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Brief Introduction
- Date of recording – Jun-10th, 2015
- Hosts Macey and Chris Patti
- Follow us on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn
- Give us feedback! (iTunes, Twitter, email, Disqus comments)
- You can donate (if you want)!
- Overview – Interview with Tracy Osborn, Naomi Ceder, Lynn Root
Interview with Prominent PyLadies
- Introductions
- Tracy Osborn
- Naomi Ceder
- Lynn Root
- How did you get introduced to Python?
- In what ways do you think the Python community has succeeded in making itself more friendly and welcoming to women and other under represented minorities, and where could it do better?
- Python community leadership takes a positive stance on diversity
- Codes of conduct are taken very seriously
- Financial diversity needs more focus
- What can you tell us about PyLadies and DJango Girls?
- PyLadies
- started in a coffee shop in LA
- pip install PyLadies
- Over 70 locations on almost every continent – half on meetup.com
- PyLadies
- What are some of the challenges you still face in being a part of the Python community, and how can our listeners help?
- Don’t be disparaging about women-focused events
- I had to read up to page 17 of the top authors list on PyPi to find a woman. Can you provide some insight into what may be contributing to this state of affairs and how we can help to improve it?
- pypi is confusing and intimidating
- Process and tools are tough to use
- Maybe Pyladies should host a “make your own package” night
- Mentorship and easy HOWTOs are needed
- You have all gained some notoriety in the Python community through work that you have done. Do you feel that you were faced with greater adversity than your peers in the course of your careers?
- Startup community more hostile than Python community
- We are talking to each of you because of your involvement in the Python community. Have you worked with and been involved in other language communities? If so, can you provide some comparisons between that and Python in how they manage the subject of diversity, gender and otherwise?
- Design community – lots of conferences with “all dude” conference speaker line up
- Startups very focused on males for employees and customers
- What effect do you think job descriptions play in excluding women and other minorities from roles in development positions? (In reference to https://blog.safaribooksonline.com/2015/06/08/on-recruiting-inclusiveness-and-crafting-better-job-descriptions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss)
- Discourage more appropriate term than exclude
- Women less likely to apply for roles that they are not completely qualified for
- Spotify experimenting with blind resume review and cross-checking of job descriptions
- Result is more women applying and having better results
- For any women and young girls who may be considering a career in technology, do you have any words of advice?
- Go for it, but be aware that it’s hard
- Do you have any advice for the men in the Python community and technology as a whole?
- Actually listen when somebody tells you that it’s not the same for them (race, economics, gender)
- Have some compassion and empathy
- Men should educate themselves
- Old habits die hard but getting over them is important
- Is there anything we haven’t discussed that any of you would like to bring up?
Picks
- Tobias
- The Banned and the Banished series by James Clemens
- Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman
- Chris
- Naomi Ceder
- Lynn Root
- Jupyter – tmpnb – Kyle Kelly blog post
- Knit Your Own Zoo
- Bechdel Test
- The Good Wife
- Passes the Bechdel Test
- Inspiration for women being awesome in a male dominated industry
- Tracy Osborn
- EasyPost – Simplifies generating shipping labels for USPS
Keep in Touch
- EasyPost – Simplifies generating shipping labels for USPS
- Naomi Ceder
- Lynn Root
- Tracy Osborn
The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA
[00:00:14]
Unknown:
Hello, and welcome to podcast.init. We're recording today on June 10, 2015. Your hosts as usual are Tobias Macy and Chris Patti. Follow us on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio. And please give us feedback. You can leave us reviews on iTunes or Stitcher. Find us on Twitter, send us an email at hostspodcastinit.com, or leave a comment in our show notes. And if you'd like to support the show you can find donation buttons on our site. Again, that's podcastinit.com. Today we're interviewing Tracy Osborne, Naomi Sitter, and Lynn Root. Tracy, could you please introduce yourself?
[00:00:52] Unknown:
Hi. I'm Tracy. I wrote Hello Web App, which a book that, goes over, basically an introduction to Django aimed at programmer non programmers and designers. So very beginner introduction. It's a quite small and easy to read book. And I also run a startup on the side.
[00:01:12] Unknown:
Naomi, how about you? Yeah. Hi. I'm Naomi. I'm the author of the Quick Python book, second edition, which is, meant to be sort of an overall introduction to Python for people who already know another programming language. It's been out for 2 or 3 years. It was 1 of the first books to be Python 3 only. I am a freshly elected member of the PSF board, and I also, sort of am a software architect, systems lead for a company currently based in London.
[00:01:45] Unknown:
And Lynn, how about you?
[00:01:47] Unknown:
Hi. I am Lynn Root and following these 2 ways make me want to write my own book, but I don't have a book yet. So I'm a software engineer for Spotify. I'm based in San Francisco. I also run PyLadies of San Francisco and of the global organization as well. And I also got reelected as the PSF board, and now, also vice chair of the board. So I'm really excited to serve with Naomi.
[00:02:16] Unknown:
So how did you folks get introduced to Python?
[00:02:19] Unknown:
Naomi, why don't you start us off? K. That's probably fitting since I mine mine goes way, way back into prehistory, practically. I actually learned Python in 2, 001 at a Linux world in San Francisco where this guy, Guido Van Rossum, was actually teaching about his language that was not very well known at the time. So I did a day long tutorial learning Python there.
[00:02:43] Unknown:
Tracy, how about you?
[00:02:45] Unknown:
I used to be a web designer and I was in school for art. I actually switched out of computer science because I hated Java. So I thought that I would, you know, I thought I hated programming, but I wanted to launch a startup. I wanted to build my own website, web app, and I went through the trying to find a technical cofounder thing and that failed. So luckily, my now husband does Python and he's like, well, maybe you should try out Python. I was like, no, I hate programming because of Java. But then I started working on Python, and it's light years ahead of Java. And I started started building this web app in Django, and 4 years later I love Python. It's so much better.
[00:03:23] Unknown:
It's funny. It makes me wonder how many people Java has sent running and screaming from computer science through the years. Many, I'm sure.
[00:03:31] Unknown:
I'm sure. Oh, yes. Yeah. Speaking of somebody who learned Java before Python, I can definitely relate to how how much of a relief it is to finally get exposed to a language like Python that is so much more expressive after having been faced with Java for a while. Lynn, how did you get introduced to Python?
[00:03:50] Unknown:
So I'm actually, I have a business degree. I majored in financeecon and I worked as an analyst for a little while. I actually wanted to get my master's in financial engineering at Berkeley and you needed to sort of know how to code. I took a course in c and failed every midterm. Not like a b minus sort of fail, but like like, because of the curve you got a d. But, like, I, I did my final project in Python because I saw my boyfriend coding in it, and I was like, I can actually understand this and, sense of it and see what's going on. So being exposed to Python that way sort of made me wanna be like, well, I don't wanna do spreadsheets anymore. I just wanna learn Python. So I just, you know, started learning in study groups at local mute ups. And that's actually how PyLadies of f s f started. It was just me wanting to get other people to learn with me.
[00:04:45] Unknown:
So in what ways do you think the Python community has succeeded in making itself more friendly and welcoming to women and other underrepresented minorities and where could it do better?
[00:04:54] Unknown:
I think what helps the Python community a lot is that its leadership really takes a stance, a positive stance towards diversity and in many aspects, not not just women, but, of many aspects. And it has really helped us to to see, like, Dieter Van Rossum, to see the PSF and other sort of leaders within the community sort of say, yes, this is important and we need to invest time. You can see it in other communities, the lack of leadership and and how people, at least from, like, Twitter and other community sort of conversations, you can see how that affects them as well. I mean, that's 1 way that I think the Python community has really excelled in being friendly.
[00:05:32] Unknown:
Yeah. I think it's also I mean, I'd I'd go along with all of that. I think 1 of the things that the leadership did was take codes of conduct very seriously relatively early on. Right. And and, you know, speaking for myself, I think it makes a big difference if you know that the organization or the event has come out with some really clear specific commitment to to provide a safe space. I think that's that's a huge thing too.
[00:06:00] Unknown:
I just came from, Jacob Khan, EU in Wales and just, like, a specific anecdote. It's it was really welcoming to women. It had a very clear code of conduct. The entire conference went off really successfully and, I think is a great example of Python conferences that are doing really great job with, diversity.
[00:06:22] Unknown:
You also asked where we could do better. I mean I feel like as a community compared to other communities we're definitely a leader and I see other communities kind of falling suit, but I don't want people to get comfortable in saying, okay, we've done enough because a lot of a lot of the issues are also permeate through, like, our work environment too. So while that's not exactly like Python community territory, it's still influencing those around us to really uplift the the work environment to make it more inclusive and more diverse. We still have a long way to go.
[00:06:56] Unknown:
Things like race and economic diversity, particularly economic diversity, I think, is an area where there is more that could be done. I mean, I don't think we've really started thinking about a lot of those issues very seriously yet.
[00:07:10] Unknown:
I just wanted to to make a note that I agree that we we definitely need to start thinking about economic diversity. However, in the past years on the PSF board, I know that we've funded some initiatives to, like, bring Raspberry Pis and tutorials to areas where money is of issue, especially in Africa. So I mean, it's definitely an area that we could do more, but it's not ignored.
[00:07:32] Unknown:
Absolutely. All I was gonna say is I I totally agree, and I think it's incumbent upon everyone who works in the industry, no matter what language community they consider themselves to be a part of, to sort of do our best to make our industry a welcoming place for all kinds of underrepresented groups to be in to work. And, obviously, we're just starting to scratch the surface of what that means and how those of us who are in the privileged class of white males can do a better job of making it easier for others to get a piece of the pie.
[00:08:09] Unknown:
And also, going back to your point about financial diversity, there's definitely a lot more to be done, but it's definitely heartening to see that the PSF is reaching out to help support some of those individuals and communities. And also the, recent PICON conferences had had financial aid programs to help bring people to the conference who wouldn't otherwise have been able to attend. I think at the most 1 they said something like 30% of the participants were or maybe it might have been 10% or 30% of the participants were there because of financial aid through the conference which is really great to see. Definitely.
