220: Getting the most out of PyCon, including juggling - Rob Ludwick
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PyCon US is just around the corner, and there's a lot to do at PyCon. I've asked Rob Ludwick to come on the show to discuss how to get the most out of your PyCon experience. There's a lot to do, a lot of activities to juggle, including actual juggling, which is where we'll start the conversation. I recorded this interview as an episode for one of my other podcasts, Python People, but I think it's got some great pre-conference advice, so I'm sharing it here on Python Test as well.

Even if you never get a chance to go to PyCon, I hope this interview helps you get a feel for the welcoming aspect of the Python community. And if you enjoy getting to know the people of Python, you'll probably enjoy the Python People podcast. Check it out at pythonpeople.fm. Welcome to Test & Code. This episode is brought to you by HelloPytest, the new fastest way to learn PyTest, and by the Python Test community. Find out more at courses.pythontest.com.

Today on Python People, we've got Rob Ludwig. And I'm super excited to talk to you, Rob, because your involvement with PyCon and with

um with juggling at pycon is one of the inspirations for this podcast actually is it really yeah yeah i was thinking um when i started python people i thought you know i mean python test is really about teaching people it's kind of focused on like teaching people something but i really wanted to just get to know the people and my thought process was kind of um

You know, there's a lot going on at PyCon. The Python people are really interesting. As an example, you can juggle at PyCon. And it shows every time I've been to PyCon, I've seen the juggling. I've only participated once, but I thought that's pretty neat. I think we should talk about that. So that's one of the inspirations. So you've been going to PyCons for a long time. Yeah. So I first got into Python around 2007 ish.

So I was living in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

at the time I I now live in Boise but uh back then I was living in Fort Wayne Indiana and uh Naomi Cedar also was living back and back there at that time so we actually knew each other pretty well because we both ran the the Fort Wayne Linux users group back then okay and I was working for Raytheon back at the time uh in writing C++ and not really super enjoying it because

because it wasn't fun. Like there was like Java at the time and, you know, they were doing, uh, C++. And so I was able to at least get into C++. And then I was looking at Python and I was just, you know, gobsmacked, I guess is the best word about how, how powerful it was in all of the hard problems went away. So like just trying to do, uh,

JSON was so simple, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like, if you try to do that in C++, it's like, okay, well, how do you do that? Then you've got these interesting cases like, okay, so you've got int. You've got to make sure that's like

If you're doing multiplication off the JSON, it's like, okay, you got to use like big libraries, right? Well, in Python, it's like an inch, like however long you want it to be. So it's funny. I was, I've, I've been using C plus plus most of my career, but I never could. I don't think I've ever used Jason with,

with C++? I'm sure it's possible. I just don't know how you do it. When you're looking at Python, it's like, oh gosh, it's a no-brainer. And so that's why I think Python's a really great kind of web framework language or kind of a glue language between API services. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's just really, really awesome. So all the headaches of dealing with data like that. So you got into Python 2007 ish through new Naomi Cedar. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. And then a couple of years later, your first PyCon. Yeah. So that was 2009 in Chicago, I believe. And that was,

That was fun. What I remember about that time was how smart everybody was. Like I was just this coder, but all these really smart people were there. And right. And it's like what I got from that was Python enabled code.

these smart people to work more effectively. Because if you're thinking about other languages at the time, there was a struggle to do things.

uh you know if you're trying to do uh some sort of like I I don't know scientific computing thing uh the the languages were kind of hard to deal with because now you had to think like what we talked about like size events right now you have to think you know think about size events but in

in the scientific world, ints aren't 64 bits, right? So they're going to be much, much larger. So, you know, in Python, that simplified a lot of that kind of workflow. And so I was surprised to see all these smart people there. And I was just, you know, I was just amazed.

So I went to 2009 in Chicago. Then I went to 2010 in Atlanta, 2011 in Atlanta. Then I missed the two in San Jose, the one in the first in Montreal, but I've been to every single one ever since. So I just, I like the people. It's a fun time. Okay. I learn something every time I go there.

