Python People

Brian: 00:00

I think I read that somewhere on your blog maybe that you, do a little bit of guitar.

Naomi: 00:07

I, yeah, I've been working on, I mean, I did, you know, years ago, decades ago when I was young, I fooled around with it. I've been trying to learn classical guitar and taking lessons for the past, a year and a half now. So Okay. Well, alright. So I wanna make sure I under I

Brian: 00:26

pronounce your name right. Naomi Cedar. Is that right? That's right.

Naomi: 00:29

Okay. Mhmm.

Brian: 00:30

Well, Naomi, you've been, like, in Python for quite a while and involved in the community, And I think I'd be a I I think I'd do bad about, summarizing everything you've done. Or maybe, like, just a quick summary. You were PSF chair from 27 or 2017 to 2020. Is that right?

Naomi: 00:51

That's right. Mhmm.

Brian: 00:52

And I don't know what the PSF chair does.

Naomi: 00:57

Well, no. Nor nor do a lot of people, I suppose. So the the chair of the board of directors of the PSF has a couple of functions. For one thing, that is the person that sort of serves as the point of contact and, kind of boss or maybe better partner in chief with the executive director.

Brian: 01:25

Okay.

Naomi: 01:27

So, you know, the the there has to be a mechanism to report to the board, and it's not really great to have somebody like that report to 11 people or 13 people or however many it is on the board. So that's that's certainly one function. And then the other function is to, help plan and organize the meetings of the board and sort of set those agendas and, help, perhaps, board members figure out what it is they're there to be doing when they're on the board. Okay.

Brian: 02:02

Because a

Naomi: 02:02

lot of that stuff really isn't obvious. Everybody thinks, oh, I'll be on the board. Now what do I do? So, you know, there's that.

Brian: 02:09

Well, it wouldn't be obvious to me. Sometimes I forget that there is a PSF board. So the the PSF has to have a board because of its nonprofit status. Is that right? Or or is it just Yeah.

Brian: 02:21

Okay.

Naomi: 02:22

I mean I mean, it's, I think also just given the way that, the Python community kind of likes to organize itself. I suppose that's the other reason. But, when when the PSF was formed, I know Guido did not want to be the only person that had to do that stuff. So yeah.

Brian: 02:41

Okay. And the board so PSF PSF and the PSF board, that's completely separate from the steering council. Right? That it's,

Naomi: 02:53

yeah. I mean Or

Brian: 02:54

is there overlap

Naomi: 02:55

It kinda depends. There there is there is usually an overlap of at least a person or 2, not always, but but quite often. The executive director of the PSF does attend the meetings of the steering council. I mean, the steering council is deciding things to do with the language. The PSF basically does all of the stuff that has to do with with resources and things like that.

Naomi: 03:27

So, for example, in hiring the the developer in residence, Lukas, it was the steering council that, you know, made those decisions, but they had to work with the board because the board was the part you know, the board and the PSF was where the money came from to pay. So

Brian: 03:47

The PSF is also quite involved with, with, like, for instance, PyCon and the and encouraging community. Right?

Naomi: 03:56

Yeah. I mean, part of the mission is to, sort of foster the growth of a of a diverse and global community of pipeline developers. So that's that's a pretty broad remit. And, yeah, what they what they do then is sponsor PyCon, PyCon US, which has historically been the biggest source of funds for the PSF. I think we're maybe getting close to it not being the largest source, but I don't think we're quite there yet.

Naomi: 04:31

And, they also then give grants for, Pycons and meetups around the world. So a lot in Latin America, Africa, you know, Europe, North America, of course, starting to do more in Asia, although that's that's still kind of a a new frontier. But yeah.

Brian: 04:51

Yeah. That's interesting to me. I I I have a so one of the reasons why I thought it'd be cool to talk with you is because you you seem to care about the community quite a bit, and encouraging Yeah. The community and, diversity. Like, for instance, I was surprised to find out that you, were involved with starting the charlas at Python.

Brian: 05:20

Mhmm.

