Python People

Brian: 00:00

Today on Python people, we've got Rob Ludwig, and I'm, like, super excited to talk to you, Rob, because your, your involvement with Python and with, with juggling at Python is one of the inspirations for this podcast, actually.

Rob: 00:17

Is it really?

Brian: 00:18

Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking, when I started Python people, I thought, you know I mean, Python test is really about teaching it's kind of focused on, like, teaching people something. But I really wanted to just get to know the people, and my thought process were was kind of, you know, there's a lot going on at Python. The Python people are really interesting.

Brian: 00:40

As an example, you can juggle at Python, and it shows every time I've been to Python, I've seen the juggling. I only participated once, but I thought, that's pretty neat. I think we should talk about that. So that's one of the inspirations. So you've been going to PyCons for a long time.

Rob: 00:57

Yeah. So I first got, I first got into Python around 2,007 ish. Okay. So I was living in Fort Wayne, Indiana at the time. I I now live in Boise.

Rob: 01:12

But, back then, I was living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And, Naomi Seer also was living back back there at that time. So we actually knew each other pretty well because we both ran the the Fort Wayne Linux users group back then.

Brian: 01:30

Okay.

Rob: 01:31

And I was working for Raytheon back at the time, in writing c plus plus and not really super enjoying it because it wasn't fun. Like, there was, like, Java at the time, and, you know, they were doing, c plus plus. And so I was able to at least get into c plus plus, and then I was looking at Python. And I was just, you know, gobsmacked, I guess, is the best word about how how powerful it was, and all of the hard problems went away. So, like, just trying to do, JSON was so simple.

Rob: 02:09

Right?

Brian: 02:10

Yeah.

Rob: 02:11

Yeah. And so it's like, if you try to do that in c plus plus, it's like, okay. Well, you know, how you do that? Then you've got these interesting cases like, okay. So you've got int.

Rob: 02:23

It's you gotta make sure that's like if you're doing int multiplication off the JSON, it's like, okay. You gotta use, like, big int libraries. Right? Well, in Python, it's like an ints, like, however long you want it to be. So

Brian: 02:38

It's funny. I was I've I've been using c plus plus most of my career, but I never could I I don't think I've ever used JSON with with, with c plus plus.

Rob: 02:50

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

Rob: 03:14

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's just really, really awesome. Remove all the headaches of dealing with data like that.

Brian: 03:22

So you got into Python 2007 ish, through new Naomi Seager. That's pretty cool.

Rob: 03:29

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: 03:31

And then, a couple years later, your first picon?

Rob: 03:34

Yeah. So that was 2009 in Chicago, I believe. And that was that was fun. What I remember about that time was how smart everybody was. Like, I was just this coder, but all these really smart people were there.

Rob: 03:54

And right? And it's like, what what I got from that was, Python enabled these smart people to work more effectively. Because, if you're thinking about other languages at the time, there was a struggle, to do things. You know, if you're trying to do, some sort of, like, I I don't know, scientific computing thing, The the languages were kinda hard to deal with because now you had to think, like, what we talked about, like, size events. Right?

Rob: 04:30

Now you have to think, you know, think about size of ints. But in in the scientific world, ints aren't, 64 bits. Right? So they're gonna be much much larger. So so so, you know, in Python, that that simplified a lot of that kind of workflow, and so I so I was I was surprised to see all these smart people there.

Rob: 04:53

And I was just, you know, I was just amazed. So I I went to 2,009, in Chicago, then I went to 2,010 in Atlanta, 2,011 in Atlanta. Then I missed the 2 in San Jose, the one in the first in Montreal, but I've been to every single one ever since. So I I've I just I I like the people. It's a fun time.

Rob: 05:23

Okay. I I learn something every time I go there.

Brian: 05:27

Yeah. Me too. I love it. I I started much later. I can't even remember.

Brian: 05:32

I think the the second Portland one was the first time I jumped in and went

Rob: 05:36

k. Yeah. I remember that one. Yeah. That yeah.

