Python People

Brian: 00:00

Well, hello, Paul.

Paul: 00:02

Hello, Brian.

Brian: 00:04

How's it going?

Paul: 00:06

Very well. You were just talking about getting yourself ready for the intro. I've got a laptop full of me cursing in my microphone because I botched something. So you can't do that in live, right?

Brian: 00:18

Yeah. But this isn't going straight to live, but pretty close. So this is the second episode of a new podcast called Python People. So thank you for agreeing to be like the second guest.

Paul: 00:34

It's a joy to be at. It really is a joy to be asked. I appreciate it.

Brian: 00:38

Well, I think it I think I went in the, I think, the proper order. So yeah, so this this morning I talked with, Michael Kennedy, and I think it was appropriate to have him come on as the first guest because he we do Python bytes together, and he does talk Python and, or talk Python to me. Sorry. The full name. But he also does, talk Python training.

Brian: 01:03

And he's been very influential to me and to lots of people, but, on my path and getting involved with the Python community, I kind of did it with him as a, like a, an exit buddy or an entrance buddy or something. Because I, my first pike on was, when he and I did, a pike and we went together and we had a booth. So I don't know if that's normal for the first step. First time you go to a pike on is to have a booth, but whatever. So you're at picon's a lot, and you are so you're, Paul Everett, and you were influential to me because early on, I, I, I went back to look, I think we got introduced to each other, like in 2016 or 2017.

Brian: 01:50

It's been a while. So I, at least in Python, in Internet time, that's forever.

Paul: 01:57

And you are a very memorable introduction for me. I took a pre release, maybe Kendall version or something of the book on vacation to the beach.

Brian: 02:12

Oh, right.

Paul: 02:14

Yeah. And read your book, like, couldn't put it down, which says something about my life choices. You know? Isn't there anything better to do at the beach than pie test? But apparently not.

Paul: 02:24

It was riveting. It really was.

Brian: 02:27

Oh, you're so kind. And I think that you were claiming, and I have no way to dispute you, that you were the first person to buy, the first edition of, the pie test book. So

Paul: 02:40

my stories usually have some percentage basis in truth, and it sounds good. So let's stick to it.

Brian: 02:48

Yeah. But you were, you were supporting, you were supporting me even, I think, before. But, anyway, thank you for, encouraging me, in my journey in Python. But you so right I know you as, so my my introduction to you was in, in that that you picked up the book, but I also wanted help in understanding how I could use pie charm, effectively, because when I've, in previous times, I've tried to pick it up. I've tripped a few times.

Brian: 03:21

So it was a couple things you pointed me in the right direction to use VI because there's a BIM mode. Mhmm. And then, and then also, we worked to I think we worked together a little bit to try to iron out some of the kinks with using Pytest and PyCharm together, and that was a lot of fun. So I guess thanks for letting me come along for that, Ryan.

Paul: 03:44

And thanks for doing that. In fact, another can't got ironed out a couple of betas ago with really accurate fixture support, something you and I had talked about.

Brian: 03:55

Yeah.

Paul: 03:56

And it's funny how you're in a job where you're supposed to be like, Hey, Paul, you're supposed to be the face of pie chart. And I wake up every day and like, damn, I only know, like, 1% of this product, and it's going to change 2% during the day. You're always feeling like you're behind the curve. And the same was true for our testing support. I kept trying to explain to people, man, it's badass.

Paul: 04:20

Go use it. And then I listened to you explain it once in, in one of your episodes, and you said it's the UI for pytest that you always wanted. And I thought that's what I should have been saying the whole time.

Brian: 04:36

It's a it's a nice interface, but the so you, you said you're the face of PyCharm, but you do more. You so you're you're a developer advocate for at JetBrands. Right?

Paul: 04:49

Yeah. And I shouldn't be associated with a product as an advocate. We are in the business of making developers better, however that may be. And, I cover web stuff and Python stuff like you. You're fairly recently, since the last time you and I saw each other, you're getting back into Django and Django testing.

Paul: 05:12

Yeah. And I'm getting back into the world of Django as well. And it's it's joyful when you focus on technologies rather than products, because you get to focus on communities and places like pie test in places like Jengar are just really joyful. Aren't they?

