Ned Batchelder
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Brief Introduction
- Date of recording – May 4th, 2015
- Hosts – Tobias Macey and Chris Patti
- Overview – Interview with Ned Batchelder
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Interview with Ned Batchelder
- Introductions
- How did you get introduced to Python?
- Zope
- … Implemented in Python
- How did you get started as the organizer for Boston Python Meetup?
- History is long and varied (Why is this switching to numbers?
- Started – 6 people sitting around a coffee table
- 5 or 6 years
- Co-organizer Jessica McKeller
- Built structures to help keep the community goingr
- Weekend Python Workshop
- People ‘adjacent’ to the male members – wives, mothers, etc.
- “What comes next” from weekend workshops – became Project Night
- How much of your time ends up being dedicated to the Python community?
- Also maitainer of coverage.py
- Active on Freenode IRC #python
- 20 hours a week
- What are your goals for the Boston Python community?
- Continue to grow
- More events, different events?
- chipy – Chicago UG very active – 1 on 1 mentoring program
- Smaller events – 5 person events – study groups
- All levels not just beginners
- Computational Biologists – study genomics
- Three user groups
- Pyladies Boston
- DJango Boston
- Boston Python Meetup
- What do you find to be the most important thing(s) for building a healthy community (particularly in reference to programming)?
- Consistency – good to know what to expect
- Pick a cadence – don’t burn out
- Speakers aren’t superheroes, they’re just people. ‘Everyone has at least one talk in them’.
- Value in having a blog, twitter stream – people talk back to you and by correcting your mistakes everyone benefits.
- How do you keep people engaged outside of the monthly meetings?
- Meetup.com – requires moderation
- python.org mailing lists – unmoderated – low traffic
- Need to do more in that regard
- What do you like the most/least about the Python community?
- Communities can improve – IRC has gotten better
- Turmoil on PSF mailing list over election for directors
- How do you strike a balance between sponsors and the rest of the community? Do you have policies around sponsored presentations / talks?
- Tend not to do sponsored talks
- Microsoft NERD – great benefit to Boston Python
- Provides monthly space for the group
- 1 minute slots for sponsors
- No sales pitches
- What are the steps I can take to start my own tech community?
- How can you get the word out?
- Meetup.com is useful
- People like free food and beer
- Be predictable. Pick something sustainable
- What is the State of Python, from your perspective?
- No signs of slowing down
- Ruby people are moving to other environments
- Python people are still using Python
- Python 2 to 3 conflict is unfortunate – transition could have been handled more smoothly
- Python 3 ecosystem is getting much better
- Next big drama – type hinting proposal
- Appears to be contrary to one of the basics tenets of the language at first blush
- Do you feel that Boston will ever have its own regional Python conference?
- Toyed with bid to bring Pycon to Boston
- Would require someone stepping up to do it
- Not sure how a regional conference ‘feels’ as a local event
- Try to have Boston Python be like a year long conference all year long
- Huge undertaking
Picks
- Tobias
- Chris
- Ned
Keep in Touch
- Twitter: @nedbat and @bostonpython
- IRC: nedbat
- nedbatchelder.com
- bostonpython.com