Yeah, me too. I love it. I started much later. I can't even remember. I think the second Portland one was the first time I jumped in and went. Okay, yeah, I remember that one. Yeah, that was, you know, what's funny about the Portland ones were that there was a juggling festival at that same Portland festival.

convention center a few years before that. So I was there. And then there was juggling at PyCon. And I was there for that as well. Just these weird things. I've been here doing this. Yeah, so you've been involved with the juggling bit, though, for a while? Or did you start that? Or did somebody else start that? Ned Batchelder started that. So...

He had some stuff, juggling props, and I can't remember which one he started it with. But he was, it would have been pre-COVID that I remember. Oh, yeah, it would have been probably in Portland, I think.

um maybe maybe the one before that as well I can't I can't fully remember but I remember he he was one of the also one of the instigators behind it and what I remember about that is that uh yeah we started juggling we would just uh pick a spot out in the hallway and then uh we have a few props and yeah we just start juggling out there and uh

It's kind of a great way to meet people too. I've seen it, but I think it was the last PyCon...

It was the first time I think I participated. Um, and it was only there for like maybe 10, 15 minutes, but it's kind of neat seeing you've got people that are really good at juggling and then other people that are just want to try or, or for instance, um, you know, maybe, uh, have been decent at three and we're trying four and, or somebody that's trying pins for the first time or something. Um, that's pretty cool to have, uh,

Just have some Python nerds helping each other out with juggling. It's kind of a new thing. It's fun. The one thing I enjoy about it is that juggling is kind of like a... It's weirdly this universal language, particularly with clubs and past clubs.

The idea is that everybody kind of knows. And so you, if you haven't juggled with somebody passing clubs, you can kind of just pick it up and do it. It's kind of weird in that way. It just works out. And so then there's tricks that both people typically know. And so, you know, then you just start passing and it's like, oh yeah, just like, just like juggling with an old friend, you know, it's kind of like that.

We had some friends of ours way back when, my youngest daughter, my oldest daughter actually, when she was a baby, we had like a playgroup for babies, which was weird. Yeah, that's kind of what juggling is. It's like a playgroup for nerds.

But one of the couples that came over that our baby played with their baby, they were jugglers. And so much so that they apparently like they walked down the aisle at their wedding with –

through a tunnel of jugglers. She was pregnant with her second child and they came over to our house once and they did this in our house, they did pin juggling

with maybe it was balls anyway they were juggling with the two of them and they would walk around in circle with one of them being in the front doing the juggling and then the other one would go up to the front to juggle and it was interesting watching because they had to like altered they had to learn how to alter this because of the size of her she was very pregnant at the time and

It was something to see. And then I'm like, man, I, and I was, I've always only did like juggling balls before then. But juggling has been kind of a, a fun thing in my life, but there's, that's just the tip of the iceberg with PyCon. And that's kind of one of the things we kind of wanted to jump into more than just juggling. But I got a couple more juggling questions. How long do the sessions usually last or is there a usually time?

Is it like an hour long thing or usually is after they try to do it like about five o'clock and then it just goes until people are tired, which, you know, if you haven't juggled in a while, like me, I'll like go to maybe 7. So if you start, I think about five 45 to about seven 45 PM, it's typically about the, you know, it's a couple hours and it's usually good enough to, to, uh,

To get a good juggling session in, that's usually what most juggle sessions are anyway. Okay.

Does everybody go off and go eat together afterwards or just split up? Sometimes they just split up. But I think the last time we had some people from Ukraine stop by and they were in the juggling session. And so we just all went out together to eat. And so I met with these guys.

uh the these people from uh Ukraine and they were just really sweet they were just really really nice people uh and yeah it was just I just remember having a blast with those guys that's great so um

Okay, and one of the... Everybody's respectful because these... I think at least last time it was in a hallway with open spaces to the side or other rooms to the side. So people were walking by at the same time. It can get a little crazy, but everybody's nice. Yeah, I tried to... I think I've tried to do it. I know that Ned wasn't there or...

the first Salt Lake City. So I kind of do, tried to do it out in the open area where it's like, if I, if I host it, I'll be, I'll be trying to do it in the open area. And that way it's like, you know,

uh, people aren't going to get like injured. If I, if I started throwing like high, uh, like a double or a triple and you know, people aren't going to get injured. So that's a, that's a key thing. So, okay. Well, um, uh, do you want to jump into some of these other topics? Like, uh, how to get the most out of PyCon? Yeah, let's do that. Um, so, you know, I've been going to a bunch of PyCons, uh,

As much as I enjoy going to talks, one thing that I enjoy more is the people.

