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2014-04-14T16:32:41Z
PyCon 2014 retrospective
http://blog.spang.cc/posts/PyCon_2014_retrospective/
2014-04-14T16:32:41Z
2014-04-14T16:15:09Z
<p>PyCon 2014 happened. (Sprints are still happening.)</p>
<p>This was my 3rd PyCon, but my first year as a serious contributor to the
event, which led to an incredibly different feel. I also came as a
person running a company building a complex system in Python, and I
loved having the overarching mission of what I'm building driving my
approach to what I chose to do. PyCon is one of the few conferences
I go to where the feeling of acceptance and at-homeness mitigates the
introvert overwhelm at nonstop social interaction. It's truly a special
event and community.</p>
<p>Here are some highlights:</p>
<ul>
<li>I gave a <a href="http://pyvideo.org/video/2639/search-101-an-introduction-to-information-retrie">tutorial about
search</a>,
which was recorded in its entirety... if you watch this video, I
highly recommend skipping the hands-on parts where I'm just walking
around helping people out. <img src="http://blog.spang.cc/tags/conferences/../../smileys/smile.png" alt=":)" /></li>
<li>I gave a talk! It's called <em>Subprocess to FFI</em>, and you can find the
video
<a href="http://pyvideo.org/video/2640/subprocess-to-ffi-memory-performance-and-why-y">here</a>.
Through three full iterations of dry runs with feedback, I had a ton of fun
preparing this talk. I'd like to give more like it in the future as I
continue to level up my speaking skills.</li>
<li><a href="http://allendowney.com/">Allen Downey</a> came to my talk and found me
later to say hi. Omg amazing, made my day.</li>
<li><a href="https://auxvivres.com/en/">Aux Vivres</a> and <a href="http://www.dieuduciel.com/">Dieu du
Ciel</a>, amazing eats and drink with great
new and old friends. Special shout out to old Debian friends Micah
Anderson, Matt Zimmerman, and Antoine Beaupré for a good time at Dieu
du Ciel.</li>
<li>The Geek Feminism open space was a great place to chill out and always
find other women to hang with, much thanks to Liz Henry for organizing
it.</li>
<li>Talking to the community from the <a href="https://www.inboxapp.com/">Inbox</a>
booth on Startup Row in the Expo hall on Friday. Special thanks for
Don Sheu and Yannick Gingras for making this happen, it was awesome!</li>
<li>The PyLadies lunch. Wow, was that amazing. Not only did I get to meet
Julia Evans (who <a href="http://jvns.ca/blog/2014/04/13/pycon/">also liked meeting
me!</a>), but there was an amazing
lineup of amazing women telling everyone about what they're doing.
This and <a href="https://us.pycon.org/2014/schedule/presentation/182/">Noami Ceder's
touching talk</a>
about openly transitioning while being a member of the Python
community really show how the community walks the walk when it comes
to diversity and is always improving.</li>
<li>Catching up with old friends like Biella Coleman, Selena Deckelmann,
Deb Nicholson, Paul Tagliamonte, Jessica McKellar, Adam Fletcher, and
even friends from the bay area who I don't see often. It was hard to
walk places without getting too distracted running into people I knew,
I got really good at waving and continuing on my way. <img src="http://blog.spang.cc/tags/conferences/../../smileys/smile.png" alt=":)" /></li>
</ul>
<p>I didn't get to go to a lot of talks in person this year since my
personal schedule was so full, but the PyCon video team is amazing as
usual, so I'm looking forward to <a href="http://pyvideo.org/category/50/pycon-us-2014">checking out the
archive</a>. It really is a
gift to get the videos up while energy from the conference is still so
high and people want to check out things they missed and share the talks
they loved.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone, hugs, peace out, et cetera!</p>