DjangoCon US 2024
Postscript
This is the part where I try to summarize some of my experiences from DjangoCon 2024 into words. It's a bit of a fool's errand, because how could I possibly convey the breadth of experiences in a blog post in this corner of the internet? Well, I am a bit of a fool, so I'll try anyway!
Instead of going through chronologically, I'll split this up into themes.
Talks
A major focus of any conference is the caliber of talks that are offered to attendees. It was an honor to be listed as a speaker this year, considering the quality of topics and the pedigree of speakers that would be presenting this year.
My keynote this year was titled How To Be a Developer and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves and I received very good feedback and kind affirmations from many of the attendees. To say I was nervous is an understatement. There were facets of the talk that I wasn't sure if they were going to land, but I think for the most part, my message was successfully transmitted.
Other talks I enjoyed included Sheena O'Connell's keynote, Power to the People who Teach the People, delivered with care, confidence, and passion. My friend Ryan Cheley's talk on Error Culture was bemusing in how it described a tendency to ignore unhelpful error messages.
There was a talk by Benjamin Zagorsky called Fighting Homelessness With Django that dove into a very real problem, and how an app built with Django helps combat homelessness.
Oh, and I also really enjoyed Carlton Gibson's API Maybe: Bootstrapping a Web Application circa 2024 in which he talked about patterns for rich, user-friendly web apps that circumvent the complexity layer that has been so ubiquotous in the past.
Jacob Kaplan-Moss had a great talk titled If We Had $1,000,000: What Could The DSF Do With 4x Its Budget?, elucidating on how a higher budget could benefit the Django ecosystem. In tandem with Natalia Bidart's LOTR themed The Fellowship of the Pony, as well as Sarah Boyce's Hidden gems of Django 5.x, we got an internal look at how Django moves forward, and how the fellows (Natalia and Sarah) provide a massive impact on Django itself. It was amazing to learn about this first hand.
There are quite a few other talks that I enjoyed! Hopefully you check them out when the videos are released, it would be hard to go wrong.
Community vs Technical
I had a few conversations about what kind of talks are offered at a an event like DjangoCon. I understand that there are attendees that want to go to a conference to learn something new, take a deep dive into a library's internals, or find value from a new technique that they can incorporate into their own projects.
This is immensely valuable.
But there are also attendees who appreciate talks that highlight aspects of the community at large, and are sometimes even more language or package agnostic.
I really like those talks. And I would advocate for providing these kinds of talks in the future (for the record, I think that DjangoCon does fairly well in this regard).
The reality is that there is a symbiotic relationship between the code that we use (Django) and the community that surrounds it. I think it is imperative to highlight and to value the work of the community in order to maintain a healthy ecosystem. Organizations like Django Girls or Djangonaut Space don't exist in a vacuum. They require the support, respect, and acknowledgement of the community at large. Without programs like these, the future of Django itself would look bleak and self-cannibalizing.
Durham, NC
Downtown Durham was lovely and quaint. Most, if not all of my meals were somewhere between good and delicious, which is great for someone who's decided to eat plant-based foods!
Walking around the perimeter of the convention center was always pleasant, even with the bits of rain that we got here and there.
We were fortunate enough to be out of the path of Helene, and only experienced a slight disruption during the sprints when we were met with a tornado warning that lasted about 15 minutes.
Dinners
Sure the food was great, but the company was even better.
I got in to Durham on Saturday evening and went to decompress in my hotel room. I figured I'd go get something to eat, probably something to go, and head back to my room to work on my talk.
As I went down the elevator, I ran into Ryan Cheley, who was also on his way to dinner with Baptiste Mispelon. Along the way, we happened to run into Daniele Procida, and we proceeded to have dinner at an Indian restaurant across the street. What a delight! Sure, we were all tired from travels, but it immediately felt like meeting old friends, even though we had only ever chatted online (at most), if at all.
On Sunday evening, several of the people involved with the Djangonaut Space program got together for a meal. It was great to see/meet many of the individuals that I'd previously only seen on the Discord channel, and I also had the opportunity to chat with Carlton Gibson about philosophy, because why not?! It was a fantastic group of people and receiving a handwritten note of appreciation from the organizers was extremely special.
Monday night, I happened to be invited to a larger dinner group by my friend Jay Miller, and ended up at a restaurant with some new and old friends alike, including Lauren Crary and Ryan Cheley. I also was sitting across from Jacob Kaplan-Moss and Lacey Henschel (yeah, I was trying to play it cool), and a few others. I felt fortunate to have landed with this dinner group, but also kind of at home.
The speaker dinner on Tuesday night was loud! But the loudness was only augmented by the joy of being with all of these individuals that contributed to the awesome content of DjangoCon proper. My highlight was being able to chat with Sarah Boyce about her experience as a fellow, and learning about the unique challenges she faces in that role. I also had some great conversations about htmx with Ken Whitesell and Avindra Fernando.
There were other meal outings that were a bit more low-key, but equally as engaging! I look forward to seeing and breaking bread with many of these wonderful people in the future.
People
My last section here is perhaps the most important (at least to me).
As mentioned above, there is huge value provided in the massive information dump you get from all the talks. But for me, there is no higher value than engaging with people, either old friends or brand new ones.
It would be impossible for me to highlight all the people that elevated my experience at DjangoCon, but what would a section like this be without a few shoutouts?
When I ran into Calvin Hendryx-Parker from Six Feet Up, he mentioned that there was someone who I may be interested in meeting, considering that they were from a Finance background and were just entering the community. A little later that day, Kyle Hunt introduced himself to me and we had an opportunity to share/compare notes about using Python in traditionally non-developer roles. We kept in touch throughout the conference and I appreciated his sincerity and willingness to take as much in as possible. Perhaps I saw a little bit of my past self in Kyle, except he's much cooler 😎.
I had the chance to chat with Velda Kiara the day before my talk. She was going to be introducing me the next day before my keynote, which was a great honor for me! During our conversation, we shared about how our experiences overlapped, and her mannerisms provided a sense of calm (I was still tweaking/reviewing my talk in the green room). Her introduction the following day left me a bit emotional and I am so grateful I had the opportunity to meet her.
Also, I mentioned earlier how I ran into Baptiste Mispelon during my first night in Durham. We had briefly met during Jeff Triplet's office hours (which he hosts on most Fridays for anyone who cares to join), but having the opportunity to have coffee, lunch, dinners together was a real highlight for me. Baptiste has years of experience in Django, both the software and the community, and his humility and friendliness was delightful to be around. On my last day in Durham, I had coffee and bagels with him, Andrew Mshar, and Bartek Pawlik. It was a perfect send-off to a delightful conference.
I'm also glad that I got to reconnect with Jay Miller, Jeff Triplett, and Loren Crary—all individuals that have had a huge impact on my growth as a Python/Django community member.
There are many others that I could include here, but I need to stop writing at some point. I have things to do!