Carlton Gibson - Django, Spain, Parenting, and Open Source
We have Carlton Gibson. Carlton, you are on Django chat, and you were just recently you just stepped down as being one of the Django fellows. Is that correct?
Carlton:Yes. Yeah. I did, Brian. Yes. So I was 5 years in the role there.
Carlton:That's I was described that as being the janitor. You know, we keep the floor clean, on Django. So I did 5 years of triaging the tickets and responding to every fire hose comment, and it's I'm still very much enjoying stepping back from that and the the the sort of change of data, you know, still very fresh for me.
Brian:Well, if you're if you describe it as janitor stuff, did you spend, like, most of your time then in, like, the Django, the the issue tracker and stuff then? Is that Yeah.
Carlton:No. I mean, yes. So literally, like, so Django, you've gotta, imagine. Like, it literally gets 5 new ticket reports a day Every single day. Like, you know, Christmas, it will get 5 new ticket reports.
Carlton:It's like it's it's it's non stop. And then there's PRs and, we have a security at jangaproject.com email for security disclosure. That's very busy. We get lots of reports, and you you have to look at those. And a lot of them, you know, can be, no.
Carlton:This isn't an issue, but some of them are very serious. And and then there's 6 so Django has a point release pretty much every month and has a major release every 8 months, and the fellows are responsible for that. And, contributors, they'll do a PR, but it's, you know, it won't get reviewed. And so the fellows do the do the the bulk of the PR review. You know, so having stepped down, I was cc'd on a recent async issue.
Carlton:It's one of my areas that I'm interested in. And I kinda commented I I I, you know, made sure it's sane, but I haven't done that fine, like, you know, really fine detailed review that the fellows will do because I'm no longer the fellow. So it's okay. I I haven't got the time, the capacity to do that extra level, and that's that's what the fellow role is all about. It's just a a web framework the size of Django.
Carlton:It just wouldn't get done, and it wouldn't it certainly wasn't getting done. And so the Fellow role was created, and then Tim Graham did it for a number of years. I came along, then married Felicia there, and now Natalia Baidat Baidat has just started. And so, you know it's continuing but I've stepped away. And as I say I it's it really is a relief because that fire hose of notifications that's that's quite hard work.
Carlton:You know, it's real work. It's it really is.
Brian:Yeah. It's a so it's a paid role. Right?
Carlton:Yes. Exactly. So the DSF contracts the fellows to do that that day to day maintenance. Yeah.
Brian:Now outside of, like, where I don't know if you did built jang used Django when you were in the in as a Django fellow, but do you build websites with Django also?
Carlton:Yeah. No. I have forever. I mean, this is this is the thing. So I I I don't know.
Carlton:2005, 6, I started my I I got big fat book p a, web development with PHP and MySQL, and it was like my introduction. That was great. And I was doing that for a while, and I was using Zen framework. And then I went to a web conference called, Future of Web Web Apps, which is an amazing thing. You know, Twitter was fresh and I know there's all sorts of things going on.
Carlton:And everyone was talking about this Django. Django. Django. So I got home and I googled it, and it said the web framework for perfectionists with a deadline. And I'm like, that's me.
Carlton:So I've been happily using it ever since. And I got into, I had a sort of mini career building mobile web applications with back ends. So I was building the the both sides of it. I was building the the front end mobile app and then also the server back end. I was doing that with Django Rest Framework.
Carlton:And so I got into helping with Django Rest Frameworks. Tom Christie, who is the creator of that, came on the mailing list. He said, look. I need a bit of help answering questions and triaging tickets. And, you know, so I I just did that.
Carlton:And then all of a sudden, he was like, oh, well, you know, you can I got the commit bit there? You know? It was like, oh, wow. I can merge this PR. And, yeah.
Carlton:And then a few years later, I I fellas I, you know, I took on Jango filter. I took on Jango crispy forms. I took on Jango compressor, helping out there. Because these were these were, dependencies that I was using, and I was building my business around them. And I had to make sure that they weren't going to break.
Carlton:Like, it it was like, I can't I can't have crispy forms just stop working. So I, you know, I helped out and made sure it was working. And then the fellow role came up, Tim Graham, said he was gonna step back. He'd been doing it for, you know, 4 years, I think, full time solo, which is a lot. And I he he he said he wanted to step back, and so they they advertised for a fellow.
Carlton:And I said, I'd like to do it part time and help. And I was, you know, I don't know who else applied but I was lucky enough to get that role. And so, you know, 5 years later, here I am.
Brian:So were you were you still doing, like, as a freelance I don't know if you're a freelancer or otherwise.
Carlton:I do a yeah. No. So I've always been independent. I've, you know, I worked at, you know, various companies like, big and small, like from the very biggest to, you know, tiny.
Brian:But through through being a fellow, you were also still doing that? Or
Carlton:A little bit, but not very much. The reality was I didn't have very much capacity. So I was doing a little bit, like, the odd bit that came up. Yeah. Okay.
Carlton:I'll I'll do that. But I wasn't, I thought initially, yes, I was doing you know, I I started fellow in part time and I was continuing to freelance part time. But as it as the time went by and it was over COVID, remember, as well. Things were different, and things were difficult. I kind of was doing less and less, just because life and capacity.
