Crossing The Streams - Talk Python with Michael Kennedy

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Your hosts, as usual, are Tobias Macy and Chris Patti. Today, we're interviewing Michael Kennedy about his work with Talk Python to Me, another podcast about Python and its community, as well as his on demand Python trainings.

Michael has also offered to give away 1 of each of his Python courses to our listeners. If you'd like the chance to win, then sign up for our newsletter at pythonpodcast.com

or our forum at discourse.pythonpodcast.com.

If you want to double your chances to win, then sign up for both. Michael, could you please introduce yourself? Yeah. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for having me on the show. As you said, my name is Michael.

And

probably most well known among this community for my work at Talk Python to Me, the podcast and and some of the conference stuff that I've done around that.

I've been a software developer for,

it kind of bothers me to say this, but for going on, like, 20 years and worked with a a wide variety of technologies, probably mostly around the web and sort of NoSQL stuff like that.

We tell the kids to be 25, it's even more shocking. It's like I've been doing this for a quarter a century.

Yeah. That's true. It's true. It's it's it's coming up quick as well. Think of it as a wisdom. Right? It's wisdom.

There you go. There you go.

So, how did you get interested in Python?

The story about how I got into Python is is a little bit interesting. I was working at a training company called Developmentor,

and it was mostly,

you know, sorta dot net and c plus plus focused with some some web technologies thrown in as well, you know, JavaScripty type things. And,

you know, the Microsoft space was sort of

stagnating a little bit, let's say. And, personally, I had been doing that, dot net type programming for quite a while, and I was I was ready to look around it and sort of find something new and fresh and really wanted to to basically diversify. And so a couple of things came together, and they're like, why don't you research

some other areas that we could go into and and figure out, you know, what's what's interesting

and

where we can add value, but also where there's demand. And I I looked at a few places, and I started playing with Python. And after about a week, I'm like, okay. I found my new thing. This is where I wanna be, man. I just loved Python from,

the start, but, you know, I wish I had gotten exposed to it earlier. That was about 4 years ago, I guess, that I I was really dove into Python, and I've just been

loving it since. So it's really great.

And what do you think it is about Python that makes people feel so strongly about it, both 1 way or the other?

It's

you know, I think it's a couple of things. It's the technology,

it's the ecosystem, and it's the community.

Right? You look at the programming language, and it's just so clean,

but not in a bad way. Right? It doesn't give up its expressiveness

or its its power,

and yet it doesn't have all the goo that goes into, you know, something like, say, c plus plus

or you've got, you know, all the the various ways to dereference pointers and just, you know,

crazy syntax.

You don't have that. But at the same time, you have this really powerful language. So I think people love

working in the language.

But then the ecosystem, there's just so much out there. Right? Like, 80, 000 packages on PyPI.

And then, you know, we were recently at PyCon. Right? The community is, I think, it is really, really special.

I think we'll talk about PyCon later. And but compared to other tech communities, it's not the same. It is a special place. And I think those 3 things come together in sort of a reinforcing loop

and just make people really like to be there.

And that's certainly why I like to be there.

Yeah. I think another community that has somewhat similar parallels in terms of its inclusiveness

is the DevOps movement, where there is a very conscious effort to

be cognizant

of biases

and

inequalities and try to make everybody feel welcome, and Python definitely exemplifies that. And I think that they were 1 of the first communities to have such a strong focus on that as a general consensus.

Yeah. Yeah. That's really

cool. So

what is the craziest piece of software you've ever written?

Oh, man.

So some of my first jobs,

out of college or even in college, I kind of paid my way through

some parts of grad school and stuff by doing programming and either working within the university on, like, research grants or, working outside the university and then just, you know, making more money than something else so I could pay for my tuition. And so I worked on a lot of these scientific visualization computational

things. Worked Worked around, like, Silicon Graphics Supercomputers

and doing, like, computational stuff there. So I got this job at this this really cool company, which is still around, and they're they're doing great stuff in Southern California called Itracking, like eyetracking.com. And they used Itracking, figuring out where you're looking

in an environment, basically, to understand how people interact with all sorts of things. And so that's that's pretty cool. Like, you can say, well, okay. You maybe are studying the way website works, and you'd ask somebody, like, if you're you're trying to understand the usability, you might say, hey. You wanna you wanna return some item.

Figure out how to do that. Right? And you see if everybody looks to the top right and the return thing is in the bottom left, you put it in the top right. That kind of stuff. Well, that was all cool, but the the group that I worked with was a bunch of cognitive science PhDs. And they found a way to

study not where you're looking, but the diameter of your pupil. And they have this, crazy algorithm using, like, wavelet decomposition and stuff that they came up with that we coded

that

will basically express how hard you are thinking.

So we've literally built a gauge

that

I, like, internally called the photometer. Like, it literally would be like the person is trying to solve a problem. Okay. They're done now.

And it was it was the craziest thing ever. And we we did a lot of weird collaborations

with groups with the thought o meter and, some some other stuff as well. That is in equal parts amazingly cool and downright creepy.

Yes.

It does not know what you're thinking. It only knows you're, like, mentally

that it's like a CPU unit for the brain, basically.

Yeah. I've been listening to Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, and he talks about that as well, how they discovered that in their studies, the dilation of the people will have a direct correlation with how much mental effort somebody is expending on a given problem. So for anybody who wants a bit more of the background, you should take a look at that book. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard really good things about that book, but I haven't read it. But it is the same underlying principle, and we just came up with some math and computer software to to give it a gauge.

So you've also taken some pretty drastic steps in your career and particularly in reference to Python lately. So I'm wondering what inspired you to do that, and how's it going?

Oh, yeah. So in February, I you know, know, for a long time, I had been a full time employee, right, at various companies and enjoyed enjoyed my time doing those things. But I've always kinda wanted to to start my own company and do do my own thing. You know, the when you're sitting in those meetings,

with 10 people talking about some entirely obscure,

you know, not gonna make a difference in the world sort of thing. You're kinda thinking, like, could I just go do something that matters? You know? And so finally, you know, I started the podcast

back in March 2015, and it had been growing and growing. And and that was starting to work out really well,

and I was thinking about coming up with some of these online classes that I did, and so I ended up quitting my job and just sort of focusing only on the podcast and and writing online courses. And I've been doing that since, since February. So that's that's been really going well. Terrifying, but going well. That is truly impressive. I think it takes, it takes real courage and real confidence to be able to bet the farm basically on on doing that. So,

congratulations. I'm glad that it's been successful so far, and I hope it continues to be.

Yeah. Thanks so much. I mean,

it's it's a half bet. Right? It's totally it totally is a a a big deal and, like because, you know, I have kids, and I have a wife, and there's it's not like I'm 20 out of high school, and I live on ramen noodles. Right? There's, like, you know, stuff I have to support. Right? Pay for.

But on 1 half, the podcast was going well, and it provided a little bit of sort of foundation. But the the betting part was really, could I create these online classes and would people care? Right? And so that was that was super stressful, but it's going pretty well.

And going a bit into the online classes, what sort of platform are you using to be able to run those both in terms of actually creating them and then also delivering them? Like, are you doing anything

interesting with the presentation, or are they just video courses? I haven't actually done any done any of them myself yet. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. So there's a couple of things that are, I think,

unusual about the way I'm doing it, and some of that are, like, totally totally normal. So, you know, I have all the recording gear, of course, from a podcast. Right? And just using, like, Camtasia and screencasting

and, you know, a little bit of,

other camera type stuff. Right? Webcam type things to to create them, and they're they're more or less video courses. I try to put a special spin on them so that, I think they'll be more interesting.

But in terms of delivery, like, I ended up building my own website. I considered with going with 1 of the 1 of the places

that you might think of for online courses, right, like Udemy or Linda or Pluralsight or some of these major subscription places. But in the end, I decided, look. I have this great community around the podcast, and if I really want to try to keep what I'm doing part of that community rather than just throwing it out there on the Internet with a bunch of other people's stuff, it would make sense to sort of

have more control over it and kind of keep it closer to the podcast. So I built built a website and end up actually end up using,

Vimeo, like a white label pro version of Vimeo to deliver the videos, so that's that's pretty nice. And,

yeah, there's a lot of cool, Python technology behind it, actually.

