I promised to unpack, bit by bit individual components of things so this is the start.

Community

First up, by way of an apology, my last post didn't make it clear that I don't blame a/the communities I am and have been involved in for what happened. Communities are what they are - they are tribes of semi-like minded people grouped around a thing.

In tech, these tribes tend toward stasis - this means if you're "trying to fight the good fight" (whatever that may mean) you spend the majority of your time well, fighting.

I like to think I "won" some of the fights to make "my" corner of the world a better place. Except I made the same error I have made, time and again, in my life.

I didn't pick what fights to fight.

Let me be clear - without my involvement in the Python/PyCon/PSF community, activity on twitter, hacker news, et al my career and "me" would not be where it is. A lot of people (shockingly) look up to me. Hence me publicly admitting that I fucked up.

If I had not gotten involved, fought for what I did, did what I did I would not have:

• A network of friends, albeit distant and not "tangible" spanning the globe.
• The career/position I have now: or have come to the realization that I deeply and truly believe in being a leader of people (not a "manager" - more on that another time).
• Would not have had the support through some truly dark times (see: "the impossibility of it's going to be ok")
• Would not have had the sheer plethora of opportunities I have had, and continue to have.
• Would not have the breadth of knowledge I have today

So I have a lot to thank many of you for - Jacob, Alex, Guido, Van, Jessica, and many others. Many people reached out to me and told me I was a mentor or inspiration to them after my last post; let me be clear - each person I have interacted with has been a mentor to me.

Yes - I have a lot to thank a lot of people for. But I can take a step back and admit that "fighting large scale fights of philosophy, politics and human motivation" is a sinkhole. Unless you have good personal boundaries and a clear objective for success (e.g. desired outcome) you will find yourself crashing upon the rocks of stasis and status quo while ignoring things that are more important.

We work in a society that raises up "rockstars" - be they creators of tools, languages, codes of conduct, etc. In a work/business context they are known as "leaders". We place them on some higher plane for being able to be the outspoken, passionate ones filled with an unflinching belief of what's right. This is normal human behavior - there have been many posts written about cults of personality, etc but the simple fact is this is normal human psychology.

So no, without the communities I still love, I would not have what I have. Where I fucked up is not having boundaries. Not saying "not my circus, not my monkeys". Not closing my email or delegating more in the community and focusing on work, family, friendships.

We have a word for that: addiction.

Masl-OH!

As somewhat of a sociology geek; I can see patterns in behaviors of groups and people (including intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. But it's really simple:

Yeah I just cited Maslow. 10 points to griffindor. You should already understand what this is. Where communities - online tribes, social media, etc come in, at least in my case is that:

1. Prior to heavy involvement, I was stuck somewhere in the bottom.
2. While having personal relationships (e.g. a mate) helped "move up the stack" the allure of triabalism is that it's like mainlining the top 3 layers.

When you take someone (me) who, from a very early age was on the career obsessed track (bottom layer), to the negation of fulfilling this set of needs through somewhat normal means, finding a tribe with open and welcoming arms who wants/needs help, who is friendly, who don't judge you (well...) is a bit like a drug addict finding an infinite fast way to get high all the time.

Online tribes, the communities I got involved in were my way of "moving up" this heirarchy of needs. I felt needed, I felt like I had social belonging, friends. I had acceptance.

Those mental reinforcements, that addiction to the "fast path" still maintain within me today. Except now I'm trying to focused on doing it right, vs doing it "fast". But you should be able to see the same patterns within yourself, if, like me, you have your tribe that reinforces your self-actualization.

I mention this because, quite simply, we, as humans confuse intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivations dangerously easy. Whether its our tribes or our job, it's easily to blur (see: overjustification) "I am doing this for me and my self satisfaction" and "I am doing this because I will get cheese at the end of this and they need it from me".

And that's the mental trap I fell into. The dopamine highs of arguing endlessly on the internet, of running a conference, of being "loved" were so strong they overrode "real life".

I did that. Not you.

There aren't any easy answers - from a comment this week when Hacker News picked up my last post (comment, mine):

Factor in the following: my ex and I are still best friends and confidants. As we went through this little slice of hell, what was best for our kids above what was best for us was top of mind.

Now, factor in the following: I've learned - the hard way - that investing yourself into certain things can net you things you didn't have. For example, without dumping all into the community, I wouldn't be where I am in my career, and I would not have discovered things about what I want to do in that career.

Now factor in what I described is the sign of an extremely obsessive, insecure, and potentially depressed personality with no actual definition of "self" outside of community, work, and kids. Literally - now that I've set boundaries I'm busy looking around saying "Uh. Shit. Who am I?"

Now factor in the strict clinical definition of what you go through in a divorce - it's akin to significant loss (e.g a death in the family). You go through (as I am) many stages of that including grief, depression, etc. I'm somewhere in the no man's land without an end in sight just as of yet.

Now factor in the severe anxiety and depression that comes with all of that. Yes - I could quit my job and move just to be near my girls. However not being physically or mentally fit outside of my definition of self in my career I would be throwing myself into a position of not "not moving on my own terms".

Think of it like this: I agreed, with my ex, that this would be the best course of action for now. Just up and moving wouldn't solve the root cause of why we separated, it would just solve one aspect of "me". This would result in a probable mis-directed resentment on my part towards my ex, my children and others.

Therefore, while given the information you gleaned you may be correct albeit callous, you are right that there are many more factors in a situation like this to be taken into account.

Net-net - mental health is hard. Recovery is hard - you can't tell a depressed person to "just don't be sad" and you can tell a person with an addiction (such as I've gone through) to just "give it up" without a goal, or a process by which to solve the root cause.

I fell into a trap - no sense of "self" - no sense of belonging. Few friends but having the gift of being able to empathize wholly with people (but not being able to shut that off; their desires became mine). I saw the warning signs; for example this quote from "On Family, Cranking and Changing":

As I've worked to improve my awareness of this - I've noticed how bad I've been/gotten. This is why "Cranking" hit me so hard. My ability to balance my time and attention effectively, while also spending it on the things that matter most has been grossly out of alignment. My iPhone has been a surgical attachment - I reply almost in real time to email work, or non-work related. When I should be sitting on the couch comforting my wife, or watching a movie (even though we've seen Tinkerbell 900 times) with my daughter, I'm sitting on my laptop turning a crank of some sort (for what it's worth - I'm writing this while my wife and daughter are sleeping). Instead of focusing on them, though I love them dearly, I would do anything for them, I'm turning cranks

Addiction to ambition, to belonging, to cranking is a thing.

Boundaries

So, what have I gotten to learn the hard way? A lot. Too much if you ask me when it's Sunday night at 9pm and crushing lonliness grabs my chest and I lie in the dark crying (hey, dudes, it's ok to cry ok?).

I learned too little, too late that boundaries really matter, and unless you set them, recognize addiction and motivations for what they are (with help) you're going to have a real bad time.

What have I done to fix this over the past two years?

• I set strict do not disturb rules on my devices that silence them at 6pm, every night.
• I don't work - unless absolutely nessecary - on the weekends.
• I made peace about arguing on the internet; it's not worth it, it's not rewarding.
• I am seeing therapists.
• When I am with my girls I shut everything off. I don't multitask.
• I mentor the people around me, and the people I lead not to make the same mistakes I did.
• I encourage people to walk away, spend time with their families. If I catch them online I ask "hows the kid/wife/husband/spouse" vs "what are you working on".
• I try to reward myself reasonably and rationally.

That said, I'm still incredibly insecure. I'm still terrified of the world in many ways. I've spent over a decade defined by my job, my family, my tribe that now that I'm compartmentalized away from it all saying hi to someone in a coffee shop is like asking me to eat live spiders.

I love my daughters. I love my team/job. I know that. The jury is out on whether I can crawl back of Maslow's stupid pyramid and love myself.

By way of closing this monster of a post out, I'm going to apologize in advance to XKCD for doing this (and if Randall asks me to take it down, I will) but I think it may provide some much needed context for you, and me.

For example, this is one of those seminal comics from XKCD:

LOL RITE? You say. You just spent like, 10 hours arguing about a patch, or some theory about distributed systems and someone is wrong! LOLOLOLOLOLOL.

Here. Let me fix that for you:

Suddenly, it's not funny. In fact replace "come read me a book" with your wife asking you to come hold the baby. Replace it with your boss asking you to "be at work and not arguing on the internet". Replace it with a friend asking you to come have coffee in meatspace.

Replace it with reading Dr. Seuss to a four year old who thinks you're god.

It's not funny now, is it?

My last post here was April 15th, 2013; it was my gushing post letting the world know I was joining Rackspace to chase a dream and change the world.

