Python People

Brian: 00:01

Well, I'm excited to have Barry Warsaw here. So welcome, Barry.

Barry: 00:04

Thanks, Brian. Glad to be here. You

Brian: 00:09

you've been with Python for a long time. That's the beginning. Right?

Barry: 00:16

Not quite the very beginning, but pretty soon after, I sort of discovered Python around 1994.

Brian: 00:24

Okay. Yeah. But alright. So the community still wasn't that big. At least the from the story eyes I've heard, there was, like, the first get together of Python people was, like, 20 people, and you were one of those 20.

Brian: 00:38

Is that Yeah. That sound about right?

Barry: 00:40

That is right. It was the I think it was something like Guido's, Guido Van Rossum's Python, World Tour, something like that.

Brian: 00:50

Okay.

Barry: 00:53

And the connection really is, you know, one of the first places that I ever worked sort of in the industry was at what is now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST. And I worked there up until about 1990, and then I left the government, you know. But I still had a lot of friends there. And so the place that I was working, I had just started at CNRI, the Corporation For National Research Initiatives. And we were sort of doing some work around intelligent agents, and we were using objective c on next machines, actually.

Brian: 01:37

Okay.

Barry: 01:38

And some friends of mine at NIST said, hey. We've got this guy coming, you know, over to the states, and he's gonna talk about this little language that he he developed. And so being in the area, you know, I only lived about a half an hour from this. I lived in, you know, the Maryland suburbs at the time. So we went up.

Barry: 01:59

My colleague, Roger Massey, and I went up, and we attended the workshop. And this was in November of 1994. And so a little bit before that, I started, you know, downloading Python and kind of getting a feel for it and and really loving the language. Right? And then, the workshop happened, and I think Guido was actually in town for a little while more than just the 3 days of the workshop.

Barry: 02:26

And we just, you know, I mean, we just connected on a personal level and on a tech technical level, and I just really kind of fell in love with Python. So, it was very small. I think there were only 20 of us in this little, you know, as I remember it, a little room at Mist. Right?

Brian: 02:45

Okay. What's where's what city was this again?

Barry: 02:47

This is, so NIST is in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Okay. So, you know, half an hour north of Washington DC, something like that. And, we ended up coming back to see an Orion saying, oh my gosh. Python's awesome.

Barry: 03:02

We should do we were actually thinking the thing that really kind of compelled us was there was a a really nice Python objective c bridge. And so we were kind of thinking, well, we should still do it in objective c on next machines, but we can use this Python bridge to kind of, like, do a lot of the functionality and have a nicer experience. And then one of our colleagues at at c and r I said, why why don't we try to hire Guido? And the timing was just really right, I think, for Guido personally and for for the project, and so that's when Guido came and worked for CNRI for, you know, a bunch of years. And

Brian: 03:41

Oh, wow.

Barry: 03:41

As as I remember it, he pretty much was like as soon as he got there, he said, you know what? We don't really need to use objective c. We can do it all in Python. So we we kind of, just, you know, switch gears and and just did it all in Python, which

Brian: 03:55

If you can if you're able to say, what what was it that you were doing in Python that it c n r I?

Barry: 04:04

So this was a project for a digital library. So you gotta remember this is like 1994. Right? So imagine where like the Internet was and the web was. I think the web was just sort of brand new.

Barry: 04:17

I I kinda remember, you know, I mean, it it's a little fuzzy in my memory now, but, you know, a lot of these things were really new. So we were imagining building a digital library system where you had handles that were immutable and referenced digital assets that were spread out throughout a bunch of machines in the Internet.

Brian: 04:40

Okay.

Barry: 04:41

And we were building these little software agents that would travel from machine to machine. So they'd sort of go say, oh, I need a resource over on that machine, and they'd kind of in today's language, they'd sort of pickle themselves up, transfer over to another place, reconstitute themselves, and start executing over there. And they could travel all over to a bunch of different machines and gather a bunch of information and then come back to the original, you know, site original host and present their their results. Yeah. Yeah.

Barry: 05:15

It was a it was a really kind of a cool project.