Rob: 05:39

That was, you know, what's funny about the Portland ones were that there was a juggling festival at that same Portland, convention center years few years before that. And then so I was there, and then they were struggling at PyCon, and then I was there for that as well. So I anyway, just just these weird things. I've been here doing this. So

Brian: 06:04

Yeah. So, now you've been involved with the pipe the juggling bit, though, for a while, or did you start that, or did somebody else start?

Rob: 06:12

Ned Batchelder started that. Okay. So he, he had some stuff, juggling props, and I can't remember which one which one that's he started it with. But, he was it would have been pre COVID that I remember. Oh, yeah.

Rob: 06:32

It would have been probably probably in in Portland. Maybe Wow. Maybe the one before that as well. I can't I can't fully remember. But I remember he he was one of the also one of the investigators behind it.

Rob: 06:48

And what I remember about that is that, yeah, we started juggling. We would just, pick a spot out in the hallway, and then, we'd have a few props. And, yeah, we just start juggling out there. And, it was it's kind of a great way to meet people too. So

Brian: 07:08

Yeah. So the and I've seen it, but when it was I think it was the last, last Python was the first time I think I participated. And I was only there for, like, maybe 10, 15 minutes. But it's kinda neat seeing you've got people that are really good at juggling and then other people that just wanna try. Or or, for instance, you know, maybe, have been decent at 3 and or trying 4 and or somebody that's trying pins for the first time or something.

Brian: 07:39

That's pretty cool to have, have just have some some Python nerds, like, helping each other out with juggling. It's kind

Rob: 07:46

of a thing. It's it's fun. It's, the one thing I enjoy about it is that if you juggling is kind of like a it's weirdly this universal language, particularly really with, you know, clubs and when you pass clubs. The idea is that, everybody kinda knows, and so you if you haven't juggled with somebody passing clubs, you can kinda just pick it up and do it. It's kinda weird in that way.

Rob: 08:15

Be it it just works out. And so then there's tricks that both people typically know, and so, you know, then you just start passing. And it's like, oh, yeah. Just like just like juggling with an old friend. You know?

Rob: 08:28

It's kinda like

Brian: 08:29

that. We had, some friends of our with, like, way back when my first, my youngest daughter my oldest daughter, actually, when she was a baby, we had, like, a playgroup for babies, which was weird. But,

Rob: 08:44

that's yeah. It's kinda what juggling is. It's like a playgroup for, nerds.

Brian: 08:49

But, one of the couples that came over that that our our baby played with their baby, they were jugglers. And, so much so that they apparently, like, they they walked down the aisle at their wedding with through a tunnel tunnel of jugglers. Yeah. And then so, she was, pregnant with her second child, and they came over to our house once. And they did this Like, in our house, they did, pin juggling, with oh, maybe it was balls.

Brian: 09:21

Anyway, they were juggling with the 2 of them, and they would walk around in circle, with one of them being in the front doing the the juggling, and then the other one would go up to the front to juggle. And it was interesting watching because they had to, like, alter they had to learn how to alter this because of the size of her. She was very pregnant at the time. Yeah. It was something to see.

Brian: 09:45

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

Rob: 10:13

Usually, it's after I they try to do it, like, about 5 o'clock, and then it just goes until people are tired, which, you know, if you haven't juggled in a while like me, I'll I'll, like, go to maybe 7 PM. So if you start, I think, at about 5:45 to about 7:45 PM, It's typically about the you know, it's a couple hours, and it's usually good enough to to, you know, to to get a good juggling session in. That's usually what most juggle sessions are anyway. Okay.

Brian: 10:48

And then does does everybody go off and, go eat together afterwards, or do just split up?

Rob: 10:53

Sometimes sometimes, they just split up. But, the I think the last time last time we had some, people from Ukraine stop by, and they were in the juggling session. And so we just all went out together to eat, and so I I met with these, the these people from, Ukraine, and they were just really sweet. They were just really, really nice people. Okay.