Naomi: 05:20

Now Yeah. It was it was kind of it was kind of an odd story because, I had already, given, a keynote at at Python Brazil a couple years before, so I knew some people from the Brazilian Python community. And 1 Python, I think it was in 2017, one of the people from Brazil was complaining that his name began with an accented capital a and on his name tag, it was blank. There was nothing. And he's like, what?

Naomi: 06:01

We claim to do diversity and yet you cannot even handle an accented character on a name tag. And, yeah, it's like, the more I thought about it, the more

Naomi: 06:12

it's like, you know, you're really right. We should do something about that. So at that point, I was I was in, you know, the the chair of the of the of the PSF. And it's like, if I'm not in a position to push this along, who is? So I, we talked a little bit and that's when e Durbin sort of suggested the idea of a hatchery for PICOM programs.

Naomi: 06:44

Just, you know, a a sort of structured way so that we could add things. Over the years in the past, whenever you wanted to add something, you just go to whoever is organizing it and said, I wanna add this. Can I do it? And certainly, I did that several times with the, poster session and the education summit and things like that. But if you didn't know how to do that, you know, there was no process.

Naomi: 07:08

So we we sort of used the Charless as a way to sort of test out and explore that option. And there were, you know, several other things that were added. That's kind of, that process for adding events to PyCon was sort of put on a huge hold by the pandemic, of course.

Brian: 07:29

Yeah. So is the hatchery the idea I don't know anything about it, but my I'm guessing is the idea to, like, allow you to try something out in 1 Python?

Naomi: 07:40

Exactly. And then Exactly.

Brian: 07:41

If it works great, you can keep doing it. If it doesn't, we can take it out.

Naomi: 07:45

Exactly. Exactly. And that's it. And so there are other things, mentored sprints and, you know, packaging summit and all of those things sort of kind of followed along with that, as well in that process. But the the the charles, the Spanish track was the first thing that we did.

Naomi: 08:05

And, I basically helped helped organize it, but I found a couple of people from one from Latin America, one from Spain to to be the chairs for that, and they took over. And, we've got, you know, another couple of excellent people running it now. I haven't really been associated with it the past year. It's, my goal when I help start something is always that I can walk away fairly soon so that I can do something else rather than it just be me. And, certainly that's worked out.

Naomi: 08:41

Thanks to, you know, some really dedicated people stepping up.

Brian: 08:47

Yeah. Actually, I was just listening to a talk. I think it was last year's keynote or what Mhmm. The talking. And one of the things you talked about was, I guess it was it was about the gift economy or something.

Naomi: 09:01

Yes.

Brian: 09:01

And one of the things you mentioned, which I thought was brilliant, which was, like, you should start thinking about handing off the leadership as soon as you start something or something like that. Yeah. Exactly. That's that's kind of an interesting concept. That's not how most people think.

Naomi: 09:20

Well, no. No. It isn't. And I mean, it's something that I think I kind of, I don't wanna say learn the hard way, but I picked up. I mean, it is one of our one of our big problems, I think, is burnout and people not knowing how to step aside.

Naomi: 09:38

And like anything else, you need to practice that so it doesn't just happen.

Brian: 09:46

I was thinking that even, like, a long even in small things, not not big project, but even small things. Like at work, we've got a whole bunch of things that are, I don't know, there there's a lot of people run into this, especially in software and DevOps and things of you're the only person who knows how to do something. It might be a small thing, but why not think about it like trying to document it from the start of may maybe not from the start, but maybe the second or third time you have to do something. Maybe I should document this so that somebody else could do it if they need need to.

Naomi: 10:20

Oh, yeah.

Brian: 10:20

And then possibly, the documentation might be enough to just say, you know what? I'll just automate it so that nobody has to do it. Well yeah. So I think I've been, I guess, one of the reasons why I started Python people was because I I actually just really love the Python community, and I think of it as a pretty welcoming place. How much, I mean, I guess, how much room do we have to grow still to make Python even better?

Naomi: 10:52

You know, it's it's a good question. There there is still a a lot to be done. I mean, clearly, I I've been involved since, well, the first Python was 2003, and I was I was there and I've been at all of them since. We we've certainly come a long way. And I think, you know, that we can we can be fairly proud that we're sort of held up as as a reference, as a model for a lot of other, you know, similar communities in terms of how welcoming we try to be.