Brian: 05:19

I mean, I was so I was at, I was at grad school in 95, 96, and we I was used just starting to use the Internet, and program it. So and it back then, I was using Perl scripts and raw HTML. So Yeah. That Python wasn't even on my radar until, like, 2,000. So

Barry: 05:44

Well, actually, the job that I had before coming to CNRI, I was working at the National Library of Medicine, which is in Bethesda, Maryland, a little closer to DC. And there we used Pearl. You know, we were doing, like, again, sort of digital library stuff but with a different focus. And we used a ton of Pearl and Tickle, and they were driving, like, c plus plus program. So I had been come I had come from that, you know, having a lot of experience with c and c plus plus as a comp as compiled languages, and then scripting stuff with Tickle and Perl.

Barry: 06:18

And when I sort of found the Python, you know, enlightenment, it just like brought everything together. I was like, oh my gosh. Like, all the problems with quoting and tickle and all the, like, you write pearl. It's like pearl is right only, you know, like, it's impossible to read your own pearl, you know, 6 months later or whatever. Like, Python just solved all those problems.

Barry: 06:41

It had a beautiful, CAPI. Although one of the things that one of the first things I did was we did the whole grand renaming project, you know, where we really, fixed a lot of the problems in the early c API. But, like, you could embed Python, you could extend Python, scripting c applications with Python was beautiful, you know, Like, it just like it just solved all these problems that I had seen elsewhere.

Brian: 07:09

Well, that's actually an interesting bit of the connecting c with Python. So that sounds like that was part of its part of its, abilities from from early on.

Barry: 07:24

Yeah. It really was.

Brian: 07:25

That's amazing.

Barry: 07:27

Yeah.

Brian: 07:27

I mean, I wasn't doing that with Pearl. I was, or anything. So, so are you to the are you the one to blame for why we still have TK and Sarah

Barry: 07:36

White Ray? Or I I haven't done anything with Tickle TK in ages, but I will say this. There was a point in time where Python actually so we had built this GRAIL browser. You you might have heard GRAIL. I don't know.

Barry: 07:57

It's it's long dead, but we sort of had, like, Guido had this idea of, hey, we can take t t k and we can build a web browser. Right? A simple like, this is night circa 1994 web browsing. Right?

Brian: 08:10

Yeah. Well, all of them were simple at that point.

Barry: 08:13

Exactly. Back to the simple days. But one of the really cool things so what we were thinking was, well, we've got these software agents that move around. Right? And wouldn't it be really cool if, like, that software agent could execute inside the browser and return the results?

Barry: 08:34

So in a way, Guido sort of had this vision of like, hey, we can build a simple browser in Python using t k. And not only that, but we can execute Python programs inside the browser.

Brian: 08:49

So this is

Barry: 08:50

really kind of you know, it's a little it's a little fuzzy in my memory, but it was almost about the time you had, you know, Java executing in in browsers. Right? Like Yeah. It may have bit it may have preceded that a little bit, certainly in a public public way, but like, you know, it was kind of a thing that we hacked together pretty quickly. The connection to TK was I remember implementing table support, in, this Grail browser and just like pulling my hair out with, TK because it was so like, the performance was horrible, and it just, like, you know, it never really worked well.

Barry: 09:32

It was really hard.

Brian: 09:33

And I've over the years, I've bashed TK a lot of times. But, I mean, to to be honest, it's slow. It's ugly. But it's, it's but you can, like, development wise, you can read a tutorial in, like, a half an hour and slap together a user interface, and it'll be okay. Yeah.

Brian: 09:52

So that's pretty cool. You can't do that in a lot of, like, really nice looking, user interface libraries. So there's there's some There

Barry: 10:00

there is a really interesting vestige in modern Python from those t k experiments. A lot I guess a lot of people aren't aware of this, but and, you know, I'll just copy out everything with, like, my memory. You know, it could be fuzzy about all of this stuff. But, you know, one of the things about early TK integration with Python was, right, like, every widget has a 1,000,000 configuration variables, like options about color and font and blah blah blah, you know, size and things like that. Well, it used to be that you'd have to list every single one of those options, and the ones you didn't care about, you would just set to none.

Barry: 10:37

Right?

Brian: 10:38

Yeah.