Well, a lot has happened since then - two years is a lot of time to let pass and the world, people, communities and more have changed. This post isn’t about that. This is, well, personal.

I’m not going to start at the beginning - don’t expect a cohesive thread, or narrative. That will come later after I unwind this gordian knot.

Some of you know I’ve become a bit of a recluse. Maybe recluse isn’t the best word but it’s a word that resonates. It’s September, 2015 - a Sunday. Since Friday when I left work, I’ve been shut in my two bedroom apartment doing nothing but playing video games, sleeping, and taking the dogs out. Oh, and sometimes drinking.

Living the high life, I know!

Not really. I dragged myself out to my favorite coffee hangout to write, and be “around” people. Even if I don’t talk to them. It was a mental battle for me to do this, in fact, except for going to work and the store, I don’t really “get out much”. At work, it's a totally different story, might as well be a social butterfly.

Let’s work backwards from the recluse bit.

Personally, the last two, no, three years have been a mental and emotional crucible. I can’t put exact dates and times to things, I can’t say when certain emotions or events took place that in turn caused a series of ripples that have stripped me down to my core.

One of the first things I know, and apologize for, is that I withdrew from the Python community and the people and friends I made there. The reasons are multitude, the drain and destruction my “emotionally all in” behaviors caused my family and I. The fact that I kept smashing my face against the same rocks, toxic people, etc time and again. I’d wake up mad, go to bed mad. I’d snap at my kids, my coworkers.

This isn’t really a blame-the-community thing; its one of the reasons I’m broken - it’s “all or nothing”. When I go into something I go all in. At one point I was blogging, coding, working at a startup, running PyCon, on the PSF board, running various python community project and more. On top of that, I had new baby girls and a wife, a family.

Humans aren’t meant to do that. You can’t be emotionally all in on everything. You can’t make another 24 hours appear to be “present” for everything. Instead, I stole time and ran my emotional credit card like it was limitless.

I stole time from my family, from work, from everything. I stole it from me, I gave time, emotion and empathy freely to anything and everyone.

My values - what I should have been caring about - were, putting it bluntly, completely and totally fucked.

Online communities are an interesting animal; they’ve given me so much, and I’ve made friends all over the world. It’s opened career doors and more for me, it’s supported me when I’m or my family was down.

However, “community” is not the gift that keeps on giving, it is the gift that keeps on taking and taking and taking. If you don’t set clear and absolute boundaries, it will drain you dry and move on.

I know that sounds awful - don't think I'm bitter or angry - but each time some accomplishment would get made, some thing would be done, there was just more to do more people and things to fix. I couldn’t control what I gave - I couldn’t pick my fights. I’d argue on the internet for days; I’d push for changes and things and see nothing for it. No boundaries, fighting all the things at once, not being strategic in my thoughts, actions and what I'd invest in? Good game bro.

I see the warning signs that were posted all over now, looking back. A good friend and mentor warned me, Dusty, my now ex-wife was telling me. The fact I had a rough relationship with my oldest daughter was telling me. All the signs were there.

Take, take, take, give, give, give - for what? To change the world? Can a programming community change the world? Can it hug you when you’re sitting alone at night on the couch staring at a black TV? The friends you make, if you can touch them, can. Otherwise, No.

Will it raise your daughters or be there for your wife?

No.

That was my job; and I bombed. Then I snapped. I remember the day I snapped too - actually, two times. The first was after the last PyCon I ran, coming home from that carrying all the emotion and pain and things that happens like boogeymen all the way home. It infected work, my family, me. The final snap was when I read a single email on a mailing list from someone basically calling me out.

I probably deserved it, but the lizard brain kicked in and said “hey, asshole - I’ve given so much, how about you show some fucking decency”. That’s the key right there, the decent and kind and nurturing people are silent, they see the snake pit for what it is and sit back. Only the most persistent and toxic survive.

That day, I resigned from the PSF, I unsubbed from every single community mailing list. I walked away. I didn’t go out in a blaze of glory, I just gave up. I stopped going to most conferences/speaking, writing & travel.

This series of events run parallel to what was going on at home - I didn’t see it, but I had poisoned my marriage and my family and the chickens were coming home to roost. I “kicked ass” at work still, but I had given everything to everything but my own damned family.

Let’s just say I'm divorced.

Yeah that’s a bit of a punch - but I have no one and nothing to blame but myself. I wasn’t “present” I wasn’t in the moment. I had one job. One damned job. And I failed at it.

Dusty and I parted ways amicably, and sanely. We have two beautiful daughters whose very smile is enough to chase away the darkness, and we put them first and foremost. We’re still good friends, we talk, etc. For awhile, we even co-parented in Texas which worked out well.

That changed (again, amicably) this year when she moved back to Massachusetts. I had to pick between two fundamentally awful choices: “force” Dusty to stay so the girls would be close to me - which would hurt her more than I care to admit, or agree to let her take the girls for the school year and I’d have them during the summer. Least awful of awful choices.

So that’s where we are now - but the things I’m thinking about are all the events and mistakes that have me sitting in a coffee shop on a Sunday, feeling completely alone, just wanting a hug and maybe have a good cry.

Back to the story.

So let’s throw more wood on the bonfire - community burnout/flameout. A new job in a new state that I threw everything in to. Always being connected & online no matter what day or time. It’s a recipe of multiple disasters - and they all happened.

Learn from my mistakes.

I learned too late. Sometimes it takes getting punched to realize something is just fundamentally wrong, rotten or toxic. I had no boundaries, no work/life balance. No balance at all. Like most of my life, I basically lived every day as if I was strapping on a rocket pack, shutting my eyes and saying “fuck it let’s go!”. I wasn’t intentional.

Thing have changed. And so have I.

Lately, I spend a lot of time looking at people’s smiling faces with their partner, family or kids. I admit freely, it hurts. Each time I see a happy couple talking in a coffee shop or a “normal family” playing, it feels like a dull ache.

I joke about “being bad” at people and “adulting”, and the few friends I have reassure me I’m not, but given the carnage and hurt and more I’ve wrought upon my outside of work life, it sure feels like it.

Am I depressed? Yeah, that’s fair. I’m not angry anymore, so that’s a bonus. Yes, I see a therapist (and have been for some time) who encourages me to re-start my life by simply say “Hi” to people outside of work.

I’m trying to rebuild some semblance of “self” - who am I? Why do I exist? Is it right that every day is exactly the same and time really doesn’t exist, it just passes.

What is joy? Should I try online dating? Should I write? Should I get out of bed today?

It’s not all doom and gloom.

Sometimes, total destruction brings about changes that would not have otherwise have happened. I’m not a workaholic anymore - I have strict rules on my devices for do-not-disturb. I rarely work into the night on weekdays, almost never on weekends. I might respond to an email or three, but generally speaking it can all wait until I’m “on the clock”.

The only exception to that rule is I’m now a people-leader. If anyone in my org is in trouble, or needs an ear, I’m there for them.

Oddly, while all of my personal life was burning to the ground, I somehow compartmentalized it in such a way to shift from just a developer/technical leader into now running an org of almost thirty people all of whom I care about. I believe in the things we’re doing as a team, and what we’ve accomplished. I’m sad for the losses we’ve had and the misses.

However, I can be proud of my career in many regards. I didn’t do it on my own, and I didn’t do it easily, but I can be proud of it. I can be proud of my team and take comfort that I can care for them and lead.

So now, here I am.

I’m thirty five, I see my kids on thanksgiving, I avoid getting deeply involved in “large communities” (mostly, tech and programming). In fact, I coach my team and coworkers about the balance they need (I tell them honestly I learned the hard way). I still love making things and creating. I love my girls more than anything in the world.

I care deeply about my team, and my people. Sometimes, I enjoy the quiet solitude that comes with living alone. Other times, its a shadow choking the life out of me.

Not everything is lost and hopeless, I know. I know, in the abstract, that I have friends. I know that I have two amazing, smart, beautiful children. I know my ex-wife is still my best friend.

I know that I like getting together with people and playing games, or just shooting the breeze.

I know I need to keep writing, to spinning all the context and things in my head out. I have to learn what “life” is supposed to be when I’m not valuing my sense of self and worth by the number of things I’m doing at once, or the communities I am part of.

I know I have to work through the all the skeletons in my mental closet. I’ve defined my “self” by the wrong things for most of my life.

I’ve learned a lot, some in incredibly painful ways, some in less painful ways. Some in challenging ways and some things like “I really love leading & inspiring”. I'm going to keep writing about all of it.

Just saying things “will be ok” isn’t enough, I’ve got to start making things better.

Maybe I’ll start by saying hi to someone in this coffee shop.