Naomi: 11:27

That that said, there are always things that we also need need to to be aware of and need to keep working on. So it's, it varies a lot depending upon where you are in the world. Yeah. You know, and and there are there are always things I think that are are like, oh, jeez. We never thought about that.

Naomi: 11:51

There there are always groups that aren't aren't there. So, you know, the past few years at PyCon, we've actually started to do things to make things easier for people who don't hear. Okay? So we've got closed captioning and stuff like that. That's their captioning, and that's that's certainly helpful and that's, you know, good.

Naomi: 12:13

I I don't think

Brian: 12:15

I I never thought about that. I actually love the closed captioning because I can Oh, yeah. I can hear, but I don't hear that great sometimes. And so it helps.

Naomi: 12:25

Oh, yeah. I mean and and it's like, yeah. I mean, I I know we watch all of our the things that we, you know, on on TV or whatever, we turn the captions on even if it's in English so that you if you're not, you know, paying absolute attention, you can always have that second channel to catch it. So, yeah, I mean, it it's there are things like that. I mean, I think that we've we've made some progress in being accommodating for people who are neurodiverse, however that might express itself.

Naomi: 12:56

I mean, at least we're, a lot of picons, picon US, and a lot of others now are are taking making sure that they have, quiet rooms. There are the considerations with childcare and people who have kids and how we help them out, you know, handicap accessibility. There there are all sorts of dimensions to this, and there are probably some that that still haven't really been thought through very well. Yeah. I don't know.

Naomi: 13:26

I mean, possibly in areas of religion, we're not as as welcoming as we might think we are. I don't know. I mean, there did it it it does seem to always continue. You can't just sort of step back and take a big sigh and say, done with that one. I mean, it's just never that simple, I'm afraid.

Brian: 13:49

Yeah. I I, I guess I'm glad that we I you you brought up some interesting things, actually. The, the quiet room also. I I, I've I've I've loved those. So is it Yeah.

Brian: 14:04

I think Pike Cascades where, it's everybody in one room, and I I actually kinda got overloaded with just hearing everybody for a while. And so I watched one of the sessions from the quiet room just to just give myself a mental break, and it was I loved that it was there. So that was neat.

Naomi: 14:22

Yeah.

Brian: 14:22

I also, I guess it's good that we just keep reflecting on it, and take feedback. Like Yeah. So how how long has the charles been around? Is that

Naomi: 14:33

that's not That was the 1st year was in 2018.

Brian: 14:36

Okay. Yeah. I thought it was during the time where I've been take going to to Pecan's. And that's, I don't know what the word means. Is that

Naomi: 14:45

It means talk or chat.

Brian: 14:47

Oh, okay.

Naomi: 14:47

I mean, it's just it's just the talks but translated into Spanish.

Brian: 14:51

Okay. Do you speak Spanish?

Naomi: 14:54

Yeah. Mhmm. I do. I speak Spanish and Portuguese, and I give talks in Spanish and Portuguese at at various

Brian: 15:01

Okay. And Portuguese is that that Brazil's a lot of Yes. Portuguese speaking people in Brazil. Right? That that

Naomi: 15:08

Right.

Brian: 15:09

Okay. Wow. How long have you been did you did you grow up knowing Portuguese and Spanish or did you learn that?

Naomi: 15:16

No. I mean, I I learned some Spanish in school the way. I don't know. It's, no. In the US, we're we're not super good at teaching languages, but I was always interested in that.

Naomi: 15:28

And then I did, you know, a PhD in Greek and Latin, before I switched over to technology eons ago. Yeah. So I've always been kind of a language nut. I just switched from one sort of funny language to the other. But then, I I as being part of the PSF board, I started being asked to do keynotes in these various places.

Naomi: 15:54

And it's like, you know, for like in Spain, it's like, jeez, I used to know Spanish. I ought to be able to do something. So I started studying it. I don't know. Yeah.