Yeah. And your decision to keep control over it rather than putting it into a larger pool of trainings, I'm sure, is also contributing to the success because there's a lot of discussion, particularly in freelancing, about how in order

to make yourself more marketable, you would need to niche down and find what makes your offering unique rather than trying to go broad and appeal to everybody.

Because by niching down, you have a smaller pool of people who you're marketing to, but those people are much more engaged and much more interested. So by leveraging the community of the podcast, you already have an engaged audience who's much more receptive to what you're trying to tell them with the trainings.

Yeah. I think, you know, anyone who's listening and thinking about doing, something like you said, freelancing or classes or whatever, that's absolutely, I think, the the message to take away. That the broader you go, the harder it is to compete against everything out there. But if you become known for a thing,

you know, let's say, asynchronous programming in Python or or whatever. Like, if that's your thing, and people go they wanna go learn about it. Right? And they know

that you're the person that that always talks about this. It's very likely they'd be willing to go to you for that. Right? So it's I think that's certainly a good lesson, and I think it also is what makes both of our podcasts

successful. We stay pretty focused on what's relevant to the Python community. I know that we've both been approached by people

from other sort of random areas. You know, hey, I've got this other idea. It's sort of tangentially related to Python. We're like, you know, no. It's it's all about Python, and I I think that's important. I totally agree. I I actually, even as a podcast listener,

find it kind of annoying is too strong a word because obviously, I'm basically getting this content for freeze. It's your bat and ball if you wanna go and do a completely different thing. It's totally up to you. But I find it a little frustrating when I start listening to, a hardcore technical podcast, and then they all of a sudden decide, hey, let's verge into, you know, management and entrepreneurism.

Not that those are bad things, those are good things, but, like, I'm not interested in management and entrepreneur, you know, and being an entrepreneur. So I I kind of appreciate it when people are explicit with which niche they're going to inhabit, you know. If you if you wanna change the charter of your podcast and say, we're gonna be tech and these are the things too, well, then that's great. But if you say you're tech, be tech.

Yeah. I I really feel like if you're, say, a blog or a podcast or something like this, if you if you try to be broad, you're just gonna be lost in the world. You really have to be a thing. You have to have some reason that there's a group of people that come and check you out. Because if you wanna just venture into, I don't know,

accounting and then

entrepreneurship and then freelancing and then compilers and whatever, you know, people there's not a very good intersection of people that want those things. There's probably podcasts that focus on each 1 of those really well. Right? So pick what matters and go with it, I think, is the message.

Given that you're pretty much self taught as a developer, how did you get into the role of being a mentor and teaching other people how to program? And do you think that being self taught is an advantage or a disadvantage in that space?

Oh, that's yeah. That the last part, that's really good.

So I went to college,

and I studied a lot of things. I kinda bounced around. I I got my degree in math, and I was actually working my PhD in math for for a couple of years, 3 years. But along the way, I took some sort of minors in computer science and so on because you had to have this certain number of credits to do it. It it was pretty interesting, but I never really felt like I learned much programming

in college. Like, it wasn't until I I sort of forced myself to go learn things on the side that that really made a difference. And I think what

what really got me from sort of beginner to to much much farther down the line was

my after my first job working where this thought o meter was,

this is my first sort of professional job outside the research grants and stuff,

I would take

I would take, like, a half hour

as part of my lunch every day, and I would get a book about something I didn't know in programming. And I would make sure every single day not every day. Most days, I would spend time, and I would, you know, maybe spend half an hour and just focus on that. Even though maybe I had some tight deadlines and the,

you know, I was done with lunch. I could have gone back and worked on my code, but I I had an hour for lunch. So I took, like, a half hour, and then I always, every day, just studied

something for a half hour. And within a few years, I was starting to give presentations at code camps on things that I found really inspiring that I I was learning and reading. And then

some companies contacted me and said, hey. You know, we'll pay you full time to do, like, training and presentations and and learn all these stuff all these things. And it just every little bit just sort of sort of piled up. And I think, you know, it's it's not that I had some college degree that really made a great big difference in that that regard. It's just that every little day, you just deposit a bit towards your career, and pretty soon, it it piles up. So is it a is it a positive or negative? I think

certainly there are negatives. Like, if I wanted to go work at Google or Microsoft, they surely would have told me to to, you know, take a take a hike or something, I I would expect. Right? But on the other hand, you know, if you've gotta start and teach yourself all these things, nothing seems that daunting. Right? New things are like, well, there's just 1 more thing to go get. Right? It's not like I guess every everything seems possible then.

And do you think that having that self taught background has helped you in determining how to put together a training for other people?

I do. I think I I feel like that

the the pain of learning is fresher

because I I had to sort of learn it after college. You know, like, I I remember

not understanding why my c plus plus code won't link and not understand and, you know, understanding why the all just all the little hang ups that you forget. Right? As as you get more into the industry, sort of all the stuff that you used to stumble across,

you kind of learn that so long that you forget. And I I feel like because the pain is still a little fresh, I can empathize and and know how to give some some help around it, maybe.

What inspired you to first get started with producing Talk Python to me, and what did the ramp up look like?

Sure.

So it's so funny the the timing around that. Right? Like, we both released our podcasts

not knowing that each other existed within, I think, a week. I I think it was 3 days. Yeah. 3 days. Gosh. And yeah. So I just that was back in March 2015

was when I first released my my first episode. And I had been wanting to do a podcast for a long time. And I I kind of felt like either the areas that I felt confident in talking about were too small, or there was already a bunch of really high quality stuff there, and I I didn't feel like it's being trying to be like, oh, I'll just do this as well. And so I was really inspired

around Python. And as I was starting to do more with it, I was like, you know, I really wanna find some podcast because I love listening to podcasts. I wanna find some podcast about Python, hear the stories and sort of the background and the personalities

behind it, not just the technology. And I looked around. I'm like, wait a minute. This can't be right. There's there's none. There used to be some. Right? There were some really decent ones, but they all just, you know, pod faded. Right? They all all all went away. And so then I sort of thought about that for a while, and I thought, well, I really do wanna

create a podcast, and there are none for Python. I'm super inspired about it. I don't really feel qualified

to do it. Like, I I don't feel I mean, there's so many experts out there that are so, at the time, were so much more experienced in Python than I was, but I'm just like, you know what? If no 1 else is gonna do it,

I'll give it a shot. Hopefully, some people come and listen. They don't make fun of me too much. You know? Basically, that that was how I I started. So I got super inspired 1 a weekend. I think it was, like, Friday night, and I just, you know, started sketching out the ideas,

working on the website, and just, like, blaze through it over the weekend. I think it was done Monday morning or something like that and ready to go. But, yeah, that's that that's the story.

Yeah. I can definitely agree with the feeling of not necessarily thinking that I am qualified

to be hosting a podcast about Python. But the benefit is that

as the host, you don't necessarily have to be expert in anything because that's what the guests are for. They're there to bring in their knowledge and their expertise about their particular subject matters. You just need to know how to ask some leading questions and get them talking about what they're interested in. Yeah. You that's totally right. I I finally, what I decided that got me over my hesitation

of there's no way I can do this is, right, if I can find interesting people and get them to tell their story, that's, you know, that's that's my job. Like, that would actually be the job of the host. It's not to actually be the expert. Like you said, it's it's to facilitate

the conversations, which I decided, okay. I can do that. Let's let's give this a shot. And it, you know, it went really well. So that that's good. It's true. 1 of my wife's

relatives, her her aunt is

a long time interviewer. She wrote documentaries and things like that for PBS. And she told me that 1 of the things

that, you know, really was like pervaded her career with that is that the trick is to find the sweet spot, find what people are really interested in and and innovated about and excited about. And then all you have to do is set them running And then and they will they will sort of, like, take the ball and run with it, and you can just sort of be a facilitator. And I think that's really true.