Carlton:I mean, I've got 4 kids, which is another sort of thing. And so having 4 kids and and and following, like, 3 days a week, and then maybe I do a week a day week on my own projects. And then, oh, have I got a day week's capacity to do some client work? Well, if if that client work just fell in my lap, then, yeah, okay. I'd do it.
Brian:But You're not seeking it out or doing marketing?
Carlton:Yeah. I I wasn't seeking it. I wasn't seeking it. Okay. And the reality was by the by the end, you know, so I stepped down in March.
Carlton:By the end, I was kind of tired. I I said, to everybody that I stepped down in March. I was gonna give myself till the end of June, which was after DjangoCon Europe. I was just gonna go cold turkey. And I I wasn't gonna look at the issue tracker.
Carlton:I wasn't gonna look at the notifications on Django Django. I wasn't gonna do anything. And there was only one day I let that slip. Somebody somehow I got cc'd on a a pull request or an issue, and I found myself answering comments on track. And I was like, no.
Carlton:No. No. No. No. No.
Carlton:Stop. Stop. Stop. Back away.
Brian:Well, so now that you've, so you're a few months out from being a fellow
Carlton:now? Yes. Yes. I am. Yes.
Brian:So And now are you,
Carlton:so do you just did
Brian:you take a few months off or are you back to doing client client work or what are you doing now? No.
Carlton:Well, I'm building I'm working on an, and I've got 2 two applications on in the bag. 1 is, called, PARS which is a tool in the, environmental and social governance sector which, is working with a a friend of mine who I've known 20 years who who works in that sector. And, traditionally, his work has been using Excel and we're well, whenever Excel is in use, then, you know, it's an opportunity to turn that into a real application. And so we're doing we're doing that very standard thing of embedding his domain knowledge in a web application and then, you know, hoping to sell that to clients. So that's that's, up and coming.
Carlton:And then I've got a deployment tool, which I've been talking about, you know, for years. And all through the pandemic, I've been talking about it, but I just haven't had the capacity to build a cool button, which is a sort of take on deployments for targeting simple Django deployments. Because, well, we do Django Chat, which is the podcast. And every week, someone will come on and they'll tell us about some hoops they've had to jump through for deployment. And then, actually, whilst it's complex, there are a lot of moving parts.
Carlton:You don't have to make it more complex than it needs to be. And so is my take on that. And I've been thinking about it and wanting to get it done for a long time, and as I say, without capacity. And now I have that capacity, so I'm hoping to launch that in the fall, which will be a sort of finally, you know, one of these oh, wow. It's actually happened after all this time.
Brian:So you you said hopefully launching in the fall. It's it's August now. You realize that. Right? So fall is coming
Carlton:Yeah. Yeah. No. No. So I'm yeah.
Carlton:No. I'm I'm really close. So the back end all works. I've got people using it. It it's it all functions.
Carlton:It's it's how I've been deploying applications, myself for years and with clients, and it's all evolved. And a lot of what I've been doing is, taking it from, what works on my machine to what works on any machine. And that Okay. That process takes a long time. I think in the Mythical Man month, I think first chapter or second chapter of that, there's this lovely grid, which is like where you've got a script in one corner, and you've got a productized product down the other.
Carlton:And it's times 3 along one axis and times 3 along the other. So, you know, to ship the the product is actually 10 times the amount of time it takes you to ship the the script. And so that's where my time has been going. And, you know, I've learned, a couple of UI paradigms, and I've experimented with various deployment strategies. Because what I want to build is a is a native application.
Carlton:So it'd be a native application that you download to your desktop and you you enter your things, and that's all coming. And, it's been coming for a long time, and I'm I'm I'm really happy with it. But it's obviously taken a lot longer than it should have done, so that's okay.
Brian:Alright. Cool. But it'll be something that you've built and you're happy with or proud of.
Carlton:Or Yeah. No. Exactly. Yeah. And, I mean, so we talked about freelancing a little bit.
Carlton:Like, I did that for a long, long, long, long, long, long time. And it's great. It and I could continue to do it if I had to. But part of me is like, no. I'd I'd much rather build products.
Carlton:I'd so this is why I'm excited about the parts application. This is why I'm excited about button. And, you know, there'll be a couple of other ideas that will follow in the the year or 2 after that of I'd like to build now a small portfolio of products that just do their thing. You know, if if I can find a market for those, then that would be wonderful. And if not, well, I'll continue to bask on the streets as I always have.
Brian:Now I gotta see that. So you got any videos of you on the streets, you know, dancing?
Carlton:No. No. No. No. Not on the street.
Carlton:I I I tried to keep you know, if I see someone with a camera, I have to go and take it off them and destroy the evidence.
Brian:Awesome. I I you didn't this is we're not gonna release the video, but I I was imagining you putting air quotes when you said pile you know, client work is great.
Carlton:No. It it is. The analogy that always comes to mind I don't know if you remember the film Ben Hur from the, you know, 19, whenever it was. But, like, when he gets imprisoned on the Roman galleon and the the the, you know, the he's he's tied he's chained to an oar, and there's a drummer that sets the rhythm. And they have to keep the rhythm.
Carlton:And if they don't keep the rhythm, they get whipped and they they until they collapse and they get unchained and thrown over the side and someone else gets chained in their place. Client work is a bit like that. It's always project driven. It's always deadline driven. It's always project based.
