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
   

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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
   

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4. 4
   Distributed Computing
   and Networks
   Liskov Substitution Principle
   
   CLU language (cluster)
   
   Argus language (distributed)
   • data abstraction
   
   • fault tolerance
   
   • distributed computing
   

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5. 5
   Anthropology
   Linguistics
   Education
   AI
   Psychology
   Philosophy
   Neuroscience
   Cognitive Science and Learning
   

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6. 6
   Critical
   
   
   Global
   
   
   Issues
   

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7. 7
   Tech
   
   
   Trends
   

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8. 8
   You are here
   

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9. 9
   Uncertainty
   is a
   
   
   constant
   

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10. People
    10
    have
    
    
    opinions
    

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11. 11
    Node
    Group
    Network
    Connect
    Communicate
    Scale
    Python’s Distributed Network
    

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12. Margot Daniels-Tyler
    Encourage others to
    
    
    imagine the possible.
    12
    

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13. 2013
    a decade ago
    13
    

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15. 15
    Alzheimers
    How?
    Connect
    
    
    Communicate
    

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17. 17
    Using Senses to Connect
    Touch Hearing
    

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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
    

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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
    

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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
    

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21. Connect
    21
    Came for the Language
    

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22. 22
    http://wefeel
    fi
    ne.org/book/
    

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23. Motivation
    Possibilities
    23
    Python's rich ecosystem
    2018
    2023
    Thank you to the maintainers.
    

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24. Motivation
    Connect with Interests
    24
    5 lines of
    code or less
    Personal
    interests
    music21
    

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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.
    

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26. Readability
    26
    Intention
    Accessible
    

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27. Choice
    27
    Intention
    Yes
    
    
    Production
    
    
    Prior experience with
    
    
    statically typed language
    No
    
    
    Learning
    
    
    Prototyping
    Flexible
    Type annotations
    

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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.
    

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29. Confidence
    
    
    Ready to connect
    
    
    29
    Send a request
    Decision
    

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30. 30
    Send a request
    Person
    Systems
    
    
    Database
    
    
    API
    https://www.drchriseducation.com/
    product/neural-networks-for-babies/
    Decision
    Tools
    
    
    ChatGPT
    
    
    LLM
    
    
    Autonomous agents
    

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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
    

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32. 32
    Aside: Neural Networks
    My perspective: Understand and Experiment
    Assist: Beginners to Experts
    

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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
    

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34. Trust (maybe) but verify
    34
    Receive a response
    Process information
    MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2023
    

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35. Monitoring
    35
    Maintain
    Connections
    

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36. 36
    Disconnect
    Loopback
    

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37. 37
    Reconnect
    Monitor
    

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38. • Motivation
    
    • Intention
    
    • Send a request
    
    • Receive a response
    
    • Disconnect
    
    • Reconnect
    38
    Connect
    Came for the Language
    

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39. Communicate
    39
    Stayed for the Community
    

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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
    

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41. 41
    Broadcast messages
    

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42. 42
    Translators bridge different protocols
    23 Wow!
    

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43. Translators: programming
    languages and domains
    43
    Complex Issue of Water Quality
    

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44. 44
    Topology: Network Clusters
    "File:P2P Topology.jpg" by Txelu Balboa is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5.
    

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45. 45
    Share
    Shauna Gordon-McKeon
    Outreach cluster
    Mentor
    Build skills
    

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46. 46
    FabLab San Diego source: San Diego Union Tribune
    Local clusters
    

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47. 47
    Virtual clusters
    

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48. 48
    Django Girls cluster
    

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49. 49
    Open Hardware and Python cluster
    

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50. 50
    Pyladies cluster
    

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51. 51
    PyCon 2017 Language Summit
    Credit: LWN.net
    Core development cluster
    Contributors, Triage Team, Core Developers
    PyCon 2019 Core Dev Sprint - Bloomberg London
    

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52. 52
    Conferences cluster
    

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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
    

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54. 54
    Network expansion
    

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55. 55
    Python's network
    
    
    depends on
    communication
    

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56. Scale
    56
    Global Impact
    

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57. 57
    the most important
    lesson I learned...
    sharing
    – Guido van Rossum
    http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2016/04/kings-day-speech.html
    

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58. Start small and
    scale
    58
    

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59. 59
    Interactive computing
    is a tool of connection.
    —Prof. Lorena Barba
    2014
    Lorena Barba &
    
    Natalia Clementi
    

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60. 2014
    60
    65,848
    
    
    notebooks on GitHub
    https://github.com/parente/nbestimate/blob/master/estimate.ipynb
    

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61. Today
    61
    11,226,249
    
    
    notebooks on GitHub
    https://github.com/parente/nbestimate/blob/master/estimate.ipynb
    

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62. How did we grow to over
    
    
    11 million notebooks in a decade?
    62
    

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63. 63
    It started with
    
    
    communication,
    
    
    problem solving,
    
    
    passion, and
    
    
    simplicity
    

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64. Start small and
    scale
    64
    

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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
    

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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
    

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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.
    

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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.
    

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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
    

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72. 72
    And I'm like,
    okay, tech
    might not be
    worth it, but all
    these people
    are worth it.
    Insider 2021
    

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73. Start small and
    scale
    73
    

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74. 74
    Scaling the Python Network
    

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75. 75
    Selena Deckelman
    Great leaders inspire
    others to lead
    Lynn Root
    Audrey Roy Greenfeld
    

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76. 76
    Mobile will help us expand
    

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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/
    

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78. 78
    Humility
    Long term success
    
    
    Learn from failures
    
    
    Innovate
    

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79. Increase the probability
    
    
    of success
    79
    in an uncertain world
    Global Impact
    Scale
    

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80. 80
    Python's Global Network
    Call to Action
    

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81. 81
    Node
    Group
    Network
    Connect
    Communicate
    Scale
    Python’s Global Network
    

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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
    

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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
    

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84. 84
    Succeed with our
    Resilient, Global Network
    Python: The People's
    Programming Language
    

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86. 86
    CHANGED OUR
    
    
    WORLD
    Python's Network
    

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87. 87
    Thank you
    

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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.
    

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