So I enjoy talking to the people kind of way more than I enjoy talking, seeing the talks. There are some, don't get me wrong. There are some good talks, but the things that I'll bring out are kind of ideas, meeting with people will give me new ideas to think about stuff. Uh, and those won't necessarily be in the talks. They, they kind of call that the hallway track. So, so, uh, yeah,

And the unfortunate thing I think is that it's not every talk is going to be awesome. I mean, it's just the way conference is going to do. But there are going to be some definitely good talks there. But the other thing to keep in mind is that the talks will typically be online. So they're going to be on YouTube afterwards. Right.

So then you can always go back and look at the talks that you missed if you're really interested in that or you hear something about a talk that was spectacularly good. You can go back and see that talk.

But, you know, the thing is, the people aren't going to be there. There's no YouTube for the people. So you can't go talk to the people on YouTube afterwards. So that's kind of the way I see it. One of the things I like to encourage for that aspect of it is if you are...

If there's a talk topic that sounds interesting, but the person giving it is somebody you're not familiar with, you don't know them, that's a great talk to go to then. Because those are the heroes of Python, the top names that everybody knows. Those are going to be full anyway. But the other ones...

It's kind of a bummer to give a talk to like four people in the audience. So, yeah, it is. So it's good to have like, you know, if you're interested in it, go, go support some of these, these other people giving talks because that also kind of presents the

an idea to the PyCon organizers, I imagine, as to what kind of talks to, to have. And, you know, you know, if you have a favorite topic, let's support that. But yeah. Yeah. I think there's, I imagine, I can't imagine all the politics that go into like selecting talks, but, but you know, a lot of, there's a lot of stuff that is, is,

is really good. Right. So, so other than the talks, there's so much else going on. We, we talked about juggling for one, but there's I do want to talk about like both the the, the open spaces and, and some of the other things going on. So I'll let you introduce it. What are, what are open spaces? Open spaces are kind of like a build your own conference.

In a way, PyCon provides, when they get the space from the, when they get the conference room from the venue, they usually reserve extra conference rooms. And those conference rooms are available to schedule for an open space. So what they do is they have, starting Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, they have those rooms available.

So, and they go from like, I don't know, eight to six or seven, maybe. It depends upon the contract they have with the venue. But the idea here is that there's usually a good number of rooms and openings to talk about things, right? So last year, we,

I did, and it doesn't necessarily have to be about Python either. So you can have, if you're really interested in something, you can go give, you can go grab a room and talk to other people that are also interested in that thing. So I've seen things that are not even remotely related to Python at all. And they, people just go there and talk. And that's, that's great. Yeah.

Yeah. So like, for instance, Python bytes, we often, if Michael and I are both at the event, we'll often do a recording just in an open space. We'll just grab an open space and we bunch of people show up. That's, that's clearly kind of self-serving, but also Python related. But also then I've been to Python,

there's been knitting ones. There's been a one where people just brought a bunch of chocolate from around the country and around the world to share. And they're just eating chocolate in there. I mean, yeah, yeah. Uh, then there's ones like, uh, I remember one back in, uh, uh, I remember this talk back in or in open space on time zones and said, you know,

Prepare to have headaches. Yeah. Yeah. Certain topics. Yeah. And so that's what I remember. That's what I remember about these certain topics. But yeah, no, like last year I had a small 3D printer. So I live in Boise and I was able to drive down to Salt Lake City last year. So I just thought, I'll just bring a 3D printer down with me.