[00:08:45] Unknown:
So, what can you ladies tell us about PyLadies and Jango Girls?
[00:08:51] Unknown:
Hi Ladies started in LA, actually. A lot of people think, like, San Francisco started, but it's not true. It was started by a couple of women sitting in a coffee shop just saying, hey, wouldn't this be cool to do this? And so they just did. So So in the fall of 2011, they sort of grouped together and started Pie Ladies in LA, and then got Washington DC folks involved to start their own organization as well as sort of like an Australian 1, like an online only Australian 1. And then we met I met these folks at PyCon 2012, and they're like how about you know San Francisco? And then from there we sort of kind of skyrocketed. A year ago I made pip and sellpyladies where you can actually legitimately installpyladies as a package.
And it's like a little kit to help you start your own organization or your own chapter. Right now we have over 70 locations on every continent except Antarctica, which has now is my new mission to get down to Antarctica and then maybe find some penguins to to teach Python. Actually there's like 2, 000 people on Antarctica so I don't think it'd be too hard. Not not every location's on Meetup, about like half of them are on Meetup, and of the folks that are on Meetup, we have about 10, 000 members, both women and men. We've been growing, a lot over the years. I think we like the amount of chapters we grew a 100% year over year between last year and this year as of like PyCon time, and we're still I'm still getting a few requests every month to to start new chapters in new locations. So it's definitely a lot of growth.
[00:10:29] Unknown:
Yeah. It's great to hear and see the growth in that community and particularly knowing that it empowers such a large group of people like you said, both women and men and just giving a really public face to Python and our commitment to diversity and really being inclusive to everybody who has any sort of interest in the community at all.
[00:10:52] Unknown:
Yeah. And and as you mentioned, it is not just women. I mean, our goal is to, like, make a comfortable environment for everyone and to help women and friends, you know, be awesome in the community. So, yeah.
[00:11:04] Unknown:
It is great to see this kind of organization, both PyLadies, Django Girls, and and even some of the things that we've seen on the on the Ruby side of the fence with, RailsBridge and the like. I mean, my own wife has, has talked, you know, sort of fantasized at various points in time about, you know, a career change. And it's been great to be able to say, well, look, you know, here are some organizations that are out there. If at any point in time you decide that that's something you really wanna look into, there's support for you. There's a welcoming environment that you can sort of get your start in. It's not like it was 20 years ago where, you know, it's gonna be a long a a long haul and and a really tough climb to get there. And I'm sure it still is today, but I think it you know, it's still nice to have support from people and and organizations out there for people.
[00:11:55] Unknown:
What are some of the challenges you still face in being part of the Python community, and how can our listeners help?
[00:12:04] Unknown:
I you know, I'm gonna jump in here just because I was thinking about it, thinking of PyLadies and Django Girls. And what I think that listeners could help with is that every time I see a thread talking about Hi Ladies or Django Girls running a workshop for women, There's a lot of commentators that jump in and they say, what are you doing? It's workshop for women versus you're an aviate women. It's reverse discrimination. That happens so annoyingly a lot, and it's, like, small, but, you know, listeners can definitely help by encouraging more of these events to happen rather than that negativity because there's other workshops out there for for men and other opportunities too. That doesn't mean that Jingle Girls and High Ladies can have event. They're really, really great events, and they're bringing a lot of new coders into Django, and they should be supported.
[00:12:50] Unknown:
I would say when we reach the point where we aren't under 20% representation of women and and people worrying about it going down, when that's no longer the case, then we can talk about, you know, maybe that that there should be other events, but, there's a long way to go before that situation.
[00:13:08] Unknown:
Yeah. Just, like, you know, step in and and be healthy and supportive, which a lot of people are already, which is great.
[00:13:15] Unknown:
The thing that makes any kind of comment like that just so laughably unfortunate is that there are other organizations. I mean, there's the whole, you know, Python, like the Boston Python meetup is an example. There are gender in specific groups and workshops all the time. I can't imagine anyone saying that, and I certainly would be the first to let someone know that I thought that their stance was inadvisable. That's kind of mind boggling that people actually do
[00:13:46] Unknown:
that. It shows the mentality of like, well, what about Bob? And being Bob being random, a formist sort of male dude, and sort of folks being or men being worried about kind of their privilege being sort of taken away when nothing's really being taken away. It's just sort of leveling everyone up to sort of the same kind platform and same understanding and and same opportunities.
[00:14:13] Unknown:
Yeah. There's definitely still way too much of a viewpoint of I guess privilege is really just the best way to put it. And whenever that privilege is threatened, people, you know, men in particular are liable to just lash out and react and just say, oh, no. You can't you can't, you can't challenge my privilege. You can't make me think that I'm not necessarily in a position where everything should be so much easier for me and where I should actually have to be on a level playing field with everyone. And so they they think that oh well I didn't get any special treatment coming up because they don't necessarily because so many of them are blind to their privilege I think is the biggest thing. And so when they see organizations or events focused on a particular demographic, they think that because they didn't see it for them that they're being, disparaged or discriminated against despite the fact that just by virtue of being blind to their privilege and having that privilege in the first place, it's really everybody else who has been at a disadvantage.
[00:15:22] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I guess I guess I have to speak up and say that, I'm 1 of the few that has actually seen that particular issue from both sides. And all I can say is, guys, if you wanna try it from the other side, you're in for a shock.
[00:15:40] Unknown:
I I love that you have such an interesting point of view. It's just I I really it's really fascinating to to have both to listen to both angles. It's just great.
[00:15:52] Unknown:
I had to read up to page 17 of the top authors list on PIPI to find a woman. Can you provide some insight as to what may be contributing to this state of affairs and how we can help to to improve it?
[00:16:05] Unknown:
I remember when I first started doing Python, I was like, man, I I really want to get something up in PyPI, but what? What do I do? You know like there's so many things already out there that people are already thought of. And then I just realized after a couple years a lot of people have the same ideas and put their own package up there, up on PyPI. It's just like maybe a different implementation or a different API usage kind of thing. So there's a lot of repeat ideas, and I think that that was sort of holding me back of like, well, someone already thought of it, therefore I can't do a couple weeks ago and I've been holding on to that package. I've been working on it for almost a year and it's just like didn't wanna let it go and be judged and stuff like that. But seriously, it I mean, what I found is, like, no 1 cares.
[00:17:00] Unknown:
Right. But even the very environment, I think if you're not fairly confident and fairly comfortable with a lot of tools, all of the things that you need to do are, you know, it's it's not an easy process. Let's put it that way. So even the very process of I have to do this, I have to do this, and everything to get the package in the right format and all of that stuff. It's not a very friendly process.
[00:17:26] Unknown:
Yeah. I wanna do also shout out to all the contributors packages because the ranking shows the authors. But, Right. I'm not I'm not gonna click on these and see all the contributors and see how many women are, but I know they're there. And I know there's a lot of them and they're not showing up on a list because of that.
[00:17:41] Unknown:
And I think I think it'll come too. Just like how we don't have any or or many, core CPython developers, is we're just getting women into like the Python community. Spirelyus has only been around for a few years, so I think since it took me like a couple years to get my first package up, I think it'll come. Need to like make the tools and process more friendly. I mean maybe Pylase should host a make your own package sort of workshop to get folks more familiar with it. It'll come, I feel like it'll come. I have confidence.
[00:18:15] Unknown:
That's a great idea. And I also think maybe we should, as a community, think about what we can do to improve those tools and processes. You know, it may very well be that the process of getting a package into PyPI is just is 1 of those things that the people who do it all the time just don't think about because they've done it a 1000 times. So he just wrote for them, and they just haven't had the opportunity to take a step back and look at it with fresh eyes. And maybe, you know, that's another opportunity for people who wanna get involved and wanna help. Maybe you folks who are finding it confusing and intimidating should give feedback and be vocal about that. And even if you can't fix it or don't have time or the or the wherewithal to fix it right now, sort of get that process started because people may not even know that it is as frustrating as it is for you.
[00:19:07] Unknown:
Yeah. I just did my first package, which was essentially a pack package that installs other packages that I could reference in Hello web app. And I kind of didn't need to do that, but I did it just so I could learn how to get something on IPI and it was so confusing. It took me a long time to just figure out how to do 1 package and install 3 packages.
[00:19:30] Unknown:
Right, yeah. And I know that the Django tutorial has has benefited a lot from noob eyes to better the tutorial itself, so I'm sure PyPI could as well. I just a couple weeks ago, Donald Stuff, who's 1 of the main maintainers of PyPI and warehouse, reached out to me asking to, like, let's get, like, I can mentor mentor folks and mentor women. Let's get them involved in PyPI. And and so it's it's right that, like, we need more education and and people are realizing that we're lacking women in the PIPI sort of environment. And and, yeah, it's just like mentorship is needed and and easy how to's are needed.
[00:20:09] Unknown:
Yeah. Definitely. And I'm sure that I've come across a few of these projects before of packages or projects that will easily bootstrap an environment for you to create a package to be uploaded to PIPI. But just having some better visibility around those even, I'm sure, would help a lot of being able to say here, just run this command and you'll have a skeleton of everything you need to do to get it uploaded. All you need to do is add your own specific code that you care about. I know that there's a project called cookie cutter by Audrey
[00:20:41] Unknown:
Mhmm. I think it's Greenfield.
[00:20:44] Unknown:
Roy Greenfield. Yeah. Yep. I'm pretty sure that I come across a few cookie cutter templates that are just for setting up a distributable package. So maybe just having some better visibility, maybe links to that off of PyPI or some related site would just maybe that just that would help out and give people more confidence in the in their ability to actually get something going.
