celebration with a cake in the open spaces and the DSM was also our community partner. So I would maybe like to ask Will if he could share his experience.
Carlton (06:02)
Yeah.
We might have to wait for him to come back though, because his internet is struggling folks. So that's why Will keeps dropping in and out and hasn't said too much at the moment, but he'll be back. And when he does, we will ask him that. ⁓ So the point being that there's lots of, you you just go and join in and whatnot. always think that as programmers, we're all introverts, right? We're not all introverts. Some of us are slightly more gregarious, but most of us are introverts. It's all that awkwardness, but it's everyone feels like that, right? So it's not just, if you're shy, just...
Mia (06:17)
Ha ha!
Carlton (06:45)
Go on, put yourself out.
Mia (06:46)
Yeah,
think always when you go somewhere, you feel a bit shy, and you are hesitating to approach people to talk to them. But once you start, you see that it's not actually that bad. We also have a quiet room, and we have a low-stimulation room. So ⁓ if you would like just to sit in quiet and just recharge, just to spend some time isolated from everyone without any external stimuli, this is also an option. So I would also like to encourage everyone.
who feels like they need some quiet just to go there and to hide to recharge their batteries before going back.
Carlton (07:21)
Okay. That sounds brilliant. sounds brilliant. we wanted to talk about the keynotes, but before we do, I've got an interesting question about the language summit because it always used to be held at PyCon US every year, right? But there's a new arrangement to alternate between Euro, Python, PyCon. Can you tell us about that?
Mia (07:36)
Yes, so there is a new arrangement from this year. The language summit will be alternating between PyCon US and EuroPython. This is to give an opportunity to more people to attend because some people cannot get to the S now for other reasons. The language summit is a summit where all CPython core developers gather and they talk together about topics that are relevant to them. They talk about the
roadmap. So, what's new happening? They have discussions on various features. And we are super happy that this year we are hosting the Language Summit and it will have so many core developers among us.
Carlton (08:18)
but it's one of the big things that push forward Python, right? think.
Mia (08:23)
Yeah, I think this is one of very big things because this is the place where everyone gathers. So this gives them an opportunity to talk about features and to have those discussions. But it's also a lot about hallway tracks, what I was told by them, because they're all at the one place so they can discuss, spark new ideas and such stuff. You also attend DjangoCon Sprints. So ⁓ I guess you have a similar experience with that.
Carlton (08:44)
Well, this is why we're having...
Yeah, no, mean, the sprints are where it all happens in the end, because you get that small amount of time to spend ⁓ together and it's such high bandwidth compared to what you can do on the issue tracker or, know, mailing list or this forum discussion that it really, this is why we're doing Django on the Med, I must put in a little point there. So go on then, tell us about the keynotes, because they're quite exciting.
Mia (09:13)
Yeah, we have some quite exciting keynoteers to announce. ⁓ So in general, we have six slots ⁓ because we are a big conference, three days, so we have two slots a day. I can ⁓ announce now our first keynote speakers ⁓ who have already confirmed their attendance. So this year, for the first time, Guido van Rosum is coming to Poland and he will be our keynote speaker.
We are having a special core.py episode with Guido and with Łukasz Langa and Pablo Galindo Salgado, will be hosts of the podcast. So they will record an episode on stage.
Carlton (09:57)
Okay. That's really cool. That's really cool. We've always been too shy to do a Django chat live at a Django convent. That's amazing. How did you bag Guido? That's a, that's a real.
Mia (10:07)
Yeah, so Guido is coming because of the Language Summit and there will be some more core developers around. So we asked Guido if he would like to give a keynote at EuroPython alone or if he would like to record an episode on stage and he said that he would prefer to record an episode.
⁓ Lots of us thought that actually it would be very hard to persuade him because we know that he is not really into ⁓ attention. ⁓ He doesn't really like when people approach him and ask him for selfies and know, this kind of thing. So we were a bit hesitant, but we thought why not give it a try and know, just pitch this idea to him and we were lucky that he said yes. So ⁓ I think this is going to be pretty cool.
