PyCon 2023 Keynote

Python: The People's Programming Language This keynote given at the 20th anniversary of PyCon was about how Python's global network has an impact on the world. The key message is the importance of connection, communication, and scale on building an effective and resilient network.

Transcript

1. 1 Python: The People's Programming Language Building a Resilient Network for the Next Decade Carol Willing
2. 2 Thanks for sponsoring PyCon 2023. Core Developer Software Council Core Developer Steering Council - 3 term PSF Fellow willingc @willingc@hachyderm.io VP Engineering
4. 4 Distributed Computing and Networks Liskov Substitution Principle CLU language (cluster) Argus language (distributed) • data abstraction • fault tolerance • distributed computing
5. 5 Anthropology Linguistics Education AI Psychology Philosophy Neuroscience Cognitive Science and Learning
6. 6 Critical Global Issues
7. 7 Tech Trends
8. 8 You are here
9. 9 Uncertainty is a constant
10. People 10 have opinions
11. 11 Node Group Network Connect Communicate Scale Python’s Distributed Network
12. Margot Daniels-Tyler Encourage others to imagine the possible. 12
13. 2013 a decade ago 13
15. 15 Alzheimers How? Connect Communicate
17. 17 Using Senses to Connect Touch Hearing
18. 18 Using Senses to Guide Me I have no idea what the future holds for me. Yet, I am comforted that, just as my mother, I will use my senses to guide me through life and all its uncertainty. https://www.willingconsulting.com/blog/2013/02/05/using-senses-to-guide-yourself-through-the-fog
19. 19 Using Senses to Guide Me So what does the complex world of software development with its many languages and acronyms have to do with Alzheimer's? If one peels back the confusion around operating systems and varying ways to accomplish a task, good software makes sense. It becomes simpler and less complicated. It proves to be familiar and beautiful as it changes just like my mother's senses. https://www.willingconsulting.com/blog/2013/02/05/using-senses-to-guide-yourself-through-the-fog
20. 20 Using Senses to Guide Me As I continue to follow my passion and interest in writing software and building things, I plan to take enough time to admire the beauty, history, and art in the world around me. I also intend to share my interests with the next generation of problem solvers and lovers of creativity. https://www.willingconsulting.com/blog/2013/02/05/using-senses-to-guide-yourself-through-the-fog
21. Connect 21 Came for the Language
22. 22 http://wefeel fi ne.org/book/
23. Motivation Possibilities 23 Python's rich ecosystem 2018 2023 Thank you to the maintainers.
24. Motivation Connect with Interests 24 5 lines of code or less Personal interests music21
25. Guido's Goals for Python 25 Intention Language Design for Success It should be an easy and intuitive language, just as powerful as major competitors. It should be open source, so anyone can contribute to its development. Its code should be understandable as plain English. It should be suitable for everyday tasks, allowing for short development times.
26. Readability 26 Intention Accessible
27. Choice 27 Intention Yes Production Prior experience with statically typed language No Learning Prototyping Flexible Type annotations
28. PEPs: How to Teach This 28 Intention Build con fi dence PEP 701 - Syntactic formalization of f-strings You can place any valid Python expression within an f-string expression. You can place any valid Python expression inside an f-string expression, and everything after a : character at the top level will be identified as a format specification.
29. Confidence Ready to connect 29 Send a request Decision
30. 30 Send a request Person Systems Database API https://www.drchriseducation.com/ product/neural-networks-for-babies/ Decision Tools ChatGPT LLM Autonomous agents
31. 31 Aside: Neural Networks My perspective: Understand and Experiment https://github.com/noteable-io/genai https://noteable.io/gallery/ Work in the Open Provide Examples
32. 32 Aside: Neural Networks My perspective: Understand and Experiment Assist: Beginners to Experts
33. 33 Aside: Neural Networks My perspective: Helpful voices for learning Jeremy Howard & Rachel Thomas https://simonwillison.net/ Simon Willison https://datasette.io/ https://fast.ai
34. Trust (maybe) but verify 34 Receive a response Process information MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2023
35. Monitoring 35 Maintain Connections
36. 36 Disconnect Loopback
37. 37 Reconnect Monitor
38. • Motivation • Intention • Send a request • Receive a response • Disconnect • Reconnect 38 Connect Came for the Language