Carlton:So there's a deadline and then another deadline, and there's another deadline. And it's well remunerated. And so you can fill you can sort of fill up your bank account, and you can take a a break from it. And then but when the money's gone, you go back to it. And it it's very much a treadmill.
Carlton:And that's okay. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. It as I say, it's well remunerated to pay for that. But, hey. It it it it's tiring.
Carlton:And, you know, I remember, when I started the federal role, I was very, one one reason why I was like, oh yeah I'll apply for that was because I I did want a break from that that routine. I've been doing it a dozen years. Yeah. And it is great. It it it's exciting.
Carlton:It's fun. It's always challenging. It's always, you know, it's interesting. And it and it's well renumerated. But it's not it's not very forgiving.
Carlton:There's no there's no space there's not much space for life in it, if that makes sense.
Brian:Well, I think I probably didn't do it long enough to do the to get to the point where it was paid enough to make it worth it. I guess I did a I did a way back a long time ago. I did a restaurant website, with PHP, and then, built in ecommerce site, for somebody based on WordPress, actually. But, and neither one of them paid near enough to make it worth the time I had to put into it. But I I was still learning at the time.
Brian:So yeah. Anyway.
Carlton:Yeah. Those first few years are are are really tough because you you haven't got the portfolio or the experience to pick, you know, or even the business knowledge as well. I mean, it gets you get more experience and you realize that there is a lot of money around and, you know, to in the end, I was working for, you know, household names, you know, very big companies, but buyer agencies that were so I wasn't contracting directly with those agent with the the big companies. Yeah. But, you know, I was going by the agencies and they would pay a rate.
Brian:Okay.
Carlton:You know, but they they really want their, you know, they they know the business too, and they really want their pound of flesh. And so, you know, it works. So It works both ways.
Brian:You said you have 4 kids. Yes. Young kids, old kids?
Carlton:Well, they they get older all the time. So the eldest is 15 and then 1 at 13 and 2 who are nearly 11. So
Brian:Okay.
Carlton:If you do know if you do the the maths backwards there, when the when the so we had 2 and we thought, oh, we'll have a 3rd and then we had twins. Right? So Okay. We when our twins were born, we had a 4 year old, a 2 year old, and 2 newborns, which was the the word is brutal. It was utterly brutal.
Carlton:The first the first couple of years, I barely survived. No question.
Brian:Well, the the good news is is I think being a parent myself is I don't the 1st year is, like, so hard that you don't like, there's some defense mechanism that blocks it out. So I barely remember most of the 1st year of either of my kids' lives. So
Carlton:Yeah. No. It's it's totally gray. So I refuse to recall that. But there there there there were moments when, like, all 4 because a 4 year old is not a a grown child.
Carlton:Right? The a 4 year old has a lot of needs, and a 2 year old is basically a toddler, and they have a lot of needs. And so you've got a 4 year old with a lot of needs, a 2 year old with a lot of needs, and 2 newborns who are, you know, fresh out the bath and screaming. And it's like all 4 of them going off at once. And you just, like, keep the the only thing that comes to mind is that that British slogan about the war, keep keep calm and carry on.
Carlton:You just said, okay, I'll deal with you. Okay. You're all happy now. Right? Okay.
Carlton:Now the next. And that just went on for, yeah, a couple of good years.
Brian:Can't imagine how, like, move going anywhere would work. Like, taking No.
Carlton:We don't go anywhere. We never go anywhere ever ever. Like, so we used to travel. And before we had kids, we traveled, and we, you know, saw a lot of the world. Now it's like, no.
Carlton:Do we will we drive 3 hours away to see family? That's, maybe. Maybe. Maybe not. The kid's quite hard.
Carlton:And so we try to do do things with like one of them. So one of us will take one of them. And Okay. You know, because that's, you know, that's easy. That's that's no problem.
Brian:Well, in in things that are, like, not that bad, they're like, you know, yeah, this is a little expensive but not terrible as with, like, a couple. Like, things like going to a movie suddenly are expensive with 6 people.
Carlton:Yeah. Yeah. No. Exactly. And they're they're like, can we have a drink?
Carlton:And that's great. You're like, well, no. We can't have a drink. It's like that there'll be €40 just for a drink. You of course, you can't have a drink.
Brian:They're like,
Carlton:why can't we ever have anything? It's because there are too many of you.
Brian:Yeah. Yeah. But we finally, well, my kids are pretty good. We've, like, told them that, yeah, we go to nice restaurants when we don't have you with us. That's when we go to nice restaurants.
Carlton:But as well, I don't know about your kids, Brian, but my kids, they just won't eat anything. Like, so, you know, you would if I were to take them to a nice restaurant, they would be presented with something which they hadn't had before that wasn't spaghetti bolognese. And they'd be like, I'm not eating this. And they'd they'd make a fuss, and it'd be like, well, look. We'll take you there when you're 25, and you've realized that, you know, food has has a joy to
Brian:it. Oh, no. We we we put our foot down and, like, from, when our one of my youngest, we just had one. I remember we were just starting around food, on solid foods and stuff like that, and we talked to the pediatrician and said, we're kinda into Thai food now. Do we, cooking it at home and stuff?
Brian:Do we need to make is that okay to feed our kid? And and she's like, yeah. Thai kids eat Thai food when they're babies, and Mexican food. It's fine. So, I still remember the, we were my when we moved, we moved once, and my, youngest was maybe 5, 4.