So I brought a 3d printer down and, uh, I had no open space, uh, on 3d printing and we didn't talk about Python too much. We talked about 3d printing and that was a blast. And it was, it was a bunch of nerds talking about, you know, 3d printing. And we had some, uh, uh, high school teacher that came in, wanted to learn about some things. And, uh, um,

And yeah, if you've got all these great people there that are willing to share. So, yeah, that's pretty cool. Um, so then, um, there's that way they set it up and I don't know if it's always like this, but this is how I remember it. There's like, you show up the first day and there's like some boards, um, set up like, uh, these like, um,

big, I don't know, big poster board things set up in grids and, and they're, the grids are about index card size or a little bit larger. So then you can just grab an index card and write the title of your open space and, and stick it up there. And, and if, and if you're the first one, you get the open space. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing to keep in mind though, is that usually in the venue, if they don't have, if,

if they've run out of space but you need to do something for a particular time uh you can just go ahead and um uh put something on the side of the board or something like that around the same time and then just describe where you're going to meet right so usually the venues are so large that you can find a spot anyway to go talk yeah yeah yeah so um you can just say outside this

outside this, this room. And you usually there's a spot where you can guys can meet and, uh, and then you can wander over and just talk and it's, it's actually pretty nice. So, and then one of the other things is, um, lightning talks. Yes. And I don't really know how those work.

Yeah, they're very similar. You've got to the, they open up the lightning talks and then there's usually a large crowd that goes and tries to get a spot on the lightning talk schedule. First come first serve.

And then you get like five minutes. So then it is just like you go up on stage, you plug into your laptop, get your slides ready, and then they give you five minutes. And then meanwhile, while you're talking, there's somebody else getting up on stage with their laptop, getting their slides ready, et cetera, et cetera. And that's pretty much how it works. And there's usually some good things in those as well.

One of the problems of doing the juggling is that usually conflicts with the lightning talks because I'm going to be juggling at the same time the lightning talks are going on, at least in the evening. But they do the lightning talks. It looks like they've got the lightning talks in the evening this year, both before they've had it on...

uh in the mornings as well but i was looking at the lightning talks they've got the lightning talks scheduled for the evening of saturday and friday night and saturday night it looks like so yeah that's a little bit of a change normally sometimes they'll do it like lightning talks in the morning uh so they'll do like lightning talks and then you get your breakfast and you can go go watch the lightning talks as you uh

lunch on your breakfast and drink coffee. Yeah. No, the lightning talks are fun. Um, and, and then it's also kind of an interesting, um, um, interesting room often. Uh, they'll do, uh, last time I went to one, it was a large conference room or large, one of the large auditoriums, but, um, but people will kind of, uh, blend, like kind of come in and out and, and watch a couple of talks, then go off and do something else. So,

Yeah, yeah. It's really good. Sometimes they talk about something that you want to get more information about, but they just kind of... And again, the lightning talks can be pretty much about anything. So I've seen lightning talks that were about science, things that people were just randomly working on. And they were talking about like five minutes of some science and they put up some slides. And I thought that was...

Those are kind of the most interesting stuff because those, the things that I enjoy are not necessarily things, you know, the kind of the things about Python, but what people are using Python for. Yeah. And then that's, that's actually even more exciting, I guess.

Then the space, what's the space called with all the vendors and everything? I can't remember what that's called. Yeah, I know what you're talking. I can't think of it either. They have the vendor space, right? Let's call it there.

Okay, so in a lot of conferences I've been to, and I haven't been to tons of conferences, but a lot of conferences, there's talks going on, tutorials, and then there's the vendor space. And the vendor space is mostly about people going around and finding what

finding information about the vendors but at pycon the vendor space is like a one of the major places to hang out and meet people also yeah um yes so there's a lot of like discussions and i don't know if it's always like this but at least the last um last one the the um

where people are eating is often at the same place where the vendor space is or right attached to it. So there's a lot of tables around. So that makes for easy meeting up with people and then going off and sitting at a table and talking or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And often I'll see people that are like...

eating there and I'll go up and say, hi, Hey, how are you? Uh, uh, that's, that's usually a good space to go to. Um, uh, it can be a little noisy. I think the, cause that's kind of like the, you know, that's, that's kind of like more like, uh, it feels more like a gymnasium space sometimes rather than, uh, rather than a carpeted conference room.