[00:21:08] Unknown:
Yeah. And I think, you know, we're talking about this in terms of that would would make things easier for women. This would make things easier for everyone. I think the thing is that the women are admitting it's hard. There are probably lots of people, men out there who are are afraid to even admit they find this hard. So I think it would be a good thing for everyone, honestly. Yeah. Totally agreed on that point.
[00:21:29] Unknown:
But that's true of so much. Right? I mean, like, when you look at the Django tutorials and other things that I I forget whether it's Pylators or Django Girls have produced, and they're awesome. Right? It doesn't matter that they were originally written for that group. They all feed back into the community, which is 1 of the great advantages of I mean, and 1 of the, once again, the counter arguments to this sort of outrage that we were discussing previously is it all feeds back into the community. Right? It's not like you guys exist in a vacuum and aren't producing videos and tutorials and talks and the whole 9 yards. You are. You're helping make the entire community awesome.
[00:22:09] Unknown:
Yeah. The old adage goes, a rising sea lifts all boats.
[00:22:13] Unknown:
Mhmm. Mhmm. It's true.
[00:22:17] Unknown:
So you have all gained some notoriety in the Python community through work that you have done. Do you feel that you were faced with greater adversity than your peers in the course of your careers?
[00:22:27] Unknown:
I'll step in in terms of, like, a different industry that I'm in, which is kind of entrepreneurship and startups. Being a woman in startup land has been way harder than actually being a woman in developer land. I've been very, very happy with the Python and, Jacob community that the last 4 years I felt, like, incredibly supported. And that feeling is definitely does not exist when it comes to, say, running your own business or running a start up and trying to do all that fundraising and all that. So I wanted to say that the adversity I think has been really or the lack of adversity actually has been great with, Django. There might be some things I'm missing, but so far I've been really happy.
[00:23:08] Unknown:
That's great to hear.
[00:23:10] Unknown:
Right. Like I don't feel that I've faced much adversity all this work has certainly helped me get where I am today and and being able to do things like go speak at conferences and host workshops and stuff like that with a very supportive employer. I don't I don't think other women are often exposed to those sorts of opportunities, which is which is unfortunate. And so, like, I'm trying to use this sort of positive spin on on my notoriety, I guess, to help lift everyone else, to give workshops and tutorials and and and give back, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
[00:23:58] Unknown:
So we're talking to each of you because of your involvement in the Python community. Have you worked with and been involved with other language communities? And can you provide some comparison between that and Python and how they manage the subject of diversity in in gender and otherwise?
[00:24:12] Unknown:
I could jump in about not I don't have any experience with any other languages, but when I read this, I immediately thought of the design community and that there's a lot of and conferences. And there's some that are doing a great job, but there's still a lot of conferences in the design side which almost always have an all dude conference speaker lineup. And then I also started becoming more outspoken about startups that do the same thing when they they release materials where which are really focused only on, on guys or they have all guys. And so like I said before, Python and Django and, I mean, all these other, like, sub communities of Python have been doing a really good job in terms of diversity that I think has been doing worse, say, in, like, maybe design, but a lot again in startups.
[00:25:06] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I haven't really had much experience with other language communities either except that, in a number of things that I've involved in various other spheres, I do hear of other language conferences and other language communities saying, well, if you really want to know how to do this diversity thing, go look at PyCon, things like that.
[00:25:27] Unknown:
Mhmm. Yeah. I've definitely experienced the same thing. I mean, I I'm also kind of like a 1 trick pony in in really solidly no Python and really suck at everything else. So I mean I too see a lot of folks of other communities looking at the Python community for inspiration and I've also as involved in PyLadies as I am, I I get a lot of requests to chat about like, about how PyLadies is doing including Rails Girls and, like, WriteSpeakCode, and how Pyles is doing it, like the community itself and how it started and and how other communities can learn from it. So there's definitely other communities reaching out.
[00:26:08] Unknown:
Yeah. I was actually gonna mention that I I'm a relatively recent, arrival in the Python world myself. I've only been using it for about 6 months. And prior that, I was in the Ruby universe much more solidly, I still use Ruby. And it's been great to see in that community. I think it I think they were lagging just a little bit. But as of the last few years, there has been this massive groundswell of emphasis around diversity in terms of conference lineups and codes of all the things that we've been discussing. So I can definitely speak to the same kinds of things happening there as well.
But I I do think that Python I do think that sort of the nature of the 2 communities differs in that, as you mentioned, the Python leadership has expressed a strong commitment to diversity in terms of the PSF and and all all kinds of, you know, the other organizational bodies that that make up the folks who run the community. Whereas the Ruby community is a little bit less focused in that regard. And I think Mats and his development, team in in Japan, you know, it's not like there is a PSF for Ruby. It's it's it's much less,
[00:27:26] Unknown:
structured.
[00:27:27] Unknown:
Structured. That's the word I'm looking for. Thank you.
[00:27:30] Unknown:
So what effect do you think job descriptions play in excluding women and other minorities from roles and development positions?
[00:27:38] Unknown:
I think I think it plays a big part. I don't know if it exclude is the right word, maybe like discourage because like I mean I don't have a CS degree either, and if it's a requirement then I'm not gonna apply. And it's it's well, it's sort of accepted that women tend to not apply to things that they're slightly out of their reach, and it's not true in all cases, but but it seems to happen a lot. And, and at Spotify let's see. About 6 months ago, during 1 of our hack weeks, there was, like, a little test, sort of a hack test that we did where we did 2 sort of tests. We did 1, like, name slash gender blinding sort of resume acceptance where you can apply through our, like, job fight setup, and we wouldn't see any gender or name associated with it.
As well as kind of making a system, like, a a not necessarily like a program, but, like, a a human sort of checklist system of of the job descriptions. And, from that sort of 2 tests that we did, we found that that women we get, 1, we got more women to apply, and 2, the women that did apply got got further in the process of, like, the the interview process. So in an in an anecdotal, pseudoscientific research thing that we did, it def like, job descriptions definitely do have an effect, on women.
[00:29:01] Unknown:
That's great to hear that Spotify is engaging in that type of practice to try and improve their pipeline of applicants to make it easier to get women into the into the office for the interview because, yeah, there's there have been numerous experiments shown that if you see a name even if the person behind the name isn't the gender that you think they are, just seeing the name and having a preconception of what their gender is can bias you 1 way or the other. I read an interesting article a little while ago about a man who has a name that can that could be taken as female and he was, you know, recently reentering the job market and sent out a bunch of resumes and didn't get any responses back for months despite having phenomenal qualifications.
And then he changed his first name and his resume to an initial and then all of a sudden he got offers within weeks. Wow.
[00:29:56] Unknown:
Yeah. I I saw that 1 too.
[00:30:00] Unknown:
I mean, same goes for race as well. Right? Absolutely. Deduce the race from the name, yeah, you you can experience some bias in in trying to get yourself hired. So
[00:30:12] Unknown:
It's definitely true. I mean, it is really interesting, and and I think yeah. I mean, I I've seen some of that to some extent in that I'm partially blind. But because I'm partially blind, you wouldn't necessarily know it when talking to me. I can interview. I can work through problems and the whole 9 yards. And only if it happens to come up in conversation in the interview do people sort of stop short and say, wait a second. Are you gonna need special hardware or anything like that? Are you gonna need you know, we're gonna have to spend more money on you? And it's basically like, no. I'm happily, thankfully, I'm just fine. But it is kind of interesting to see people do a double take when you turn out not in some small way not to be what they think that you were, and I can only imagine how that must feel when the double take is even bigger.
Mhmm. So for any women and young girls who may be considering a career in technology, do you have any words of advice?
[00:31:10] Unknown:
Oh, boy. I feel like that's sort of like a loaded question. Like, I mean, I I don't know if if the other women have have advice, and I might have to think about this for a second.
[00:31:22] Unknown:
Feel free to tell us that we're insane and should never have asked. If you didn't want to answer, that's perfectly cool.
[00:31:28] Unknown:
I mean, I think they should be encouraged to go for it, but I think on the flip side, you also need to tell them to watch it too. I mean, it's not easy necessarily.
[00:31:41] Unknown:
Maybe go for it, but be aware that it's hard. Right? Yeah. I think so.
[00:31:45] Unknown:
Yeah. And and I think, I mean, I think kind of preparing them for the difficulty of the subject matter is really good, but I I don't know if it'd be good or not to to prepare them for the adversity that, 1 might face. I don't know because, like, if if someone's interested if, like, if I had a kid and they're interested in in whatever, I'm gonna foster that interest. I'm not gonna try and scare them away, other than, like, the subject matter being, like, hard. I don't know.
[00:32:18] Unknown:
Yeah. I I don't know either. I mean, I I I understand what you're saying, but I mean, I I think at certain points when when somebody is making decision, maybe not when they're say 9 years old or something like that, but, if they're thinking about doing it as, say, a college choice or something like that, I think they need to have maybe a little bit more information about whatever they might expect there. It's like, okay. I mean, I think you can do it, but you may be, you know, in a minority in 1 way or another or or things like that. I mean, it's it's it's a hard question. I don't think there's a good answer.
[00:32:54] Unknown:
Right.
[00:32:56] Unknown:
Fair enough. So as a corollary to that, do you have any advice for the men in the Python community and the technology industry as a whole?
[00:33:05] Unknown:
I mean, I think I would say for we talked about before these the sort of, you know, the white males sort of the ones who are the default in the industry. I don't know if it's advice, if it's a request. I think the most important thing that that a lot of people can do is actually listen when somebody tells you that it's not the same for them, whether it's, you know, a matter of economics, race, gender, whatever it might be. I think I think people really need to listen to what those people are saying when they say, no. Look. For me, this is my experience, and this is the problem that I'm having.
[00:33:42] Unknown:
Right. Yeah. I think I think listening and and also having some compassion and empathy, around it is super important. And I also really appreciate it when men don't come to me asking me to educate them on the matter of why diversity is important, but they go and like educate themselves, about like what might their bias be, what what there might the privilege be, and then have a discussion based off of that. But like I'm not, like, I'm not a Wikipedia of feminist diversity information.