So, as you read in my goodbye post; I'm switching over to a new role at Rackspace starting today, April 15th. The short version is that I am coming on board to help improve and evolve the way Rackspace cooperates with the open source community internally and externally. Of course, I'm crazy excited about this - as I said before:

...if could meld the open source/community work with my "day job" I could do a lot more. I could be more - I could tap into skills I've grown and developed in all of my "lives" and do even more.

If I could bring together the worlds I operate in I could potentially do even more within the Python community, the Open Source world, at my "day job", etc. But things like that don't exist, roles like that are fleeting and rare.

Ah. But roles like this do exist, come to find out, and I managed to be offered one at Rackspace, already working on leading the way with open source and the open cloud in a myriad of ways. They don't just want to be a "big company" - they want to be a great company.

Values

What’s compelling is that Rackspace wants to be/is recognized as one of the world's greatest service companies. This means a fundamental shift away from a “product” driven cycle of development and internal structure - if you’re a service company, you need to hold values like Rackspace's dear:

• Fanatical Support in all we do.
• Results first, substance over flash.
• Committed to Greatness
• Full Disclosure and Transparency
• Passion for our Work
• Treat fellow Rackers like Friends and Family

Interestingly - these values, especially fanatical support directly align with my personal beliefs, and more importantly how you compete with entrenched players in the "cloud" space (see "How do you compete with Google")

But going back to product - we all know services are fundamentally products, but there’s several methods of development. What Rackspace wants to become is “Open First” - this means they see the value in the services they provide, and the fanatical support, but they want develop the software they use for those services and products (especially the Rackspace Cloud) in the Open - this means Open Source all the way down.

Open first means that rather than develop internally and then push externally, development of tools, services, etc will eventually happen in a truly OSS fashion: as open source projects first, and then deployed and utilized internally to Rackspace (as they now do with Openstack/Rackspace Cloud). This means internal changes in development processes, legal processes and much more, much of which is already under way.

This of course means I will be working on internal developer advocacy and changes so that this vision becomes reality: software will be developed in the open, open source will be rewarded, community involvement will be critical for individual developers, support, marketing, etc.

Rackspace doesn’t just want to ship code though: they want to get deeply involved in the developer community as a whole (not just Python). They want to be building products and services that developers want to use and open source projects that developers want to use and contribute to.

Rackspace wants to make itself an awesome place for developers - they want it to be a place where developers can come and write code that doesn’t just benefit Rackspace, but the whole developer community and open source world as a whole. They want to raise the profile of those internal developers who get involved, they want to openly communicate with developers internally and externally.

But that’s just some of the internal pieces.

Externally

Externally, Rackspace wants to get more developers involved with its cloud platform and OSS projects. Rackspace wants to support the community as a whole, via outreach, education, code, getting involved in hack spaces, workshops and more.

Rackspace has always been known for fanatical support. What that means for Rackspace as “the Open Cloud company” is that they offer fanatical support for developers. Essentially Rackspace being a great place for developers to work and contribute in every dimension.

Strive to make Rackspace the place where every developer wants to work; make Rackspace services the ones that every developer wants to use. Work to make Rackspace’s Open Source projects the best of breed solutions in their areas (such as OpenStack).

This is important as it represents a shift for Rackspace, but the dedication to this vision comes from all levels within the company. Thats why I’m coming on board - to help drive this vision, bringing together my community work within the Python community, wider developer community and my own development skills.

Some of the things that are on my mind/list:

• Lower the barrier to entry and friction for internal developers contributing externally.
• Lower the barrier to entry and friction for external developers to contribute to Rackspace OSS projects (For example, OpenStack and others)
• Lower the barrier to entry and friction for developers to leverage Rackspace’s cloud services. This means making those services not just easy to use, but robust, compelling and enabling for developers.
• Supporting outreach groups, workshops, hacker spaces, meetups, conferences, etc - not just within the Python community, but other languages and communities.
  • Rackspace is already supporting conferences, startups and much more - I want to work with them to extend this everywhere within the development community.
• Internal support for developer/development R&D and more.

Excited Much?

Yeah, I'm pretty excited - nervous, yes - but excited. This represents a huge leap of faith for me. Moving my family across the country, taking on a much larger calling, combining two worlds (product development, community work) and a lot more.

I'm sitting here, outside in San Antonio on a bench waiting for the shuttle to the "Castle" filled with thoughts of the future and what it could hold. I'm shaking, I'm nervous, but it's going to be amazing.

Four Years

I'm not one who makes large life changes lightly. I'm fiercely loyal - some would say to a fault - and what I do at my job defines me. The highs of the job are my mental highs, the lows the same.

My coworkers are my friends, the thing we're doing is something I love and believe in (I'm one of those people who must be passionate about their job), the founders and management are friends, mentors and more. I count everyone who I have had the honor to work with at Nasuni, friends and much more.

Four years to some people is a long time - when we see news about startups you see them coming and going in the blink of an eye, you see people jumping from one to the next - the speed you see and hear about these things is astounding.

Nasuni is, and has been different for me, for all of us. It was founded by two amazing friends and mentors. From the start it was never meant for the quick flip, or a revolving door or pivot after pivot.

Nasuni, the team, the product and the four years I have spent there have been special. More than that, it's taught me more in four years then I could have ever expected. I've got to do UI design, work with amazing developers, and so much more.

I truly believe in the company, the team, the product, and the founders. I was honored to be employee number six, coming on early enough to watch Nasuni grow from a team in a room with just an idea and a whiteboard to a truly best of breed product and team.

What the team, the founders and the company believes in and stands for is- security, loving customers, advocating and supporting them (the customer)as well as allowing team members to try new things and grow - is more than valuable. It's hard to find this type of environment in many startups, the leadership within the company stemming from the founders, has set that foundation and I will miss it.

Where else would I have been able to be a public voice as Nasuni allowed me, and branch out in so many areas and ways?

Wearing two hats

Before I started with Nasuni four years ago I had already begun getting deeper and deeper into the Python community. From being a core contributor, to being a PSF board member, to running PyCon as chair for two years, to many other community efforts, my work within the community has grown. I have grown to love and appreciate the Python community even more, and I can truly say, I have felt the love of so many in return.

Obviously being a principal engineer at a startup is a full time job, but my work within the community due has grown to be a full time job as well.

Nasuni has been incredibly understanding and supportive of my work within the community - even when that work grew to sometimes eclipse my work on the team and product. As time has gone on though - these two lives have grown somewhat apart and the split becoming more and more apparent.

Combine this with - well - being a dad (or at least trying) and a husband and you reach a point where keeping the lines clear becomes impossible, where you can no longer compartmentalize time and mental energy you need to serve all of the things without sacrificing time and energy and harming one or all of them simultaneously.

This trifurcation of myself, my time, and my energy has simply grown and grown. And given the love, dedication, energy and time I want to provide to all of them has led to an increasing series of failings - that I have felt more acutely than anyone. Instead of a delicate balancing act; it has become a series of time/energy thefts. This means everything begins to suffer as I pick which thing to swap in and out of for any given time slice.

I've managed, with some success, to balance it all - taking phone calls for Python work on lunch breaks or during my commute, working while I'm giving my daughters a bath, replying to emails at 5am, etc. But the balance of course is incredibly difficult and puts strain everywhere.

Who am I?

As the years have gone on - I just turned 33 in March - and my girls are quickly growing up. It has become more and more apparent that I can achieve more, that my work as a developer and within the communitiies I am involved in could be brought together. That if could meld the open source/community work with my "day job" I could do a lot more. I could be more - I could tap into skills I've grown and developed in all of my "lives" and do even more.

If I could bring together the worlds I operate in I could potentially do even more within the Python community, the Open Source world, at my "day job", etc. But things like that don't exist, roles like that are fleeting and rare.

But that's who I want to be; that's what I want to be when I grow up. I want to bring all of these worlds together, I could do great things - from writing, to marketing, to community outreach, driving open source / community initiatives, developing new products and ideas.

Then it comes along

Suddenly, a good friend and mentor approaches me. He too suffered the same split(s) I suffered. But he took a jump and risk to assume a new role, at a new company to bring those things together. He proved the model at a company who gave him the power to do so.

I was amazed, and impressed. So we started talking - for months we went back and forth and I continually demurred pointing out my loyalty, years of investment in Nasuni and its team. I kept saying no - not right now, give me more time, it's too good to be true.

During/after PyCon 2013 it became even more apparent he was telling the truth. Still I held back. Some conversations happened, and I described what I've written above to those I talked to.

Then the shoe dropped: the person I want to be when I grow up is what they needed and wanted. From the highest levels within the company to the developers, to my friend, each and every one of them said "this is what we want, you are someone we want".