Carlton (10:37)
Yeah, it's quite retiring.
Yeah, no, is. It's super cool. I heard about the other day and I was like, wow, that's...
Mia (10:59)
Yeah, I also
like that this would be an informal chat. This is basically a podcast episode, so it will not be ⁓ some like very prepared presentation, which I think would be very interesting to see some other side of him. I have listened to lots of podcasts with him and I have heard lots of his talks ⁓ and I'm a big fan of those informal conversations because I think if something is not prepared and also as a conference speaker, I have this experience that if something is informal that you have like more
opportunities to ask more questions, some things you know just pop up. So some questions just pop up on the fly. So I think ⁓ this is going to be pretty cool. We have five more keynote slots at this moment. I cannot announce any of those. We are working on confirmations from those keynote speakers, but you can follow us on social media for more info. We'll be announcing them in the ⁓ upcoming weeks.
Carlton (11:37)
Yeah.
So, Mia, you mentioned about beginner sessions that you have. That's included some Django girls sessions over the years, right?
Mia (12:02)
Yeah, exactly. So Django Girls started at EuroPython in 2014. And in 2024, we had 10 years ⁓ of Django Girls. So we had a small celebration at EuroPython. And we also had the workshop. We held the workshop last year as well. So every year we have workshops for underrepresented groups in programming. Sometimes it's Django Girls, sometimes it's HumbleData, sometimes it's PyLadies workshops, sometimes it's all of those.
So this year we are going to have some workshops too. ⁓ And for those who don't know Django Girl Workshops, those are workshops for beginners where they have an opportunity to create a web in one day. There's a mentor who is able to help them with everything. They get documentation and the web is a surprise, surprise Django.
Carlton (12:52)
Yeah, you obviously, you know, you've got to build it in something. I didn't know that Django, so I knew Django had done, Django girls had done 10 years and in those 10 years, over 25,000 women have been through Django girls workshops globally, which is amazing. Right. But I didn't know it started that you're a Python.
Mia (13:08)
Yeah, I think that's super cool. So the workshop started in 2014 in Berlin. There were two Polish women, Ola Sitarska and Ola Sendewska. And they decided to use Django and Python to create workshop to help women to develop their ideas. And since then, the initiative has spread through many ⁓ countries throughout the world, which I think is super cool.
Carlton (13:31)
Yeah, super
cool. And I don't know if Will's going to be able to join us again. He's got the internet problems, but he was there last year when Django had its birthday party at Europe, which is nice for the open space type thing.
Mia (13:45)
Yeah, so at the open space there was a cake. ⁓ So they had a small celebration where they ate cake and gathered all together. Unfortunately, I couldn't be there because I was at a different place at that time. And there was also another cake that was on Wednesday evening when there was ⁓ a social event which was organized in collaboration with the local Python community. ⁓ have ⁓ in Prague, we have events called PIVA. I'm based in Prague and last year your partner was in Prague.
So our events are called PIVO, which is a monthly gathering of Python enthusiasts. and it's held every third Wednesday in a month, which was last year, the Wednesday when EuroPython was taking place in Prague. So we also, we had a gathering in a very nice beer garden. It was outside because it was very nice and sunny and warm.
And we also ordered a cake, so we had a small cake and we were all singing Happy Birthday Django. It was super funny because we cut the cake, there was someone cutting the cake and so we all went there to grab a piece. And because this was in an open beer garden where we booked 200 places, but they were also like, it was open for public and some other people who were not part of the group came there and were like, oh, can we also have a piece of cake?
Carlton (14:45)
Fantastic, fantastic.
This is guerrilla marketing. is how you get the new people on board, right? Perfect.
Mia (15:10)
Yeah, yeah. We can say only if
you use Django.