Brian:She was wasn't super. Anyway, we we she was still sitting in a highchair and not really great with spoons, yet. So maybe she was younger than that. And, we ordered, Tomka, Tomka guy, the soup, a curry spicy curry soup. And, she just we said, could can we get a get water glass?
Brian:And they're like, what? And so we just put an empty we just filled this water glass up with soup so she could just drink it. And the
Carlton:Yeah. Perfect.
Brian:The waiter just stood there and watched, and he said, I've never seen anything like this before. It was it was awesome. No. We we're like Good.
Carlton:You've done well.
Brian:We we we this is dinner and but we did, you know, we didn't make our kids eat it, but we said this is dinner. And if you don't like it, breakfast is in the morning. So
Carlton:yeah. Wrong. But Yeah. I think our kid I think I I think our kids know that there's always an alternative. So that's I think that's our own fault.
Carlton:So But
Brian:they're old enough now. They probably are eating more stuff now.
Carlton:Oh, yeah. Yeah. No. It it it it's like they get much better and over time, all of a sudden, like, the the the eldest one is was a vegetable dodger for years, and all of a sudden, it's like, no. He's he's getting to that age where his body wants more calories, and he's like, no.
Carlton:I'm gonna eat everything that's offered. And that's a big change.
Brian:How about activities? Like, I just dropped off my kid this morning at, like, a thing she had to do at the school. Do is there a lot of driving kids around with 4
Carlton:kids and stuff?
Brian:Well, for
Carlton:there would be if we lived in a bigger town. Fortunately, we live in a very small town where you can walk to the center of it. We we live right in the edge of town.
Brian:You can walk
Carlton:to the center in, I know, 6, 8 minutes depending on Okay. How fast you go and So
Brian:if they have some activity, like, just walk or bike or something?
Carlton:Yeah. I mean, my my daughter does gymnastic, like, floor routines, you know, like, dance and acrobatic routines. And that could be all over the place. I'll and I'll I'll have to drive off for an hour this way or an hour that way to go to some event. But that's, you know but the the the the sort of day to day, she walks down to the training and Oh, cool.
Carlton:I walk down to pick her up and we
Brian:walk home.
Carlton:It's nice. I I I try not to use the cars if if I can avoid it.
Brian:Portland's not like that. Portland is not built for straight No. Walking around.
Carlton:And there are countries designed around the automobile. I I got that impression when I've been.
Brian:But you're so you're, you're British? Is that right?
Carlton:Yes. Yeah. I'm British. Yeah. Well, yes.
Carlton:Still still. Just about. I I don't know.
Brian:But you're you live in
Carlton:Spain now? Yeah. I've lived in Spain for, like, over a decade, 12 years now. 13 years coming up. And so well before Brexit and when Brexit came, fortunately, the sanity enough prevailed that our rights to remain were protected with the exit treaty.
Carlton:So we have permanent residency here, you know, under that. But part of me thinks I, you know, may well taper up Spanish nationality at some point because, it's just slightly more conducive to, you know, traveling the rest of Europe and things like that and whatnot. But I can travel anywhere in Europe with my residence Spanish residency card, and there's no problem with any of that. So, it's not pressing. It's not urgent, but it's something that I might do.
Carlton:And I might I might encourage my kids to when they reach 16, they can choose to adopt Spanish nationality. And then that would help them with studying or living elsewhere in the European Union, which as British citizens, they no longer have that
Brian:right. Oh, weird. Yeah. Okay. I never thought
Carlton:of that. That's the word to describe Brexit entirely is weird. It's just utter madness. But whatever.
Brian:You know?
Carlton:Let's not get political. It's a.
Brian:Okay. But I have to, like, bring up I can't remember if if I heard somebody say this and oh, no. I heard a comedian say this. She was complaining about, talking about Brexit, and she said that, she says she was talking to some people, and they said, I can't believe that so many people would vote for something that's against their interests.
Carlton:Yeah.
Brian:And, and she said, have you met people?
Carlton:Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is the same, like, with the, like, both the the the British, Tory party which is like the conservative, the right, the the center right party in Britain and the republican party in the United States and then in Spain the the PP which again represents a kind of small economic niche like basically the rich. And yet they're voted for by quite broad groups with sufficient to gain power or be close to gaining power almost every election. And yet it makes no sense from a kind of voting for yourself interest point of view.
Carlton:It's it's
Brian:we do that in the US too. So Yeah.
Carlton:I mean, it's everywhere, I think. I think.
Brian:So but I never really thought about how that would impact, people living abroad, like, people from England living in Spain because that's like frequent, right? There's quite a few people that live not in the country that they have nationality in. So Yeah.
Carlton:I mean, it's still very easy to retire from Britain to Spain. Like, if you've you know, as long as you've got a pension and and whatnot, you can demonstrate that you're you're, you're you're not you're solvent, then you can retire to Spain from Britain on on a special visa. But people wouldn't be able to do what not or not as easily, wouldn't be able to do what we did which was pack up, put our kids in the car, or I put the house We put most of our stuff in a van which was gonna take 6 weeks to arrive and I loaded up the car with the essentials and I drove. And then my wife came and she bought a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Oh, wow.
Carlton:Over on the plane. And, we just came, and we rented the house, and we moved. And, you know, we put them in school, and we we were just there. You couldn't do that now.
Brian:Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. How does that work then? Do you have do you pay, like, both English taxes and Spanish taxes?