But yeah, there's they, that is one of the nicer things is like pretty interesting. At least then you can like go, when you go eat, they'll have the food and then you go talk to the vendors and it's like, they have some interesting stuff going on there. And then, and then it's like, Oh, you'll see people there. And if you sit down and eat with people yeah, you'll, you'll find some interesting people to talk to you as well. And that, but so the vendor space is often open and,

They're Thursday night also, but, um, and then Friday, you know, Friday and Saturday and then Sunday, the vendors are gone. Um, and there's a, on Sunday there's, um, um, is that, I think poster sessions are on Sunday also, or are they? Yes. Post poster session, at least the way they did it last year was poster sessions were there. And then the job fair was there as well. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And so, uh, uh,

Expo Hall. That's what they call it. Expo Hall. Oh, okay. I kind of poke around the job fair just to see what kind of companies really are hiring. It's interesting to see what people are doing. But the poster sessions are kind of a neat thing that I didn't quite understand when I first started.

And again, I think those are, like a talk, you have to submit your poster idea and get accepted. Right. So posters were created back in Atlanta, I think. Okay. I think they were created, I think at that time, again, Naomi's Theater.

was the one who kind of spearheaded that and they got the poster sessions up. One of the reasons that she did that was not everybody was comfortable giving talks. Right. So, so the idea was, and not everything works well for a talk either. So the idea was you could have a poster set, you know, you could have a poster up and then the people could just come up and they would ask you questions.

And then that way you could just, you could kind of present the ideas without giving a full talk. Right. And it would be more conversational. Right. You would get questions asked and there'd be back and forth conversation. And then, and then it's just like, there's a flow. And then, yes, I think there's some, there's still some nervousness because you're going to be presenting a poster. But on the other hand, it's not,

uh they're not necessarily recorded either so they're you know the conversations are not gonna be recorded the murad hawk uh and uh it's and usually there's some really good stuff there as well uh and so that's like one of the maybe overlooked ones i'd say of uh of modern pycons is that people tend to overlook the poster session uh i tried you know that's one thing that i try to go see there was uh

Here's a guy who did some... He had kind of a screen, electronic screen, based off of those seven-segment LEDs. And he was playing videos there last year. And that was kind of fabulous to see. So...

So I want to shout out to everybody to say, if you, if you go to PyCon and you wanted to do a poster, but you didn't get accepted or you wanted to do a talk and you didn't get accepted and you wanted to do these other things. And for some reason you didn't make it, didn't sign up fast enough, but you do want to reach the rest of the Python community. Call me or, you know, get ahold of me and come on Python people or Python test. And we can talk about something. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's also a very welcoming place.

community. And I think, I think the key is to go to PyCon at least twice because the first time I had a similar, similar reaction to you is like, everybody here is so smart. Why am I here? But then when, then you start paying attention to really who everybody is and yes, everybody's really smart and there's some, some brilliant people there, but there's also just people. And I,

And you're smart also in your own, the things that you're smart about. And that's kind of what Python is, is since it's such a language used for so many different things, if you're really a user interface person or maybe you're a web person, whatever, there's going to be other people that don't know that stuff and can learn from you. So it's a, it's, it's a cool mix of the community.

Right. One thing to keep in mind is since we're on the topic of PyCon and being a welcoming community, I believe it is the most welcoming conference I've ever been to, honestly. So if you have doubts about wanting to go to PyCon, like it's, oh, it's not for me or, you know, it's not like, it's just going to be a bunch of like,

nerds or something like you might see at other conferences. No, it's not like that. There's everybody from all kinds of places from the world, different interests. And PyCon is, PyCon's a great venue, but it's really just about

And so that's what they celebrate there. They celebrate the language as well. Don't get me wrong, but they also celebrate the people and the community is, is just wonderful as well. It is. And I, I have been to other conferences as well. Tech conferences. I went to a, in, uh, went to a, a, um,

software-focused, software-quality-focused conference. And I was surprised that that wasn't, it didn't seem like people were there to meet each other. It was more about just going to the talk and learning something. And that is part of PyCon, but

Like you said, if you're just there to learn the material, it's going to show up on YouTube. You get so much more out of it by showing up. Yeah. The other thing to remember is that a lot of the people, most people there, are going to be very open. You can go up to somebody and you want to know more about what they did. They are...

typically pretty open about that. They'll answer questions and it's

It's just this wonderful kind of experience of just sharing knowledge. One of the things to take advantage of is breakfast. Yes. Because there's breakfast that is usually served at PyCon, which is interesting. But there's... It's not a lot of food, but whatever they've got, bagel or something. And there's...