Yeah. Absolutely. I I think the trick is to try to bring out the the human side of the story behind it. Right? You know, if you're talking about some API, it's it's not just about the API. It's it's, you know, about the amazing things people are doing with it or or whatever. Right?

Yeah. I definitely agree. And that's actually been a lot of the feedback that I've heard is that people

find most useful is understanding the why behind the creation of a particular

library or tool more than how to actually use the tool because they can go online and look at the documentation for that. So what they're turning to the podcast for is the the backstory and the trials and tribulations

that plagued the creation of it.

Yeah. Absolutely. I I see our job, our role basically as as storytellers or people who bring the stories out. Yeah.

So did you know when you first started out on the road to creating Talk Python to Me that it would end up turning into a full time endeavor?

Oh, man. No. No way. Like I said, I was I was basically hoping that people would not make fun of me too much, more or less.

And and that a couple people would show up and and listen and appreciate it. Right? And I just wanted to have some interesting conversations with people, and I thought, you know, well, I have to be the change I wanna see in the world. Right? Not knowing you guys were coming, of course,

3 days later.

But at the time, right, there was nothing for as far as I could see. Right? So I'm like, alright. Well, I'll do this, but I I never even expected to have people sponsor the show. I I figured, you know, a couple thousand people come listen to it, and it'll probably be great. And that would have been totally fine for me, but it's, you know, it's really gone much better than I expected on on several levels. And so, you know, it's sometimes, it's about seizing the opportunity

when it's available rather than planning it ahead. You know?

I think it's a testament to how real the need was, how how big the the the empty hole was that we both filled that

we've both been able to

have, you know, podcasts and we're both succeeding at it. We've got, you know, done some really great content. We both have a nice listener base and and

it's not like we're stepping on each other's toes.

And it's been

really interesting to see how the community

totally embraced

both of us. He's going from 0 to 2. You would think 1 would, you know, crowd the other out or something, but that absolutely hasn't happened. There's a lot of stories to tell and a lot of interesting people to talk to and a lot of people who want to hear those stories. So I guess we're both lucky we picked a good niche.

Yeah. Well, I certainly feel lucky, and I I believe I try to see the world, and I think that most of the time I do see the world through sort of a lens of abundance. Right? Like, there's plenty for everybody, and the better we can all be, the better we all will be rather than, you know,

competitive.

Right? Try to cut this person off or whatever. Right? Like, that's just the way I see the world and the way people I collaborate with and and in business and everything.

So, let's continue the conversation a bit more. We've already talked about how you got started with the podcast and how we both started within the same time frame. So what's it like to run a successful podcast? How has it changed your relationship with the community?

And, what are your favorite parts about actually hosting a podcast?

It's really thrilling, and it's really an honor. Like, I like, I kind of hinted at, like, I don't feel when I began that I deserved the amount of attention and respect that I got from doing it. I really appreciate it and and so on, and it's nice. But I didn't expect

that the community would appreciate it so much, I guess. So I really

like that part of it that people seem genuinely happy

that what I'm doing is there.

Same same for your show. Right? That what we are all doing is there. And I'm sure you guys have the a similar feeling that running the podcast,

you get to talk to and interact with people on a weekly basis

that are,

you know, idols of the community that do amazing things that are super smart. And just the ability to or the the opportunity to to spend some time talking to all the the people who are the guests

is is really amazing. And I think because of the podcast, it's it's much easier than it would otherwise be.

Yeah. It's definitely

sometimes daunting when you fire up your email client to send an email to somebody to say, hey, I happen to run a podcast. Do you wanna come talk to me about this thing? Because, you know, why would they wanna talk to me? They're wildly successful in Python. They've got a package that's been downloaded, you know, teen 1, 000 times. But pretty much everybody has been very

welcoming and humble

and just grateful to be the guest on a podcast.

Yeah. Absolutely. You know, sometimes people are very busy, but they're always very polite. And that's 1 of the great things about Python and its communities. As a whole, the community kind of has a no jerks policy.

Yeah. Which which is really good. I think 1 of the lessons that I learned from that is kind of there's all you gotta do is ask. A lot of times, you know, if you just talk to somebody, reach out to somebody or ask for some kind of opportunity, the chances are that it's probably there. It's just people

are too bashful or they don't wanna,

pose or whatever so that they don't make the connections. Right?

What have been your most popular episodes?

Yeah. There's I guess I'm just about to press publish on number 66.

So, that's that's quite a few. We have almost the same number, given that we started within 3 days of each other. So I I think there's 2 ways to look at it. If you look at the the download numbers, I I pulled them pulled them up this morning, and the most popular 1 by Pure download numbers is this 1 where I interviewed Justin Sites called Python Cybersecurity and Penetration Testing. Justin's a really awesome guy, and he he tells good stories. And it basically, he writes

software that does,

penetration testing and helps you know, he'll be hired by a company to try to break into their systems and give them a report of how he did it. Right? So kind of professional hacker, but on on the white hat side of things. So that was really cool to get a look inside of of the hacking world. The other 2 most popular ones, 1 was, with Brett Slatkin, Effective Python. That was really good. He has a great book. He's from he's at Google right now, I think. And then with Roy Rappaport from Netflix about how Netflix is using Python on all their cloud and DevOps stuff. I'm really shocked that the interview with the gentleman from the LHC

was not high up on the list because I thought that was totally, utterly

fascinating. And I was just listening to it and thinking,

how did you meet this man?

How does 1 run into a physicist

who works at the Super Collider?

Not just not yeah. So that's Kyle Kran. Right? Kyle is a fantastically

nice guy. He's a full on genius type of guy. Right? Like, so he was on the team that won the Nobel Prize,

and some of his work was fundamental in discovering the Higgs boson. Right? Like, how do you like, that was what kind of what I was hinting at earlier is, like, you can reach out to to people and meet them and have these amazing conversations, and they're often, you know, very accessible and even thankful for the opportunity when you're thinking, why did you even answer me? Right? So in in terms of my favorites, I would certainly put the the large hadron Collider episode as right near the top because, wow, what what they're doing is just out of this world.

Yeah. And that's also as a host of a podcast, it's kinda difficult to pick favorites. 1, because there are so many good topics, and 2, because you don't want to have 1 of your past guests listen and say, hey,

what you What about mine?

So

Yeah. No. It it is really hard to pick. And I think it's worth emphasizing, like,

almost every episode I've recorded, I'm really,

really glad that I did, and it went really well. And just to be honest, not I won't name out any episodes, but there's been some you're asking what it's like to run a successful podcast. It's like, you know, there's the the really cool part where you get to talk to everybody and have this mean

stories and exchanges, and you you interact with the community. But there's also, like, it's 11 o'clock at night or 5 in the morning, and I really got stuff that I have to finish today, and I'm super tired,

but I have this recording. Right? And so there's there's been a few times where I'm like, I would love to talk to this person, but I'm just like, life is bearing down on me. And every single time afterwards, I'm like, wow. That was 1 of the best shows ever. I I can't believe I almost was, like, too tired and and tried to reschedule it. This is amazing. Right? Like, it's just and so it's really hard to pick. Like, even when I think I can't, I can't do it because, like, I'm really tired. I haven't slept for, like, 2 days. It's it's still

it's great. So, yeah, it's it's

it's cool.

So in your excellent episode with Keith Heddleston,

you talked about how we tend to bash other programming languages.

We did a fair bit of job of bashing here, so that really kinda resonated with me. I was sitting there thinking to myself, wow, I I I do that.

And and in my current gig, it's, you know, we use Java a lot and it's it's actually the right tool for this particular job. Right? Like, I mean, we may not particularly enjoy programming in it, but

that doesn't lessen its usefulness. And moreover,

the people who, you know, contribute

these amazing tools and projects,

like, we really shouldn't be sliding them in their efforts. So how can we help get ourselves and others in our community out of this really bad habit?

It's it's interesting, and I I really enjoyed talking with Kate. And I I think I fall victim to this tendency as well. Like, I make fun of PHP periodically.