Carlton:No. I'm so you just, like, the way you the way it worked is that you're resident in whichever count you're tax resident in whichever country you spend the most time in. So you have if you spend a 183 days a year in Spain, then you're a Spanish tax resident. If you spend that in Germany, you're a German tax resident and so on. You pay your taxes there.
Carlton:And then you can spend, I think, up to 3 months in any of the other countries without any problem at all. And then if you're gonna spend longer than 3 months, you have to register and say, hey. I'm here.
Brian:Okay. Well, like, when you retire, does, like, do both? Does does both Spain and England help pay for your retirement then, or how does that work?
Carlton:Something like that. So the yeah. So the British government have a, because they can't right. So here's was one of the big things. Is there's like a 1000000 retirees in Spain, British retirees in Spain.
Carlton:And so when Brexit happened, the last thing the British government wanted was those 1,000,000 people turning back in Britain. Because whilst they can afford to live in Spain, they can't afford to live in Britain where the house prices are higher, the cost of living is higher. And so the British government is very much like, you know, you stay there and the British government pays the Spanish government for health care for, pensioners
Brian:Oh, okay. For retirees. So sort
Carlton:of civilized deal. Oh, no. It's it's it's okay. Like, Brexit just makes no sense. There were nothing's changed in terms of immigration numbers to the UK.
Carlton:The only thing that's happened is the UK is poorer. That's that's all that's happened.
Brian:So where would it how would how would your life change if you became a Spanish citizen then?
Carlton:Well, okay. So probably not much because I personally don't intend to leave where I live. I love where I live. I'm very I've learned Catalan, you know. Nowhere else is that useful other than Catalonia, so I'm not moving.
Carlton:But I can't also. I can't if I chose to drive to France and move and live in France. I mean, you know, maybe I could if I could show I was financially viable blah blah blah. But I'd have to jump through all the hoops like anybody else. Whereas before, I could just get up and drive and go.
Carlton:Oh. And if I had a Spanish passport, I could do that still. But with a British passport, I can't.
Brian:Okay. Got it. And, so how many, how many languages do you speak?
Carlton:Well, I speak English, just about. Spanish and Catalan. I'm learning French, and that's about it. I I have a I pottery and other ones.
Brian:Have your kids picked up, both Spanish and then?
Carlton:Yeah. No. But they they they do it very differently. So I speak Spanish, as someone who learned it as an adult. So I still have like an English accent.
Carlton:And as as as my accent improves over time, that's great. But it I still have this kind of British mouth that makes British sounds. And so I sound essentially like Borat if you know the comedian from, Sasha Baron Cohen who does the Borat character who's meant to be found there from Kazakhstan and speaks English, but like a like, in a com in a comedic way. Well, I I'm a bit like that when I speak Spanish or Catalan. My kids are all like, oh, no.
Carlton:Don't but my Catalan's very good. You know? People say, oh, you've got good Catalan. But I still speak it like a foreigner and always will. Whereas my kids, they have they have they've learned they've spoken from, like, like, from children, and they have different voices.
Carlton:Like, when they switch language, literally, their voice changes. And they have they speak English natively, and they speak Catalan and Spanish natively.
Brian:That's so cool. I I was wondering Yeah.
Carlton:And they they don't even know. They don't even know. They decide, oh, yeah. Whatever. It's not important.
Carlton:It's not interesting. No. It really is a gift. To someone who, know, when I came here a dozen years ago, I could ask to order 2 beers and that was about it. And to be able to speak 2, 3, and 4 languages it's just oh, it's phenomenal for them.
Carlton:You know?
Brian:I so I just recently learned that there's more than one part of Spain.
Carlton:Right. Yeah. No. I I I learned that when I got here. Like, so we moved to Catalonia, and that I was like, that's not in the phrase, but what's they saying?
Carlton:Because I didn't know about Catalan. I didn't know about any of yeah. There are multiple regions.
Brian:Go on. Where are you saying Catland? C a t what
Carlton:what is that? Cataloniac. So c a t a l o n I a, Catalonia.
Brian:Is that, I'll just Google it, but it's, oh, it's near Barcelona. Is that right?
Carlton:Yeah. So Barcelona is the is the sort of capital of of Catalonia, and it's, that that's northeast region of Spain is Catalonia. And then, over to the sort of on the north coast, there's the Basque Country and then there's Galicia over on the northwest and they're the sort of, main non Spanish areas. But also Valencia is kind of half Catalan, half separate to being not really Catalan. It's like they have a a version of Catalan.
Carlton:It's their own language they speak down there.
Brian:Okay. Cool. Are you near the ocean?
Carlton:Yes. Very near the ocean. So I can I about I could walk from my back door? I'd be in the sea in half an hour if I was walking. I'd be in the sea in 10 minutes on a bike or, you know, about 10 minutes in a car.
Brian:Oh, lovely. So are there are there, I guess, beaches that you can hang out at? Or
Carlton:Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. It's lovely. You know?
Carlton:I can't what can I say? It's, it's kinda why I came here. I mean, it's, no. I mean, it's, yeah, it's it's marvelous. So I live in a little town called Palafuget, and around there, there's just a 1000000000 beaches.
Carlton:It's a the the population in the summer triples. So, like, middle of August now, it's it's we we kinda joke it's horrible. There's just lots of people. It's really busy, but it's it's totally fine. And in literally 2 weeks' time, they'll all just disappear.