Still, I pushed back until it really sank in - this could be that "once in a lifetime" opportunity to chase things I've dreamed of, to heal the split at a company who would support the same ideals and ideas I have. It could also be a "reboot" for my family - an opportunity to spend more time being a dad and a husband, in a place we had long considered moving to.

Looking at it, looking at my family and the troubles and trials we've gone through the last few years, where Nasuni is (a mature, battle tested product and team) and knowing that people believed in my dream, believed I could do so much more in so many areas, and knowing that this offer was sitting there, I knew internally that it was time.

Saying Goodbye

A thus, it is with equal helpings of sadness, excitement and trepidation, I say goodbye to my extended family at Nasuni. The product and the team are in a fantastic place, and the company is seeing explosive growth. The knowledge rattling around in my head is distributed amongst the team the founders have put together, and the future of the company is bright regardless if I am there or not.

My oldest daughter is graduating Kindergarten - our lease is up in a month. The stars somehow aligned to show me a new path, a new opportunity.

I'm sad: I love the product, I love the team. If the founders asked me to run into a burning building I'd slap on a helmet and do it. The product works, and works damn well. The company is growing rapidly, and there's a lot more that I could do there. I'm passionate about the team, the product, and the goals. I always will be.

But I'm equally passionate about the Python community, open source, outreach, education - still stuck in my mind is the image of a room full of children glowing with excitement as they learned Python for the first time. I'm fiercely dedicated to "my other job" as much as I am to anything.

This new role (which will be described in a different post) will allow me to serve my passions - both current and future. It will let me bring together the worlds I live in in a unique, challenging way.

I believe in Nasuni. I believe in its team, the product and the future - I love the company and team as if it was a family member and dear friend. When I turned in my notice I looked a friend and mentor in the eyes and I hesitated, as I said, I don't change things like this lightly.

But even he, someone who I have worked with for well over four years understood the rift, and saw the opportunity. I asked his advice, we talked for awhile about who I have become and what the road ahead held for me. As we talked, it became apparent that both of us agreed that the opportunity offered to me was one of those "once in a lifetime" deals. That it would let me go after all of the things I have grown to love - that the time was right, and to take the risk and jump.

I'm going to miss the team: I've learned more there from the team in four years working on the product with them every day than in any other role I've ever been in. I'm going to miss the comradery we have had, and the vision we all strived for.

In Closing

So, obviously, I've accepted the new role. It will be with friends I've worked with in the open source/Python world and more at Rackspace. As of this Friday, April 12th - I will say goodbye to my family of four years and take a leap of faith.

As of April 15th, I begin a new journey. As of June - once my oldest graduates Kindergarten, my family and I will take a jump and move to San Antonio TX. We will be saying goodbye to a lot of friends - leaving Massachusetts and going on a new adventure.

Here's to four years - an amazing team, friends, and more. Here's to what the future holds and new opportunities. Here's to no more damned snow.

I'm going to miss everything and everyone here.

Overall? I have to call 2012 a bit of a wash. Maybe it's because I'm tired or burned out - I'm not sure. I feel like it's been two steps forward and two steps back. For every good thing, there's been a correlating bad thing or thing that makes me put my head in my hands and go "why?!".

Python & Community Stuff

If I had to write a state of the Python Union talk; it would be "great things are afoot". Python 3.3 was an epic release of Python and Python 3 adoption and porting in general is trending up at a pace this year that's even surprising to me, and I see a lot of stuff behind the scenes.

A lot of this has to do with the general cycle of things - Python 2.7 has been out for awhile, and major libraries and frameworks have, through their natural release cycles, begun dropping support of older versions of Python allowing them to work towards code bases that support 2.x and 3.x. As for Python 3 itself? The number of Good Things in terms of fixes and features is making it more and more attractive. With things like Guido's new async PEP coming around, packaging work and a lot more? Things look pretty good from where I'm sitting. The PSF has been steadily feeding the fire by funding ports of key libraries and frameworks to Python when grant requests come in - and it's growing.

I'm not about to make any grandiose claims like "2013 is the year of the Python 3 x" - but I can tell you with some of the things I personally know about going on, it's going to be a big year.

Community in General

For the community in general - we're seeing growth across the board. The number of companies I know of using Python (and potentially therefore PyCon sponsors) is growing quite healthly despite the concerns of many that newer languages would cannibalize the community and the companies adopting the language. This is, in large part because Python Is Safe. The community is welcoming and open, the language is infinitely approachable. More and more cool things are being made and released in it as OSS every day - continued, steady growth has been Python's story for years now.

It's not trendy; I know. If you frequent online forums you'll see tons of noise about Node.js, Rust, Ruby, etc, etc. Sure, all of those are going to grow and to an extent, we've seen the maturity (I'll call it "slowing down" for the sake of my point) that Python has coming to other communities as they grow older, become safer. No - Python isn't a headline grabber, and no, if you live in the technology echo chambers you probably feel like it's not the Next Hot Thing, but hey - I'll take steady and continous growth over explosive growth and implosive shrink any day.

The community has grown more and more towards a focus towards outreach and brining people in. On the technology front projects like the Raspberry Pi are giving us inroads to schools and education and the maker community in general.

The continued explosive growth of outreach and education groups such as PyLadies, OpenHatch/Workshops, PyStar, CodeChix, LadyCoders, Women Who Code, Code Scouts and many more has seen Python as a community grow more and more organized in probably one of the most important areas we can today. Our awareness has shifted, matured and grown. This, as well as reaching into education more and more and encouraging the next generation of Python Programmers will be our key driver to maintain the growth and increasing diversity of the community. Oh, and don't forget reaching into data science and scientific community even more - the recently formed NumFOCUS Foundation should see nicely to that.

Growing up is hard to do - for example, the recent announcement of the Code of Conduct requirement the PSF put in place (the Foundation is, as far as I am aware the first grant providing organization to do this).

As I say in that post, it's a sign of not just the times, but of an increased inward focus on things we can do better at.

We've also seen more and more discussion and debates about civility within the community in general - luckily, Python has avoided too many of the PR disasters that have affected other communities, but we still have miles to go before we sleep. We have to continue to prove that Python as a language and community is something You Are Welcome in, and Something You Can Count on. I said it long ago - I wouldn't trade this community and all the friends I have made for anything.

Of course, who can forget that we're also growing up on our - I'm sorry to say this - marketing. Everything I've already listed is a form of marketing, but an extentsion of that is our, as they say, copy. Python.org is getting a major site redesign - a project that I've spent probably five years cooking, and would not have happened except for the heroic efforts of a great many people.

All in all; as I've said before, the future looks bright for the community.

Sadly, 2012 was not without it's losses. We sadly lost John Hunter, author of Matplotlib as well as Kenneth Gonsalves, founder and leader of the India Python Software Society. Both will be dearly missed within our ranks.

PyCon

2012 saw, yes - the largest PyCon US ever. 2300 attendees - almost 200 sponsors. I've spent most of the last few years working on PyCon US, and 2012 was no different. The team and I started working on PyCon 2013 before PyCon 2012's main conference days were even over (well, technically we started working on it before PyCon 2012 even started). PyCon 2013 is going to be even bigger, although we've capped attendance at 2500 attendees. We've got more events such as PyPgDay, PyData SV, the Education Summit, Let's Learn Python (for kids), another PyCon 5k and a stunning list of talks and tutorials. A stunning array of sponsors and partners and so much more.

And I'm, not even close to done yet with things for PyCon 2013.

Ignoring PyCon US for a minute: 2012 also so explosive growth in the number of other Python/PyCon conferences. Just see PyCon.org for an example. The first PyCon South Africa? The first PyCon Canada? PyCarolinas? Too much amazing is going on - this is why anytime someone asks me if we're shrinking I sort of laugh.

New Projects

I've already mentioned the voluminous PyCon 2013 and Python.org Redesign which consumes much of my time - but I've found some time to slip in some new Projects for the community here and there including From Python Import Conference, continued work for the Python Software Foundation (and a FAQ for it), and a cross language/community effort called Speak Up! which I still need to formally announce. Speak Up! is aimed at mentoring new people (and those looking to hone their craft) by leveraging mentorship, teaching and an excellent set of mentors (we're adding more weekly).

Quoting it's mission:

The mission of the Speak Up! project is to assist in the guidance and mentorship of potential technical speakers, tutorial presenters and attendees of conference, user groups and other community events. We hope by providing access to mentors from many programming languages who are seasoned speakers, conference organizers, or other volunteers we can grow not just the gender diversity of speakers at technical events, but the diversity of speakers at technical conferences as a whole.