Barry: 10:38

So imagine a call site like that is just horrific. Right? And that's when, at least the way I remember it, Guido came up with the idea of keyword arguments. You know? So you could define defaults when you define the function.

Barry: 10:53

So that at the call sites, all you needed to do was override, you know, a small handful of, the, you know, you know, the arguments that you that were default. So keyword arguments sort of grew out of wanting to make t k programming in Python more ergonomic. And, of course, yeah.

Brian: 11:14

And we still have Idle. So Idle is written in t k, and, and so, sure. And it and it ships with Python still. I mean, most most at least in, the standard distribution.

Barry: 11:26

Yeah.

Brian: 11:27

So Yeah. Now how but you okay. So earlier on, you were using it. You were, you've been involved. You were even on the steering committee when they started.

Brian: 11:40

Right? You were one of the first steering committee people. Yeah. So you've been in you've been kept you've kept involved with Python over the years.

Barry: 11:48

Mhmm.

Brian: 11:49

Have you always been using it, or you've been jumping around using a bunch other languages with your day job and whatnot?

Barry: 11:55

Really, Python has been my primary language Okay. Since I since I discovered it, you know. And I still I still use it today in my job and in my personal, you know, stuff. Although I, you know, don't have a lot of bandwidth for for hacking, you know, on fun things these days. But, because I have a lot of other interests, but I still love Python, the language, and I still use it daily, and I still keep up with it.

Barry: 12:22

And, you know, over the years, you know, I still do I still love c, you know, kind of, you know, with all its warts and problems and and things like that. I I I still enjoy that. I don't you know, I've I've dabbled in a lot of stuff over the years, c plus plus and, you know, even more recently, Rust. But I tend not to use anything other than Python in my professional career these days. Yeah.

Brian: 12:48

What are what are the neat things about knowing c is it makes you feel like one of those wizards that still knows Latin, I guess. Yeah. But, yeah. So you're still, can you talk about what you're doing now? Or

Barry: 13:07

I can talk about it a little bit very high level. You know, I work for Snowflake. You know, they're a data data platform. You know, high performance data platform in the cloud. And they use Python.

Barry: 13:20

You know, there's a lot of Python stuff. So I do, you know, kind of like Python work across the board.

Brian: 13:28

Okay. Yeah. Well, one of the things that I I wanna kinda explore with this podcast is around the people and also the community. And I was just curious if you there is this there is a community aspect about Python that I don't get from other languages. They might be there, but the ones I've been involved in with c and pearl and whatever, I just haven't been noticed the like, the, I guess, the lifting everybody else around you up ness that Python has.

Brian: 13:58

Any idea where that came from? Do you have thoughts on how community got so much ingrained into the Python community?

Barry: 14:06

Yeah. I I really I've thought about this a lot, and I really think I really believe that it comes from Guido. You know? I mean, you know, he just has this wonderful sense of, you know, I think he's a very compassionate person and he's a very giving person. In the sense that, you know, it's not easy to be the BDFL of a language that grew from the small, you know, like, hey, it's our little secret.

Barry: 14:38

Right? To, like, arguably one of the most important languages in the world today. Right? Certainly one of the most popular. I mean, that is not an easy position to be in.

Barry: 14:51

And before, you know, Guido kinda gave up that b d f l control. Now I wouldn't even seem to say control, but position. You know, he had to do everything. Right? Like, he was making technical decisions, community decisions, you know.

Barry: 15:05

He was so involved in all these things. And that really takes a very, in my mind, a very giving and compassionate and and sort of outward focused kind of personality. And I think he just really honestly cares about people. So what that did in the early days is it really attracted folks who were super interested in the technology. Right?

Barry: 15:30

Like, Python as a as a language that you could really learn easily and teach easily. Kids could learn it. You know? You could use it for simple one off scripts, but you could build complex applications with it. Right?

Barry: 15:42

So it it attracted people who were interested in it from that perspective, but it also attracted people who had that same mindset of giving. Right? Of community, of collaboration, of compassion and and and gratitude. You know, those are things that I find very important. And, I think that that's what really kinda grew the the community to what it is today.