39. Communicate 39 Stayed for the Community
40. 40 In reality, programming languages are how programmers express and communicate ideas — and the audience for those ideas is other programmers, not computers. http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2016/04/kings-day-speech.html – Guido van Rossum
41. 41 Broadcast messages
42. 42 Translators bridge different protocols 23 Wow!
43. Translators: programming languages and domains 43 Complex Issue of Water Quality
44. 44 Topology: Network Clusters "File:P2P Topology.jpg" by Txelu Balboa is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5.
45. 45 Share Shauna Gordon-McKeon Outreach cluster Mentor Build skills
46. 46 FabLab San Diego source: San Diego Union Tribune Local clusters
47. 47 Virtual clusters
48. 48 Django Girls cluster
49. 49 Open Hardware and Python cluster
50. 50 Pyladies cluster
51. 51 PyCon 2017 Language Summit Credit: LWN.net Core development cluster Contributors, Triage Team, Core Developers PyCon 2019 Core Dev Sprint - Bloomberg London
52. 52 Conferences cluster
53. Who is missing? Why? 53 PyCascades 2023 quote paraphrased: I can be who I am. There's maybe a place for me. Clusters in Network Analysis Network Topology
54. 54 Network expansion
55. 55 Python's network depends on communication
56. Scale 56 Global Impact
57. 57 the most important lesson I learned... sharing – Guido van Rossum http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2016/04/kings-day-speech.html
58. Start small and scale 58
59. 59 Interactive computing is a tool of connection. —Prof. Lorena Barba 2014 Lorena Barba & Natalia Clementi
60. 2014 60 65,848 notebooks on GitHub https://github.com/parente/nbestimate/blob/master/estimate.ipynb
61. Today 61 11,226,249 notebooks on GitHub https://github.com/parente/nbestimate/blob/master/estimate.ipynb
62. How did we grow to over 11 million notebooks in a decade? 62
63. 63 It started with communication, problem solving, passion, and simplicity
64. Start small and scale 64
65. 65 PyLadies, you are the most-e ff ective grass-roots professional organization in IT. Your positive impact is all around me. I am a huge fan! Luciano Ramalho, a distinguished writer and teacher of Python worldwide
68. 68 Meet PyLadies, the women-led group helping 120,000 coders across the globe land jobs and diversify the popular Python programming language Insider 2021
69. 69 Insider 2021 It's clear that women are underrepresented in open source software overall: Figures reported by GitHub in 2020 show that 90% of all contributors to open source projects identify as male, while only around 3% identify as female.
70. 70 Insider 2021 To encourage women, we need to show and make role models and mentors accessible to them," said Abigail Dogbe, a fellow at the Python Software Foundation and lead organizer of PyLadies Ghana.
71. 71 On a personal level, there's many times where you think, 'okay, is this worth it?' And then I look at the other PyLadies who are around the world and the impact it has on them. Insider 2021 Marlene Mhangami
72. 72 And I'm like, okay, tech might not be worth it, but all these people are worth it. Insider 2021
73. Start small and scale 73
74. 74 Scaling the Python Network
75. 75 Selena Deckelman Great leaders inspire others to lead Lynn Root Audrey Roy Greenfeld
76. 76 Mobile will help us expand
77. 77 WebAssembly will open new doors Past, Present, Future PyCon Colombia 2019 PyCon 2023 https://github.com/psf/webassembly Future Attended by Core Developers, Steering Council members, PSF Board members, Interested parties from industry and education. https://snarky.ca/ https://pyscript.net/ https://pyodide.org/
78. 78 Humility Long term success Learn from failures Innovate
79. Increase the probability of success 79 in an uncertain world Global Impact Scale
80. 80 Python's Global Network Call to Action
81. 81 Node Group Network Connect Communicate Scale Python’s Global Network
82. 82 Maintain Python's Global Network Join the Python Software Foundation Participate in user groups Share your knowledge Ask questions Take 5 minutes to encourage others to imagine the possible
83. 83 ...a programming language created by a community fosters happiness in its users around the world. – Guido van Rossum http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2016/04/kings-day-speech.html
84. 84 Succeed with our Resilient, Global Network Python: The People's Programming Language
86. 86 CHANGED OUR WORLD Python's Network
87. 87 Thank you
88. 88 Thank you Special thanks to Mariatta for too many things to put on this slide. I'm so grateful for the past decade with Python. Until our paths cross again, safe journeys with Python.