Through positive, reinforcing, polite, and safe actions - we all can increase the diversity of voices in our communities, conferences and elsewhere.

In Summary

Much of what I wrote in my 2011 wrap up still applies, more than ever. Design and our (Python/Community) interface to the world matters more than ever. Things are growing and new projects and companies are coming online every day. Hacking on Python - the community more than ever - has absorbed more and more of the time I have. It's worth it though. To stand back and see yeild of the labor of so many dedicated programmers, hackers, community leaders and groups have poured into the community continues to make me proud to serve. Even if I have an unhealthy addiction to fighting the fight online and arguing with "the internet".

So yeah. Maybe it's time to update my Gittip page. Somehow, I ignored my own advice in my 2011 wrapup and kept adding and spinning off new projects so much for taking it easy. And these are the ones I can talk about publicly right now.

The Personal Side

Well. Reading back on my 2011 Personal Portion post, well, I've managed to stay healthy (weight lifting, diet, running), I've kept up the standing desk discipline, but lost the time to do Bikram (tradeoffs, they're a thing).

Addison; our youngest has thrived - through a combination of early intervention - and early diagnosis, she's now about to turn 10 months old. She says daddy, and mommy (albeit in the toddler way). Her gross motor skills are impressive, she's a total love bug and has come to be one of the happiest toddlers I have ever known. Abby, now in kindergarten, also continues to thrive - scarily intelligent and perceptive, she's about everything you'd expect in a five year old version of me (she got my personality… Not sure if this is good).

Sadly, the brink my family found ourselves on did not abate. After the turn of the year we realized given the fact we had to lose an income due to everything else going on, climbing debt, and many other factors - it would be best for us to sell our home (our first) at a loss or to give it up entirely. It became a yolk rather than a blessing, and after the bank with whom we tried to work told my wife "we didn't tell you to have a second kid (referring to Addison)", well - that sealed the deal. At PyCon 2012 I was negotiating with them while also doing the conference, and we managed to pull off a short sale.

We're still on the hook for a large sum, thanks to the short sale, but we're in a good apartment, and we're able to do more things and focus more on the girls. We had to go back to two incomes - given the hole we had found ourselves in, it was impossible for one of us to stay home with the girls.

Inside all of this, my wife Dusty got sick - very sick. That incurred more time off, more expenses. Luckily we didn't have the house hanging over our heads, but we passed through some pretty bad times. We spent more time in emergency rooms, asking our friends for help, ducking out of work or comforting the girls that mommy would be ok than I care to admit or discuss.

While Dusty never got a prognosis that gives us resolution or a path forward; she's stable and healthier now (although the migraines that triggered it all haven't abated). Towards the tail end of this year, we've seen things finally begin to stabilize and fall into the rhythm we so desperately need as a family.

2012 has not been an easy year on any of us family-wise. But we're still here, and we still hold each other close and I've got that hope that I can finally begin to say "it's going to be ok" and not to have it feel like I'm lying to myself.

It's been a rough year, but we've grown closer as a family, and we've gotten to spend more time where it counts - with each other. Two beautiful daughters, a beautiful loving wife - I am blessed and I know it.

Just take a look at my Instagram page. My letter to my wife from Feburary still applies more than ever.

Resolutions?

I'm so not going there. I've got projects on the burner that aren't public, a conference and a family to work on, and a smattering of other projects (oh yeah, and a full time job I love). I'm not resolving to do anything except "keep it going".

And maybe I can step back after this year. Dunno. I doubt it.

The Code of Conduct

First up, the Python Software Foundation Code of Conduct announcement generated a fair amount of feedback, triggering my own essay on the matter, since I'm the one who sorta pushed it through and argued it. You can see some feedback on HN here and here, but for the greater part, the emails/tweets and feedback from outreach groups and people has been overwhelmingly supportive, and makes me once again proud to serve. Fundamentally, the PyCon US one may not be perfect, but in conjunction with the diversity statement and response guide; it's a good start. 

There are concerns I've heard through the back channels that this is the start of NoFunPyCon, some of which are aired quite... Acerbically, some rationally. It is my fundamental belief that these don't hold a lot of water, but perhaps there's some word smithing for the PyCon one that could be done to assuage those concerns. This is also why the PSF board resolution specifically cites the Ada Initiative template, and not PyCon US'.

PyCon 2013

PyCon 2013 is already turning out to be amazing - in the past few weeks we've announced the list of accepted talks (including a 6th talk track) and tutorials, PyPgDay, PyData SV, even more partnerships with outreach groups, a survey about childcare, Start up Row - this adds to the Let's Learn Python tutorial for kids, the PyCon 5k, an amazing line up of Keynote speakers and a lot more.

We're not done yet. Proposal submissions for Poster session presentations is still open, financial aid applications are due by December 31st, and registration is limited to 2500 attendees: if you're thinking about delaying registering: I don't recommend it, fwiw. Register now - we've already sold out of early bird tickets!

Oh, and on the fence about sponsoring? Read what Walt Disney Animation Studios, via the always amazing Paul Hildenbrandt had to say about that! We have a stunning array of sponsors almost all of them hiring Python hackers - and we've got room for more!

New Project: Speakup.io

I've spun up a new project to help with speaker mentorship, diversity and generally helping people who might not feel strong enough to present get help, track call for papers, collect ideas, practice their talks and much more. The goal of the Speak Up! project is to really guide anyone who wants or needs help speaking or "getting in the door". We've got an impressive list of mentors already, and some great discussions happening on the mailing list. I should do a proper announcement soon. The code is on github too.

New Project: From Python Import Conference

This is another one of those "finally getting to it" projects. It's been on my (and many other people's) to do list to start distilling the collective knowledge of various conference organizing teams (across programming languages, conference sizes, etc) into a helpful guide. Everyone is welcome to contribute (source is on github)! More to come.

Python.org Redesign

The redesign is proceeding: oh yes, yes it is. Project Evolution's Jason Hogue posted a status update the other day you should take a look at. If you have feedback you want to shoot to us, drop us a line at psf-redesign@python.org.

I think that's about it. I admit to a certain amount of mental discombobulation with everything going on. Maybe I'll add a to do item to fix that. Until then:

By now, if you're linked in to current Python / Python Software Foundation News you know that as of November 21, 2012 the PSF now requires that all conferences it sponsors, or provides grants to (and there are many), have a code of conduct in place. The exact wording of the reslution the PSF board ratified is this:

RESOLVED, that the PSF will only sponsor conferences that have or agree to create and publish a Code of Conduct/Anti Harassment guide for their conference. A basic template to work from has been generated by the Ada Initiative at http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy

Before I go much further; I'm going to state unequivocally that I am the one responsible. I proposed, argued for it, put it on the agenda and argued for it vociferously during our meeting. However, the board approved it overwhelmingly as a body with a single abstention.

Additionally, as you read this, do not assume anything about my personal politics, political leanings, etc. You would be wrong - trust me on that one. If you are assuming that a horrible event at a PSF / Python event triggered this, you are also wrong.

Community

Community is a broad term. In the case in which I refer to it - I refer to is as the constantly growing and evolving and diversification of the big-P Python community. The Python community is growing at an astounding pace. The number of Python related conferences and events is also growing at a pace which frankly floors me. We have "PyCons" popping up all over the world almost monthly. Canada and South Africa just had their first one this year for example.

Most, if not all of these events are put together by small teams of dedicated, passionate and kind teams of largely unpaid volunteers. This is both amazing, and heartwarming. The level of love and passion shown by so many in this community amazes me on a daily basis.

I once said this about the community in which I am honored to be a part:

Some of you may have met me - almost none of you have met my wife and family - and yet the outpouring of support from the Python community has humbled me and brought me to my knees in thanks. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about the generosity that has been bestowed on us by people inside of this community. Something as small as a card - a box of crayons and a coloring book for my oldest daughter - it has helped my family and I and touched us in a way I don't think we've ever been touched.

It is amazing to me that I can admit to hurting or going through something like this and people all over the world will immediately start sending the resources on where to look for information or who to talk to or specialists that they know, contact information for family members that they know who have experience with epilepsy or seizures.

It has been amazing to me the amount of support that I've gotten from a community that's based on a programming language; we are all engineers and it is not something that you'd necessarily expect.

To this day; I stand by those words. Each day I get well wishes, each day I get a chance to call attention to others within our community who need help, or call attention to those who have fallen.

This passion I have, this love for the community, its ever-growing diversity and what it has done for me is exactly why I put this resolution up to the board. It's not because the Python community is broken. It's not because we've had a "trigger event", although Julia Elman's experience and call to action sticks in my mind like a road flare when thinking about this.