[00:34:19] Unknown:
So that's really interesting because, I mean, I I'm somebody who's a white guy and I've been in the industry for, like, 25 years. So I've been around from a time when women, you know, you you basically saw women mostly in QA and and tech writer roles very, very, very rarely as developers. And it's it's difficult to sort of we want to do the right thing. I'm speaking, in generalities here. And I agree that it's not your responsibility to educate us. We should go educate ourselves. But, you know, short of googling diversity, it it can be and and certainly doing that is a good idea, no doubt.
It can be tough to know where to start, where to go, you know, what what to do. And it's not your responsibility, it's their responsibility, but it it it's also kind of I don't know. It it can be kind of bewildering when you're sitting here saying, am I doing the right thing? I'm not sure. Am I am I being horribly offensive? I'm not sure. It it, I guess, it's it all falls to us, and that's the way it should be. But I I I guess, I, you know, it might be helpful, not, you folks don't necessarily need to furnish it, but maybe sort of, like, we who are trying to figure this out should be helping writing more something about it so that other people have a better sense of how they can improve the status quo.
[00:35:51] Unknown:
Right. Yeah. That I mean, that's a very good, like, concern. At work, we, a couple months ago, we did have, like, a diversity summit, and and many men didn't apply to to attend the summit because of, like, this paralyzing fear or or that they might say, like, the wrong thing or something like that. And and that that's definitely not something that I would want to happen if you, like, if you do have questions, of course, ask them. But, like, I'm kind of trying to stop, like, the hand holding and and and whatnot, like, the spoon feeding maybe. Like, it's it's fine to say it, like, ask, like, is this offensive or or how can I improve, like, you know, this behavior or something like that? But it it all comes from, like, how you ask and and like, the intent of of asking. Right? Right. I mean, I think 1 thing that that I think some people are sensitive to as well is that traditionally,
[00:36:48] Unknown:
particularly women have been sort of, assigned all of the emotional heavy lifting. So, you know, in a sense, it kinda comes back to this again. And, you know, it's sort of you you turn to the women to to ask for them to sort of do the do the work here when, maybe that's not the right way to go.
[00:37:10] Unknown:
Right. It's up to all of us to to to to help. No doubt about it. Like, I just realized as a result, you know, of this discussion, I said early on in the podcast ladies first, and I kinda thought in the back of my head, oh, that might have been a mistake. And I just googled it. Yeah. It's totally a mistake. And I just googled is ladies first sex s, and the answer is yes, so I apologize. But it's an example of the kind of thing that it's just it's it's habit. I mean, it's what I was brought up with, I am totally guilty of it, and we were we were brought up with thinking that you were doing people favor, a service by by saying that, and it's totally, totally not true. It's it's rooted in an outmoded, you know, line of thinking that has now been shown to be totally wrong.
But for for 1, 000 and probably millions of people, it's it's a really old habit and it's, you know, we we have to do our best to break it.
[00:38:06] Unknown:
So is there anything that we haven't discussed that any of you would like to bring up?
[00:38:12] Unknown:
I don't think so. It's been fun.
[00:38:16] Unknown:
Alrighty. Yeah.
[00:38:19] Unknown:
Great. So I guess with that we'll move on into the picks. So I will get us started. So my first pick today is going to be the Bandon the Banish series by James Clemens, which is a series of novels. They're fantasy novels with a the main character in the at the beginning of the story is a young girl who ends up discovering that she has this power of it's hard to describe it. So she's basically got the ability the power of fire in 1 hand, the power of ice in the other, which she's able to recharge by the moon. And there's just this amazing supporting cast of characters. And as you as you travel through the books, the storylines diverge so you have multiple parallel stories going at the same time. And then he does a wonderful job of weaving them all back together at the end. And it's just a really great fantasy series for anybody who likes that kind of stories.
And my next pick is Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman. Alright. Which is just a really great old movie. It's very much a character piece. It's about Paul Newman's character whose name in the movie is Luke as you would imagine. And he ends up getting sent to a southern prison where he's set on a work crew. And it's just the particular style and approach to living. And, particular style and approach to living. And it's just really great movie and I highly recommend that everybody watch it. So Chris, why don't you go ahead?
[00:40:02] Unknown:
Great. So my first pick is a beer because I like beer. And it's it's, Baxter Stowaway, IPA from Baxter Brewing in Lewiston, Maine. You know, when I first started drinking really appreciating craft beer, I always avoided IPAs. I thought I didn't like them because of the hop signature, but, an ex boss of mine basically looked at me 1 day when I was gushing about some stout that I really, you know, was enamored by saying, you know, but after a certain point it's all candy and he's kinda right. So I really started to branch out and this is a particularly tasty IPA. It's very smooth, and kinda has a a nice caramelly kind of finish despite having the hop signature that you that you get in IPAs. I really enjoyed it. My next pick is a book called Mastering Emacs.
I had used Emacs back in the dawn of prehistory, way back in in the, you know, late eighties and early nineties when I started in this business. But then for, you know, because it used to be dog slow, took about 15 years off using Vim, and now I've gone back to Emax after all that time and this book is just a nice concise, here's what you need to know to get going. It's it's really It's a great book. In a in a lot of ways, the sort of conciseness of it and and ease of of ramp up kinda reminds me of Hello Web App, which I really enjoyed in a in a similar way in the sense that so many books, you know, tech books try to be incredibly comprehensive. And I think it's as a reader, as a busy reader, it's very easy to get lost in the weeds. So it's nice when you encounter books that that kinda try to do 1 thing and do it well. My last pick is a podcast episode. I am a huge fan of 99 Percent Invisible podcast by Roman Mars. It's a great podcast. And if you're a curious person, curious about the world, you need to be listening to it. The latest episode is called The Nutshell Studies and it is about this woman actually, apropos of this episode, whose name I am blanking on unfortunately at the moment. And she basically was 1 of the people behind the modern science of forensics.
And she trained, at the time, Baltimore police on how to do a proper forensic investigation. And she did so using these incredible scale models of the crime scene, and they still exist today. And they're still used today for training by the Baltimore Police Department. And it's just an incredible episode. You should definitely go listen to it. And that's it for me.
[00:42:33] Unknown:
Naomi, why don't you go next?
[00:42:35] Unknown:
Okay. I can give you a couple of picks for a couple of books that I've been reading recently. 1 of them is it's actually a series. It's by a woman named Corrie Schrum, and it's called the first 1 is called Dying for a Living. It's an urban fantasy book. It's set more or less in the present except that a certain class of people it's been discovered can come back to life. And not only that, but they can hire themselves out to die for other people so that they don't have to. And it makes things very complicated. Yeah, it's there are 3 books out in that series. It's pretty good. And The Python Connection, I also just recently read another book by, by Pai Dani, Dani Greenfeld called Into the Brambles, which is a fantasy book set in a fantasy world with orcs and elves and and things like that, and it's really good.
And a lot of times when people do fantasy worlds, the writers get all obsessed about telling you all about the world rather than telling the story. In this 1, Danny actually tells the story and lets the world look after itself and it really goes well, so I'd recommend that 1 which has a Python connection.
[00:43:52] Unknown:
Great. Lynn, how about you?
[00:43:54] Unknown:
So I have I have a few things. First 1 is Python related. I'm I'm getting ready for a tutorial to give a tutorial next week at PyCon Singapore, and I'm trying to figure out how best to, like, give the tutorial in terms of, like, people setting up technologies. And, I don't know if you know who Kyle Kelly is. He he works for, Rackspace, but he does a lot in IPython development. And he released this sort of thing where you can spin up your own sort of IPython notebook, like, server on the cloud and where, like, folks can go to the website and request a new interactive, like, IPython notebook.
And so I'm gonna use that. It's built on top of Docker. It's under the Jupyter, like, namespace, like, a g or j u p y t r in on GitHub. And so you can use Docker to spin up, a bunch of, like, IPython notebook services. And, and so yeah. So I'm gonna I'm gonna use that, and I'm so super excited. If you quickly Google for like, Jupyter and temp nb, like you'll see Kyle Kelly's blog post about it. And and he's he does a much better explaining the awesomeness of this project than I can right now. But I would suggest, especially educators in in Python to, to check it out.
And another thing so I, unlike, Naomi and everyone else, I don't have much time to read, or I don't give much time to read, but I knit a lot. And, 1 of, like, 1 of my favorite things to to knit is like cheeky, like, animal stuff, like stuffed animals basically. And a book that I really like, in case there's any other knitters out there, is called Knit Your Own Zoo, where you can just like basically knit a zoo, you know, for, like, I mean, I'm experiencing a lot of people, like, having, like, their first babies and stuff like that, so I often knit little things for them. And my last thing, I don't I don't know if, folks have heard of, like, the Bechdel test. Have you guys heard of that? Mhmm. Oh, yeah. Great stuff.
Yeah. So, the Bechtel test, the TLDR of that is, I I mean, I only know, like, the code version of it because that's how I found it out, but, like, there, it's for movies, and basically if if there's a the movie passes the Bechdel test, if there's a female, like, if a female character is talking to another female character something other other than, like, men, about men, like, and maybe I'm probably forgetting something else. And there's there's also a Bechdel test for code. It's like there's, if a woman's function is called by another woman, then it passes the Bechdel test kind of thing. But, so I kind of kept kept that in mind when choosing, like, what to watch and stuff. And 1 thing that I really liked when when trying to find TV is, that passes the Bechdel test is, oh goodness.
Oh, the the good wife. And and, I'm, like, way behind on my TV because I do everything by, like, Hulu or Netflix. But The Good Wife certainly, like, passes, like, the Bechdel test, but it also, like, sets, like, inspiration for, like, for, like, women being, like, awesome in a very male dominated industry, and and succeeding in that. So I would definitely suggest that, in case you don't have you wanna knit and not read and, like, watch TV.