Rob: 11:20

And, yeah, it was just, I just remember having a blast with those guys.

Brian: 11:25

That's great. So yeah. Okay. And one of the, everybody's respectful because these I think at least last time, it was in an o it was in a hallway with open spaces to the side or other rooms to the side, so people were walking by, at the same time. Can get a little crazy, but everybody's

Rob: 11:48

nice. So Yeah. I tried to I think I've tried to do it. If I I know that Ned wasn't there, the first Salt Lake City, so I kinda do try to do it out in the open area where it's like if I if I host it, I'll be I'll be trying to do it in the open area. And that way, it's like, you know, people aren't gonna get, like, injured.

Rob: 12:15

If I if I start throwing, like, high, like a double or a triple and, you know, people aren't gonna get injured. So that's a that's a key thing. So

Brian: 12:25

Okay. Well, do you wanna jump into some of these other topics, like, how to get the most out of PyCon?

Rob: 12:32

Yeah. Let's do that. So, you know, I've been going to a bunch of Pycons. I I as much as I enjoy going to talks, one thing that I enjoy more is the people. So I enjoy talking to the people kinda way more than I enjoy talk seeing the talks.

Rob: 12:52

There are some don't get me wrong. There are some good talks, but the things that I'll bring out are kinda ideas, meeting with people will give me new ideas to think about stuff. And those won't necessarily be in the top state. They kinda call that the hallway track. So so, and the the unfortunate thing, I think, is that it's not every talk is going to be awesome.

Rob: 13:20

I mean, it's just the way, conference is going to be. But there were there are gonna be some, definitely good talks there. But the other thing to keep in mind is that the the talks will typical tick the the typically be online. So they'll they're gonna be on YouTube afterwards. Right?

Rob: 13:41

So then you can always go back and miss, you know, look at the talks that you missed if if you're really interested in that. Or you hear something about a talk that was spectacularly good, you can you can go back and and see that talk. But, you know, the the thing is the people aren't gonna be there. There's no YouTube for the people. So so you can't go you can't go talk to people on YouTube afterwards.

Rob: 14:06

So so that's the way I the that's kind of the way I see it.

Brian: 14:09

One of the things I like to encourage for for that aspect of it is, if you're if there's a talk that talk topic that sounds interesting, but the person that giving it, you is somebody you're not familiar with, you don't know them, that's a great talk to go to then, because, those are the the the the the, I guess, the heroes of Python, the the top names that everybody knows, those are gonna be full anyway. But the the the other, the other ones, it's kind of a bummer to give a talk to, like, 4 people in the audience. So

Rob: 14:52

Yeah. Yeah. It is.

Brian: 14:53

So it's good to have, like, a you know, if you're interested in it, go go support some of these these other people giving talks because that also kind of presents an idea to the organizers, I imagine, as to what kind of talks to to have. And, you know, you know, if if you have a favorite topic, let's support that.

Rob: 15:14

But Yeah. Yeah. The I think, there's I I imagine I can't imagine all the politics that go in into, like, selecting talks. But but, you know, a lot of there's a lot of stuff that, is is really good. Right?

Rob: 15:33

So

Brian: 15:34

so Other than the talks, there's so much else going on. We we talked about juggling for 1. But there's, I do wanna talk about, like, both the, the the open spaces and and some of the other things going on. So to yeah. I'll let you introduce it.

Brian: 15:54

What are what are open spaces?

Rob: 15:56

Open spaces are kind of like, build your own conference in a way. Pipe Python provides, when they get the space from the, that's you know, when they get the conference venue. Yeah. From the venue, they usually reserve extra conference rooms, and those conference rooms are available to schedule for an open space. So what you what they do is they have, starting Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, they have those rooms available.

Rob: 16:31

So and they go from, like, I don't know, 8 to 6 or 7, maybe. Depends upon the the contract they have with the with the venue. But the idea here is that you'll there's usually a good number of rooms and openings to talk about things. Right? So, last year, I did, and it doesn't necessarily have to be about Python either.