Brian: 05:31

They really are. And and partly you're right because of the people around it. There there are I mean, I I also really like a lot of other frameworks. I like Flask. I like, FastAPI, and FastAPI has got some, and there's some some great people around those projects.

Brian: 05:49

But it doesn't really have the community, the huge community that Django has, but it also I mean, there's reasons behind that. They're more lightweight things. But, and you, so other than so I see you mostly once a year at Picon, and then we talk, you know, a couple times a year, hopefully, for various other things. But we keep in touch. But, other, so most people probably do, you know, you from, or at least current new people from your involvement with PyCharm and JetBrains, but you go kind of farther back with Python.

Brian: 06:24

Right? You've been Indeed. Was that web framework that you were using?

Paul: 06:31

Zope. Zope.

Brian: 06:32

That's it.

Paul: 06:33

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: 06:34

Yeah. We haven't used that for

Paul: 06:35

a while. I got to tell that story to someone today. I was talking with someone about what we plan to do with Django in the next year. And I was explained that Django, when it was created, was the thing that killed my thing. So if you think Django's old, it was really new when it killed my my project.

Paul: 06:58

So

Brian: 07:00

and then, hopefully, I don't think Django needs any introduction. But you so did you go, was there stuff between your involve involvement with Zope and involve your involvement with, with JetBrains and PyCharm? Did you did you go away from Python for a while, or have you been with Python?

Paul: 07:20

No. I'm, lived in Europe for 4 years, which kinda took me out of the going to Python crowd. But I got involved with Chris McDonough, and Trey Seaver in Pyramid Okay. Which was, kind of thought of as a successor to Zope, the framework. I got involved with Plone, which was a content management system built on top of Zope, which is still going, as a foundation, just like Django has a foundation.

Paul: 07:53

I find that movement fascinating whenever an open source community is mature enough, thoughtful enough, strong enough to build a foundation, assign all the intellectual property to it, and outlive its founders. That's pretty cool. So to answer your question, yes. Pyramid and Plone were things I did after, Zope.

Brian: 08:16

Okay. And you, anyway, so you've been you've been around for a while, man.

Paul: 08:22

I've been around for a while. Yeah.

Brian: 08:25

But, but you seem you're still a positive influence, and you're pretty excited about what's going on with even new developments. And that's pretty, and I I guess I do see that more in Python than I see it in other places. I mean, c c and c plus plus has changed a lot in the last few years. And some people are along for the ride and some people are kind of curmudgeonly about it.

Paul: 08:50

Love that. Yeah.

Brian: 08:51

But, anyway, I guess, thanks. But you brought up the Outlive, foundation open source projects that outlived their founders, and I don't think that we've literally outlived Guido. He's still involved. But, but that's kind of we did we did go through one of those transitions with Python as a whole of going from the BDFL to a, steering council sort of model. What do you what do you think about that transition?

Paul: 09:27

It is, It's fantastic. Multiple things. I think about it. You'll have people on board like Brett, who I adore and admire and respect, he'll have better things to say than me about it. But I remember going to see Guido when he was at Google.

Paul: 09:48

This is after I came back from Europe and he was already kind of in the mode of turning over a lot of decision making to people. And it already felt at that time, gosh, I don't know, maybe that 2010 or something like that. It already felt like he was starting to get out of the business. Now the thing that prompted him to really make the move, not joyful. Yeah.

Paul: 10:15

The Walrus episode. Right?

Brian: 10:16

Yeah.

Paul: 10:19

But though even though he was in a spot, the way he conducted it was really interesting. It's it almost has this feeling of like Doctor. Manhattan going to Mars or something like that. He chose to say, I'm out. You're going to replace me and I'm not going to tell you what with.

Paul: 10:45

And there were, I think, 3 different models for what was going to be like just a different BDFL or this or that. And, he wound up coming back for a while and then getting back out for a while. And he's doing what he wants on his own terms, and he's doing the things that he finds joyful. Not a fantastic outcome.

Brian: 11:10

It really is. And I I so I jumped in like the first I don't even remember what the first icon I was. I came it. It wasn't that long ago. So I've only been to a few.