[00:47:22] Unknown:
I knit too, by the way, Lynn. Awesome. Apparently, I'm just not good with my time because, like, I'm envious of folks who have time to read. Oh, I'm not saying I can knit much or read much. I'm just saying I also knit. That's all I'm saying.
[00:47:36] Unknown:
Taking the subway helps an awful lot.
[00:47:39] Unknown:
That's very true. It's actually for a long train. Yes, indeed.
[00:47:42] Unknown:
Yeah. I actually knit on on my little 10 minute Tracy.
[00:47:49] Unknown:
So we're going to have to add her show note add her pics into the Tracy so we're going to have to add her show note add her pics into the show notes after the fact. But I do wanna thank Lynn and Naomi, both of you, for taking the time to come and talk to us today. It's been a very fun and informative discussion and we're really glad that you were able to join us. So for anybody who wants to keep in touch and follow what you both have been up to, what would be the best way to to do that?
[00:48:19] Unknown:
I'm Naomi Cedar on Twitter.
[00:48:24] Unknown:
Yeah. I'm I'm Roguelyn, r o g u e l y n n. Pretty much everywhere in the interwebs. So
[00:48:33] Unknown:
Great. Alright. Well, like I said, we're glad that you were able to join us, and I'm sure that our listeners will love to hear more about this subject. So thank you very much, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your evenings.
Hello, and welcome to podcast.init. We're recording today on June 10, 2015. Your hosts as usual are Tobias Macy and Chris Patti. Follow us on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio. And please give us feedback. You can leave us reviews on iTunes or Stitcher. Find us on Twitter, send us an email at hostspodcastinit.com, or leave a comment in our show notes. And if you'd like to support the show you can find donation buttons on our site. Again, that's podcastinit.com. Today we're interviewing Tracy Osborne, Naomi Sitter, and Lynn Root. Tracy, could you please introduce yourself?
[00:00:52] Unknown:
Hi. I'm Tracy. I wrote Hello Web App, which a book that, goes over, basically an introduction to Django aimed at programmer non programmers and designers. So very beginner introduction. It's a quite small and easy to read book. And I also run a startup on the side.
[00:01:12] Unknown:
Naomi, how about you? Yeah. Hi. I'm Naomi. I'm the author of the Quick Python book, second edition, which is, meant to be sort of an overall introduction to Python for people who already know another programming language. It's been out for 2 or 3 years. It was 1 of the first books to be Python 3 only. I am a freshly elected member of the PSF board, and I also, sort of am a software architect, systems lead for a company currently based in London.
[00:01:45] Unknown:
And Lynn, how about you?
[00:01:47] Unknown:
Hi. I am Lynn Root and following these 2 ways make me want to write my own book, but I don't have a book yet. So I'm a software engineer for Spotify. I'm based in San Francisco. I also run PyLadies of San Francisco and of the global organization as well. And I also got reelected as the PSF board, and now, also vice chair of the board. So I'm really excited to serve with Naomi.
[00:02:16] Unknown:
So how did you folks get introduced to Python?
[00:02:19] Unknown:
Naomi, why don't you start us off? K. That's probably fitting since I mine mine goes way, way back into prehistory, practically. I actually learned Python in 2, 001 at a Linux world in San Francisco where this guy, Guido Van Rossum, was actually teaching about his language that was not very well known at the time. So I did a day long tutorial learning Python there.
[00:02:43] Unknown:
Tracy, how about you?
[00:02:45] Unknown:
I used to be a web designer and I was in school for art. I actually switched out of computer science because I hated Java. So I thought that I would, you know, I thought I hated programming, but I wanted to launch a startup. I wanted to build my own website, web app, and I went through the trying to find a technical cofounder thing and that failed. So luckily, my now husband does Python and he's like, well, maybe you should try out Python. I was like, no, I hate programming because of Java. But then I started working on Python, and it's light years ahead of Java. And I started started building this web app in Django, and 4 years later I love Python. It's so much better.
[00:03:23] Unknown:
It's funny. It makes me wonder how many people Java has sent running and screaming from computer science through the years. Many, I'm sure.
[00:03:31] Unknown:
I'm sure. Oh, yes. Yeah. Speaking of somebody who learned Java before Python, I can definitely relate to how how much of a relief it is to finally get exposed to a language like Python that is so much more expressive after having been faced with Java for a while. Lynn, how did you get introduced to Python?
[00:03:50] Unknown:
So I'm actually, I have a business degree. I majored in financeecon and I worked as an analyst for a little while. I actually wanted to get my master's in financial engineering at Berkeley and you needed to sort of know how to code. I took a course in c and failed every midterm. Not like a b minus sort of fail, but like like, because of the curve you got a d. But, like, I, I did my final project in Python because I saw my boyfriend coding in it, and I was like, I can actually understand this and, sense of it and see what's going on. So being exposed to Python that way sort of made me wanna be like, well, I don't wanna do spreadsheets anymore. I just wanna learn Python. So I just, you know, started learning in study groups at local mute ups. And that's actually how PyLadies of f s f started. It was just me wanting to get other people to learn with me.
[00:04:45] Unknown:
So in what ways do you think the Python community has succeeded in making itself more friendly and welcoming to women and other underrepresented minorities and where could it do better?
[00:04:54] Unknown:
I think what helps the Python community a lot is that its leadership really takes a stance, a positive stance towards diversity and in many aspects, not not just women, but, of many aspects. And it has really helped us to to see, like, Dieter Van Rossum, to see the PSF and other sort of leaders within the community sort of say, yes, this is important and we need to invest time. You can see it in other communities, the lack of leadership and and how people, at least from, like, Twitter and other community sort of conversations, you can see how that affects them as well. I mean, that's 1 way that I think the Python community has really excelled in being friendly.
[00:05:32] Unknown:
Yeah. I think it's also I mean, I'd I'd go along with all of that. I think 1 of the things that the leadership did was take codes of conduct very seriously relatively early on. Right. And and, you know, speaking for myself, I think it makes a big difference if you know that the organization or the event has come out with some really clear specific commitment to to provide a safe space. I think that's that's a huge thing too.
[00:06:00] Unknown:
I just came from, Jacob Khan, EU in Wales and just, like, a specific anecdote. It's it was really welcoming to women. It had a very clear code of conduct. The entire conference went off really successfully and, I think is a great example of Python conferences that are doing really great job with, diversity.
[00:06:22] Unknown:
You also asked where we could do better. I mean I feel like as a community compared to other communities we're definitely a leader and I see other communities kind of falling suit, but I don't want people to get comfortable in saying, okay, we've done enough because a lot of a lot of the issues are also permeate through, like, our work environment too. So while that's not exactly like Python community territory, it's still influencing those around us to really uplift the the work environment to make it more inclusive and more diverse. We still have a long way to go.
[00:06:56] Unknown:
Things like race and economic diversity, particularly economic diversity, I think, is an area where there is more that could be done. I mean, I don't think we've really started thinking about a lot of those issues very seriously yet.
[00:07:10] Unknown:
I just wanted to to make a note that I agree that we we definitely need to start thinking about economic diversity. However, in the past years on the PSF board, I know that we've funded some initiatives to, like, bring Raspberry Pis and tutorials to areas where money is of issue, especially in Africa. So I mean, it's definitely an area that we could do more, but it's not ignored.
[00:07:32] Unknown:
Absolutely. All I was gonna say is I I totally agree, and I think it's incumbent upon everyone who works in the industry, no matter what language community they consider themselves to be a part of, to sort of do our best to make our industry a welcoming place for all kinds of underrepresented groups to be in to work. And, obviously, we're just starting to scratch the surface of what that means and how those of us who are in the privileged class of white males can do a better job of making it easier for others to get a piece of the pie.
[00:08:09] Unknown:
And also, going back to your point about financial diversity, there's definitely a lot more to be done, but it's definitely heartening to see that the PSF is reaching out to help support some of those individuals and communities. And also the, recent PICON conferences had had financial aid programs to help bring people to the conference who wouldn't otherwise have been able to attend. I think at the most 1 they said something like 30% of the participants were or maybe it might have been 10% or 30% of the participants were there because of financial aid through the conference which is really great to see. Definitely.
[00:08:45] Unknown:
So, what can you ladies tell us about PyLadies and Jango Girls?
[00:08:51] Unknown:
Hi Ladies started in LA, actually. A lot of people think, like, San Francisco started, but it's not true. It was started by a couple of women sitting in a coffee shop just saying, hey, wouldn't this be cool to do this? And so they just did. So So in the fall of 2011, they sort of grouped together and started Pie Ladies in LA, and then got Washington DC folks involved to start their own organization as well as sort of like an Australian 1, like an online only Australian 1. And then we met I met these folks at PyCon 2012, and they're like how about you know San Francisco? And then from there we sort of kind of skyrocketed. A year ago I made pip and sellpyladies where you can actually legitimately installpyladies as a package.
And it's like a little kit to help you start your own organization or your own chapter. Right now we have over 70 locations on every continent except Antarctica, which has now is my new mission to get down to Antarctica and then maybe find some penguins to to teach Python. Actually there's like 2, 000 people on Antarctica so I don't think it'd be too hard. Not not every location's on Meetup, about like half of them are on Meetup, and of the folks that are on Meetup, we have about 10, 000 members, both women and men. We've been growing, a lot over the years. I think we like the amount of chapters we grew a 100% year over year between last year and this year as of like PyCon time, and we're still I'm still getting a few requests every month to to start new chapters in new locations. So it's definitely a lot of growth.
[00:10:29] Unknown:
Yeah. It's great to hear and see the growth in that community and particularly knowing that it empowers such a large group of people like you said, both women and men and just giving a really public face to Python and our commitment to diversity and really being inclusive to everybody who has any sort of interest in the community at all.