Rob: 16:56

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

Brian: 17:20

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

Brian: 17:43

There's been, one where people just brought a bunch of chocolate from around the country

Rob: 17:49

and around

Brian: 17:49

the world to share, and they're just eating chocolate in there. I mean

Rob: 17:55

Yeah. Yeah. Then there's ones like, I remember one back in, I remember this talk back in or in open space on time zones and said, you know, prepare to have headaches. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: 18:16

Certain topics. Yeah.

Rob: 18:18

And so that's why I remember, that's why I remember about these, certain, topics. But yeah. No. Like, last year, I, I brought I had a small three d printer. So I was I live in Boise, and I was able to drive down to Salt Lake City last year.

Rob: 18:35

So I just thought, I'll just bring a 3 d printer down with me. So I brought a 3 d printer down. And, I had no one space, on 3 d printing. And we didn't talk about Python too much. We talked about 3 d printing, and that was a blast.

Rob: 18:47

And it was it was a bunch of nerds talking about, you know, 3 d printing. And, you know, we had some, high school teacher that came in, want to learn about some things. And, and, yeah, if and you've got all these great people there that are willing to share. So yeah.

Brian: 19:08

That's pretty cool. So then, there's that way they set it up, and I don't know if it's always like this, but that's how I remember it. There's like, you you show up the 1st day, and there's, like, some boards, set up. Like, these, like, big, I don't know, big poster board things set up in grids. And and they're the grids are about index card size or a little bit larger.

Brian: 19:33

So then you can just grab an index card and write the title of your open space and, and stick it up there. And and if and if you're the first one, you get the open space.

Rob: 19:44

It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing to keep in mind, though, is that usually in the venue, if they don't have if they've run out of space but you need to do something for a particular time, you can just go ahead and, put something on the side of the board or something like that around the same time. And then just describe where you're gonna meet.

Rob: 20:08

Right? So, usually, the venues are so large that you can find a spot anyway to go talk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob: 20:14

So, you can just say outside this outside this this room. And you usually, there's a a spot where you can guys can meet and, and then you can wander over and just talk. And it's it's actually pretty nice. So

Brian: 20:28

And then one of the other things is, lightning talks.

Rob: 20:32

Yes.

Brian: 20:34

And I don't really know how those work.

Rob: 20:37

Yeah. They're very similar. You've got to the they open up the lightning talks, and then there's usually a large crowd that goes and tries to get a spot on the lightning talk schedule. First come, 1st serve.

Brian: 20:52

Okay.

Rob: 20:52

And, then you get, like, 5 minutes. So then it is just like you go up on stage, you plug in your laptop, get your slides ready, and then they give you 5 minutes. And then meanwhile, while you're talking, there's somebody else getting up on stage with their laptop, getting their slides ready. That's our that's our and that's that's pretty much how it works. And there's, usually some, good things in those as well.

Rob: 21:19

You know, the the the one of the problems of doing the juggling is that usually, that usually conflicts with the lightning talks because I'm gonna be juggling at the same time while lightning talks are going on. But, at least in the evening. But they do the lightning talks. It looks like they've got the lightning talks, in the, evening this year. Both you know, before they've had it on, in the mornings as well, but I was looking at the lightning talks.

Rob: 21:54

They've got the lightning talks scheduled for the evening of Saturday and Friday night and Saturday night, it looks like.

Brian: 22:03

So Yeah.

Rob: 22:04

That's a little bit of a change. Normally, sometimes they'll do it, like, lightning talks in the morning. So they'll do, like, lightning talks, and then you get your breakfast and you can go go watch the lightning talks as you, munch on your breakfast and drink coffee.

Brian: 22:20

Yeah. No. The lightning talks are fun. And and then it's also kind of, like, interesting, interesting room often. They'll do it.