Carlton (15:15)
Well, okay, that's reasonable. The, ⁓ there was a Django birthday, sort of celebration all year. And so there was a site that listed all the places around the world that held a little birthday event. had one in Palo Verge for Django on the meds. So we had a pin, a Django pony pinata, which, ⁓ took, some bashing to, to fully.
Mia (15:33)
Right, I remember there
was a celebration at DjangoCon Europe as well. I was in Dublin and there was also a cake.
Carlton (15:40)
Yeah. So anyway, Django. Right. You've mentioned that you've got your own podcast, right?
Mia (15:46)
Yeah, so I have a very small YouTube channel. Basically, I travel a lot and I get to talk to some cool people building very cool technologies. So I have a podcast where I record informal chats with ⁓ open source maintainers across Europe and beyond. It's called Behind the Comets. So feel free to check it out. It's on YouTube and it's on all podcasting platforms.
Carlton (16:10)
Okay, and we'll put the link in the show like that. You enjoying making that? It's quite a lot of work, right? It seems like nothing but...
Mia (16:17)
Yeah, it's way more work than I expected. Post-processing takes so much of time, even with all the AI and all the technologies you can use. It's way more work than I expected, but it's fun.
Carlton (16:29)
⁓ Okay.
Yeah, no, mean, it's Okay, then. before we were just going to we're going to finish off with books, right? But before that, was there anything else that you wanted to? While you've got the mic in hand and got the floor, was there anything you wanted to mention or?
Mia (16:44)
Yeah,
so maybe basically maybe some sort of call for action. So I can mention that our tickets are open and you can follow us on social media. So you could maybe say something like we could finish the Europe Python section where it's some you could ask something like if I would like to learn more about Europe Python or like, ⁓ where can I fill it in and I can say.
Carlton (17:05)
Yeah.
Mia (17:08)
⁓ And then I can say tickets are open, ticket sales are open. When does this episode go out, by the way?
Carlton (17:15)
It will probably go out in two weeks time.
Mia (17:18)
That's okay. So I can say tickets sales are open and follow us on social media and YouTube. And we can finish the episode with that.
Carlton (17:25)
Okay.
Okay, so brilliant. So let's do books and then we'll swing back to ⁓ wrap up with that and then we can go, you know, we'll can edit that up and that's nice and tight. He says, Will says even his cell reception is not working now. So I don't know what's going on over there. Right. So we've got into a habit me of talking about books on the show, just what we've been reading, what we've been doing. So you've got a couple I see in the list.
Mia (17:54)
Yeah, so I love reading and I'm always happy to receive recommendations for books. I was thinking what kind of books to recommend and there are two books that I read many years ago and that I really like and that stayed in my memory. So one of the books is called Humble Pie When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World by Matt Parker. This book is very interesting because it's written by a stand-up comedian and mathematician, which is a very rare and very unique combination.
And ⁓ he talks about all sort of funny ⁓ and not so funny ⁓ accidents or cases where there were some math errors which were obvious but ⁓ maybe not that visible. ⁓ So I found there lots of very interesting stories. And the second book is called The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.
And I thought that this would be a book about design and that this would be a very like technical book. ⁓ However, this is a book that actually really made me think about why are things designed the way they are designed? Because people use things not the way they're supposed to be used, but the way they are designed.
⁓ So there were lots of examples about things which might not be logical, but they are designed in a certain way because, for example, for historical reasons, for cultural reasons, or maybe only because someone was lazy and they just designed it in some way and then everyone uses it in that way just because ⁓ that's how it's been designed. ⁓ So I totally recommend it because after reading this book, I started more thinking about the things I designed, whether it's a website or
button on the website or a physical object that started thinking actually, how is this going to be used? And is this the way it's supposed to be used? Or is it just like my mindset, how I imagine that it should be used? ⁓ So I can totally recommend both books. Have you read any of those?