Carlton:And it's like, like, September is the best time because all the tourists have gone. The the sea is warm. The weather's still warm. It's not quite as hot as it is in August, and it's just you know, the kids go back to school and, you know, life is perfect. And so I'm about an hour and a I'm about an hour and a half from Barcelona, which is which is great if I want to go, but it's just a little too far to go regularly.
Carlton:So I'm not I don't get down to, like, the Python meetups and all those things that I could because if the, you know, they finish at 10 o'clock at night and I've got an hour and a half drive home, it's just not not gonna happen. So I don't get down
Brian:there as often as I could. Do you do so do I guess what kind of conferences do you usually go to then?
Carlton:Well, with the the with 4 kids, it's quite limited. You know, I don't do the whole EuroPython every rally. But I go to I always will go to DjangoCon Europe since, 2017. I've been using Django forever. I never knew about DjangoCon.
Carlton:I never knew about the Django community. And then I think it came up like, I I saw Jango under the hood, and I said, oh, that looks good. I perhaps should have gone to that. And then it came up, Jango, you're at Florence. I went, right.
Carlton:I'm going to that. So so I went, and I just turned up. I was like, oh, wow. This is this is the home I've been missing. Because I've been to tech conferences, you know, at the beginning of my career, and they just they're not the same as the Django community.
Carlton:There's no there was no mention of diversity or inclusion or any of those. You know, Dango has a code of conduct that's enforced. It's a very nice environment. It isn't it's not it's not there is alcohol there, but it's not booze fueled in a way that some of the conferences I went to early in my career, I didn't really I you know, they were okay, but I didn't like them. Whereas I I went to Jangocon.
Carlton:I was like, oh, yes. This is somewhere I need to be. And, so I go to Jangocon. If I can, I go Jangocon US? I'm not sure I'm gonna make it this year because my son's been ill.
Carlton:He's been ill for over a year, and, that's been going on. It's yeah. It's just it's been hard. He's getting better, but I don't know. I'm leaving it right to last minute to decide whether I can go to Jangocon USU this year because it's quite a long way and a big travel.
Carlton:And then this year, I went to Picon Italia, which was lovely. I was asked to keynote there, so I gave her a talk on open source for the long haul. So it was lovely to go back to Florence, and they treated me very well. It was just wonderful. But I don't go to, you know, a 1000000 Python conferences that perhaps I would if I Maybe I might do in a few years when the kids have all gone off to university and I've got nothing else to do.
Carlton:I might go to a few more conferences.
Brian:Yeah. I kinda wanna ramp it up again. I I of course, through the the pandemic, they weren't weren't happening. And then, so I've got one one daughter out of mood that moved out and one's still here, but it's, tolerable now with one at home that it's okay if I take off and stuff. So, like Yeah.
Carlton:I mean, it's a big ask to it's a big ask to go away when there's 4 and, you know, leave whoever's left behind. You know, it's it's not it's not 0, you know.
Brian:My my wife and I just, binged, like, both at both the first two episodes of, Warrior Nun. I have to admit. But but it's based in Europe, and there's there's some, like, Madrid scenes, and there's some other parts of it. It's Switzerland, I think. And, anyway, I've just I was reminded that, like, Europe is smaller than the US.
Brian:I mean, maybe in total, it might be bigger, but you can get from one interesting place to another interesting place that's different in a day trip or or like
Carlton:Oh, yeah.
Brian:At least a day drive, which, I really at some point, I'd love to be able to, like, spend the summers over there or something like that so I could see more of the world in one trip instead of, just going one place and then coming back. Because if if you drive it, for a day here, you get to somewhere that's kind of like where you left.
Carlton:Yeah. Right.
Brian:It's really not that different. So, Yeah. A couple days, you can get some place where they're they're meaner and they wear more cowboy hats. But, you know, you can you you actually don't have to go that far. You can go a couple hours outside of the city anywhere, even in Oregon, and it gets a little crazy.
Brian:But, anyway.
Carlton:Yeah. I mean, your extended trip around Europe, I think if you even if you can carve the life space to do that and you've got the the finances, that's an amazing
Brian:That'd be fun. So one of the things you said was this is the home that you'd been missing. And, I felt that as well about, about Python. I'd been using it for 10 years before I start maybe 15 years before I got involved with the community, and it's like a completely different language. If you you go to the conferences and start listening to podcasts and and, you know, sharing and start contributing, it just feels different.
Brian:It feels so before then, my using a a programming language was fun, but it was like, it was a tool. And then suddenly, I, like, entered into it was, like, adding color to it or something. It it just was way better.
Carlton:Yeah. No. Entirely. I wouldn't I wouldn't have done 5 years as the fellow as a Jango fellow if it wasn't for the Jango for Jango being what Jango is. Like, it's just like, it was great.
Carlton:It was awesome, but, you know, I I just wouldn't have done that if it weren't for Django being, you know, so close to my heart.
Brian:One of the things I wanted to ask about a couple of thing, more things. You you've been involved with not not just Django itself, but other, like, open source projects probably around Django and and Python. The I ran into something. I guess I just wanted your opinion on it. I ran into a thing recently where I was using a a little tool, a little Python tool, and it was, part of my test pipeline.