Brian: 22:30

Last time I I went to 1, it was a large conference room or large one of the large auditoriums. But, but people will kind of, blend like, kinda come in and out and and watch a couple talks, then go off and do something else. So

Rob: 22:45

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's really good. There's and they sometimes they talk about something that you want to get more information about, and but they just kinda And, again, the lightning talks can be pretty much about anything. So I've seen lightning talks that were about, science things that people were just randomly working on.

Rob: 23:04

And they were Okay. Talking about, like, 5 minutes of of some science, and they put up some slides. And I thought that was those are kind of the most interesting stuff because those the things that I enjoy are not necessarily things you know, the kind of the things about Python, but what people are using Python for. Yeah. And then that's that's actually even more exciting, I guess.

Brian: 23:35

And then the, the the space what's the space called with, like, all the vendors and everything? Can't remember what that's called.

Rob: 23:41

Oh, the, I don't know. Yeah. I know what you're talking. I can't I can't think of it either. But, you know, they have the the vendor space.

Rob: 23:49

Right? Let's let's call it

Brian: 23:51

there. Okay. So in a in a lot of conferences I've been to, and I haven't been to ton of tons of conferences, but a lot of conferences, the there's talks going on, tutorials, and then there's the vendor space. And the vendor space is mostly about people going around and finding what finding information about the vendors. But at PyCon, the vendor space is, like, a one of the major places to hang out and meet people also.

Rob: 24:15

Yes. Yes.

Brian: 24:17

So there's a lot of, like, discussions. And I don't know if it's always like this, but at least the last, last one, the the, the where people are eating is often at the same place where the vendor space is or or right attached to it. So there's a lot of tables around, so that makes for easy meeting up with people and then going off and hit sitting at a table and talking or whatever. So

Rob: 24:40

Yeah. Yeah. And often, I'll see people that are, like, eating there, and I'll go up and say, hi. Hey. How are you?

Rob: 24:48

That's that's usually a good, space to go to. It can be a little noisy. I think the Yeah. Because that's kinda like the, you know, that's that's kinda like more like, it feels more like a gymnasium space sometimes rather than, rather than a carpeted conference room. But, yeah, there's, they that is, one of the nicer things is, like, pretty interesting.

Rob: 25:16

At least then you can, like, go when you go eat, they'll have the food, and then you go talk to the vendors, and it's like they have some interesting stuff going on there. And then and then it's like, oh, you'll see people there. And if you sit down and eat with people, yeah, you'll you'll find some interesting people to talk to as well there.

Brian: 25:34

And that but, so the vendor space is often open Thursday night also, but, and then fry you know, Friday Saturday. And then Sunday, the vendors are gone.

Rob: 25:45

Yes.

Brian: 25:45

And and there's, on Sunday, there's, is that I think poster sessions are on Sunday also, or are

Rob: 25:52

they Yes. Post poster session at least the way they did last year was poster sessions were there, and then the job fair was there as well.

Brian: 26:01

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Rob: 26:03

And so, expo hall. That's what they call it. Expo hall.

Brian: 26:08

Oh, okay. I'm I I kinda, like, poke around the job fair just to see what kind of companies really are hiring. It's interesting to see what what people are doing. But the the poster sessions are kind of a neat thing that I didn't quite understand when I first came. And, again, well, I think those are those are you have like a talk, you have to submit your poster idea and get accepted.

Brian: 26:31

Right.

Rob: 26:31

So posters were created back in Atlanta, I think. Okay. When I think they were created at and I I think at that time, again, Naomi Cedar was the one who kind of spearheaded that, and they got the poster shut sessions up. One of the reasons that she did that was not everybody was comfortable giving talks. Right.

Rob: 27:00

So so the idea was and and not everything works well for a talk either. So the idea was you could have a poster set you know, you could have a poster up, and then the people could just come up and they would ask you questions. And then that way, you could just you could kinda present the ideas without giving a full talk. Yeah. And, it would be more conversational.

Rob: 27:26

Right? Yeah. You would get questions asked, and there would be back and forth conversation. And and then it's just like there's a flow. And then, yes, I I think there's some, there's still some nervousness because you're gonna be, presenting a poster.