You know, it's and I laugh as I do it because it's still hard not to. But I think

what I I think 1 of the key things

is to realize that every time you look at a library or you look at a programming ecosystem that is not entirely, you know,

dead like, APL. Maybe there's nobody left doing APL. I don't know. It's a crazy language. But, you know, the Java and these and other PHP, these are very vibrant

communities. And I think the way

personally, it seems

like the what comes to mind first anyway is realize that our human beings that cared a lot about what they're doing

behind all that stuff. Right? So you you see some,

better let's say data access library in Java. I mean, god, this is crap. Right? It's nothing like SQL alchemy or or whatever. And there's somebody who is solving some may maybe something amazing, like, some amazing problem behind it. Right? Maybe Spotify

can now do some really cool stuff, and and people had a great time at a party because of this library. Even though, like, maybe the design patterns are kind of crummy, like, somebody made a big difference to someone else, and and,

I guess, think of the humans behind it. Right? The people. Yeah. I think that's that's absolutely key.

Yeah. And also to, you know, a lot of communities and a lot of conferences and companies have a, you know, so called no jerks policy and then we turn around and are jerks to people from other communities because they're

other than us and so we think that it's okay.

Whereas it's in principle not really any different than belittling a member of any type of community. And there's also a fair bit of dogmatism in software where people get stuck on the way that they do things and think of it as being the right way. So anybody who doesn't do it that way just doesn't know what they're doing. And we need to realize that we all work in software. It's a huge space. And

sometimes your tool isn't the right tool for the job, or it's not the right tool for somebody else who's doing that job. So we all just need to take a step back for a minute and realize that and just try to be more inclusive

in every sense of the word.

Yeah. I totally agree. I mean, I think we do it in software because we feel like it's it's a meritocracy

based

criticism

rather than, you know, some other less valuable or less, I don't know, less good reason to make fun of a person or to make fun of a a thing. But it's still it's like I'm attacking the idea of Java.

Right. The people behind Java or something like this. Right? And it doesn't feel like you're hurting people. But at the same time, it's probably not creating a super great environment.

Yeah. And it's also easy to forget how much of people's identities get wrapped up in the code that they produce and the tools that they use.

Yeah. That is absolutely true. Deep deeply. Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's more,

common in software development than in many places. Like, you know, if if I was a car mechanic and somebody made fun of the brand of

wrenches, I you know, all these Craftman wrenches, they suck. Like, you probably wouldn't care that much, you know, but if somebody makes fun of your programming language or your database or something, it somehow becomes personal. And and I you know, 1 1 way that I personally have been able to try to be or in in some cases succeed at being a little more open minded is when I go to bash something, I think about, like, some of the cool things that have come out of that. Right? Like,

PHP is an example. I mean, Facebook is doing some really cool things with PHP.

And in open sourcing a lot of it. Yeah. And and making a lot of people's

day to day work lives

tremendously better because of their contributions to the community. And so, yeah, I don't particularly enjoy PHP syntax,

but you know, that that doesn't mean that it's it's not a fundamentally useful tool. And like, Tobias, you said you were looking at at WordPress plugins earlier because

the fact of the matter is

WordPress powers a really big chunk of the Internet because it is this amazing workhorse that just does

a lot of things right. And,

you know, a lot of people like to to bash on uneven WordPress, you know, going 1 level up from programming languages

because of its its, you know,

various security flaws that it's had in its history.

And yet, if you look at the, you know, the the the total number of

blogs and, you know, general sites for for for special purposes or churches or whatever the case may be, a huge chunk of them are run on WordPress because, you know, from a user experience standpoint, it drives like a Cadillac. You know, it's like it's it's just so easy and it gets the job done. So, you know, maybe we all just need to sort of like, when we go to bash something, think about like, well, what have people made with it that is really neat that we can appreciate

even if we don't particularly like the syntax or the ecosystem or whatever around it.

Yeah. I totally agree, and I think the WordPress angle really resonates with me. I have my blog on WordPress, and, you know, I I don't really care what technology is under. It does amazing stuff for me, right, and problem solved. So, yeah, that's a good point.

So going back to the topic of guests and topics for the shows,

How do you actually select the guests and the topics for your show, and how do you organize and plan for the different shows?

Well, first of all, I have to say thanks to you for recommending me,

recommending to me that I use Trello

to manage this because, that was I was doing some weird

form of email plus calendars plus Google Docs plus other things, and that that just wasn't doing it. So,

like, you have a a Trello board where I I put ideas.

The ideas come from various places. The ideas come from me sort of running across some news item or some some article. I'm like, oh, that is awesome. I gotta find out who's behind this and and have them on the show or, you know, find something like that on on Twitter and so on. I subscribe to some of the Python newsletters, at least 3 that are pretty decent. And, typically, there's a couple of cool things in there that maybe they might go on my list. Listeners recommend shows.

Sometimes they have really good recommendations. I think we were talking about the, Large Hadron Collider. I believe,

part part of that, at least the connection to Kyle, came from

listeners

helping out on Twitter, and that was cool. Then also conference talks. You and I were bumping into each other at Vicon,

you know, making our ways around the booths to talk to the various people. But, hey. You know what? This looks really cool. Maybe you maybe you should come on the show. So those are those are basically the the ways, I guess.

And

how do you come up with a list of questions for each episode? How much time do you spend researching and preparing?

You know, some things are easier than others

to talk about because I've got a lot of experience with it. And some, I have almost

no experience. And so, you know, it it requires a decent amount of research. I'd say maybe on average, I spend probably 5 hours of research per episode on

looking into things, trying to come up with questions, and so on. Sometimes it's a little bit less. Sometimes it's a little bit more. Like, if it's a book, maybe I'll read the book. That takes a little longer. But I always try to try to come up with more, like, areas of conversation than actual questions so that that it can try to stay as a conversation. Right? So so I don't I don't wanna make it too

structured so they feel like they're answering the questions directly. You know, I might write down, like, the little intro script or something that I do, but the the the actual interview is is I try to make it something that is enough that I won't feel like,

well, now what do I ask you? I wanted to be like a productive, you know, don't waste less your time, not just chitchat conversation. But at the same time, I don't I wanna kinda keep it fluid. You know? 1st, we made the mistake of using an actual script for the first 1 or 2 episodes, and it is so comical now when I go back and listen to it because it's like, hey, Tobias. What do you think? I mean, it's just like we sound so incredibly wind. It's it's you just have to appreciate it as comedy and and move on, I guess.

So

I

there there's a special kind

of curse of making,

podcasters listen to their first few episodes, like

and this is part of it. Right? Like, you know, and the audio and just so many things. Like, I felt like I did an okay job, and the like I said, like, the response to both of our shows is really good. And so it it felt really good. But if I go back and listen, I'm like, oh, can I delete this?

Yeah. There's definitely a big learning curve because even with the number of resources that are out there, oh, this is how you get started with a podcast. There there's no substitute for doing it and making those mistakes and realizing, oh, that's why.

Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. We're getting there. We're getting there. Yeah. It's it's definitely a fine balancing act,

too between having

the list of questions and subjects that you wanna talk about and not just following it and trying to weave those into the conversation.

And I think we're getting to the point where we do a pretty good job of that. But there are definitely some times where I find myself just falling back to the list of questions and say, next, next, next.

And Sure. Which can sometimes stifle conversation and can interrupt the flow of,

of what we're talking about. Yeah. It's challenging, and, you know, the farther you stray from the thing that you're really knowledgeable about, the the harder it is to, like, keep it flowing. So I think the 2 things that I try to do really hard

is stay curious

and listen. Because it's so easy to try to think about what you're gonna ask next while the people are talking.

But if if you can stay in the conversation,

then it's it's much easier. It's like hanging out at a bar with a beer rather than,

you know, orchestrating

a recorded conversation.