There's people sitting around and I think that's a great place because you have these big tables. Breakfast and lunch are great times to meet people. Lunch is a little crazy. There's a lot of people around, but breakfast is a little thinner often. And you can show up and just sit next to somebody and then just talk just to say, hey, what do you do in Python? And what are you here for? How long have you been here? And I think that everybody, I've never met somebody that thought that it was weird that I was at

talking to them, uh, breakfast. Yeah, it's, it is kind of like one of these things where the tables are, they're typically large tables. So, you know, unless you have 20 people in your, uh, in your group that you all know, you know, if you were just going by yourself, there's going to be tables and you, you know, typically there's going to be enough space. So if you, if you want to sit alone, that's fine. But if you want to go hang out with people, you can do that too. Uh,

Yeah. Yeah. Great, great time to meet people. It's a blast. I still am on the fences whether I'm going to go this year. I kind of want to go, but also it's far away. I booked my flight last night and I was going down. So I'm going to go to the tutorials this year.

The one tutorial I'm going to go to is that I'm really looking forward to is Fundamentals of Modern Deep Learning with PyTorch. Oh, wow.

So that should be, you know, those are, those tutorials are about, it looks like three and a half hours long. This one's going to be at 9 a.m. And, you know, they cost $150 to go to typically, but that's, you know, to me, the flight's going to be way more than this.

So I decided to go ahead and sign up for that one. That's kind of, that's kind of one that I've been wanting to do. Uh, but I just haven't had the time to do it. So I'm going to hopefully, hopefully we'll get it. I'll get three and a half hours of just, uh, me opening my laptop and then going and figuring out PyTorch, uh, and then figuring out how I can apply that, uh, to my graphics card here. I have, uh, um, at home and, uh,

Seeing if I can do some simple stuff and things like that. Because I haven't quite figured out how to get into PyTorch. But PyTorch seems like it's the way to go. It's the way forward, at least for today, for machine learning.

So I've been wanting to do more of that. So that's one thing I was going to sign up for. That sounds interesting. So the tutorials are like a couple days. I think they're two days before. Yeah. So technically, PyCon is the entire week from Wednesday through the next Wednesday. The main conference days are Friday, Saturday, Sunday. But then...

Wednesday and Thursday before tutorials. Okay. And then, uh, Thursday night, there's a big dinner thing usually. So yeah, yeah. Uh, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday afterwards are sprint days. Yeah. Right. So you can go off and code sprints with people if you, if you want to do that. Also, so both the tutorials and the sprints are great times to, um,

kind of experience the Python community without the huge crowd because the, yes, it's the huge crowd shows up for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, usually. That's right. That's right. And also what you were talking about with kind of the, the lighter aspect is absolutely true with the tutorials. There's people there, but they're not a large number of people.

So, so it's, uh, and typically some of the tutorials are going to be in large room format. Others are just going to be in smaller rooms. So, okay.

But, you know, I've had a pretty good experience with the tutorials in the past. So I'm definitely looking forward to this. I'm going to not create his name, but Sebastian Vraska on PyTorch, I think is the one that I was looking forward to. And then the other one that I was looking forward to was

on Thursday, Russell Keith McGee has built a cross platform app with Beware. And so the Beware is a framework so that you can build, you know, basically Android apps in Python. Yeah. Yeah. And he's also got to talk, but I've seen him before. Yeah.

do a presentation and I enjoyed him. So I, I'm looking forward to that one too. Yeah. He's an entertaining personality. Yeah, he is. Yeah. Well, well, Rob, thanks so much for talking, talking Pike on with me and, uh,

Um, I hope that you have fun. And if I show up there, we'll probably juggle together. Okay. Well, I, I hope you make it out. Uh, I, I, one thing I do want to keep in mind is if you, if you are going to go to a tutorial, do it ASAP because those fill up quickly. Yeah, they do. So, uh, but yeah, I, I, I hope to see you. Uh, I hope to see you there. Uh, cool.

Well, nice. Talk to you later. Hey, talk to you later too. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening. And thank you to everyone who has supported the show through purchases of the courses, both Hello PyTest, the new fastest way to learn PyTest, and the complete PyTest course. If you'd like to really become an expert at PyTest, both are available at courses.pythontest.com. And there you can also join the Python test community. That's all for now. Now go out and test something.