Naomi: 16:03

Like, I don't know, 6 6 years ago or something. And then a year later, I decided, well, why not Portuguese? I was sort of on a language learning kick, I guess, for a while.

Brian: 16:14

That's so cool. How did you, I've been I've wanted to to learn Spanish, again. I mean, I took Spanish in high school, but you you know, the American Yeah. Education system is not that great. It's not the greatest.

Brian: 16:28

Yeah. 2 years of Spanish, and then mostly, I was better at playing 5 card stud, after

Naomi: 16:36

yeah. Yeah. Well

Brian: 16:38

so the what was your approach? Did you take, like, online lessons or in person? Or

Naomi: 16:46

I Do you remember? I actually started reviewing, with a couple of of different things. I use Duolingo, which is really hard to do much other than memorize vocabulary, but for that, it kinda works. And, I also, Pimsleur has, audio tapes that you can listen to. It's pretty much strictly audio based, but, it's it's been around for ages and, from back when I was a Latin teacher.

Naomi: 17:23

Latin teachers hang out in the foreign language department at a high school anyway. So I knew that that was kind of a a thing that some people knew about. So I I used that a little bit. Those were I mean, the you know, listening to audio tapes I'd done when I, sort of had to bone up on modern Greek in the eighties when we lived in Athens. And so I knew that kinda work.

Brian: 17:46

So you but Do you speak Greek and Latin also?

Naomi: 17:51

Well, I mean, I I don't know these days if I could speak Latin. But, yeah, I I I I could kinda make my way around in modern Greek. Yeah.

Brian: 18:01

Oh, that's so cool.

Naomi: 18:03

So but in any case, the thing that helped most then was actually, getting an online teacher. So I have a, actually I just had my Portuguese lesson this morning, from a woman who lives in Sao Paulo and my Spanish lessons I have with a woman who lives in Madrid. So yeah. Oh. That helps a lot.

Brian: 18:25

And that's over over, like, Zoom or something like that

Naomi: 18:27

or some Yeah. There are various platforms that will hook you

Brian: 18:30

up. Okay. So That's pretty cool. It's Yeah. So then you can, it's not just somebody that knows the language.

Brian: 18:37

They actually they speak it every day because they live someplace that

Naomi: 18:41

And and they know how to teach a language too, which I think is helpful. Mean, sort of how to do how to do it the most efficiently, I guess, has experience teaching other people.

Brian: 19:00

Okay. Now, are you retired?

Naomi: 19:04

I am. I retired a little over a year ago.

Brian: 19:07

Okay. It's something that I, I probably should think about thinking about eventually.

Naomi: 19:16

I recommend it highly. I mean, but, yeah.

Brian: 19:20

It's it's like I guess my, gen x, I'm a gen xer, and it just didn't occur to me that we would ever be able to retire. So, yeah.

Naomi: 19:32

Well, it it gets there. I mean, I have to admit, I'm a boomer, but it it's I I didn't expect that somehow, I expected I would never get old and never retire. I mean, I saw it happening to other people, but I didn't think it applied to me. But, yeah, it gets there and, you know, I don't know. It's like one of the I I just sort of, I don't know, beginning of 2022.

Naomi: 19:55

It's like, you know, I think it's time. So, yeah, we got that set in motion.

Brian: 19:59

Do you still do any Pytest training or Python training?

Naomi: 20:04

I I have it for about a year now. And, a couple of a couple of of, training and consulting things, possibilities have kinda come up. And, honestly, once I gave them the rate, they kinda didn't come up. And it's like, that's totally fine. I'm not gonna do it unless it's really worth my time.

Naomi: 20:28

I'm sorry.

Brian: 20:28

So Yeah. Yeah. That that's, I guess I did. I've done a few trainings and I really enjoy it. But it is a it is a lot of work.

Brian: 20:41

Even if even if it just it looks like just you're there for a handful of hours or a day. Oh. It's a lot more work than just that.

Naomi: 20:50

So I mean, I yeah. I've done somewhere. It's been maybe 2 sessions, 2 long sessions a day, and that then you know kind of translates into like really a demanding 10 hour day by the time you get there, get set up, do something, have lunch, go back and do it all over again.