Barry: 16:08

It was I think in the early days, we we had lots of little experiments about how to organize community and to give community a voice in shaping Python. There was like the Python software activity early on and, you know, all these things were that were sort of precursor precursors to the Python Software Foundation. But it really didn't take off until we had that the PSF as a nonprofit that, you know, had a very specific mission to grow the community for education purposes and to to hold the IP for Python. And once we had that structure in place, you know, we had folks who were really community minded could really focus on building a healthy, you know, vibrant community of really just awesome people, you know.

Brian: 16:57

Okay. Do any do you have any I could look this up, but I was just curious if you knew when the PSF started.

Barry: 17:04

I don't remember. But it was probably post because we sort of forked from CNRI around 2,000. And then we were sort of at ZOKE Corporation for a little while, although they were called Digital Creations at first. And then, you know, by that by, you know, somewhere probably around 2,004 ish, we sort of kind of dissipated a little bit. And the core group went their own way.

Barry: 17:33

But sometime around, I think was sort of around that time frame, so early mid 2000 maybe.

Brian: 17:39

Well, your involvement with Zope, is that how you met Paul?

Barry: 17:43

That was how I met no. Actually, I met Paul at the first workshop because Paul was there and Jim Fulton Jim Fulton was there.

Brian: 17:51

Okay.

Barry: 17:52

And so when, you know, we had this, like, little you know, this was like the dotcom, and we're like, ah, you know, Python step 1, Python, step 2, question, step 3, profit. You know? Sort of right there. Classic mean.

Brian: 18:06

Except for the the the profit bit. It's a little tricky with everything being open source.

Barry: 18:11

Yeah. Definitely. But what we found we were looking for a home. So, like, this thing that we, you know, we sort of forked off of CNRI, and it kind of didn't work out. And then we were looking for a home.

Barry: 18:24

And and Zip Corporation Digital Creations, you know, at the time just felt like a natural place because we knew Jim, and we knew Paul, you know, and even Rob Page. And a lot of the people that work there, we just knew them and we felt very comfortable. It was geographically close to us ish, you know, not that far maybe, you know, an hour drive. So it just felt like the right place to to land.

Brian: 18:48

Okay. Are you still in the northeast area?

Barry: 18:51

No. I live in California. Okay. Yeah.

Brian: 18:54

Yeah. North or south?

Barry: 18:57

I'm in the Bay Area. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I I kinda moved here, about 6 years ago and absolutely love it.

Barry: 19:05

I don't miss I don't miss the heat and humidity and mosquitoes of the of the East Coast.

Brian: 19:12

Yeah. No. I haven't spent much time over there, but I did I did spend, I was in, 4 about 4 years in Sonoma County. Mhmm. So, but I also wanted to talk to you about other stuff.

Brian: 19:26

So you you do some other fun things on your on the side. Tell me, like, I'm I'm gonna get this wrong. Tai Chi and something else?

Barry: 19:39

A little bit of Qigong.

Brian: 19:40

Yeah. Okay. Qigong. Okay. Yeah.

Brian: 19:44

Have has this been in part and is this been part of something a power part of you for a long time or, something recent?

Barry: 19:53

Yeah. I've been practicing Tai Chi for the the my current style about 25 years. Oh, wow. Yeah. I I I sort of learned early, a different form.

Barry: 20:06

You know, there's lots of different styles and and forms of Tai Chi. In my early mist days, I did a longer form. But, for about 25 years, I've been doing what's called, like, a Yang style short form or Chen Man Chang style. And yeah. Honestly, it's transformed my life.

Barry: 20:30

I mean, I absolutely love it and it's it's a practice that I do everyday and I meditate everyday. And Qigong, I did I did some, study in Qigong, but I you know, and I and I incorporate that into my daily practice. But I'm not actually taking much qigong lessons these days. You know?

Brian: 20:52

Okay. So complete. I mean, I don't know very much about Tai Chi. So, no, I guess, novice. What is it?

Barry: 21:03

It's a it's so technically, it's a Chinese martial art. It's related to kung fu. It's often called, like, a moving meditation. So it's very much a meditative I mean, there are people and I have friends who do a much more martial application of Tai Chi. And, but for me, it's all about health, awareness, meditation, balance, those kind of aspects.