Brian: 11:23

But the, I think it was the second one that was in Portland. But but there was and I can't remember where we were on that transition. I don't think we were I don't know if the there's so this is the 5th year of this steering council. So, lost track of time.

Paul: 11:38

5 years, man.

Brian: 11:40

I think it's the 5th year because I think, I heard, Brett talking about that. Mhmm. So, there was I mean, of course, he's a it's an interesting thing meeting Guido for the first time if you haven't because, he's not, he's. He's not, like an extrovert. I mean, he's, he's not like walking up and meeting Steve Jobs or something like that.

Brian: 12:05

I've never met Steve Jobs, but, you know, he's not like an outgo. He's kinda quiet. And it's hard to read that a little bit. Is it, is it quiet because he doesn't want to talk to anybody or is he just not gonna like shout, Hey to you or something? So I was, I of course wanted to meet him, so I think I went up and said, hey.

Brian: 12:29

Just say thanks and everything. And and then, most recently, when I saw him in person was at, was at Pike Cascades. And Oh, great. And I was just well, it was kind it was so cool. I do was just kinda standing around in one of the, there was a talk going on, and I need just needed time to just hang out for a little while.

Brian: 12:53

And I was standing there, and he walked up to me and said and started asking me about testing and stuff. And, and and he just seemed to relax. So Oh, yeah. That's a

Paul: 13:04

great way to put it.

Brian: 13:05

He's just seems like he's having fun with it more, and he like you said, he gets just to do what he wants. How about you? Do you get to do what you want with Python?

Paul: 13:16

Unfortunately, yes. But if I could follow-up on the last point and then come back to that.

Brian: 13:23

Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul: 13:26

The when I first started thinking about this open source projects, they're able to outlive their founders. A lot of times you think of it in terms of this semi crazy open source leader. And we've all seen projects with people who really got kind of a messiah complex going on. But that's not what I mean. I mean, the ones that get successful and what are the common ingredients?

Paul: 13:50

When I first started thinking about this, it was in the content management system space in the 2000, 2005 pulling up into 2010. And that was a time when during the course of this conversation, someone would launch a new CMS. There were like CMSs were like web frameworks are now where people just wrote them over and over as vanity projects. And some of them would break through for each language, whether it was Ruby or or PHP or whatever. And the ones that got successful would get venture capital funding.

Brian: 14:25

Oh, right. Okay.

Paul: 14:27

And for me, that's a little bit symptomatic of American culture, particularly West Coast, Silicon Valley culture.

Brian: 14:39

Yeah.

Paul: 14:40

In this feeling that you as a founder aren't successful unless you go hockey stick. Yeah. And when your project goes hockey stick, you want to milk the cow because you think it's your cow. But help a source project is our cow cause we're all feeding the cow. And if you decide you're going to get all the milk out of the cow, no one else feeds the cow.

Paul: 15:03

No more milk. And when you look at some of these that have gone, kind of from a BDFL founder model to having a organization or instrument that survives it, that supersedes it, I should say, survives it. Sounds a little. Funeral ish. Then some of those have some characteristics where it doesn't, it never had the culture of Silicon valley, VC IPO.

Paul: 15:37

Let's go mega scale.

Brian: 15:41

Yeah. Yeah. Also, I mean, there's a lot of open source projects that if they're gonna do that with the venture, and that we're seeing some now, that where there's some and this isn't there's some some backing around open source projects, and I it will I guess we'll have to watch and wait and see what how those do. Sure. But, like, for instance, Django didn't start in silk.

Brian: 16:07

Yeah. I think it was in Kansas or something like that. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: 16:11

Yeah. And I I wonder if that's one of the differences. And Python didn't start silicon Yeah. Maybe, but, I don't know if there was a Silicon Valley in, but yeah.

Paul: 16:19

Yeah. But,

Brian: 16:22

that is interesting to see some of the different aspects of the things that, move on. So some of the, like, I I'm paying a lot attention to Django lately. Django is has done that transition as well, but they had, like, 2 people at the beginning with, didn't they?