Brian: 21:10

But that's that's a drop in the bucket compared to all the time it takes to get the per the material prepared to

Naomi: 21:16

do the That that too. That too. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: 21:19

The, so I I guess one of the questions I had was around just location. You you were involved with, Transcode Hackaday, but that was in London. Right?

Naomi: 21:34

Yeah. I, for the past, what, I guess, 12 years now, I've been sort of based in the Chicago area, first up in the up in the Northern suburbs and then now down downtown. And, I worked for, a subsidiary of Granger, w w Granger, the big, maintenance repair and operations supplies company.

Brian: 22:06

Oh, okay.

Naomi: 22:07

And, they the reason I went to work for them is that they were starting an online only subsidiary, and I was in charge of their tech stack, which they wanted to be in Python. And, you know, what do you know? You can sell screws online really efficiently. So they were really happy and then they decided they wanted to do it in Europe. And they kinda did a split approach.

Naomi: 22:35

They had, sort of the the tech side of things based out of London because in the it's sort of been like 2013, 2014. London was kind of the place to be in Europe for for tech stuff.

Brian: 22:51

Okay.

Naomi: 22:52

A lot of startups, Silicon roundabout, all of that. So, and the company we started was in was in Dusseldorf. So, I lived over in London 2014, and then a major part of 2015. So that's when I, you know, sort of when you're sort of there and I was there on my own. My wife stayed behind.

Naomi: 23:20

So it's like, well, what are we gonna do? I guess I'll go to tech meetups and then, hey, let's let's do this thing where we focus on trans folks. So yeah.

Brian: 23:29

Interesting. Did did you do you, have you been back to London since?

Naomi: 23:37

Several times, but not since the pandemic. No.

Brian: 23:40

Yeah. But it's one of the we got my wife and I got a chance to go to, Paris a few years it was, like, right before the pandemic and, or slight couple years before. And next place, she said said I wanna go to I wanna go to London next. So let's try

Naomi: 23:59

to try

Brian: 24:00

to fit that in sometime. I'd I'd love to try to get, it's one of the reasons why I'm trying to get some training, some, on-site training courses ready because I'd love to have somebody pay me to go to

Naomi: 24:12

London. Yes.

Naomi: 24:14

Yes. Yes. That would be nice.

Brian: 24:15

So, what what are the things that I I think I noticed this on I don't know. I think on your blog, you're about stuff. Said you spent some time sketching. Do you still draw?

Naomi: 24:28

I do some. I do some. I mean, since I started focusing more on guitar and music, I haven't as much, but I do some. Yeah.

Brian: 24:36

Okay. More music than just guitar? Do you play anything else?

Naomi: 24:40

I don't play anything else. I mean, being a nerd, I had to kind of dive into music theory. So, Okay. Yeah. We'll do that.

Naomi: 24:51

And it's like music theory, I mean, it's like the circle of 5ths and chords. I mean, it's like, I don't know. It's nothing terribly esoteric, but it seems that even that isn't that common. When I talk to other people, say, studying an instrument, many of them don't seem to do very much with that, but I can't help myself, I guess.

Brian: 25:13

I had somebody ask me to ask you about your book. You wrote quick Python book and the quick Python book. There's 3 editions. Were you is are you the author of all 3 editions there?

Naomi: 25:30

No. Actually, I, the first edition was written in 1999 for Python 1.5.

Brian: 25:36

Oh, wow. Okay.

Naomi: 25:39

And then in about 2,008, 2,009, sometime around I guess it was late 2,008, which was right when everything was melting down around us. The publishers of, of the book, basically got in touch with me through and asked if I would do a second edition updated for Python 3. And of course they were billing it as, oh, you just need to touch up a few things for this to be ready for Python 3. And in fact, that was not at all true. I mean, 1999 was well before PEP 8.

Naomi: 26:22

So there were examples that really looked like they were Java written in Python, and it was just all over the place that way. I mean, it was a good book. I mean, you know, I'm not not denying that at all. It was a great book, but, you know, there was just basically, it was a total rewrite. Yeah.