Rob: 27:39

But on the other hand, it's not, they're not necessarily recorded either. So they're you know, the the conversations are not gonna be recorded. They're They're ad hoc. And, it's and, usually, there's some really good stuff there as well. And so that's, like, one of the maybe overlooked ones, I'd say, of, of modern PyCons is that people tend to overlook the poster session.

Rob: 28:04

I tried, you know, that's one thing that I try to go see. There was, there's a guy who did some, he had kind of a a screen electronic screen bay based off of those 7 segment LEDs, and he was playing videos there last year. And that was that was kind of fabulous to see. So

Brian: 28:28

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

Rob: 28:54

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: 28:56

But the, it's just it's also a very welcoming, community, and I think I think the key is to go to Python at least twice, because, the first time I had a similar similar, reaction to to you is, like, everybody here is so smart. Why am I here? But then when then you start paying attention to really who everybody is, and, yes, everybody's really smart, and there's some some brilliant people there, but there's also just people. And and you're smart also in your own the things that you're smart about. And that's kind of what Python is is since it's such a language used for so many different things, if you're really a user interface person or maybe you're a web person, whatever, there's gonna be other people that don't know that stuff and can learn from you.

Brian: 29:48

So it's a it's it's a cool mix of the community.

Rob: 29:52

Right. One thing to keep in mind is since since we're on the topic of PyCon and being a welcoming community, I believe it is, the most welcoming conference I've ever been to, honestly. So, if you have doubts about wanting to go to PyCon, like, it's, it's not for me or, you know, it's not like, it's just gonna be a bunch of, like, you know, nerds or something like you might see at, other conferences. No. It's not like that.

Rob: 30:32

There's there's everybody from all kinds of, places from the world, different interests. And Python is, you know, Python's a great, venue, but it's not it's it's really just about the people, and so that's what they celebrate there. They celebrate the language as well. Don't get me wrong, but they also celebrate the people, and the community is is just wonderful as well.

Brian: 30:59

It is. And I I have been to other conferences as well, tech conferences. I went to in, I went to a a, soft focused software quality focused conference, and I was surprised that that wasn't it didn't seem like people were there to meet each other. It was more about just going to the talk and learning something.

Rob: 31:21

Yeah.

Brian: 31:22

And that's that is part of PyCon. But, like you said, if you really just want if you're just there to learn the material, it's gonna show up on YouTube. You get so much more out of it by showing up. So Yeah.

Rob: 31:35

Yeah. And the other thing to to to remember is that a lot of the people most people there are gonna be very open. So you can go up to somebody, and you wanna know more about what they did. They are they are typically pretty open about that. They'll answer questions, and, it's it's just this wonderful kind of experience of just sharing knowledge.

Rob: 32:08

So one

Brian: 32:08

of the things to take advantage of is breakfast. Because Yes. But because there's breakfast that is usually served at Picon, and which is interesting. But there's, it's not a lot of food, but, you know, whatever they've got, bagel or something. And there's there's people sitting around, and I think that's a great place because you have these big tables.

Brian: 32:32

Breakfast and lunch are great times to meet people. Lunch is a little crazy. There's a lot of people around. But breakfast, it's a little thinner often, and you can show up and just sit next to somebody the and then just talk, just to say, hey. You know, what what do you do in Python?

Brian: 32:47

And what are you here for? How long you've been here? And I think that everybody no. I've never met somebody that thought that it was weird that I was at talking to them, at breakfast.

Rob: 32:59

Yeah. It's it is kinda like one of these things where the tables are they're typically large tables. So, you know, unless you have 20 people in your, in your group that you all know, you know, if you're just going by yourself, there's gonna be tables and you, you know, typically, there's gonna be enough space. So if you if you wanna sit alone, that's fine. But if you wanna go hang out with people, you could do that too.

Rob: 33:25

Yeah.