Barry: 21:33

That's what I really enjoy from Tai Chi. So imagine that you're, you know, you you can do a meditate a meditative practice where you might be standing or sitting, for 10 minutes or 15 minutes or an hour or whatever and and and doing that kind of focused meditation. And Tai Chi is very similar or it gets at many of the similar things, but you're doing it in a moving way.

Brian: 21:57

So Okay.

Barry: 21:58

There is a sense of awareness of where your body is and how your weight is distributed and how you transition from one posture to another posture. And it's really sort of like, the thing I love about it is, you know, your Tai Chi is different every single day. One of my teachers often said one of the big downsides of Tai Chi is getting into kind of an automatic, you know, like my my body always goes here right and my body always goes here and you and that disconnects your awareness from it. But realizing that hey every day is different. You know, today my knee might hurt.

Barry: 22:34

Right? Or, you know, tomorrow, like, the wind or the or the, the temperature is really perfect. You know? So, like, it's connecting to it and every single day is a unique experience of your Tai Chi practice, and I I really love that aspect of it as well.

Brian: 22:52

When you're doing Tai Chi, are there are there preset, like, movements that you're trying to go through? Do you have, like, a like a like a, I don't know, handful of different, Tai Chi's movement sessions that you go through?

Barry: 23:05

Yeah. There is. With the particular style that I learned, it it might take a year of, you know, of of regular study to learn the form. There's a form, and we call it the solo form because you can do it on your own. Right?

Brian: 23:25

And Okay.

Barry: 23:27

With some repetition, there's different ways of thinking about it. 37 moves, 38 moves. There's, you know, something like that. Like, it's just it's not a lot of postures. And a posture is a place where, it's a transitional it's a transitional place that you sort of recognize.

Barry: 23:47

The way the way to think about it is, you know, a lot of this comes out of the the doubt the Dallas practices of yin and yang. So yin being, you know, empty and yang being full. And so a posture is a place where you are expressing a fullness and now relaxing to empty. Okay. And you might you know, some of the ways you you practice this is you might hold the posture.

Barry: 24:14

And it might be like, you know, my my left hand is is out in front of my shoulder and my, you know, right hand is in a hook. You know, that that that's a very common, single whip is, you know each one of these postures has a name. And when you're practicing you might hold the posture and you might say, oh, I I can see that when you know, I'm I'm sort of going through my body and saying, oh, well, I can deepen my connection to my hip a little bit more or I my, you know, my weight isn't quite distributed the same way. And you really dive deep into that particular posture. But then there's another aspect which is really connected to the flow.

Barry: 24:56

So you don't, you know, when you wanna it the the way that I've you know, so many of my teachers that have expressed it is imagine you're a spider and you're you're stringing out a small thread of silk. Right? Okay. You wanna do that in a very, you know, smooth way. So you don't wanna go too fast, which might break the the thread.

Barry: 25:19

And you don't wanna go too slow where, you know, this thread might have slack in it. You wanna have a very even pull. And so one of the ways that you you know, what I do every morning is I'll go through the entire form thinking about that flow and really being in the, you know, in the flow of things and the smooth. So, yes, a posture you will have a fullness, but that immediately, you know, there's all if you think about the yin yang symbol, there's always a little field of black in the field of what in the larger field of white. And there's always a little field of a small circle of white in the bigger field of black.

Barry: 25:56

And so even at the most full fullness of a particular posture, you have a little element of emptiness. And so then things flow into that empty state. And yet that empty state has a little dot of fullness in it. And so it's always it's this interchange between fullness and emptiness that is where all the energy and and chi, right, that chi is the flow of the energy through your body and the connection to the earth and the and, you know, your surroundings. So yeah.

Brian: 26:29

Well, it seems to me like, something I should check out because it sounds great. I one of the I struggle with, sitting meditation of just getting distracted as everybody does when they start out. But, and walking meditation is, so it sounds like some of the things like walking meditation or, cooking meditation even Yeah. Help with you're doing something so you can focus on that. But

Barry: 26:56

yeah. And and that's a really interesting thing because the the way I think about it is, like, what is the nature of mind? The nature of your mind is to be distracted. They say it's a monkey in a cage. You know, it's always like grabbing at things.