Naomi: 26:40

Pretty much everything had to be looked at. And then we we did, the 3rd edition in 2018 and I don't know. We occasionally are now starting to talk about a 4th edition. I don't know.

Brian: 26:56

Any other book topics you, got any other books in you now that you're retired? Maybe have some free time?

Naomi: 27:03

I don't know. I don't know. I I've been thinking more along the lines and I've sort of done started a substack as well sort of on community related topics. Sort of things about, I don't know, I guess things that I've done horribly wrong over the years in organizing communities and how other people might not wanna do those things though, something like that.

Brian: 27:32

Well, that's that'd be interesting. So one of the things that I tried to do, which was hard, was to start a just a local meetup. This seems like a very small easy thing to do. All you gotta do is get a venue and, a speaker or 2 and, you know, invite people. How hard can it be?

Brian: 27:58

Turns out to be that's pretty hard even just that. Yeah.

Naomi: 28:02

Do

Brian: 28:03

you have any advice for meetup, people starting a new meetup or anything?

Naomi: 28:08

Well, so one of the cardinal rules, of course, is to make finding it very easy and predictable. So if you're gonna do it on the 3rd Thursday of the month, then do it on the 3rd Thursday of the month every single time. So even if they miss the 20 emails that you sent and the 5,000 social media posts, they can go, oh, it's the 3rd Thursday. I bet we're having a meetup. And you know, if

Brian: 28:37

that

Naomi: 28:39

kind of helps. But then, you know, the second part is sort of building that up slowly, I guess. And then the final thing that I found in jump starting something like that is basically organizing by or not organize in making sure that you sort of I don't know bother as many people as you possibly can. So you know it's sort of oh you're interested fine. And if they're not interested, say, oh, but do you know somebody who might be interested?

Naomi: 29:16

And if so, could you please put them in touch with me so that you kind of can get a network effect to to get the word out?

Brian: 29:24

Yeah.

Naomi: 29:26

It seems incredible in this day and age that we cannot get the word out and yet you will swear you've covered every single option multiple times and somebody will come up from literally next door and say, oh, I didn't know you're doing that. So yeah. I mean that's

Brian: 29:44

Well, I wish I would have, actually, I wish I would have heard your talk before I even it was, before I even started trying to do meetups, it was the timing, you know, time change and the or time it was it was before your talk, so I couldn't have. But, but one of the things I wish I would have done was, like, while I was doing it, immediately start trying to get notice the people that showed up every every week month and get them to help try to get people to help volunteer to do things, to help find speakers, to help, you know

Naomi: 30:19

That that is exactly one of those mistakes that I made, I don't know, 20 years ago. A friend of mine and I, I was living in Fort Wayne at the time, and I guess to be fair, he wasn't a friend of mine yet. But we decided we came together to start a Linux users group. And we were a couple of the original people that showed up for beers one night to talk over and do it. But then, the 2 of us became the people that organized everything.

Brian: 30:52

Yeah.

Naomi: 30:53

Probably for, like, the next 8 years. And we would ask people to do it, and they would kind of do it, but then not. And it would always come back to us.

Brian: 31:04

Yeah. And

Naomi: 31:06

then as it happened, we both got jobs and moved away within about 6 months of each other. And we'd had this group that had been apparently thriving for, I don't know, 8 years, something like that. And in fact, it struggled after that and kind of went dormant really fairly fast because nobody else was in the habit of doing those things. And it just sort of Yeah. Yeah.

Naomi: 31:35

You know, went into hibernation until I think 3 or 4 years later somebody else came along. And honestly, I think they made the same mistake. When their life changed, they moved on, it went to sleep again. I don't know what its status is these days, but it's it's something I've seen over and over again.

Brian: 31:53

Yeah. I'm a little I mean, it's similar even virtually with like small little open source projects that are useful, but nobody really wants to take on maintaining it. And when the one if it's really one person maintaining it and they just don't show up to do it, it just doesn't get updated then. Yeah. So

Naomi: 32:13

And and it is inevitable or almost inevitable that that one person will not show up one day. I mean,

Brian: 32:20

yeah, I kind of I was actually ran into this just recently, actually, just this week. Project that I'm depending on that I, I guess, I don't know what the process is. It's a it's a combination of PIPI and GitHub and all sorts of stuff. It's somebody's open source project, but it I mean, we we should have a process for if somebody stops maintaining something, how do we keep keep it moving forward? Do we I know there's a we can somebody can just fork it and change the name, But it's some it's sort of too bad that we can't have some sort of, I don't know, central body that goes out and, like, tries to contact somebody and say, hey, Are you still around?