So no: I don't think our community is "broken" or has performed ill - but nor has it been perfect, nor shall it ever be. I am proud of it, I spend countless hours working on behalf of it, and I would not trade it for the world. It has made me feel welcome, it has supported me in my times of need. It has allowed and empowered me to do amazing things.

Oh yeah, and I'm totally in love with the language, even if I cheat on it sometimes.

But, like with code - there's a smell in the community - but it's the larger Programming community and its conferences and events as a whole.

D stands for Diversity.

We've seen enormous growth in the diversification and inclusion of the vast non-majority within our communities thanks to the hard work of many - this includes the PyLadies movement, Women Who Code, Devchix, CodeScouts, The Ada Initiative, the Boston Python Workshops, OpenHatch, RailsBridge and many, many others.

What we are seeing is a fundamental shift in the awareness that we need to be more welcoming, more open to those who do not make the majority of our community. We need to have workshops, we need to be more inviting. We need to lower the barrier of entry of contribution. We need to make safe havens for those who want to contribute but who are scared and intimidated by the status quo. This includes men, women - everyone.

Part of this effort is the social realization of one of the Zen of Python rules:

Explicit is better than implicit.

What I mean is this: no more unwritten rules or expectations. No more assumptions that we're living in a utopian meritocracy. We don't. Sure, OSS has been defined as "they with the best code and who does the work, wins" - but that ignores the frequent corollary of "those with the thickest hide, and ability to fight win". Look at any mailing list - look at the discussions on the relative merit of a given feature, bug fix, etc. You will see things that would make your hair turn grey. You will see people shouted down for naivety, you will see that even the most meritorious idea may not win against the establishment.

This happens everywhere. This is why I say "explicit is better than implicit" when it comes to social norms and expectations.

The idea that there's some unwritten guide on how to behave in society, at a conference, at a meetup, or anywhere is fundamentally absurd. Look around you for examples.

But what does this mean in the Python Community? It means we can do better! We already are on so many fronts - but just because we're seeing positive changes doesn't need we should stop the movement.

Back to Code of Conduct

A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the responsibilities of or proper practices for an individual, party or organization.

That simple, right? Well, yes, actually. When it comes to a code of conduct for a mailing list or group or for a community such as Ubuntu and Fedora or for a conference it all boils down to the same thing. A set of rules that don't dictate what you can do, or who you must be, but what is not acceptable.

It's sort of like laws. Laws don't generally dictate your personal freedoms - what they do normally do is dictate where, given unlimited freedom, your "right to do whatever you want" ends. Laws are there not to stop crime. They are there to set rational expectations for rational people - they tell the rational actors in our story what they can count on. They set in place the rules of societal engagement and put in place punishments for when those rules are broken.

A code of conduct is no different - it is an explicit set of rules on what isn't acceptable! It's not there to take away your rights - unless you feel your rights include sexual harassment, putting pornography in talk slides, or making sexist or racist jokes in a large group of people (an event). It's there to show everyone what is not acceptable behavior, and to show what repercussions there are if anyone violates this behavior.

Quoting Jacob Kaplan-Moss on this (re: Code of Conducts/anti-harassment policies):

The criticism that’s usually raised at this point is that anti-harassment policies are unlikely to actually stop this sort of behavior. Someone who thinks that assault is acceptable behavior isn’t likely to be stopped by a code of conduct. Most people are fundamentally good and don’t need to be told not to harass their peers.

Just like laws; a code of conduct / anti-harassment policy is not going to stop bad actors. It won't. It can't. It might convince a person who acts in bad faith, or intends to do so to not attend the event - it is, after all, a signal they are not welcome, and there are consequences. Really though - again just like laws - it won't stop a determined bad actor. If I, the PyCon chair, choose to slip a bit of porn into my slides as part of the PyCon opening ceremony, I can. No one is going to know until they see it ala Fight Club.

However, should I choose to do so, instead of unspoken, unwritten rules about what's acceptable, or what consequences there would be (social shame, etc), we have a lovely document that outlines precisely what will happen to me.

If a participant engages in behavior that violates this code of conduct, the conference organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the conference with no refund.

I will, simply put, be kicked out. As conference chair, I will be asked to leave the conference area, I will not be given a refund. I will, in addition to this, probably be publicly shamed by all of those people who I knowingly and willingly abused, I will lose my seat on the PSF board, etc. I would, in fact, support being asked not to attend PyCon, or other Python conferences for a period of no less than 1-2 years.

Quoting the Staff Guidelines:

Publishing an account of the harassment and calling for the resignation of the harasser from their responsibilities (usually pursued by people without formal authority: may be called for if the harasser is the event leader, or refuses to stand aside from the conflict of interest, or similar, typically event staff have sufficient governing rights over their space that this isn't as useful)

Take another hypothetical. Say that someone - anyone, man or woman, calls my phone number during the conference and say they are being harassed. That too, is covered explicitly in the Code of Conduct, including the Attendee and Staff guides to incident reporting.

• I will immediately ensure the safety of the Attendee.
• I will take a report on the incident.
• If there is immediate danger; I will contact law enforcement.
• I will call a staff meeting, and we will discuss the incident.
• I, or one of the staff will approach the alleged harasser, their side of the story will be taken.
• Should the report stand, based on the information, take further action against the harasser.

If you read the Staff Guidelines you'll note something interesting: there are protections in there for victims, and protections for alleged harassers/Code of Conduct violators. This is meant to protect everyone involved in the situation from false allegations, or knee jerk reactions.

This Code, this Guide, provides the explicit declaration of what is expected, and how we will react.

But Everyone is nice, we've always been cool

I know. Honestly, I do. Except for minor incident that I recall, PyCon US has largely been free of issues such as this. Every meetup, conference, etc I have been to has been filled with nice, kind people and largely jerk-free. This is a testament to the community as a whole.

So, you ask: if we're all chill cool people, and nothing bad has happened, why have one?

Because it won't always be that way.

If we continue to expand and grow (and we will), and if we continue to grow even more diverse - in sex, race, creed and geography - the chances of "an incident" will grow. In fact, I know incidents have happened and been dealt with.

So no, the unspoken rule of "don't be a jerk" doesn't scale very well. And that's what we're talking about - a scalability problem. The social norms and rules of a group of five people, or one hundred people may float. What about 200? 500? 800? How about 2300 people (the attendance of PyCon 2012)? No. "Don't be a Jerk" may be our unspoken, unwritten community motto; but its not enough for those on the outside looking in.

Those outside of these circles want clear lines on behavioral expectations. They want to know that not only are there unwritten rules about not being a jerk - they want to know what will happen if a Jerk Occurs. This sets their expectations, and it gives them comfort. It makes them feel more welcome, more safe. Especially when they're part of a group who has been put under constant objectification and harassment for decades in our industry.

The Social Signal Flare

A Code of Conduct is, in fact a social signal flare to "others" - it's a message to them on what to expect, that they can feel welcome and safe and most of all that someone cares. I have the emails and phone calls thanking me and the PyCon team for the Code of Conduct to show it. They all carry the common theme:

Thank you. Thank you for showing me you care, and that you are thinking of me

What has this triggered? Combined with this guide, and outreach, we have drastically increased the number of (for example) female speakers at our event. We have more female and varied attendees. We have people bringing their families with them. Not just because of a single document. But because they know that because of that document and the history and people within the Python community they can feel safe, and welcome.

This social signal flare; this written set of guidelines matters to them. And we're not the only ones realizing this http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/07/sexual-harassment-at-technical.html. OSCON, Ruby Conferences, JS Conferences and other events - all of them are realizing that having rules and expectations set out for all to see makes it better for everyone.

So why the Foundation?

Now we get to the beginning: why an "edict" from the Foundation board that states this is a must for any conference they are providing money to. Well, if you read this far, hopefully you're convinced of the basic case of having a document such as this in place.

Let's look at it from a brand perspective.

For PyCon 2013 I was asked by no less than four different sponsors if I had a Code of Conduct / Anti-harassment guide in place. If I did not, they would not become sponsors. Conference attendees are demanding conferences have one, or they will not attend, or speak.

For example, I applaud Caktus Consulting Group for taking a hardline, zero tolerance stand:

…Along with this blog post, Caktus is asking conference organizers and other sponsors to join us in the following effort: Moving forward, Caktus will require that a zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy is established and enforced by the organizers of any conference that we sponsor or attend. We want to ensure that our community events are safe, welcoming, and supportive for all of our colleagues…

Let us assume that the PSF is no different than a sponsor (it is, sorta): we provide you money, we give you our name and logo (and probably setup a booth too). We are, by our participation and funding, implicitly and explicitly endorsing your event.