Yeah. And I've also found too that the episodes where we have multiple guests

really makes it easier to keep the flow going. Because even if the guests don't necessarily

know each other directly, they're at least

in the same general space. So for instance, when we did our episode about functional programming in Python, the 2 guests that we had didn't know each other directly. But because they're both interested in functional programming, they were able to play off of each other really well, which helps keep everything flowing and moving and introduces new dimensions that I wouldn't necessarily be able to introduce on my own because I don't have enough expertise.

Yeah. That's really awesome. And you guys have,

2 hosts, which is also really nice. I'm I'm jealous of this.

Yeah. I have to say it is it is nice, and I really appreciate the way,

it works. Tobias and I can definitely play off of each other and I I think of, you know, good questions or whatever based on the questions that he's asking and I I do definitely think it it it helps a lot. So, yeah. I I'm not gonna say I wouldn't want to do this on my own, but I I think I would enjoy it an awful lot less, and I think it would be less good if I were doing it on my own.

Yeah. I I've struggled

with this on my show as well, you know, like, just because I am doing it on my own. And it would be really nice to have on a whole bunch of areas someone to do it with me. But at the same time, I feel like the scheduling, the time is already super hard with me and the guest and, like, having a third per it's just the the it just adds a layer of friction to make it even

harder to to go forward. So I I don't know. Right now, I'm I'm doing it solo, but I certainly see the benefits. It is very hard. There's there's no question about it. I've I've taken on a new job recently and and I I had to miss a couple of episodes

both when I was signing on and we recently had a GA and my project went went live. And so and I've missed a few episodes because of the fact that it just became totally impossible. It was like, you know, 1 episode was on the night that we went GA, and I only learned that the GA date was happening, like, a week before it happened. So, you know, it definitely it definitely does make things more difficult, but,

yeah, it's it's certainly been worth it for us. Yeah. That's great.

And just to dereference that a bit, GA stands for general availability, in case anyone doesn't know. Yeah. I'm so glad you said that because I had a couple of other people say, oh, I've never I what is GA? And I guess I I guess I just always

I I have known that that particular acronym because I've I've seen it used in the industry, but I guess it's either fallen out of

common use

or or whatever because I've had several people say, what is this GA thing of which you speak? So thank you, Tobias.

No problem.

And going back to our conversation earlier about being inclusive, even little things like that can make a big difference, particularly to people who are new in the industry who don't necessarily have the same background. Just explaining acronyms and references

where necessary because it can make people understand more about what's being talked about and just really appreciate the fact that you actually took the time to point out that in case you didn't know, this is this thing because it shows that you care about other people's experience and not just trying to further your own agenda.

Yeah. You know, I that's a really good point. What I was surprised about, and I'm sure you guys have a similar experience,

is the number of people who are really new to Python or programming who listen to the show. So yeah. I mean, I figured the people who are gonna listen to the show are the ones that are, like, really into it, and they they have been using these libraries, and they they wanna hear, like, the person who wrote the library, tell them all about it or whatever. But and there there's, of course, a bunch of people like this, and that's great. But there's a surprising number of people that'll write me and say, hey, I'm brand new at programming, or I'm trying to get my first job or something like this. Do you have some advice? And, like, wow. And you listen to my show. Okay. Awesome. But it's great to help them. And things like that, Tobias, are are, I think, appreciated especially by that group.

I think I think that's that's speaks to the point of podcasts

serve a couple of functions. Right? Like, they serve as

vehicles for learning for, as you say, sort of like the people at various levels of expertise, but also as a you know, I'm kinda interested in Python, and I kinda might wanna dip my toe into the waters. Let's let's see what's out there. And you subscribe to the podcast. Right? And you hear about, like, some of the cool things that are being built with Python because of the the guests that we have. And I mean, I even do that. I listen to JavaScript Jabber as a for instance, and I've never actually written a line of JavaScript. I do mostly back end and systems engineering kinda stuff, but I I really like the show and I find it fascinating just to sort of listen to, you know, what's up and coming, what's interesting, what's what's going on in that community because I learn things even if I don't use Java per se that I can apply to my own day to day life or, you know, I've been able to refer people to a couple of tools or whatever as a result of the things that I've heard. So I think you're I think you guys are both right that we need to sort of be aware that it's not just

hardcore,

you know,

who are listening. It's people who are interested and and want to learn more.

Yeah. The challenge is striking a balance where both groups are engaged,

and you you don't leave them out. Right? But I think I think that's why the stories are important because everybody loves stories.

And that's also too why I generally like to start the conversation with, what is this thing that we're talking about? And can you explain a little bit of its background so that everybody has a common starting point for the conversation rather than just assuming going into it that, oh, this is this wildly popular tool. Everybody must know it. Yeah. Absolutely.

What is the most significant thing that you've learned from the podcasting experience?

Well, I think I

sort of touched on that before,

that's that there's a lot of opportunity out there, and people are really open

and willing to share way more than you probably realize with you, but you have to have the courage or the motivation to go ask. Right? So I think that's probably the biggest thing I learned is that I there's so many people I've reached out to, and they're not just like, well, yeah, I guess I could spare 30 minutes or whatever. But they're like, wow, that's amazing. I would love to do it. And they're they're as excited to be on the show as I am excited to reach out to them. And, you know, before doing the podcast, I didn't I didn't see the world that way.

Yeah. I definitely agree. And it becomes very evident that because all these people who are creating these tools or working on their particular initiatives, they want the opportunity to talk about the thing that they're passionate about. And so that's why they're willing and interested in coming on to a podcast because it's a great forum to

spread that message and spread their knowledge and get other people interested in the things that they are interested in. Yep. Absolutely. And what do you wish you did differently, and how are you looking to improve?

So

I'm a little hesitant to wish for something different because I might get it. Right? Like, I I don't see too many major things that I I think I would change.

You know, like, we were talking. I obviously wish I did a better job on my first set of shows because there are really great people there, and I I could showcase them better, I think, if I if I just had more experience about, like, what you can do? You're starting out. Right? But I guess I really need to do a better job of, like, scheduling and planning. I I've been traveling the last 5 weeks out of 8 and trying to continue recording on a and releasing on a regular,

basis

while doing that is challenging. Conferences and training, stuff like that.

Yeah. It's definitely,

1 of the more difficult parts is maintaining a full schedule.

I have been doing that in fits and starts, and sometimes I get to the point of, oh, I don't have anything scheduled for next week, and then there's a flurry. And then, somehow you end up with 2 or 3 interviews the following week. And, oh, how did that happen?

Yeah. That's, yeah, that's great. So as we've mentioned a couple of times,

both you and I were at PyCon this year, and we got the chance to hang out a bit. What was your impression of the conference, and what do you think are some of the major trends that you saw?

Well, I think,

first of all, the the the conference was really, really amazing. Like, if if people are out there listening and thinking, should I go to PyCon? Yes. You should go to PyCon. It's it's really an interesting experience,

and

the community is super welcoming. And just being there and feeling the vibe makes makes it even even nicer. I'll also interject and say that if you can't make it to PyCon, then there are lots and lots of regional conferences and also special interest conferences about Python that you should check out in case PyCon is either too far or too expensive for you. Right. PyOhio, PyTexas,

and there's a bunch in Europe,

all over. Yeah. There's there's probably something regional

not too far from you. And then you put together an open session on Python podcasts

that we did together, and that was really great to meet a bunch of people. I think we probably met about

25 so listeners, and we just had a really nice conversation with them about what they'd like about us doing the podcast, what they'd like to see more of, less of. That was really cool. So thanks for putting that together.

Sure. Yeah. It was a great experience getting to actually be face to face with the audience because you might interact with them a little bit on Twitter or via email, but you lose context

in in those forums. And being able to actually have a true dialogue, you get a lot more out of it. And their appreciation is more visceral in that context.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. That was 1 of the best things about the whole conference was to meet people who listen to the show or guests who had been on the show or guests who are going to be on the show. Like, just this whole human

face to face component. Because even though the conversations are very real and natural, it's not the same as, like, you know, hanging out for an hour or someone.

Absolutely. And what were your favorite sessions

from the conference, and do you have any shows scheduled to follow-up on them?