Brian: 33:07

Yeah. But it's anyway, is that I'm I'm sure that's happened to you. Right? Where you depend on some project that just sort of goes dormant?

Naomi: 33:18

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Brian: 33:19

But but then the thoughts of I don't wanna maintain it either. So

Naomi: 33:25

I yeah. Honestly, I have to admit there have been a couple of times where I have I've downloaded the thing, forked it, and and, you know, just done the done what needed to be done but not pushed it back up. I know that is horribly not communities, you know, but it's like, you push it to the main project, nobody's going to approve it. I didn't have time to do that. So

Brian: 33:48

Well, I was surprised that

Naomi: 33:49

Sometimes even you can't even get the permission to take over. So yeah.

Brian: 33:53

Yeah. The the fix I needed actually has a fix on a pull request that's sitting since Right. 3 months or something. It's sitting there. And and 3 months is probably not long enough.

Brian: 34:05

Somebody might just be, like, sick or on vacation or something. But, at some point, it was if it, like, sits there for a year, I don't know. Maybe somebody else should take

Naomi: 34:15

it over.

Brian: 34:15

Who knows? Okay. Well, so what is the most exciting thing, I guess, about Python still that you're in the community, that you think about with, even as a retired person?

Naomi: 34:33

Well, I mean, I I guess it's, it never fails to to amaze me even now that how far Python has come in the past 20 years. And, you know, how we went from a really? You could you could get paid for doing this sort of thing to being, you know, one of the top three languages in the world in terms of numbers of users and that is still going up and and all of that. So I think that's that's really just incredible to me. I mean, it's sort of we, we had no idea back in the day that that would ever happen.

Naomi: 35:27

So that's I think that's pretty amazing. Yeah. I think, you know, it's sort of Python today. I have to admit since I'm not doing code reviews and and and wrestling with it every day, a lot of the technical things now seem a lot less important to me than they did. It's like it is somebody else's problem and I'm glad we've got really brilliant people working on it, but it's not my problem anymore.

Naomi: 35:58

Yeah. I think one thing that's interesting is that it's being sort of globally even people are turning to languages like Python, as a way to find a livelihood. I think that still continues. I know that is largely what's behind a lot of the, like efforts to bring on board women and efforts to teach coding around the world. There are lots of countries where, it's starting to be seen as, you know, maybe if I learn something like this, I can actually improve my life.

Naomi: 36:33

That that is kind of cool to think about.

Brian: 36:35

That is cool. And it's still even though it's starting to get more complicated, the language, it's It is. It's still fairly easy. You don't have to learn the complicated bits right away. You can learn the easy parts first.

Brian: 36:47

And I still think it's a fairly easy language to learn compared to others, at least.

Naomi: 36:53

Yeah. Well, I that's a good point. There is, I think, a growing pressure to complicate the language. And, you know, I I'm not sure if we should be resisting that pressure or not. I'm not sure if we're resisting at the right amount or too much or too little.

Naomi: 37:14

That that's a hard question to answer. But, just, you know, following the the Python ideas, discussions, and things like that, there There seems to be a great temptation to elaborate in. I think that's kind of the occupational hazard of being a mature language.

Brian: 37:33

Yeah.

Naomi: 37:34

What are we gonna do for our next trick? Well, do we need a next trick? I don't know. Probably, yes, but I don't know what it is.

Brian: 37:43

You've done a lot for Python in the community. And I guess just as a, a representative of some of the rest of the Python community, thank you. Thank you for what you've done.

Naomi: 37:54

Thank you.

Brian: 37:55

And thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. This was a lovely conversation.

Naomi: 38:00

Oh, yeah. Okay. Thank you.