Brian: 33:26

So so Yeah. Great great time to meet people. It's a it's a blast. I I I still am on the fence as to whether I'm gonna go this year. I kinda wanna go, but, but also, I don't

Rob: 33:40

know if it's far as far away as super. I booked I booked my flight last night, and I I was going down. So I'm gonna go to the tutorials this year. Okay. Okay.

Rob: 33:51

The the one tutorial I'm gonna go to is that I'm really looking forward to is fundamentals of modern deep learning with PyTorch. Oh, wow. So that should be you know, those are those tutorials are about, it looks like 3 and a half hours long. This one's gonna be at 9 AM. And, you know, they cost a 150 dollars to go to typically, but that's you know, to me, the the flight's gonna be way more than than, this.

Rob: 34:26

So I I decided to go ahead and sign up for that one. That's kinda that's kinda one that I've been wanting to do, but I just haven't had the time to do it. So I'm gonna hopefully, hopefully, what I'll get is I'll get 3 and a half hours of just, me opening my laptop and then going and figuring out PyTorch, and then figuring out how how I can apply that, to my graphics card here I have, at home and seeing if I can, like, do some simple stuff, and, and and things like that. Because I I haven't quite figured out how to get into PyTorch, but PyTorch seems like it's the way to go. It's the way forward, at least for today, for machine learning.

Rob: 35:13

So I've been wanting to do more of that. So that's that's one thing I was going, to sign up for.

Brian: 35:19

That sounds interesting. So the, the the tutorials are, like, a couple days. I think they're 2 days before.

Rob: 35:28

Yeah. They're so so, technically, the, you know, Python is the entire week from, like, Wednesday through the next Wednesday. Right? The main conference days are Friday, Saturday, Sunday. But then Wednesday Thursday before are tutorials.

Rob: 35:45

Okay. And then, the

Brian: 35:46

Thursday night, there's a big dinner thing usually. So

Rob: 35:49

Yeah. Yeah. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday afterwards are sprint days.

Brian: 35:56

Yeah.

Rob: 35:56

Right. So you can go off and code sprints with people if you if you wanna do that.

Brian: 36:02

Also so both the tutorials and the sprints are great times to kind of experience the Python community without the huge crowd because the

Rob: 36:13

Yes.

Brian: 36:13

It's the huge crowd shows up for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, usually.

Rob: 36:17

That's right. That's right. And also what you were talking about with kind of the the lighter, aspect is absolutely true, with the tutorials. There's people there, but they're not a large number of people. So so it's, and typically, some of the tutorials are gonna be in large room format.

Rob: 36:40

Others are just gonna be in smaller rooms. So, but you know it, I I've had a pretty good experience with the tutorials in the past. So I'm I'm definitely looking forward to this. I I'm gonna I'm gonna not create you guys' name, but Sebastian Vrashka on PyTorch, I think, is the one that I was looking forward to. And then, the other one that I was looking forward to was, on Thursday, Russell Keith McGee has built a cross platform app with Bware.

Rob: 37:21

And so the Bware is a a framework so that you can build, you know, basically Android apps in Python. And, Yeah. Yeah. And he's he's also gonna talk. But I've seen him before, do a presentation, and I enjoyed him.

Rob: 37:42

So I I'm looking forward to that one too.

Brian: 37:45

Yeah. He's an entertaining personality.

Rob: 37:47

Yeah. Yeah. He is. Yeah. Well well, Rob, thanks

Brian: 37:51

so much for, talking talking Python with me, and, I hope that you have fun. And if I show up there, we'll probably juggle together.

Rob: 38:00

Okay. Well, I I hope you make it out. I I one thing I do wanna keep in mind is if you if you are gonna go to a tutorial, do it ASAP because those fill up quickly. Yeah. They do.

Rob: 38:14

Popular ones. So, but, yeah, I I I hope to see you. I hope to see you there. Cool.

Brian: 38:24

Well, nice. Talk to you later.

Rob: 38:27

Hey. Hey. Talk to you later too. Thank you so much.