Yes.

Somewhat. I I do. And my favorite there were some really, really good ones. Now just to be clear, I didn't go to that many sessions. I I took the hallway track

to really you know, I spent most of my time meeting with people and talking to people and just, you know, hey, let's take this next hour and go talk about this thing. That was super amazing. So in some sense, that was my my favorite part.

I really loved the keynote,

the closing keynote.

Who was that by? That was,

K Lars John. Okay. K Lars Lan. And he did an amazing job of sort of telling this human story

around programming and complexity and stuff. So I really like that 1. And then Jesse Davis from MongoDB,

he was 1 of the early guests who I wish I had done a better job recording and and telling the story, but he's a great guy. And he did 1 on writing an excellent programming blog. So really great how to

tips session on if you're gonna write a blog for programmers as a as a techie,

this is what you should do. You're not this type of blog. You're not that type of news channel. These are the things that matters. These are the sort of design patterns of blogging almost. It was really cool. And then the last 1 was Brett Slatkin's,

refactoring Python, why and how to restructure your code. Those are my 3

I'll put out there.

Yeah. There were definitely a lot of great sessions. And I'll echo your choice of the closing keynote. It was pretty amazing. And at the end of it, I was just sitting there floored. And I think everybody in the audience was too because it was just so beautifully put together. And there was a very good

mixed media

presentation

of I'm not gonna spoil it for anybody who hasn't seen it. Just go to YouTube and watch it.

1 of the sessions that I did follow-up on recently and actually just released the episode for was Russell Keith Magee from the Bware suite of tools. I thought his talk about running Python on mobile platforms was really well done, and I really appreciated being able to follow-up and go deeper on the backstory

and the internals of all of his work with that.

Yeah. That's cool. That's really great. Yeah. I got some sessions lined up from the conference as well.

And changing gears a bit, the sites that you run your podcast and trainings on say at the bottom that they were a 100% handcrafted.

And I'm wondering if you can give us a look inside of what the moving parts are in there.

Sure. So I I did consider

WordPress.

That was certainly 1 of the things I was looking at. You know what? For the most part, I spend my time writing web apps, and so creating another web app was not like a huge challenge. So I kind of felt like if I go down the WordPress route or something

prebaked,

I'll have to fit into whatever mold they give me. And I kinda felt like I I was gonna give it a really good effort to make this podcast something cool, and I wanted to have something I could build on and and change like I wanted. So I I basically built the website for talk python.fm

from scratch and then the training 1 as a separate 1 from scratch. And these are all, Python 3 written in Pyramid using SQLAlchemy,

and, like, all the front end design stuff is, Bootstrap

more or less. So and then the the training side is, like, all that, but then it has, of course, all the ecommerce stuff you need. So, like, it uses Stripe checkout and has a bunch of mail it sends. So it uses Amazon,

simple email service,

Mailchimp,

some some cool libraries I'll I'll talk about in my picks, things like that.

Yeah. It's definitely

difficult being able to balance the sort of not invented here syndrome of, oh, I wanna build this all in Python because the Python podcast versus going with the off the shelf solution that fits almost everything that you need because it it's easy to get up and running. I'm battling with that myself right now. So right now, we use a static site for the podcast, but there are a number of different things that I would like to be able to do that require a bit more dynamism. So I'm currently in the process of deciding, do I just go with a WordPress

site and use some of the plugins because it's there and easy to use? Or do I succumb to my not invented here syndrome and go and build some custom platform that

uses Python for everything

and will require me to do some rework of things that might already exist? So it's it's a difficult trade off because as a technologist, I wanna be able to say, oh, I built this entire thing from the ground up. But I have a lot of time constraints, So I don't know if I'm gonna be able to dedicate that much effort to it. So Yeah. Yeah. I try to temper my not invented here syndrome with you now have another thing to babysit syndrome. You now have another server to babysit. You now have another thing that will break that you have to fix. Like, you know yeah. So I I that, like, limits my desire, but to to sort of make something from scratch. So, for example, my blog is just on wordpress.com,

and forget it. Right? It just runs. But I don't know. Somehow, I I sort of just tipped the balance of the scales to the other side and went through the the website.

The good news too is that, you know, when you were describing what these handcrafted sites use,

as far as pieces,

you know, a lot of it, It seems like in today's sort of commoditized

economy, you can put the effort into what makes your site great. Right? Like, you don't have to think about payment processing because Stripe handles it for you. You don't have to think about email sending because,

you know, AWS

SMS

handles it for you. So it's like I feel like it's it's a great time to be a developer in that regard and that so much is sort of componentized

and handled for you. So you can just sort of not that it doesn't take work to make all those things, you know, glued together in a harmonious way. It does. But it's not like years ago where you're sitting there having to worry about, you know, designing the forms around your e commerce pipeline in such a way that somebody can't cram random bytes into the appropriate fields and steal your Yeah. Stuff or something like that. Or worse, compromise your site, get root, and then, you know, scribble heat meal over it or something. Right. Or even, you know, speaking of AWS,

buying,

you no longer have to buy machines,

load balancers,

you know, all just like you don't need a data center or you don't need a a connection. Like, all of those things go away. These are all checkboxes on websites

and put it together. But I think the real challenge around building your own thing versus going to something like WordPress or something else is actually for many people,

the web design component of it more than it is database query form on a page and and data, you know, dynamic page. It's well, I could put that up there, but it's gonna look like crap. And then how you know, maybe I'll just go with WordPress because I can grab this theme that already looks great. I think that's also part of it. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Absolutely. The the professional

ecosystem around WordPress is part of what makes it so compelling is because people

like real honest to God pro web designers who build really great sites for big names that, you know, everyone would know

have spent their time and effort putting together these themes. And, yes, you have to pay for them, but it's worth it because they look awesome.

Yep. Absolutely.

And in recent news, you stirred things up with Stitcher just the other day. So can you explain a bit what's up with that?

Yeah. I I kinda sent you guys a message to some of the other, Python podcast folks as well. So I recently decided to let me say what Stitcher is because probably people don't. Not everyone knows. So Stitcher is like a podcast player. Right? You can go to the App Store or Google Play Store and download Stitcher, and you can find your podcast and other shows and subscribe to them. And it's supposed to be mobile friendly, so it will, like, always be, you know, on their app. They download a smaller version because they take your,

m p threes, and they re encode them into a low bit rate. So they're small on your device and download those, and then you can play them. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Like, if people know, okay, well, they're they're cutting down the quality of my my show, but that's what people are used to on this player, then, you know, that's kind of what they chose. Right? But Stitcher

recently got bought

by a company called

Midroll

and Scripts. It's kind of a collaborative thing, and they're all about advertising

and monetizing podcasts.

And, you know, Stitcher takes your show, yours and mine. I don't know which ones they choose to do it to, but in podcast in general, they take the shows from the producers like us. They take them. They break them apart. They put their own ads into the show, through an audio ads in the show, and then they sell that. They don't sell. They they put them out to the people who listen via Stitcher. And you and I don't even get notified about it or paid a single penny for it. And to me, this this doesn't seem really great,

but they've got this huge sort of media conglomerate behind it. If if what the support for podcast looks like in the future is, kinda like AdWords is to blogs, if if that's kinda how Stitcher is to to, to podcasters, what AdWords is to blogs, then it's gonna, like, seriously

wipe out a lot of good stuff. Right? Because

instead of doing

something more full time or dedicating more energy, you know, we'll have to all do more consulting or more work or or we'll just stop. And so I deleted my show from Stitcher and wrote a big blog post that that caused a lot of, stir, I guess. Sorry. Go ahead.

And and and I I just wanna say also that even as a podcast listener,

when I listen to like, say your show is a for instance, and you do the the,

sponsors, even in the middle of the show, or you're gonna be in the show or whatever.

I think to myself, as much as I find, like,

personally sponsors

sponsorships

in the middle of a show, kind of it kinda disturbs the flow a little bit. But I think to myself, that's how he's making his living. Right? Like, this is this is money that he needs to put bread on the table, and and the price of getting this awesome free content

is that I have to listen to that sponsorship.