Paul: 16:38

Yeah. An interesting lifecycle of its history. It would be great for you in this podcast area if you're kind of doing the historian role, to bring on Jessica McKellar and talk about the launch of diversity in the world of Python and Python and others involved in pie ladies at the beginning. I personally would love to hear the authoritative version of that, but also the origin story of Django and how you know, what was it at the beginning of Django that would lead you to believe that in 2023, me, the zope freaking guy, who would be extolling the virtues of how they did it. I'd love to hear that story.

Brian: 17:29

Oh, that's a good idea. I'll try to try to dig up the right people. Yeah. So,

Paul: 17:34

By the way, Zope did have venture capital, and I did give speeches, open source business model speeches at Venture Capital Conferences. And that's another episode.

Brian: 17:49

I hadn't thought about, like, some of the history stuff, but I do think that's one of the things I wanna try to capture is a lot of these stories, these, history stories, because they well, they to to be dark and blunt, people still remember them right now, and they might not in a 10 5, 10 years. Sure. Sure. Who knows? Sure.

Brian: 18:12

Yeah. So Jess McKellar would be a good one. Anybody and I I, I have a couple of contacts in the Django world so I can reach out there.

Paul: 18:21

Oh, but definitely the origin of Pylades. What a what an incredible success.

Brian: 18:26

Yeah. I don't know why I'm writing notes. I'm recording this. Yeah. It's a habit.

Brian: 18:33

Plus, I have this really cool new pen that they got for publishing.

Paul: 18:36

That is.

Brian: 18:37

The I gotta ask you a Django question because I'm I'm still in, like, the newbie process. I've gone through a few tutorials. I've got a thing that I want to build. So I'm, I'm like looking into Django. But there's one It's a it's like a it's not really PyTorch versus you as sort of a controversy, but it's a class based versus function based views.

Paul: 19:05

Oh, spicy. Where do you fall there? You just had Will and Carlton on.

Brian: 19:11

Yeah. But I didn't know enough to ask them about that.

Paul: 19:15

Okay. I will do a h t p 30 to redirect to give props to Trey Hunter, who on Mastodon right now is doing a hashtag Django June.

Brian: 19:31

Okay.

Paul: 19:32

And he just talked about this 3 or 4 posts ago. All of his posts are worth reading.

Brian: 19:39

Yeah. Okay. Trey is a great guy. I gotta I'll have to talk with him as well. So yeah.

Paul: 19:45

Moral of the story, as the great philosopher Nancy Pelosi said, embrace the suck. And go with class based views. Really?

Brian: 19:58

Nancy Pelosi said that.

Paul: 20:00

Yeah. She had to have been quoting somebody, so I should go further back and

Brian: 20:04

did not know she was a Django developer. That's amazing. So. I I think you're making that up, actually.

Paul: 20:15

I am not.

Brian: 20:17

Really? Nancy Pelosi develops Django? That's awesome. Cool. Maybe I can get her.

Brian: 20:27

So, I wanted to also find out a little bit more about you. What do you do when you're away from promoting Python and JetBrains and everything?

Paul: 20:38

I have a life passion, coaching girls lacrosse. Really? Lacrosse is a is my stick of a bizzle?

Brian: 20:52

Uh-huh.

Paul: 20:52

It's the old wooden stick. Lacrosse is a sport. Stick a net, a ball. You run around balls hard, you chuck it, flies up and down the field. And my daughter started playing, and she's now a referee and a coach.

Paul: 21:10

I actually work for her. I'm her assistant. She's if I can be a proud dad for a moment, she's the youngest d one ref in history.

Brian: 21:19

Oh, really?

Paul: 21:20

Yeah. But it is our platform for fixing the world. There are things going on in the world that, you know, politics and society and culture. And as as much, Brian, as we feel like rage tweeting fixes everything, it's just a little unfulfilling to go to go tweet about your about the problems of the world. And so we have enjoyed using youth sports as a way to accomplish things that might make a change.

Paul: 22:02

It's super fun. Our team looks like America. Let's put it that way.

Brian: 22:06

Oh, that's awesome.