Brian:And, like, 2 things work together to make this work, and one of them isn't being updated anymore. Yes. That's kinda something one of the things you have to deal with is the maintainer is just not doing what they're doing. And you don't I don't know what's wrong. I don't know if they're just on vacation this summer or if something happened or there's there's like that black hole of like you don't get to see into people's lives and find out why are they not maintaining this anymore.
Brian:Have you ever dealt with that? And, like, what when at one point, do you fork it and, like, do your own thing?
Carlton:Well, yeah, that's a good question. So, so I ended up maintaining, for instance, Django filter because it was unmaintained. I ended up maintaining Jango crispy forms because it was unmaintained. I ended up, you know, stepping in to maintain the channel's roles because they were, you know, in danger of being unmeant, un unmaintained. I guess the first thing is to is to open an issue saying, hey, you know, do you need any help?
Carlton:That that that's always good. But again, one thing that can be a pressure is, people saying, oh, you know, why aren't you maintaining this properly? That but it's like, well, it is maintained properly. It just I just haven't done it recently, You know? Like Yeah.
Carlton:I'll be back and you know, don't don't stress it. So I think one thing is to make sure you can install the dependency from your own fork with pip. So pip install, and then you point to your git, your git version rather than off pip, pipe I. And people, you know, in in some enterprise environments can't do that because they have to have the security approval for every package. But if it's your own pipeline, you can install your own local one.
Carlton:And then the issue that instead of just saying, oh, you know, do you need help or is this project dead or, you know, any of those sort of things which put pressure on the maintaining. Say, hey, look, I've made these changes. I've resolved issue here in this branch and, you know, it can be it can be merged on my my branch here that I'm using these issues to resolve. And just sort of update that every so often so that you give the maintainer an opportunity to engage and say and if, you know, at the bottom of that that comment, you can just say, hey. And, you know, if you want some help in maintaining, I'm really happy to help merge you into this into the main package.
Carlton:And if the maintainer then still doesn't respond, and then you might say, look, I'm just gonna put up on PyPI because I need it. You know. But again, it's a it's a it's a soft fork. It's like, you know, I'm happy to get all this merged back into the main package. And then eventually it's like, you know, the maintainer will email you and say, hey, thanks for do all the work you've been doing.
Carlton:You wouldn't mind just taking over the main package, would you? Because frankly, I've had a hell of a year, and I haven't even had a chance to look at it.
Brian:Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's it's it's tough to try to communicate with you don't know what's happening on the other end. But yeah.
Carlton:Yeah. I mean, so I mean, I've had I've just had an an utter nightmare of a year. Like, it's since I came went to DjangoCon US last October, and on the way home, my son had already been sort of ill for a few months, but we thought he was getting better or whatever. But then on the way home I was in the passport line at Barcelona. My wife my phone rang, my wife rang me.
Carlton:She's like, I'm in the hospital. Our daughter's fallen down the stairs. And, you know, she was 3 days in intensive care.
Brian:Oh, jeez.
Carlton:You know, all sorts. It was just like, and then, you know, coming up to Christmas, she's just recovering. And and then my my son, his illness isn't getting better, and it's like, oh, and we go through Christmas, and we go to the doctors, and just months months of tests and diagnosis and no not sure what it is and waiting for appointments and going to appoint just mental. Just really, really, really full on. And so Django filter hasn't had the update it needs.
Carlton:The channels packages haven't had the update they they need. You know, my other packages that I put out this summer, they're waiting for another little update. That hasn't happened yet. That's okay. You know what?
Carlton:That's okay. Yeah. These packages, they're not unmaintained. I haven't gotten anywhere. They're still working.
Carlton:There aren't any life or death bugs that are, you know someone said to me, this week, is there a 4.2 compatibility, package coming for channels? I'm like, it's already compatible. It just hasn't got the the Trove classifier. I just haven't done the release. And they're like, okay.
Carlton:Thanks. No problem. But it's like, you know, yes, it will come. Yes, it's behind because I've had all these personal issues, but I'm still maintaining them. I'll be back, and those those packages are fine.
Carlton:But you as you you're right. As a user, you don't really know that. So I've tried to put a few blog posts up, but just explaining where I'm at. But people who don't follow my blog, they're not gonna know about that.
Brian:Yeah.
Carlton:So, you know and I just try and say, look and so someone came on the Daphne package. Oh, is this issue still open? I'm like, look, there's a couple of PRs that are in there. If you I haven't had a chance to look at those. But if you looked at those, that would really help me, you know, maybe push it forward in over the next month or so.
Carlton:You know, we'll get there. But who knows what a maintainer is going through is the point of that. Yeah. Right?
Brian:Because because I do I do have that, like, one, another thing that happened, I don't know, several months ago. A similar sort of thing. I, like, did did a did a merge request and didn't hear anything. And I know and then I went and looked and noticed that there were, like, 3 or 4 other merge requests and issues that weren't being addressed. And then, and then I so I I did I posted a message, said, hey.
Brian:It was a project that I was interested in. And I said, hey. I, if you'd like some help, I I could, I could help with this project. And and then, I don't know, a week later or something, I got an email back that said, oh, yeah. I'm back to it.
Brian:But, like, I had a death in the family and had to deal with that. And, you know, stuff like that happens. So Yeah. Yeah.