But when Stitcher does that, it completely disturbs,

throws that equation, you know, on its ear. And

now it's not helping to pay your expenses. It's it's,

I guess, I don't even know going into the coffers of this giant company. So I agree. I think I think that's definitely really a disturbing trend. But now, so this gets back to what licensing do we use. Right? Like, I think ours is in creative commons. So

by rights, they can really do whatever they want with it, including

chop it up and, you know, make mincemeat out of it and put ads in the middle. So what license do you use? And it's clear. It's well, it's clear. And it's it's,

in the terms of service, when you actively put your show on Stitcher, they say, yeah. We're gonna do this. And you're like, okay. Right? But and I agreed to that. Right? Because a bunch of listeners wanted it there, and I thought, well, it's more important for them to get the content than it is to worry about them making some small making a change and sending out to a small portion of my listeners. But I kind of decided

this week, alright. No. I'd like to make a stand against this. This doesn't seem right regardless of how many people do or don't listen to Stitcher on my show. For the license, I just use

I just use it's just copyright. I don't have a, like, a a sharing component to it. I do have my,

transcripts on GitHub under, I think, MIT

or Creative Commons. I can't remember which. But the actual audio is just just copyright.

Well, that makes sense, actually. And as a copyright holder, you probably have more control.

So as a podcast host and somebody who is a fan of podcasts, what do you listen to when you're not producing your own show?

Sure. So I listen to your show. I like I like the guest you have. You guys have a a great show. I also listen to,

Partially Derivative. Do you know this 1? Yes. I do listen to that 1 as well. They're, they're an interesting show. They have a lot of a lot of good topics. They do. I listen to them when I need something light and silly, because they're they're pretty light and silly. But, Jonathan, Chris, NVIDIA do a good job. It's like a data science usually has a Python twist to it. That's cool. I listen to Brian

and Code podcast. And also, like, on the business side, I listen to a really cool podcast called exponent@exponent.fm,

and then Mixergy is really cool 1 for, like, stories of people doing startups, and then The Startup Podcast by Gimlet because that whole sort of idea behind Gimlet is really people don't know. It's really quite amazing. I also listened to Developer on Fire and Away From the Keyboard. Those are those are both good. But the Gimlet stuff, they they started around the same time we did, maybe 6 months before,

Maybe. Yeah. I think something like that. Not long. And these are guys from NPR who left NPR to create some podcasts and sort of storytelling through the podcast medium. And they document their creating the company, leaving leaving their jobs, trying to start it and

basically their first episode, their first season, which is really good. The others are sort of not as good, but the first season is really good. They document their creation of the company and how they are, like, concerned about ED. You know, like, we're not really making much money. Well, this is really

scary. And by the end

of, I think season 2, it's probably a bit of a spoiler, but, you know, they got, like, $6, 000, 000 in venture capital, and their their podcast company is valued at $25, 000, 000.

Think of that. Yeah.

Yeah. Podcasting is definitely a burgeoning space right now, and there's a lot of potential,

revenue to be generated, but it's still very much early days. And trying to figure out what that revenue model looks like is going to take some time. So that's where the whole Stitcher and mid roll thing comes into play a bit too, is they're trying to figure out 1 1 play for generating revenue, at least for some people in the podcast space, not necessarily for the creators. But,

yeah. It it's gonna take some time to figure out how it'll how it shakes out. Yeah. It's definitely an interesting time. You know, I just want to comment on that really quick. Like, when I first started getting sponsors on my show, a couple of people wrote me and said, look. I'm kinda concerned that having these sponsors on your show is going to change the nature of your show, and we're not gonna like it anymore.

After a few weeks, I think even the people that wrote me sort of realized, like, oh, wait. This this means this show is gonna be around for a long time. It's not going to, like, vanish. And I think, you know, 30 seconds here and 30 seconds there is not a huge price to pay to have, like, this as an ongoing part of the community.

And I feel like

that probably

between both of our shows, people have sort of they probably always knew that, but I kind of feel like I don't hear any of those things. Like, oh,

why do you have sponsors? This seems crummy. Like, they all seem to appreciate that the sponsors are supporting the show. They check out their products, and and I try to make it fit Yeah. As you guys do too.

Yeah. And 2, having the sponsor

gives you, as a host, a certain amount of accountability of, you know, you might wanna slack off and say, I'm not gonna put anything out this week, which is the 1st step down a slippery slope of I'm just never gonna put out anything else. And so having that sponsorship

holds you accountable and says, I have to put something out this week because

somebody has already compensated me for this time that I'm spending. So

it's not a question of do I want to. It's a question of have to, which helps motivate. And it's not in any way a bad thing. It's just that, you know, having that accountability

means that we are both more likely to continue this endeavor far into the future.

Yeah. I think it's a super positive thing. I I was thinking about why some of the other podcasts

didn't stick around. And I think, you know, it's so easy for you to hit a patch of, like, super intense work or something crazy with the family or a lot of travel, and you just kind of stop and then, you know, you just don't quite get back to it. So I I think it's I think it's a really important component

to keeping this this going long term. And and the fact of the matter is hosting a podcast costs money, not huge money, not, you know, deal breaking money, but money. And

the fact that, you know, we can have some of those expenses paid. And and, you know, also in our case, we we were able to pay for things

like editing and things like that because we both work very full time jobs. And so it's it's really nice to be able to have

the ability to have the expenses paid and also have some of the the the the ancillary

time that's not about making and actually hosting the podcast

saved that would otherwise make this very burdens and then kind of really not necessarily tenable for us,

handled.

Yep. Absolutely. And it also,

in a more personal level, it kind of helps, like, you justify the time, say to your family, like, I if I'm talking to my wife, like, look, I'm gonna go do this thing instead of, you know, watching TV together or whatever, but it's you know, it has this value back to us. Right? Instead of, like, you're spending too much time on your hobby.

Yeah. Definitely. I can second that sentiment.

Before we wrap up, is there anything that we didn't cover that you would like to or any other questions that you think we should have asked?

You know, I think I feel like we've covered a lot. I I don't think there's really any

questions

we need to to cover, but, you know, I just I wanna express my gratitude to, like, the whole community

for listening to our podcasts. And it's it's a super rewarding experience. And I'm I'm glad every week I get to share it with people and and

hear back from them. Yeah. I'll second that sentiment as well. It's definitely been something that's paid back way more than I've given to it. So for anybody who wants to follow you and keep in touch with what you're doing, what would be the best ways for them to do that?

Social media wise, probably the best way to get in touch with me is on Twitter. I'm at m kennedy.

So check me out there. The website's

podcast is at talk python.fm.

My personal blog is atmichaelckennedy.net.

All the Irish politicians stole the shorter version.

And I'm also on GitHub at github.com/mikeckennedy.

So with that, I'll move us into the picks.

My first pick today is

the Batman versus Superman, Dawn of Justice movie. I just watched that recently.

And going into it, I, like a number of other people, thought to myself, Ben Affleck is Batman?

What is what is going on with the world? But it was actually really well done, and he played the role superbly well. So I absolutely recommend going to see that movie if you haven't already. They did a very good job of dealing with some interesting topics

of what it means to have power,

who

can hold people in power accountable,

what is the responsibility of those people who have that power to the general populace. Just a lot of good themes,

good presentation,

very good acting.

Absolutely recommend watching it.

On a slightly different tack, I recently watched the Lego Brickumentary with my son recently and another movie they were they did a really good job, but in a very different way. So it's a documentary

about the company Lego and the community that has grown up around the Lego toys. And my son is a very big fan of Lego himself. He likes a lot of the sets that they put out. And

the documentary does a really good job of appealing to both younger people as well as older people because there are a lot of scenes

that tie the overall theme together where the it's stop motion animation of a LEGO character.

And

there are a lot of very

interesting things that people are doing with LEGO that you wouldn't think of at first. And I'm going to leave it at that so that you go and watch the documentary yourself.