Paul: 22:07

In a sport that really is kind of a country club from income and diversity perspective. Teaching young women to be leaders. We're not in the lacrosse business. We're in the leadership business. I always tell them one of you is gonna be president and fix all the mistakes that we made.

Paul: 22:23

So it's our job to get you ready for the role. And it's also just a fun way for an old middle aged white Hobbit looking dude to be ridiculous.

Brian: 22:37

But what do you mean? What's ridiculous about it? Do you get out there and practice?

Paul: 22:41

It's silly to be someone in their lives who's 900 years old or that they can joke with. And I trash talk with them. They trash talk back with me. And, it's super fun.

Brian: 22:52

That's awesome. That's great. I actually so I've got 22 daughters and I think, decent humans, adults that have the kids, I think I, I take it as part of my responsibility to be at least one more, positive adult figure in their lives. Yeah. So All set.

Brian: 23:18

And some don't have very many. So, so it's good to have one more. And I my wife's, my wife's the same, and it's good to be able to, have it not be weird. So if I if, like, if somebody's asking a question, and I wanna have I wanna take a shot at answering it to have my wife there to be able to say that now that's bullshit or no. Yeah.

Brian: 23:43

Yeah. Yeah. That that's valid. That's good. So how long you've been doing

Paul: 23:47

that? Gosh. Since like 2,007 or something like that.

Brian: 23:56

Wow. Okay.

Paul: 23:57

And it's it's something that overlaps in several ways with what we do in open source communities and stuff and what you and I do. You're a good advocate for people. My daughter sent me something this week, and the head of Nike said we have this kind of crisis. First of all, sports in general are great for young people, when done in a less competitive kind of way. It teaches a lot of things about, working together, working with difficult people, working in difficult circumstances.

Paul: 24:37

If done the right way, it gives a chance for people to be leaders at a younger age and certainly for women. I've I've heard people in positions of high authority say when we're hiring like for CEOs or something or if we're in the military and we're looking to promote people to a high rank. When I see a woman who's played a sport, that's like a double plus. It's something that is a tangible benefit.

Brian: 25:04

Okay.

Paul: 25:06

And the problem is, the head of Nike sent something out. My daughter sent it to me. There's a crisis of young women dropping out of sports when they hit puberty, and he they did a study. And the number one reason is 75% of youth coaches are men.

Brian: 25:24

That sounds like a I'm it's very believable. Yeah.

Paul: 25:28

Yeah. And again, in an overlap with my day job, I view it as my job to help the next generation get in place. Jeff Triplett did a bunch of good talking about this for the PSF board elections. We don't need heroes. We need the next generation of heroes.

Brian: 25:48

Yeah.

Paul: 25:48

And the old heroes need to help the new heroes. That's not me for Python anymore. But in sports, what it means is I should always be subordinate to a woman, particularly a young woman. And if the players can see old Hobbit looking dude taking orders from a young woman, You know, I can't be it until I see it.

Brian: 26:11

That's actually pretty cool. That's nice. Like that. Is it it did you so did you play lacrosse when you were younger? No.

Brian: 26:23

Oh, okay.

Paul: 26:24

I grew up in the wrong part of Florida. We didn't have no lacrosse.

Brian: 26:27

Well, so how do you know what to tell people to do if, you don't know? I mean, did you, does your daughter kinda help you out with that?

Paul: 26:35

Or Yeah. I get the beginners.

Brian: 26:38

Okay.

Paul: 26:39

I know my place in the back.

Brian: 26:41

Well, I'm I'd I've never I don't think I've ever watched a lacrosse game, and I was like, like, Googled lacrosse. Look at some pictures. Well, Duck Duck go, but you know.

Paul: 26:52

There you go.

Brian: 26:53

And, there's like helmets and stuff.

Paul: 26:57

You know, the the women's game is the old joke about American England or 2 countries divided by a common language.

Brian: 27:06

Yeah.

Paul: 27:07

They both share the word lacrosse, but they're they're quite different.

Brian: 27:11

Oh, okay. They're not hitting each other in the heads with the on women.

Paul: 27:16

They're not swinging the 6 intentionally at the head. Do guys

Brian: 27:21

do that? It's intentionally swinging each other.