Carlton:I think as a user, I think the biggest thing is as as a user is be prepared to deploy your branch. Like, just like, don't don't insist on a maintainer having, you know, merged your PR instantly and done a new package release instantly. Because, you know, sometimes it's like, you know, I fixed this one little bug, but also I need to update the packaging, and I need to do this, and I need to do that to get a proper release out. And it's it might be that I haven't been able to push your patch to PyPI. And if you can be aware of that, it just goes a lot easier on the maintainer who's, you know they know.
Carlton:They it's not that they're unaware.
Brian:So do you still maintain crispy forms?
Carlton:No. David Smith, is take I mean, I'm still there to I offer the odd bit of advice and, you know, I read the docs. They wanted you to move to, this YAML file that they wanted you to put in here. So I helped get that going forward recently. But David Smith, who's, came in a couple few years ago and he's just taken over and he's he's he's just done so much, and he's he's done all these stuff in the Django over the 4 point x release cycle for updating the forms, the new templates, the new template renderers.
Carlton:He's just, he he's done everything there. And so all credit to him, he's he's maintaining that. And he created the Django, Krispy forms, Tailwind package, which is like example templates for how you might integrate with Tailwind and
Brian:Oh, neat.
Carlton:You know? So, yeah, he's he's he he takes all the credit. I'm I'm I'm still there for sort of, you know, you know, a bit of company type of thing, but I'm not I'm not still maintaining.
Brian:But okay. So I've heard that, so I'm still kinda getting into Django. I've heard that the forms, the built in forms are better now. I mean, if I had a new project and I wanted to build a form, should I try the built in stuff first? Or
Carlton:Yeah. Absolutely. And if you can, you wanna get on to, well, how can you? Yes. You wanna be definitely using 4.2, but in in 5.0 there's another thing coming which is the as field group, thing.
Carlton:So if you imagine an individual input, it's got a label, it's got the actual input itself, it's got probably some errors, it's got help text, and they all kind of come together. And yet in the template, you have to rent you have to sort of write if you manually did the template, you do each of them separately. And if you look into the template, each of them is separate. But in 5 point o, there's there's a kind of as field group helper, which you can just sort of use that put that one bit in, and that's and so it makes writing custom forms more easy. It makes writing, say, for instance, a custom layout where you want to have this this field next to that field, and then that's in the field set and then 3 more fields in the separate field.
Carlton:So it makes writing that kind of custom template a lot quicker. But the new stuff in the 4.next cycle is really good. It lets it lets you customize at the project level the templates you wanna use just really easily. So I'm using it, in my new projects. And I'm kind of what's interesting for me at the moment working on those is kinda going through and seeing, well, what how close to reinventing crispy forms do I have to get?
Carlton:And then I can start having conversations with David about, well, you know, how would we do this in, you know, Django native versus do we want to use something like Crispy forms and add on? And so there's a a conversation that Dave and I have slowly begun about, well, what does Crispy forms look like going forward?
Brian:Okay. Interesting. Cool. Well, I I wanna thank you for your time today. It was really great to to hear about Yeah.
Carlton:We really good. I've got really good chatting. You know, off topic as well because normally we just talk about we just talk about Django Django Django or something like that. And it's so it's nice to, you know, go around the the side and
Brian:Yeah. And now I actually, seeing seeing, pictures of Madrid in, in the Warrior Warrior Nun, which I my daughter and I both think that, they really dropped the ball. And because Ninja was right there and they didn't take it. I mean, I think Ninja is better than Warrior Nun. But, anyway Okay.
Brian:But but Madrid looks cool, and, Barcelona shows up in the movies a lot. And I I hadn't really had Spain in the in in my radar for places I wanted to go. But, now I kinda wanna go to Spain because it looks pretty cool. So anyway Yeah.
Carlton:And you gotta if you come, you gotta go to, like, Cadiz and Sevilla and Granada, which are 3 cities down in the south. You know, you you don't go in the summer though because it's just, like, inferno down there. But, you there there's like the Alhambra and Granada, which is just amazing. So if you can do the south and then, and Spain has, I think after China, the largest high speed rail network in the world. So, you know, you can also so it's the 2nd largest in the world.
Carlton:And you can, cruise around between the cities. You can be from Seville to Madrid in 3 hours and Madrid to Barcelona in a couple of hours. And then you're from Barcelona, you can get to Paris in 6 or something like that.
Brian:So Wow. Didn't know that either. That's pretty cool.
Carlton:Nice. Yeah. It is cool. And, you know, so, okay, it's slightly quicker to fly in terms of term in the air time in the air, but you don't have to be at the airport 2 hours in advance and, you know, go through all that, you know, quite the same level of security checks and whatnot. I think they have little scanners, but it's not the same, you know, the same level.
Brian:Kidding. So, like, when I went up to Pike Cascades, I decided that was in that was in Vancouver, this last year, and I decided to take the train, because it was either that or drive because it was, you know, close enough. And, it did take a long time, like, way longer than was listed, But it was kinda nice because I could just, you know, walk show up and get on the train and and, eat there. And it's a lot of walking around, but way better than flying, except for the whole like, it took, like, 3 hours longer than it said it was going to or something.
Carlton:Okay. Well, I can't yeah. I mean, I I think the the the high speed trains, they kind of run on time. So there's that going forward.
Brian:Yeah. Nice. Alright. Well, it was so fun talking with you, and, we'll catch up later.
Carlton:Yeah. Thanks, Brian. Alright. Take care, Brian. Bye.
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