This means that should something happen, the "PSF brand" - which to many, is synonymous with "Python" (duh) - would be tarnished. We would be seen as endorsing an event which did not deal with a situation/incident. We would be lobbied to pull our funding/sponsorship (and I would vote for it). We would probably, via social pressure, required to distance ourselves from the event and the organizers and probably even issue an apology of our own.

So. Starting for the idea that these documents, these guidelines benefit us as a community, and help us grow more diverse and inclusive, that they help in some way to make events more safe and welcoming - we end up in a place where from a pure business perspective it is in our best interest to put these protections in place as a mechanic of sponsoring an event or issuing a grant.

These protections provide social good; they are also smart business. Yes - it is a sign that we are growing up, but that's a good thing.

Finally

In closing, all I can say is this - no one is trying to be a fascist, or a nanny state. No one is trying to say you can't cuss like a sailor (I do, but mostly behind closed door). No one is trying to censor you, or tell you you are not welcome. This is not a perfect, or foolproof solution: it is a step in the right direction.

Quite the opposite. We, the Python Community, are trying to tell people who are scared, or who feel alienated that they are welcome. That they belong. That the community, the foundation and everyone cares about them. That we want to provide a safe place for collaboration and the free exchange of ideas.

We want to show everyone what they hopefully already know by now - that the Python community, despite its quirks, is welcoming, supportive and open to all.

Jesse Noller PSF Director

In addition to cutting the cord on my previous webhost due to the utter meltdown they had when I announced the Python.org Redesign and rapidly swapping DNS providers and all of my years of data over into my new host (squarespace, fwiw) - I've managed to add a few more things onto the queue.

(Intentionally not talking about PyCon - let's just say that there's big news coming on Monday... Stay Tuned.)

First up is "From Python Import Conference" - this is me finally putting the wheels to the roads with a plan many of us involved in organizing Python (and other conferences) throughout the years.

I want to cover everything from the simple considerations (how many tracks, how many people) to the more complex ones like budgeting, hotel venue negotiation, marketing, sponsorship, etc. It's a tall task - and anyone who wants to help is very welcome.

All the code (sphinx) is up on github. Please, join in!

Next up, is something that has also been brewing in my head since I started working with the PyCon Program Committee awhile ago. What really triggered me on this is this tweet between Jacob Kaplan-Moss and Selena Deckelmann.

What started as a twitter conversation, rapidly turned into an idea burning my brain. So, a new social experiment was born:

Speak Up!

Speakup - I hope, will become a mentorship group for helping those wanting to speak, or become better speakers, or learn how to navigated call for proposals, etc for conferences. I wrote a pretty extensive Mission Statement. Obviously everything is a bit raw, but once again all the source is on github and I am adding issues to the tracker to help guide the project.

We already have 10 mentors! Please join us, file issues, give us suggestions - anything.

The idea behind making a safe, welcoming and guided area to mentor people from all walks of life, to help increase our diversity of speakers across the board is a good one, I think.

PyCon 2013? Well - let's just say things are going really well :)

What follows is an edited-for-my-blog version of the blog post I wrote for the Python Software Foundation. I have maintained some of the structure and form but added my personal thoughts along the way.

It is with great pride that on behalf of the Python Software Foundation and the community as a whole, I am please to announce that the official Python.org website, subsites and back end architecture are getting a total makeover.

To me, personally - this has been a long labor of love. I became a PSF member in 2009, a director of the foundation in 2010 - it's been a long ride for me. Not as long as many others, but four, almost five years means a lot of change and a lot of plans, some coming to fruition, others lying in dormancy.

The complete and total overhaul of the Python.org front end, IA/UX/UI and the back end - moving to a modern and user friendly content editing and addition system, etc has been something I have privately been working on since early 2009 - actually, before I became a PSF member proper.

I have emails dated back to early 2009 conspiring/planning on the overhaul of the site. My sincere personal wish has not just to make something new and shiny. It has been to give Python, a language and community I love a whole new presence. The ability to make portals dedicated to the foundation, education, core development and more. The ability to easily and rapidly add new content or update the style to fit with the times and changing world around us.

This has been a project for me going on 5 years - for me, it's as old as my oldest daughter Abby. And it is with great humility, pride and happiness I get to announce that this plan is finally coming to fruition.

Introduction

Python has grown significantly in the last decade, both in terms of audience and the amount of information about it. This abundance of information has outgrown the current website’s taxonomy and fundamental design. You can see the growth of the site over time - for example 1997 1999, 2006, and 2011. You can see the growth of focus, audience and information reflected in what was added, how it expanded. Since the last major update, not much has changed though.

When I sat and looked at this with my fresh, naive set of eyes, already inspired by the community and the language, I knew that more could - should - be done to showcase the wealth we have to offer. Education, the Foundation, everything. We could showcase the community user groups, conferences from EuroPython, to PyCon, to PyArkansas, PyTexas and more. 

The key goal of the redesign project is to update Python’s official web presence with an eye to better organizing the information we have today (and expect to add in the future).

The end result should help our audience find the information they need, whether it’s official information like downloads and documentation, or resources from our vibrant community.

That's my speak for what I outlined above - not to mention the fact we know how to tailor information to specific types of uses - see the audiences section of the RFP - Python is over 22 years old now, and some people might think that it's just getting old. I see it completely different. I program in Python because I enjoy it. It's what made me want to be a programmer. Now, with projects like the Raspberry Pi, and more and more Python in education, we can inspire a whole new generation with something clean, approachable and vibrant.

Although the current implementation of the Python web site has served its purpose over the years, the time has come for the site to progress and complement the growth and maturity of the language itself as well as the vibrancy of the community.

The back end has not aged well - though there is something be said about what-was-old-is-new-again - I think it's one of the first code bases I remember doing just regular old <input> to <static html> - go, take a look for yourself. If looking through that you're not slightly daunted at the prospect of adding sites, content, etc to it, you're a better man than I. And many better people have spent thousands of man hours doing just that to keep what information is there alive.

There’s a lot we - I - want to achieve

• Modern design and experience
• Concise and intuitive navigation
• Showcase the simplicity and elegance of the language
• Attract and convert potential Python users and Python Software Foundation sponsors
• Represent our vibrant, active community
• Make it easy for a wide range of contributors to add content
• Enhance the visibility of the PSF and its sponsors
• Provide examples of success stories
• Enhance the visibility of alternate implementations
• Stable and scalable infrastructure

The redesign involves some tall tasks. From the fresh and modern UI/UX to the online and offline content editing features, no aspect of the project is to be taken lightly, or even incrementally. Such approaches have stalled and ultimately failed in the past, and rapidly outstrip the free time our community of volunteers can dedicate to the project.

See my introduction - I've been involved in at least 6 skunkworks efforts to redesign the site and its back end. I went so far as to register python-lang.org/.com and others in an intent to fork it due to the constant uphill battle it became. Time and time again I would get friends to join me on my wild crusade and we would crash into the rocks on the shore of stop energy. Time and time again I would see people lose what free time they had fighting and discussing and debating rather than creating.

I could not, in good conscience do that, or ask that of anyone again. Hence, the RFP, hence, getting the board to accept the RFP for publishing publicly stating "we will do this" and eventually pushing through to a vote of approval.

The Process

This is a process that started over two years ago with the starting of the of the Request For proposals. This year we issued it publicly, and since that time the psf-redesign team including Nick Coghlan, Doug Hellmann, Idan Gazit, Steve Holden, Brian Curtin, Andrew Kuchling, Issac Kelly, Katie Cunningham, Noah Kantrowitz and others.

I can not thank the team and the board enough - everyone has put in countless hours of thankless work to help me scratch and itch thats been bothering me personally for 5 years. I can not say thank you enough to all those who helped me or supported me in the past skunkworks projects that died in utero. 

This was a herculean effort - and we're still not done.

The team received seven bids in total - all of them which included strong points and compelling stories. The team deliberated, ranked, discussed, and asked questions of the bidders, working through the bids for several months. We were constantly impressed by the high quality, well thought out, professional work that the community members submitted to us.

After the review period came to a close, we had a single bid which ranked higher than any of the others, based on experience, references, and overall quality of the proposal. They'll be working with the second highest rated bid, which contained UI/UX and IA that absolutely floored the reviewers.

The first bid, submitted by a joint effort between Project Evolution and Revolution Systems, was the overall highest ranked bid. The team was unanimous in our recommendation to proceed forward with this bid based on the credentials of the team, quality of the proposal, and their deep understanding of how to work with volunteer organizations, oversight and the community as a whole.

This bid provides a clear project management and accountability system as well as detailing how they wish to work with the community as a whole to achieve the project goals.