Nice. Yeah. I saw they had LEGOs on the, Juno spaceship that was orbiting Jupiter now, like a Lego Lego Spaceman. Yeah. That's awesome. They actually talk about that in the documentary. They're actually custom die cast aluminum

LEGO minifigures

of I I'm going to forget the, the people that they did it of, but it was people from various,

legends. So Sweet. Yeah. It was very cool. And my last pick is going to be the console tool from HashiCorp.

A service discovery layer for your cloud or data center. And they did a really good job of making it easy to get up and running and very powerful to use. And I think 1 of the

really

innovative

and useful things that they did with it is they exposed a DNS interface

so that you can do service discovery

by just changing the DNS address that you're referencing in your dependent applications so that you don't have to introduce a heavy dependency of, oh, now you need to have this API client that calls out to this API to request this information and put it back in. You can just swap out your DNS string, and it just does its magic. So I recently got that deployed at my work, and we're using it now. And it's been pretty great. And with that, I'll pass it to you. Thanks. I I want a second HashiCorp console. It's a really cool tool. It's also a key value store and it integrates in really interesting ways with some of HashiCorp's other products like, like Terraform and other things. So it's I I have yet to use it at work, but, I I definitely it's something I've got my eye on. I've been playing with and and really really like. So for my first pick, I'm gonna go with an application. I think it's currently iOS only, but hopefully it'll go crash platform soon. I'm a huge fan of,

sort

of entertainment that breaks the mold, and this isn't a good example of that. It's called Yarn,

And it's essentially,

everyone there are lots of things that people hearken like like,

compare to choose your own adventure books. But this is really like the choose your own adventure books, in the sense that the stories that this thing,

enables,

you are effectively reading the story, which can also have illustrations and sounds and things.

And you choose

what responses the characters may give in the story and the story unfolds in different ways

as a result of your of your responses.

And I just I encountered this thing. It just came out very recently, and I think it's awfully, awfully cool. I I hope more people use it and more people write stories for it because I think it's a really great example of

using technology

to sort of tell stories and kind of bring that

in in in to the next level and into a space that's

traditional books just either can't or are very, very clumsy at,

representing.

Oh, that's awesome. My next pick is the Apple Magic Mouse 2. I have not had a lot of good things to say about Apple peripherals lately because honestly, there are a lot of them that I've found really kinda lackluster.

I I always liked the magic the original magic mouse. I'm using 1 right now in fact. But the fact that

it relies

on double a batteries is just the most infuriating thing ever because

you're sitting there at the most critical time and your mouse suddenly says, like, you know, low power battery dying. And, you know, and then you have to, you know, if you especially if you're in a workplace environment, you have to go on the quest for who might be the keeper of the double a batteries that month or whatever the case may be. Or so it it's just it's a very frustrating design characteristic. But with the Magic Mouse 2,

they've done away with that. And the mouse and they also have a keyboard that works the same way, has a lithium ion battery permanently baked into it.

And so you simply plug the mouse into any lightning cable that you will likely have attached to your computer

and recharge it. And then the recharge cycle is super, super fast. 2 minutes of recharge,

gives you 9 hours of of working time. So,

really, it's the kind of thing that, like, you know, you see your mouse getting low, you're going to lunch or whatever the case may be, and you plug it in. Or even in a pinch, you plug it in while you go get, you know, a glass of water or something, and you're good to go.

So I I really like the mouse. I've always appreciated the ergonomics of this of this device. And now they've taken care of the 1 sort of gigantic wart that made me not like it as much.

So for my final pick, it's a podcast.

It's it's a a particular episode of 99 Percent Invisible, which is an awesome podcast

1980s, anyway, that they that they actually put together and rebroadcasted. This is a documentary from 1989,

or I believe 1980s anyway, that they that they actually put together and rebroadcasted

called,

remembering Stonewall.

And

for people like me, and I'm guessing many of our listeners who were born

sort of in the in the wake of Stonewall and all the societal changes that occurred

sort of as a result, if not directly of that, then, you know, the the ripples from that certainly,

were felt by everyone in American

society. This is

not just your standard sort of like, this is what happened. This is, you know, blah blah blah telling the story.

It's interviews

with

all sides, right? It they're interviewing

people who were the rioters. They're interviewing people who were the police, who were initially sent in to to basically

break break up and bust the the the people who are in the nightclub. And it's, you know, interviews with journalists and bystanders who sort of witness the whole thing. And I found it really incredibly compelling, and it should be required listening. Because I think that, you know, especially being a a, you know, white heterosexual

man, I think it's really important to remember that

civil rights aren't just about 1 particular minority, right? It's about all of us. And and and it's it's important. The way we treat the people who we're we're marginalizing

in our society

says a lot about the society. So I think things like this are are extremely important no matter what you think about about gay rights.

And that's it for me for picks. Michael, what do you have for us? Alright. I got a a couple of Python ones here. So

first of all, I wanna my first pick is pypi.i0.

So we all know about PyPI,

and it's it's a super hold technology.

Did you guys have Donald's stuff? We did. It was awesome.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. He's really great, and I just had him on, like, last week, I guess, week before last. And this is the new version of the Python,

package index. This is the new website, and it's it's even though it's in, like, a prerelease, not quite finished, it's much nicer to work with, and it points at the same underlying data store as the other older version,

the legacy PyPI at some point, we'll call it. Right? And so you can use this to sort of explore packages from a web perspective

and still get the same data. So that that's cool. Either 1 is something on

PyPI, which is Passlib. So if you have to deal with putting

users and passwords into databases,

you have to either

recklessly put the password straight in the database, or you have to hash

them somehow. Right? But hashing them is increasingly challenging as as you can go, to AWS

and and get a a GPU cluster and then, you know, break in the same amount of passwords even if they're hashed that way. So you got a password full. You gotta fold them and add custom salt and all sorts of stuff gets really challenging. So Passlib is a Python library that you can just basically go in there and say, I wanna use, like, bcrypt, and I want I wanna use the default amount of computational time. So it's like point 2 seconds of

folding the password to verify it and things like this. So it's it's a really great way for, like, easily adding secure user storage,

capabilities basically around passwords. And then the last 2 are, PyCon presentations. 1 is just youtube.com/pycon

2016. That's all the talks from the conference, which there's a bunch to pick from, and they're great. And then my other pick is actually the the k K Lars lawn,

closing keynote. That that was really amazing. Yeah. I'm going to 2nd year pick of the,

pypi.io.

That's actually become my default interface to the package index,

whenever I'm searching for something. And I actually have a shortcut in my browser that allows me to just search it directly without even having to think about how to go about it. Oh, it's awesome. Yeah. And I've started using that in my show notes and my links on my blogs and podcast too, like, talk about packages. So I think, you know, we we can kind of nudge people to start moving there,

on our shows. I think that's important and not just to move there, but at least when we had Donald on here, he talked about how they're actively looking for assistance. Right? Like, they they they want to not just get everybody to move there, but they wanna finish it and

make it the new the new PIPI.

So they can use every bit of assistance they can and they apparently have some good sort of, you know, intro issues. So if you have any time at all and you're thinking of contributing to an open source project,

definitely consider looking those guys up, and you will be making a a huge contribution

to the overall Python community if you do. Yep. Agreed.

Well, we definitely appreciate you taking the time out of your day to come and talk to us and, tell us about your podcast and your experience with Python and its community. It's been a lot of fun, and I also enjoyed hanging out with you at PyCon, so it was great to meet in person. I'm sure that, we'll circle back at some point as well. Yeah. Absolutely. Chris, Tobias, thank you so much for having me on. This is a great opportunity, and I really enjoyed the conversation. And, yes, it was definitely fun fun at Python. And you guys are invited to talk Python to me sometime soon, as soon as we can set up the scheduling. How's that? Sounds great. Looking forward to it. Thanks. Bye bye.

The Python Podcast.init

Summary

Brief Introduction

Interview with Michael Kennedy

Keep In Touch

Picks

Links

The Python Podcast.__init__