[00:10:52] Unknown:
Yeah. And and as you mentioned, it is not just women. I mean, our goal is to, like, make a comfortable environment for everyone and to help women and friends, you know, be awesome in the community. So, yeah.
[00:11:04] Unknown:
It is great to see this kind of organization, both PyLadies, Django Girls, and and even some of the things that we've seen on the on the Ruby side of the fence with, RailsBridge and the like. I mean, my own wife has, has talked, you know, sort of fantasized at various points in time about, you know, a career change. And it's been great to be able to say, well, look, you know, here are some organizations that are out there. If at any point in time you decide that that's something you really wanna look into, there's support for you. There's a welcoming environment that you can sort of get your start in. It's not like it was 20 years ago where, you know, it's gonna be a long a a long haul and and a really tough climb to get there. And I'm sure it still is today, but I think it you know, it's still nice to have support from people and and organizations out there for people.
[00:11:55] Unknown:
What are some of the challenges you still face in being part of the Python community, and how can our listeners help?
[00:12:04] Unknown:
I you know, I'm gonna jump in here just because I was thinking about it, thinking of PyLadies and Django Girls. And what I think that listeners could help with is that every time I see a thread talking about Hi Ladies or Django Girls running a workshop for women, There's a lot of commentators that jump in and they say, what are you doing? It's workshop for women versus you're an aviate women. It's reverse discrimination. That happens so annoyingly a lot, and it's, like, small, but, you know, listeners can definitely help by encouraging more of these events to happen rather than that negativity because there's other workshops out there for for men and other opportunities too. That doesn't mean that Jingle Girls and High Ladies can have event. They're really, really great events, and they're bringing a lot of new coders into Django, and they should be supported.
[00:12:50] Unknown:
I would say when we reach the point where we aren't under 20% representation of women and and people worrying about it going down, when that's no longer the case, then we can talk about, you know, maybe that that there should be other events, but, there's a long way to go before that situation.
[00:13:08] Unknown:
Yeah. Just, like, you know, step in and and be healthy and supportive, which a lot of people are already, which is great.
[00:13:15] Unknown:
The thing that makes any kind of comment like that just so laughably unfortunate is that there are other organizations. I mean, there's the whole, you know, Python, like the Boston Python meetup is an example. There are gender in specific groups and workshops all the time. I can't imagine anyone saying that, and I certainly would be the first to let someone know that I thought that their stance was inadvisable. That's kind of mind boggling that people actually do
[00:13:46] Unknown:
that. It shows the mentality of like, well, what about Bob? And being Bob being random, a formist sort of male dude, and sort of folks being or men being worried about kind of their privilege being sort of taken away when nothing's really being taken away. It's just sort of leveling everyone up to sort of the same kind platform and same understanding and and same opportunities.
[00:14:13] Unknown:
Yeah. There's definitely still way too much of a viewpoint of I guess privilege is really just the best way to put it. And whenever that privilege is threatened, people, you know, men in particular are liable to just lash out and react and just say, oh, no. You can't you can't, you can't challenge my privilege. You can't make me think that I'm not necessarily in a position where everything should be so much easier for me and where I should actually have to be on a level playing field with everyone. And so they they think that oh well I didn't get any special treatment coming up because they don't necessarily because so many of them are blind to their privilege I think is the biggest thing. And so when they see organizations or events focused on a particular demographic, they think that because they didn't see it for them that they're being, disparaged or discriminated against despite the fact that just by virtue of being blind to their privilege and having that privilege in the first place, it's really everybody else who has been at a disadvantage.
[00:15:22] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I guess I guess I have to speak up and say that, I'm 1 of the few that has actually seen that particular issue from both sides. And all I can say is, guys, if you wanna try it from the other side, you're in for a shock.
[00:15:40] Unknown:
I I love that you have such an interesting point of view. It's just I I really it's really fascinating to to have both to listen to both angles. It's just great.
[00:15:52] Unknown:
I had to read up to page 17 of the top authors list on PIPI to find a woman. Can you provide some insight as to what may be contributing to this state of affairs and how we can help to to improve it?
[00:16:05] Unknown:
I remember when I first started doing Python, I was like, man, I I really want to get something up in PyPI, but what? What do I do? You know like there's so many things already out there that people are already thought of. And then I just realized after a couple years a lot of people have the same ideas and put their own package up there, up on PyPI. It's just like maybe a different implementation or a different API usage kind of thing. So there's a lot of repeat ideas, and I think that that was sort of holding me back of like, well, someone already thought of it, therefore I can't do a couple weeks ago and I've been holding on to that package. I've been working on it for almost a year and it's just like didn't wanna let it go and be judged and stuff like that. But seriously, it I mean, what I found is, like, no 1 cares.
[00:17:00] Unknown:
Right. But even the very environment, I think if you're not fairly confident and fairly comfortable with a lot of tools, all of the things that you need to do are, you know, it's it's not an easy process. Let's put it that way. So even the very process of I have to do this, I have to do this, and everything to get the package in the right format and all of that stuff. It's not a very friendly process.
[00:17:26] Unknown:
Yeah. I wanna do also shout out to all the contributors packages because the ranking shows the authors. But, Right. I'm not I'm not gonna click on these and see all the contributors and see how many women are, but I know they're there. And I know there's a lot of them and they're not showing up on a list because of that.
[00:17:41] Unknown:
And I think I think it'll come too. Just like how we don't have any or or many, core CPython developers, is we're just getting women into like the Python community. Spirelyus has only been around for a few years, so I think since it took me like a couple years to get my first package up, I think it'll come. Need to like make the tools and process more friendly. I mean maybe Pylase should host a make your own package sort of workshop to get folks more familiar with it. It'll come, I feel like it'll come. I have confidence.
[00:18:15] Unknown:
That's a great idea. And I also think maybe we should, as a community, think about what we can do to improve those tools and processes. You know, it may very well be that the process of getting a package into PyPI is just is 1 of those things that the people who do it all the time just don't think about because they've done it a 1000 times. So he just wrote for them, and they just haven't had the opportunity to take a step back and look at it with fresh eyes. And maybe, you know, that's another opportunity for people who wanna get involved and wanna help. Maybe you folks who are finding it confusing and intimidating should give feedback and be vocal about that. And even if you can't fix it or don't have time or the or the wherewithal to fix it right now, sort of get that process started because people may not even know that it is as frustrating as it is for you.
[00:19:07] Unknown:
Yeah. I just did my first package, which was essentially a pack package that installs other packages that I could reference in Hello web app. And I kind of didn't need to do that, but I did it just so I could learn how to get something on IPI and it was so confusing. It took me a long time to just figure out how to do 1 package and install 3 packages.
[00:19:30] Unknown:
Right, yeah. And I know that the Django tutorial has has benefited a lot from noob eyes to better the tutorial itself, so I'm sure PyPI could as well. I just a couple weeks ago, Donald Stuff, who's 1 of the main maintainers of PyPI and warehouse, reached out to me asking to, like, let's get, like, I can mentor mentor folks and mentor women. Let's get them involved in PyPI. And and so it's it's right that, like, we need more education and and people are realizing that we're lacking women in the PIPI sort of environment. And and, yeah, it's just like mentorship is needed and and easy how to's are needed.
[00:20:09] Unknown:
Yeah. Definitely. And I'm sure that I've come across a few of these projects before of packages or projects that will easily bootstrap an environment for you to create a package to be uploaded to PIPI. But just having some better visibility around those even, I'm sure, would help a lot of being able to say here, just run this command and you'll have a skeleton of everything you need to do to get it uploaded. All you need to do is add your own specific code that you care about. I know that there's a project called cookie cutter by Audrey
[00:20:41] Unknown:
Mhmm. I think it's Greenfield.
[00:20:44] Unknown:
Roy Greenfield. Yeah. Yep. I'm pretty sure that I come across a few cookie cutter templates that are just for setting up a distributable package. So maybe just having some better visibility, maybe links to that off of PyPI or some related site would just maybe that just that would help out and give people more confidence in the in their ability to actually get something going.
[00:21:08] Unknown:
Yeah. And I think, you know, we're talking about this in terms of that would would make things easier for women. This would make things easier for everyone. I think the thing is that the women are admitting it's hard. There are probably lots of people, men out there who are are afraid to even admit they find this hard. So I think it would be a good thing for everyone, honestly. Yeah. Totally agreed on that point.
[00:21:29] Unknown:
But that's true of so much. Right? I mean, like, when you look at the Django tutorials and other things that I I forget whether it's Pylators or Django Girls have produced, and they're awesome. Right? It doesn't matter that they were originally written for that group. They all feed back into the community, which is 1 of the great advantages of I mean, and 1 of the, once again, the counter arguments to this sort of outrage that we were discussing previously is it all feeds back into the community. Right? It's not like you guys exist in a vacuum and aren't producing videos and tutorials and talks and the whole 9 yards. You are. You're helping make the entire community awesome.
[00:22:09] Unknown:
Yeah. The old adage goes, a rising sea lifts all boats.
[00:22:13] Unknown:
Mhmm. Mhmm. It's true.
[00:22:17] Unknown:
So you have all gained some notoriety in the Python community through work that you have done. Do you feel that you were faced with greater adversity than your peers in the course of your careers?
[00:22:27] Unknown:
I'll step in in terms of, like, a different industry that I'm in, which is kind of entrepreneurship and startups. Being a woman in startup land has been way harder than actually being a woman in developer land. I've been very, very happy with the Python and, Jacob community that the last 4 years I felt, like, incredibly supported. And that feeling is definitely does not exist when it comes to, say, running your own business or running a start up and trying to do all that fundraising and all that. So I wanted to say that the adversity I think has been really or the lack of adversity actually has been great with, Django. There might be some things I'm missing, but so far I've been really happy.
[00:23:08] Unknown:
That's great to hear.