Carlton (19:56)
I've read, I've read the design of everyday things. haven't looked at the humble pie so I can check that one out, but the design of every. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, design of everyday. It's, it's amazing. Like the, you were just saying about whether it's websites or it's like, even if it's a function, you know, you've got to design the API, the function. So it's called in the way that it's meant to be called right. What's this phrase, the pit of success. You've got to design for the pit of success. You've got to make sure that people fall into it. And there's just so much in there and it particularly, um,
Mia (20:00)
Did you like it?
Carlton (20:25)
Maybe working on UIs, things like giving an indication that something's happening, giving feedback that something did happen. These kind of principles that it puts forward there, well, they just make you a better designer. It's not about graphic design, right? It's not about how things look necessarily, but it's about how they work. And yeah, so that's a wonderful, you know.
Mia (20:38)
Hmm.
I think lots of things are ⁓ obvious from the user perspective, but when you're designing them, they're not obvious to you. And this book made me think about this actually, like, is this obvious from both and all perspectives or only from mine?
Carlton (21:00)
Yeah, no, super. So that's a great, that's a great suggestion. I'm gonna, I've got one, hands on rust. It's called, haven't got the actual physical books. I just got an ebook, but it's by, Herbert Wolverson. It's from the, pragmatic programming, ⁓ book publishers hands on us. It's a, introduction to the rust programming language that, you build a game with it. And I'm, it's a few years old now, but it's still, you know, rust rust is a nice stable language now. And it's not, you know, it does evolve, but you know,
the learning of it doesn't really evolve very much anymore. And I'm going through it with my 15 year old. They were busy compiling drivers for their graphics card and downloading Python and doing all this thing. they were like, right, come on, let's work through this. So we're doing a chapter a week with that. And I read it a few years ago and it's a great book. And it's quite fun to be going back through it. So I can really recommend it if you're looking to pick up Rust. And you get to do something fun. You're building games rather than just going through a tutorial. So it's, you know.
It's good. And at the end, you know, you can be compiling it to WASM and running it in your browser or whatnot. that's so cool. Hands on Rust by Herbert Walbuston.
Mia (22:05)
that sounds super cool. I was also searching for some materials on learning Rust, so thank you for the recommendation.
Carlton (22:10)
Yeah, well,
no, it's a good book. It's a good book. it builds up. There's a nice learning curve to it. Rust is supposedly a more difficult language. Well, it builds up in a way that makes it acceptable. Yeah, you have to reason through the ownership problems and things like that. So anyway, it's quite good fun to go through it with my son. that's cool.
Mia (22:23)
It requires more thinking.
Carlton (22:34)
Right, guess we should round up. Will's texting me to say he's got an area issue with the internet in Brooklines. I don't know what's going on there, but he can't join us for the rest of the show. how should we wrap up? If I'm interested in EuroPython, and how do I find out more, or what should I look out for? ⁓
Mia (22:53)
Let me think. ⁓
Yeah, you can ask something like if I'm interested in Europython, how can I learn more?
Carlton (23:02)
OK, so I wasn't asking it, but let's do it again. So just to wrap up, if I'm interested in your Python, what should I look out for? How can I find out?
Mia (23:14)
So ticket sales are already open, ⁓ so you can already purchase your ticket. We are on all social media. We have a website, europython.eu. On social media, our handle is europython, so feel free to check out our YouTube channel. We have lots of videos from previous ⁓ editions, so you can have a look just to see what kind of talks were there. We also record shorts. ⁓
You can also have a look at the program, which is also released on our website, and you can follow us on all other social media.
Carlton (23:48)
OK, so europython.eu and we'll put that in the show notes as well.
Okay, well Mia, thank you for joining us. ⁓ I hope the conference goes well. I'm sure it will. It sounds very exciting. ⁓ And you'll have to let us know how it goes.
Mia (24:04)
Thank you for inviting me. It was my honor and I am super happy to see you all at EuroPython.
Carlton (24:10)
All right, take care. This was Django Chat, join us next time folks.