Barry: 27:13

Right? So, like, you're even the so Chen Meng Chang was the sort of the, founder of this particular style that I study. And, you know, I've heard it said that, like, even he couldn't go for more than a couple of minutes, you know. And he was he was, like, the most accomplished, you know, person that, you know, anybody had ever met. Right?

Barry: 27:37

And yet his mind wandered after, you know, a small number of of postures. So your mind is gonna wander. That's its nature.

Brian: 27:44

Yeah.

Barry: 27:45

And so one of the, you know, one of the the concepts is it's okay for your mind to wander because that's its nature. But what you're trying to do is to train yourself to recognize that and invite it back to your breath, back to your body with no judgment. So you're not saying, oh, I'm a terrible person because my mind wanders. Right? Like, that is that's not, you know, you're you're you're a human being, and so your mind is gonna wander.

Barry: 28:15

But it's it's saying, well, you know what? Today, I recognized it was wandering after 30 seconds. And then I just said, hey, mind, come back to the breath. You know, I invite you back to the breath. I invite you back to the body.

Barry: 28:29

And so you're shortening that period of time between your mind wandering and when you recognize it and bring it back to your your your body or your breath. And that's really what the practice is.

Brian: 28:41

And you said that, that meditation in Tai Chi has affected your life. Has it has it affected your engineering?

Barry: 28:54

I I think so. You know these these are these are kind of like all the things for me at least you know all these practices and you know, I'm a musician as well, and I really like Tai Chi and meditation have really transformed my music, experience in a in a similar way. But I think it it comes down to practicing things like gratitude and compassion and, a way of sort of, like, sitting with a topic. Like like, if you have a really difficult, technical issue that you're trying to experience. Right?

Barry: 29:37

Yeah. Or trying to to improve. So one of the things I think about is ergonomics. You know, that's like, how how am I gonna write the documentation to explain this API to somebody else or this command that I'm I'm building. Right?

Barry: 29:51

And and to me, it's also cultivating that beginner's mind. Right? So, like, my classic example is Git. Right? Like, I've been using version control systems for, I don't know, 30 or 40 years.

Barry: 30:04

Right? Like, RCS, CVS, you know, subversion Yep. Mercurial, Bazaar, you know. And and so if you think about Git, like, Git is so like, the command line, Git is so complicated, and it's such a complicated. It's a complex tool.

Barry: 30:24

Yeah. But the prob and and it takes a lot of effort, I think, to understand it, especially if you're coming from something that's a little like it, but but different, like branches mean different things in different version control systems.

Brian: 30:38

And count being a completely different thing. Yeah. Exactly.

Barry: 30:44

But very quickly, you sort of learn how to use Git to to be, you know, to to get your job done. Right? Like you, you know, and you lose that beginner's mind. Right? And that beginner's mind is what allows you to put yourself in the in the shoes of a beginner.

Barry: 31:03

Right? To feel compassion for the journey that somebody just starting out with Python or Git or, you know, any other thing that you're building is gonna experience. And so that's where things like meditation and Tai Chi, you know, help you train the ability to reconnect with that beginner's mind and say, you know, somebody who doesn't know anything about this thing that I've built, what is their first experience going to be? Right? Yeah.

Barry: 31:34

And and and that relates to Python because Python these days, 30 years later, is a very complex ecosystem. If you forget about, like, 3rd party packages and all that stuff, just like the core

Brian: 31:48

Yeah.

Barry: 31:49

Languages. It's a lot more complex and powerful than it was 30 years ago. But it still has retained a sense of we're gonna make it ergonomic for beginners to get into a sync. Right? Like a sync IO or, meta programming or, you know, like all these really complex topics.

Brian: 32:11

I really think this is fascinating that you're referring to talking about documentation and tutorials and APIs and referring to those as ergonomics. That's a interesting mindset. The comfortable like, removing pain points and Yeah. Making it more comfortable to use it. That's that's fascinating.