[00:23:10] Unknown:
Right. Like I don't feel that I've faced much adversity all this work has certainly helped me get where I am today and and being able to do things like go speak at conferences and host workshops and stuff like that with a very supportive employer. I don't I don't think other women are often exposed to those sorts of opportunities, which is which is unfortunate. And so, like, I'm trying to use this sort of positive spin on on my notoriety, I guess, to help lift everyone else, to give workshops and tutorials and and and give back, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
[00:23:58] Unknown:
So we're talking to each of you because of your involvement in the Python community. Have you worked with and been involved with other language communities? And can you provide some comparison between that and Python and how they manage the subject of diversity in in gender and otherwise?
[00:24:12] Unknown:
I could jump in about not I don't have any experience with any other languages, but when I read this, I immediately thought of the design community and that there's a lot of and conferences. And there's some that are doing a great job, but there's still a lot of conferences in the design side which almost always have an all dude conference speaker lineup. And then I also started becoming more outspoken about startups that do the same thing when they they release materials where which are really focused only on, on guys or they have all guys. And so like I said before, Python and Django and, I mean, all these other, like, sub communities of Python have been doing a really good job in terms of diversity that I think has been doing worse, say, in, like, maybe design, but a lot again in startups.
[00:25:06] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I haven't really had much experience with other language communities either except that, in a number of things that I've involved in various other spheres, I do hear of other language conferences and other language communities saying, well, if you really want to know how to do this diversity thing, go look at PyCon, things like that.
[00:25:27] Unknown:
Mhmm. Yeah. I've definitely experienced the same thing. I mean, I I'm also kind of like a 1 trick pony in in really solidly no Python and really suck at everything else. So I mean I too see a lot of folks of other communities looking at the Python community for inspiration and I've also as involved in PyLadies as I am, I I get a lot of requests to chat about like, about how PyLadies is doing including Rails Girls and, like, WriteSpeakCode, and how Pyles is doing it, like the community itself and how it started and and how other communities can learn from it. So there's definitely other communities reaching out.
[00:26:08] Unknown:
Yeah. I was actually gonna mention that I I'm a relatively recent, arrival in the Python world myself. I've only been using it for about 6 months. And prior that, I was in the Ruby universe much more solidly, I still use Ruby. And it's been great to see in that community. I think it I think they were lagging just a little bit. But as of the last few years, there has been this massive groundswell of emphasis around diversity in terms of conference lineups and codes of all the things that we've been discussing. So I can definitely speak to the same kinds of things happening there as well.
But I I do think that Python I do think that sort of the nature of the 2 communities differs in that, as you mentioned, the Python leadership has expressed a strong commitment to diversity in terms of the PSF and and all all kinds of, you know, the other organizational bodies that that make up the folks who run the community. Whereas the Ruby community is a little bit less focused in that regard. And I think Mats and his development, team in in Japan, you know, it's not like there is a PSF for Ruby. It's it's it's much less,
[00:27:26] Unknown:
structured.
[00:27:27] Unknown:
Structured. That's the word I'm looking for. Thank you.
[00:27:30] Unknown:
So what effect do you think job descriptions play in excluding women and other minorities from roles and development positions?
[00:27:38] Unknown:
I think I think it plays a big part. I don't know if it exclude is the right word, maybe like discourage because like I mean I don't have a CS degree either, and if it's a requirement then I'm not gonna apply. And it's it's well, it's sort of accepted that women tend to not apply to things that they're slightly out of their reach, and it's not true in all cases, but but it seems to happen a lot. And, and at Spotify let's see. About 6 months ago, during 1 of our hack weeks, there was, like, a little test, sort of a hack test that we did where we did 2 sort of tests. We did 1, like, name slash gender blinding sort of resume acceptance where you can apply through our, like, job fight setup, and we wouldn't see any gender or name associated with it.
As well as kind of making a system, like, a a not necessarily like a program, but, like, a a human sort of checklist system of of the job descriptions. And, from that sort of 2 tests that we did, we found that that women we get, 1, we got more women to apply, and 2, the women that did apply got got further in the process of, like, the the interview process. So in an in an anecdotal, pseudoscientific research thing that we did, it def like, job descriptions definitely do have an effect, on women.
[00:29:01] Unknown:
That's great to hear that Spotify is engaging in that type of practice to try and improve their pipeline of applicants to make it easier to get women into the into the office for the interview because, yeah, there's there have been numerous experiments shown that if you see a name even if the person behind the name isn't the gender that you think they are, just seeing the name and having a preconception of what their gender is can bias you 1 way or the other. I read an interesting article a little while ago about a man who has a name that can that could be taken as female and he was, you know, recently reentering the job market and sent out a bunch of resumes and didn't get any responses back for months despite having phenomenal qualifications.
And then he changed his first name and his resume to an initial and then all of a sudden he got offers within weeks. Wow.
[00:29:56] Unknown:
Yeah. I I saw that 1 too.
[00:30:00] Unknown:
I mean, same goes for race as well. Right? Absolutely. Deduce the race from the name, yeah, you you can experience some bias in in trying to get yourself hired. So
[00:30:12] Unknown:
It's definitely true. I mean, it is really interesting, and and I think yeah. I mean, I I've seen some of that to some extent in that I'm partially blind. But because I'm partially blind, you wouldn't necessarily know it when talking to me. I can interview. I can work through problems and the whole 9 yards. And only if it happens to come up in conversation in the interview do people sort of stop short and say, wait a second. Are you gonna need special hardware or anything like that? Are you gonna need you know, we're gonna have to spend more money on you? And it's basically like, no. I'm happily, thankfully, I'm just fine. But it is kind of interesting to see people do a double take when you turn out not in some small way not to be what they think that you were, and I can only imagine how that must feel when the double take is even bigger.
Mhmm. So for any women and young girls who may be considering a career in technology, do you have any words of advice?
[00:31:10] Unknown:
Oh, boy. I feel like that's sort of like a loaded question. Like, I mean, I I don't know if if the other women have have advice, and I might have to think about this for a second.
[00:31:22] Unknown:
Feel free to tell us that we're insane and should never have asked. If you didn't want to answer, that's perfectly cool.
[00:31:28] Unknown:
I mean, I think they should be encouraged to go for it, but I think on the flip side, you also need to tell them to watch it too. I mean, it's not easy necessarily.
[00:31:41] Unknown:
Maybe go for it, but be aware that it's hard. Right? Yeah. I think so.
[00:31:45] Unknown:
Yeah. And and I think, I mean, I think kind of preparing them for the difficulty of the subject matter is really good, but I I don't know if it'd be good or not to to prepare them for the adversity that, 1 might face. I don't know because, like, if if someone's interested if, like, if I had a kid and they're interested in in whatever, I'm gonna foster that interest. I'm not gonna try and scare them away, other than, like, the subject matter being, like, hard. I don't know.
[00:32:18] Unknown:
Yeah. I I don't know either. I mean, I I I understand what you're saying, but I mean, I I think at certain points when when somebody is making decision, maybe not when they're say 9 years old or something like that, but, if they're thinking about doing it as, say, a college choice or something like that, I think they need to have maybe a little bit more information about whatever they might expect there. It's like, okay. I mean, I think you can do it, but you may be, you know, in a minority in 1 way or another or or things like that. I mean, it's it's it's a hard question. I don't think there's a good answer.
[00:32:54] Unknown:
Right.
[00:32:56] Unknown:
Fair enough. So as a corollary to that, do you have any advice for the men in the Python community and the technology industry as a whole?
[00:33:05] Unknown:
I mean, I think I would say for we talked about before these the sort of, you know, the white males sort of the ones who are the default in the industry. I don't know if it's advice, if it's a request. I think the most important thing that that a lot of people can do is actually listen when somebody tells you that it's not the same for them, whether it's, you know, a matter of economics, race, gender, whatever it might be. I think I think people really need to listen to what those people are saying when they say, no. Look. For me, this is my experience, and this is the problem that I'm having.
[00:33:42] Unknown:
Right. Yeah. I think I think listening and and also having some compassion and empathy, around it is super important. And I also really appreciate it when men don't come to me asking me to educate them on the matter of why diversity is important, but they go and like educate themselves, about like what might their bias be, what what there might the privilege be, and then have a discussion based off of that. But like I'm not, like, I'm not a Wikipedia of feminist diversity information.
[00:34:19] Unknown:
So that's really interesting because, I mean, I I'm somebody who's a white guy and I've been in the industry for, like, 25 years. So I've been around from a time when women, you know, you you basically saw women mostly in QA and and tech writer roles very, very, very rarely as developers. And it's it's difficult to sort of we want to do the right thing. I'm speaking, in generalities here. And I agree that it's not your responsibility to educate us. We should go educate ourselves. But, you know, short of googling diversity, it it can be and and certainly doing that is a good idea, no doubt.
It can be tough to know where to start, where to go, you know, what what to do. And it's not your responsibility, it's their responsibility, but it it it's also kind of I don't know. It it can be kind of bewildering when you're sitting here saying, am I doing the right thing? I'm not sure. Am I am I being horribly offensive? I'm not sure. It it, I guess, it's it all falls to us, and that's the way it should be. But I I I guess, I, you know, it might be helpful, not, you folks don't necessarily need to furnish it, but maybe sort of, like, we who are trying to figure this out should be helping writing more something about it so that other people have a better sense of how they can improve the status quo.
[00:35:51] Unknown:
Right. Yeah. That I mean, that's a very good, like, concern. At work, we, a couple months ago, we did have, like, a diversity summit, and and many men didn't apply to to attend the summit because of, like, this paralyzing fear or or that they might say, like, the wrong thing or something like that. And and that that's definitely not something that I would want to happen if you, like, if you do have questions, of course, ask them. But, like, I'm kind of trying to stop, like, the hand holding and and and whatnot, like, the spoon feeding maybe. Like, it's it's fine to say it, like, ask, like, is this offensive or or how can I improve, like, you know, this behavior or something like that? But it it all comes from, like, how you ask and and like, the intent of of asking. Right? Right. I mean, I think 1 thing that that I think some people are sensitive to as well is that traditionally,
[00:36:48] Unknown:
particularly women have been sort of, assigned all of the emotional heavy lifting. So, you know, in a sense, it kinda comes back to this again. And, you know, it's sort of you you turn to the women to to ask for them to sort of do the do the work here when, maybe that's not the right way to go.