Paul: 27:24

Is it? Yeah. There's a lot of contact.

Brian: 27:26

Oh, it's like hockey, but with kinda like hockey soccer thing.

Paul: 27:30

But another thing that I learned when I first got started was whenever you get into volunteer groups, so much comes over from open source.

Brian: 27:40

What do you mean?

Paul: 27:42

You, if you want to affect change, there's that African proverb. It plea oh, gosh. Please get this right. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you wanna go far, go together.

Brian: 27:56

I've never I don't know if I've ever heard that.

Paul: 27:59

Whether it's an open source or use volunteer work of any kind, If you want enduring change, you gotta get a whole bunch of people pulling on the rope. Oh, yeah. And that is a skill set that we in open source have gotten pretty good at. And it doesn't come over from the corporate world very well or the military.

Brian: 28:25

Well, I actually I'm surprised that people learn it in sports because I didn't. The I mean, you can if, like you said, if sports are taught right, I believe you that you could learn teamwork and Mhmm. And, you know, working together and stuff. There's a there's also very competitiveness. Like, not even just with other, like, competing with your team, but competing against your teammates Mhmm.

Brian: 28:53

That goes on.

Paul: 28:55

I've seen parents who pay their kids $20 per left handed goal. Yeah. Why? Because their little precious is the one and only important thing.

Brian: 29:11

But but why left handed goal? Is left handed goal a difficult thing or something? Or

Paul: 29:16

when you're young, you haven't learned to use both hands very well.

Brian: 29:19

Oh, okay.

Paul: 29:21

But you're right. Youth sports has gotten worse. It's become a vehicle for the adults to scratch their egos. Yeah. It's gotten expensive.

Paul: 29:34

It's gotten elitist.

Brian: 29:36

Well, I don't know if it ever was not. I, you know, I I remember so I I the sports I played when I was young, I played, you know, a little soccer. Like, it was it was, you know, too young to remember barely. I just remember getting rained on. And then, in middle school, I thought football looks fun.

Brian: 29:59

I'll try that. And 1st day, the coach says 1st day of practice, coach says, okay, want the, like the, the, backfield to go over here and the, the line line people go over to this side. And I I just I'd never played before. So I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, I mean, I know what those are, but how do I know what I should be?

Brian: 30:23

Mhmm. And so that and that was because which I didn't know at the time that there were all most of the other kids that played like, little little little league football or something like that. And I think that, and I get that, like high at the point where the, like the varsity, varsity football and all the varsity teams, they're trying to win and they're trying to, like, go on to college and stuff like that. But I think I think at least beginning freshman year and younger than freshman year, I don't think that we should be weeding people out too fast.

Paul: 31:00

Totally agree. It depends on which scoreboard you're aiming for.

Brian: 31:06

Yeah. I'd like to see it be more about having people get, try something out that they may not have ever tried before and see if they like it and, have fun with it and and do the whole team thing. So

Paul: 31:20

everything you just said, I really, really agree with. And it's also how you conduct yourself in your public role in software. You are someone who encourages people, brings people together, shines the spotlight that you get on you. You share it and then spot shine that spotlight on other people.

Brian: 31:44

Cool. Thank you. I will. You do get your payment for, agreed to a payment for,

Paul: 31:51

promotional consideration.

Brian: 31:54

I want one more sport thing that I now I'm remembering my youth. I did play, or I was on the, track and field team. Is that a thing? Mhmm. For 1 year, just tried it out, and I think I did the the the discus.

Brian: 32:13

Yeah. That's it. Where you try to spin around and throw this heavy disc and try not to hit people. I was terrible at it. But oddly enough, be those seem like individual sports, and they are.

Brian: 32:28

But I I felt more teamwork in in team camaraderie in the in that experience because doing poorly didn't drag anybody else down. Yeah. They they were, like, trying to get encourage me and teach me to to do better, of course, and the the other kids. But the the the best person at, discus didn't get worse because I was there. Awesome.

Brian: 32:57

It was interesting.

Paul: 32:58

Anyway There's a theory that if you take 2 boys and have them do a sprint against each other, they'll do they'll run faster than if they ran by themselves. But 2 girls will run slower than if they run by themselves because they don't wanna show the other one up.