Brian: 32:35

Sort of things and that I think that, like, a lot of a lot of projects excel at that. Like, I'm thinking about some of the fast API and some of the other, libraries that have focused on, really getting people started quickly. I feel like, in my meditation practice and others, I think that I've embraced the beginner mind quite I'm okay with that. Like, I learned Django recently, and I can go to the, like, the basic tutorials and learn the like, learn the basics. And and I and I think I can embrace that.

Brian: 33:13

What I'm having trouble with is intermediate mind, because I wanna go from beginner to expert in a week. And that patience, I don't have that yet. So I'm still working on that part.

Barry: 33:27

It's a it's a it's a hard problem. And I I've the way I've heard it talked about is, like, there's a gap. There's I forget exactly the the term, but there's that sense of, like, yes, it's easy to get into. And then it's really powerful for experts. But there's this middle gap that a lot of software systems have that is often very difficult to bridge.

Barry: 33:47

I remember

Brian: 33:49

It's draw the

Brian: 33:49

rest of the OWL problem.

Barry: 33:50

Yeah. Exactly. And it's hard. It's, you know, it's really hard to build that. In some I mean, I think this is really the secret to Python success.

Barry: 34:02

I mean, there's a lot of secrets to Python success, and I don't think they're really secrets. But, like, there's something about Python that attracts the beginner because you can be like like, you don't have to think about, oh, my braces go here and I've got it right, like, a main thing and, like, you know, like, there's very little boiler plate that you have to do to get something, like, get the computer to do something that you told it to do. Right?

Brian: 34:30

Yeah.

Barry: 34:31

But it grows through that gap. It has a it has a very narrow if nonexisting gap for intermediates. Right? Like, a lot of these things were like, think about packages. So packages really grew out of this sense of, like, how do you organize this intermediate sort of size system that's written in Python where you have to be able to abstract, you know, abstractions are important and and packaging was really important.

Barry: 34:59

And so, you know, solving that problem bridge the gap for intermediate people. And then lots of these things like a sync IO and meta programming of these, like, mind blowing parts of Python, I think help help pull that experience level through intermediate into, like, people who are just doing, like, crazy mind blowing things with Python and really pushing the envelope of what can be accomplished with Python.

Brian: 35:30

You still don't need it all. You get you can get a lot done with the basics still. So I still think the entire language is hard for one person to keep in their mind, but I think that the basics are something people can keep in mind. One of the things that drove me nuts when I was learning Python was that package has two meanings. I'm still annoyed by that, that it's something you download, and it's also a directory with a dunder init file in it.

Brian: 35:55

Yeah. But, I want to jump a tangent and talk about music because music's a big part of you. Right?

Barry: 36:03

Yeah.

Brian: 36:04

Yeah. And I'd I you've shared with me that you play bass.

Barry: 36:10

Mhmm.

Brian: 36:12

Do you play any other instruments or is it focusing on the bass guitar?

Barry: 36:17

I do. You know, I've got a little home studio. Right? Like, a little Mac based home studio, and I do I do my own stuff. And, you know, I would say the the way I like to call myself is like I'm I'm a bass player who has a guitar and a keyboard, you know.

Barry: 36:33

You know, like I can I'm moderately functional on I can play chords and very simple solos and things like that on guitar. And I can play chords on the keyboards and things like that. But I I wouldn't call myself. I I would never take a gig as a guitar player or keyboard

Brian: 36:50

player. Really?

Barry: 36:52

Yeah. I I, you know, I I discovered bass when I was 14 or 15, and it just resonated with me in such a deep way. And so in my per you know, semi pro music career, bass is the thing that I do. You know? I just I just really love playing playing bass.

Barry: 37:16

Yeah.

Brian: 37:16

So what do you mean by semi pro? If you do if you don't do gigs?

Barry: 37:21

I do I do gigs. So I I, you know, I I I'm in 2 bands that, you know, out here in California, I was in 2 very long term bands back in Maryland. And, you know, I'd go to a lot of jams and things like that. You know, we're the like like, one of the things I love about the Bay Area is there's a blues jam just about every day of the week. You know, you can go, and if you feel like getting 20 minutes in and just, like, playing with random people, some blues tunes, you can grab your you know, I can grab my bass and, it was actually really transformative for me because when I moved to California, I kinda left, you know, I left my life in Maryland.