[00:37:10] Unknown:
Right. It's up to all of us to to to to help. No doubt about it. Like, I just realized as a result, you know, of this discussion, I said early on in the podcast ladies first, and I kinda thought in the back of my head, oh, that might have been a mistake. And I just googled it. Yeah. It's totally a mistake. And I just googled is ladies first sex s, and the answer is yes, so I apologize. But it's an example of the kind of thing that it's just it's it's habit. I mean, it's what I was brought up with, I am totally guilty of it, and we were we were brought up with thinking that you were doing people favor, a service by by saying that, and it's totally, totally not true. It's it's rooted in an outmoded, you know, line of thinking that has now been shown to be totally wrong.
But for for 1, 000 and probably millions of people, it's it's a really old habit and it's, you know, we we have to do our best to break it.
[00:38:06] Unknown:
So is there anything that we haven't discussed that any of you would like to bring up?
[00:38:12] Unknown:
I don't think so. It's been fun.
[00:38:16] Unknown:
Alrighty. Yeah.
[00:38:19] Unknown:
Great. So I guess with that we'll move on into the picks. So I will get us started. So my first pick today is going to be the Bandon the Banish series by James Clemens, which is a series of novels. They're fantasy novels with a the main character in the at the beginning of the story is a young girl who ends up discovering that she has this power of it's hard to describe it. So she's basically got the ability the power of fire in 1 hand, the power of ice in the other, which she's able to recharge by the moon. And there's just this amazing supporting cast of characters. And as you as you travel through the books, the storylines diverge so you have multiple parallel stories going at the same time. And then he does a wonderful job of weaving them all back together at the end. And it's just a really great fantasy series for anybody who likes that kind of stories.
And my next pick is Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman. Alright. Which is just a really great old movie. It's very much a character piece. It's about Paul Newman's character whose name in the movie is Luke as you would imagine. And he ends up getting sent to a southern prison where he's set on a work crew. And it's just the particular style and approach to living. And, particular style and approach to living. And it's just really great movie and I highly recommend that everybody watch it. So Chris, why don't you go ahead?
[00:40:02] Unknown:
Great. So my first pick is a beer because I like beer. And it's it's, Baxter Stowaway, IPA from Baxter Brewing in Lewiston, Maine. You know, when I first started drinking really appreciating craft beer, I always avoided IPAs. I thought I didn't like them because of the hop signature, but, an ex boss of mine basically looked at me 1 day when I was gushing about some stout that I really, you know, was enamored by saying, you know, but after a certain point it's all candy and he's kinda right. So I really started to branch out and this is a particularly tasty IPA. It's very smooth, and kinda has a a nice caramelly kind of finish despite having the hop signature that you that you get in IPAs. I really enjoyed it. My next pick is a book called Mastering Emacs.
I had used Emacs back in the dawn of prehistory, way back in in the, you know, late eighties and early nineties when I started in this business. But then for, you know, because it used to be dog slow, took about 15 years off using Vim, and now I've gone back to Emax after all that time and this book is just a nice concise, here's what you need to know to get going. It's it's really It's a great book. In a in a lot of ways, the sort of conciseness of it and and ease of of ramp up kinda reminds me of Hello Web App, which I really enjoyed in a in a similar way in the sense that so many books, you know, tech books try to be incredibly comprehensive. And I think it's as a reader, as a busy reader, it's very easy to get lost in the weeds. So it's nice when you encounter books that that kinda try to do 1 thing and do it well. My last pick is a podcast episode. I am a huge fan of 99 Percent Invisible podcast by Roman Mars. It's a great podcast. And if you're a curious person, curious about the world, you need to be listening to it. The latest episode is called The Nutshell Studies and it is about this woman actually, apropos of this episode, whose name I am blanking on unfortunately at the moment. And she basically was 1 of the people behind the modern science of forensics.
And she trained, at the time, Baltimore police on how to do a proper forensic investigation. And she did so using these incredible scale models of the crime scene, and they still exist today. And they're still used today for training by the Baltimore Police Department. And it's just an incredible episode. You should definitely go listen to it. And that's it for me.
[00:42:33] Unknown:
Naomi, why don't you go next?
[00:42:35] Unknown:
Okay. I can give you a couple of picks for a couple of books that I've been reading recently. 1 of them is it's actually a series. It's by a woman named Corrie Schrum, and it's called the first 1 is called Dying for a Living. It's an urban fantasy book. It's set more or less in the present except that a certain class of people it's been discovered can come back to life. And not only that, but they can hire themselves out to die for other people so that they don't have to. And it makes things very complicated. Yeah, it's there are 3 books out in that series. It's pretty good. And The Python Connection, I also just recently read another book by, by Pai Dani, Dani Greenfeld called Into the Brambles, which is a fantasy book set in a fantasy world with orcs and elves and and things like that, and it's really good.
And a lot of times when people do fantasy worlds, the writers get all obsessed about telling you all about the world rather than telling the story. In this 1, Danny actually tells the story and lets the world look after itself and it really goes well, so I'd recommend that 1 which has a Python connection.
[00:43:52] Unknown:
Great. Lynn, how about you?
[00:43:54] Unknown:
So I have I have a few things. First 1 is Python related. I'm I'm getting ready for a tutorial to give a tutorial next week at PyCon Singapore, and I'm trying to figure out how best to, like, give the tutorial in terms of, like, people setting up technologies. And, I don't know if you know who Kyle Kelly is. He he works for, Rackspace, but he does a lot in IPython development. And he released this sort of thing where you can spin up your own sort of IPython notebook, like, server on the cloud and where, like, folks can go to the website and request a new interactive, like, IPython notebook.
And so I'm gonna use that. It's built on top of Docker. It's under the Jupyter, like, namespace, like, a g or j u p y t r in on GitHub. And so you can use Docker to spin up, a bunch of, like, IPython notebook services. And, and so yeah. So I'm gonna I'm gonna use that, and I'm so super excited. If you quickly Google for like, Jupyter and temp nb, like you'll see Kyle Kelly's blog post about it. And and he's he does a much better explaining the awesomeness of this project than I can right now. But I would suggest, especially educators in in Python to, to check it out.
And another thing so I, unlike, Naomi and everyone else, I don't have much time to read, or I don't give much time to read, but I knit a lot. And, 1 of, like, 1 of my favorite things to to knit is like cheeky, like, animal stuff, like stuffed animals basically. And a book that I really like, in case there's any other knitters out there, is called Knit Your Own Zoo, where you can just like basically knit a zoo, you know, for, like, I mean, I'm experiencing a lot of people, like, having, like, their first babies and stuff like that, so I often knit little things for them. And my last thing, I don't I don't know if, folks have heard of, like, the Bechdel test. Have you guys heard of that? Mhmm. Oh, yeah. Great stuff.
Yeah. So, the Bechtel test, the TLDR of that is, I I mean, I only know, like, the code version of it because that's how I found it out, but, like, there, it's for movies, and basically if if there's a the movie passes the Bechdel test, if there's a female, like, if a female character is talking to another female character something other other than, like, men, about men, like, and maybe I'm probably forgetting something else. And there's there's also a Bechdel test for code. It's like there's, if a woman's function is called by another woman, then it passes the Bechdel test kind of thing. But, so I kind of kept kept that in mind when choosing, like, what to watch and stuff. And 1 thing that I really liked when when trying to find TV is, that passes the Bechdel test is, oh goodness.
Oh, the the good wife. And and, I'm, like, way behind on my TV because I do everything by, like, Hulu or Netflix. But The Good Wife certainly, like, passes, like, the Bechdel test, but it also, like, sets, like, inspiration for, like, for, like, women being, like, awesome in a very male dominated industry, and and succeeding in that. So I would definitely suggest that, in case you don't have you wanna knit and not read and, like, watch TV.
[00:47:22] Unknown:
I knit too, by the way, Lynn. Awesome. Apparently, I'm just not good with my time because, like, I'm envious of folks who have time to read. Oh, I'm not saying I can knit much or read much. I'm just saying I also knit. That's all I'm saying.
[00:47:36] Unknown:
Taking the subway helps an awful lot.
[00:47:39] Unknown:
That's very true. It's actually for a long train. Yes, indeed.
[00:47:42] Unknown:
Yeah. I actually knit on on my little 10 minute Tracy.
[00:47:49] Unknown:
So we're going to have to add her show note add her pics into the Tracy so we're going to have to add her show note add her pics into the show notes after the fact. But I do wanna thank Lynn and Naomi, both of you, for taking the time to come and talk to us today. It's been a very fun and informative discussion and we're really glad that you were able to join us. So for anybody who wants to keep in touch and follow what you both have been up to, what would be the best way to to do that?
[00:48:19] Unknown:
I'm Naomi Cedar on Twitter.
[00:48:24] Unknown:
Yeah. I'm I'm Roguelyn, r o g u e l y n n. Pretty much everywhere in the interwebs. So
[00:48:33] Unknown:
Great. Alright. Well, like I said, we're glad that you were able to join us, and I'm sure that our listeners will love to hear more about this subject. So thank you very much, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your evenings.
Introduction and Host Details
Guest Introductions: Tracy Osborne, Naomi Sitter, and Lynn Root
How Guests Got Introduced to Python
Python Community's Efforts in Diversity
PyLadies and Django Girls Initiatives
Challenges in the Python Community
Women in Python Package Index (PyPI)
Improving Tools and Processes for PyPI
Adversity in Tech and Startups
Job Descriptions and Gender Bias
Advice for Women and Girls in Tech
Advice for Men in Tech
Final Thoughts and Picks