Brian: 33:16

Yeah. Probably an overgeneralization, but interesting. Yeah.

Paul: 33:22

You also got into skatepark culture, right?

Brian: 33:25

Yeah.

Paul: 33:26

And I a tribe, a culture, and also it was your choice, right?

Brian: 33:37

It it was, it was my choice. But I was just thinking about some of the analogy between skateboarding now and, and open source and pike Python was that one of the we had that in common. So the people that I hung out with, we had the skateboarding in common. We might not be able to talk about anything else. We might be different music types, different, in different ages even.

Brian: 34:02

I remember being a freshman in high school hanging out with, like, late year college students, and and then all the way down to, like, younger kids. And what was the thing in common? We were all watching the half pipe to, to wait our turn so that we could ride. And then we were talking about stuff and, you know, encouraging each other. There wasn't, I mean, there weren't competition.

Brian: 34:27

There were probably competitions, but not in my circles, but, teaching each other tricks and teaching stuff. And, that equalizer of, young or old doing it new, you all the old guys are fine in teaching the new people because we have to have a new generation coming along. And I do see that in the, open source world a lot.

Paul: 34:52

My son got into a sport that sounds a lot like that kind of culture parkour in it, like, specifically issues, competition and really good fit for him. He thrived in something like that, and I actually found myself learning from him about the virtues of that kind of approach.

Brian: 35:15

Yeah.

Paul: 35:16

When I got back into coaching, I started to focus on the kids who needed lacrosse more than lacrosse needed them.

Brian: 35:23

I think that maybe we could feed that back to other things as well. There's a there's there's some, like, kid activities that I wish were less competitive. Like, early I don't know if you have any of your kids have ever taken dance, but dance classes are most a lot of them that I've been involved with are, like, the train to teach. You you get a little bit of instruction and lesson. And then it's, and then it's like a couple months of learning the same thing over and over again to do a performance so that they could compete somewhere.

Brian: 35:54

And

Paul: 35:55

all the joy of concert piano plus looking feet.

Brian: 36:00

Well, also, like, I'm pretty sure that, like, 99% of the kids that get into dance at, like, age 8 aren't doing it to become professional dancers. Indeed. Just saying. Indeed. And I

Paul: 36:14

It's there's gotta be joy. Yeah. I mean, joy and purpose go well together in appropriate ratios.

Brian: 36:23

And I get the thing of like, you go on to like do something so that the parents can watch it and go, oh, look what little, Jimmy learned or something. But, you know, I don't know. Like,

Paul: 36:36

I'm hoping that some of your listeners, Are thinking, hey, that matches when I got into such and such that they found their tribe and they their heads are nodding. They're like, I know exactly what you're talking about. A warm, welcoming place where I could be the best me.

Brian: 36:57

I would love that. And speaking of audience and people listening and people coming on as guests, So this, Python people is a little bit of an experiment. So my original idea was instead of diving too far into the technical stuff, let's, like, meet the people and get to know the individuals that are involved with Python a little bit more.

Paul: 37:19

Well, well said. Yeah.

Brian: 37:20

But but where it goes from there, like you brought up bringing up some of the history stuff, I think that's a great idea. And I'd like to have other people go, you know what? If we're talking about just the people around Python and the culture, let's talk about other things and the, tying in other things that they have in life. Like I'm not a musician, even though I apparently collect good cars. But, I know some people are, and I'd love to hear like, that, there, how, how music relates to software and stuff.

Brian: 37:54

That'd be so, I think I've asked a ton of questions, but I really thanks Paul for supporting the show and for, for being the 2nd guest. And anyway, thanks.

Paul: 38:06

Thanks for having me. Thanks for talking about the thing we all have in common, which is Python. Like Brett says, come for the language, stay for the community. And we should all just take time every now and then to appreciate the thing we have.

Brian: 38:21

Yes. But there's and also keep making it better. Let's like you were talking about with diversity, there's we're not perfect yet and, you know, room to grow. So thanks a lot and, catch up later.

Paul: 38:34

Thanks, Brian.