Barry: 38:03

Right? Like, I moved to California, and I didn't really know anybody. But, I had my base, and I just started going and meeting people and jamming with people and kind of that was that was a way to reboot my social network and met people that I I really connected with musically. And so then I, you know, started playing in bands with them and stuff like that. So Well,

Brian: 38:24

can I can I hear a little bit?

Barry: 38:27

You want to hear a little bit? Yeah. I mean, yeah. I'll play. Let's see.

Barry: 38:31

I got I don't know if this is come comes through. You know, that's nice. You know, we're the band that I'm in is actually working on a new record. So I joined these guys. These these are guys that I knew, I've known for a couple of years.

Barry: 38:56

And then during the pandemic, they lost their bass player. And I started doing sitting in with Facebook Live. The name of the band is Lencat, lencat.com. You can go there and check them out. And just a, you know, a great group of guys and and, we have fun and we're working on a new record.

Barry: 39:14

So,

Brian: 39:16

how much, time out of your week is playing guitar?

Barry: 39:22

You we usually rehearse, one day a week. And, I you know, gigs are it's really funny. Sometimes there's a lot of gigs. And sometimes there are no gigs. It's kind of feast or famine.

Barry: 39:38

These days, we're playing I'm playing a couple of times a month. I I try to be it's it's funny because when I have a lot of gigs, I feel like it's too many, and I don't have time for the other things that I love to do. And, of course, I have, you know, have relationships and, you know, family and and friends and things like that. So, so there's lots of other things to do in life, and there's never enough time. I I'm always joking.

Barry: 40:02

Like, I wanna I wanna perfect my clone army. So, you know, I can get everything done. But, I feel most comfortable when I'm playing maybe 3, 4 times a month, you know, doing gigs. Nice.

Brian: 40:14

Yeah. Sounds fun.

Barry: 40:16

It is. It is. Yeah. I I I I love I just had a gig on Saturday. You know, we played with a bunch of guys and had a had a blast, you know.

Barry: 40:26

I mean, again, that's it. It kind of, like, music really fits into this whole thing because I play music because of the connection and, you know, being able to, like, kinda lose your intellectual mind. Like, I feel like a lot of music is it gets into that place where it's it's very intuitive and I love to improvise and things like that. But you're also sharing joy and happiness with people. Right?

Barry: 40:57

Like they come and they see the band and, you know, you I get the most out of it when the music is really connected and then the audience is brought into that experience and everybody's really having a great time and forgetting about the troubles that we all face for a couple of hours and just enjoying music and just, you know, having a great time. And so, that's what I that's what I love about live performance.

Brian: 41:23

Nice. So that that reminds me a lot of why I'm in Python of the community and meeting people and stuff. Well, any chance you, post pandemic, are you back to going to conferences?

Barry: 41:39

Yes. Yes. I did. You know, PyCon is really kind of like my big conference every year. I I did unfortunately, I I was only at PyCon for a day for one day this year at the lang the language summit.

Barry: 41:58

You know, my mom passed away

Brian: 42:00

in April.

Barry: 42:01

Yeah. Thank you. It was really tough. There was a lot of beautiful moments. I I feel like, Yeah.

Barry: 42:10

That's that's a whole another deep topic that I'm still kind of like in processing. Sure. Yeah. But I have I have a wonderful family, and so we really spent a lot of time reconnecting. But, you know, the downside was, I mean, obviously, other than my mom, but, you know, the the effect of that, I guess, I would say is that I I didn't get really a chance to be at PyCon this year.

Brian: 42:32

So, yeah. Well, hopefully, we'll catch up, next PyCon.

Barry: 42:36

Yeah. For sure. For sure.

Brian: 42:37

So awesome. Well, thanks for your time, Barry, and, we'll talk to you later.

Barry: 42:42

Absolutely, Brian. Thanks.

Brian: 42:44

Let's end the show with Barry Warsaw and the Zen of Python.

Brian: 43:05

Beautiful is better than ugly. Explicit is better than implicit. Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. Flat is better than nested.

Brian: 43:23

Sparse is better than dense. Readability counts. Special cases aren't special enough Now is better than never.