You might know of Revsys for example - Frank Wiles and Jacob Kaplan-Moss ring any bells? These guys know what they're doing when it comes to the back end architecture. Seth, and the crew from Project Evolution have been equally impressive in their front end work, working with the team and being understanding with us all along the way.

Second, we had the Divio.ch team bid. The IA/UX/UI work which they poured over 120 hours into as a company impressed us a great deal. We were quite literally floored by the amount of thought, planning, and work invested in the visual and IA aspects of the Divio bid.

Divio's proposal blew me away - the amount of work they put into rethinking the IA/UX/UI and consideration for audiences and so much more in a proposal stunned me. Without the team to keep me honest and pegged to the floor, I would have danced away. 

Together with Project Evolution and Revolution Systems leading the project, and the stellar Divio team consulting on the visual/IA aspects of the project the redesign team and the board is sure that we will be able to deliver a next generation experience and architecture that will achieve all of the goals we set forward when we went down the path of drafting the redesign RFP.

On September 26th, the Python Software Foundation board of directors unanimously approved the combined bids:

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation accept the Python.org site redesign proposal set forth by Project Evolution / Revolution Systems and Divio with a budget not to exceed $70,000 in total without further board approval.

Overview of the Accepted Bids

The redesign project will completed by the three teams, Project Evolution, RevSys, and Divio, with a division of labor using the best aspects of each team. The project plan and the back end will be handled by members of Project Evolution and RevSys. Members of Project Evolution will handle the front end work, incorporating the guidance of the Divio team.

The accepted bids from the three entities can be found below:

• Project Evolution and Revolution Systems Bid
• Divio Bid

Project Evolution

Project Evolution (PE) is a design driven development team founded in 1999 with clients ranging from school districts to Fortune 1000 fashion conglomerates with international holdings. The 12-person team includes creative leads, front-end and back-end developers and associated support staff all committed to open-source technology.

Revolution Systems

Revolution Systems, LLC., based in Lawrence, Kansas, was formed in 2002 by Frank Wiles to help businesses benefit from open source software. While many large orga- nizations use open source software internally (sometimes without their knowledge), he realized that many organizations did not know how to properly take advantage of this revolutionary type of software.

Divio

Divio, a web agency located in Zürich, builds web applications and is specialised in the areas of design and development. For the production Divio uses the modern Webframework Django and is heavily involved in the development of the successful open source projects django CMS and django SHOP.

The company relies on the agile SCRUM-methodology for its projects.

Screenshots, Maybe?

Since I can cheat a little - here's a bevy of screen crops/captures to expand on the next generation site we can look forward to:

Oh, what will it look like on mobile?

There's a lot more coming, obviously - we've just approved running with the color scheme and mocks we've gotten, and haven't started the next round of feedback. The back end is progressing - and man, do we have surprises there (with any luck). A full online CMS for people, plus an HG backed offline editing system with automatic updates to the site?

Heck. Yeah.

In Closing

I am sincerely proud, as both a Python Community member, and PSF director to have been part of this process. The entire review team, every single submitted bid and the Foundation's board works tirelessly for a great deal of time pulling together what is already turning out to be an impressive and surprising redesign. I'm sincerely proud to be working with this team.

This has been a long time in coming - but maybe 5 years isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things. Maybe it's just been me obsessing about this one thing for so long that's colored my vision and made me giggle like a little kid every time I see new mocks, or know that we're funded by the PSF and this thing is really happening.

By contrast, PyCon is almost second nature to me now - it's a ton of work, and I'm pouring more of myself into 2013 than I have any previous year, but seeing that come together like a well oiled machine, and then this dream of mine coming to fruition (it's one of a few … I've got some other big plans) is like Christmas day for the community member in me.

 So thank you - thank you to everyone that's making this happen. You're making a lot of people very happy, and very proud. 

We've got a bright future. Let's show it off.

Jesse

Many of us - both professionally and personally have benefited from John's work in the open source and Python community. Just a few weeks ago he delivered a keynote at the SciPy 2012 conference, shortly upon his return from that he was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer and passed away from treatment complications.

It is, in fact, a sad day for all of us in the community - but most of all, a terrible day for his family. 

Fernando Perez has posted a heartfelt and detailed post on John and his contributions - Gael Varoquaux has also posted a moving statement on John's contributions, quoting:

A man who gave a lot, not asking for anything in return

And:

Many have benefited from the silent efforts of John, and are not fully aware of how he generously invested his time and talent for the benefit of others. Matplotlib, the Python plotting library that he created in 2002, has propelled Python as a major tool for scientific research and engineering. The impact of John’s efforts go well beyond Matplotlib.

And quoting Travis Oliphant from the memorial webpage:

Those who contribute much to open source, as John did, do so at the expense of something - often it is time with family.

I can not add anything beyond that this is a terribly sad day for many. 

Please consider donating to his memorial fund put together by the Numfocus group - All donations will be sent to a fund that will be established for the care and education of Clara, Ava, and Rahel. I encourage companies who have benefited from his works to do the same.

As a parent, and a Python programmer, I have no words except to pass my condolences on to his family and friends. I was never lucky enough to meet John except through his works, but I consider him a friend nonetheless.

You can ride.

This is pretty cool - the team - Project Hexapod - is located in Somerville MA, just up the road from me. Now, you're like "oh that's cool, but what the heck does it have to do with me - or Python? Quoting James Whong, one of the project leads:

We use python extensively - almost exclusively - on this project.  We decided to put as much of the codebase as we could get away with in Python to lower the barriers to contribution among our students, many of whom are not programmers professionally.  We see Python as one of the big enablers of our aggressive timeline and collaborative development process.

I've said it before - and I'll say it again - Python can scale down to the lowest level - kids, students, people just learning to program and up to large scale distributed systems, websites, etc. Projects like Stompy - and the Raspberry Pi project bring together the world of software and hardware in ways that can inspire and invigorate.

Python really is everywhere - it can lower barriers for people to enter into the world of programming (and robotics) in ways that are becoming more and more apparent. 

If I had the cash I'd feed that kickstarter like a boss and get the lovely Python logo on a leg that gets imprinted on the ground at every step. 

Heck yeah. Robots!

If your team/organization is planning on submitting a proposal; and might need a little time, it would be good to let the us know that ASAP - you can send email to jnoller@python.org or the team at psf-redesign@python.org.

What matters is we can help. All of us - some of us (me) have been lucky enough to get help and support when we needed it most from people we didn't expect it from. To this day, I can't think about that without tears coming to my eyes. I can not imagine his pain - and I can not put myself in his shoes - it is place I dare not go.

We can help him; we can help his family. Even if only a little, and even though we know what the future will hold.

Read what he has written; help him if you can and are able.

Even if you can not help him financially; help him with words: Sometimes words are all we can pass on, but they're powerful and they mean more than you could possibly imagine. When you're in a dark and hopeless place, kind words and wishes of hope can mean the difference between retaining hope and sanity and giving up.

You can see the RFP here: http://pythonorg-redesign.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

It's taken me several years of false starts, other attempts (including skunkworks attempts), political and social discussions, and the hard work of many to make this come to fruition. Now, we can only sit back and hope that we see some amazing proposals from the community and others.

I sincerely hope this will be successful, and that we will see a modern, well designed Python.org that showcases not only the language, but the vibrant, open, welcoming and active community we are all part of. 

A letter to my love, my friend, my wife and my partner - Dusty:

I know it's the day before Valentines - some things can't wait just for a day.

Ten years - that's how long we've been with one another. Ten years feels like a lifetime - so much has changed - our lives altered in subtle - and not so subtle ways by the gentle currents of each other. In the time I've known you, we have both changed for the better - we compliment and act as one another's confidant, friend, partner and lovers.

"The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable." - Victor Hugo

We've been through our times of trial - little things like accidentally renting an apartment in a war zone (my bad!) - and much bigger things from health, to finances, to not know what we were doing or where we were going. We both know that this past year has been probably the one most filled with trials and tribulations.

We've sat across from one another not knowing what we were going to do, we've held each others hands watching our infant daughter laying in a hospital bed - I've held your hand at your bedside in watching your pain and not knowing what to do about it, except to sit there and watch your pain. We've been through a lot in ten years.

Despite the trials - we have made each other stronger. You have changed who I am in such fundamental and subtle ways, that I attribute much of who I am now, to you. You have made me happier, stronger, more empathetic - you have also given me the cherished gift of your love, your tears and support in my times of pain.

You have given me more than just your love; you gave me our first daughter Abby - who might as well be a tiny clone of myself in female form (god help us all), who despite her willfulness and strong personality makes my heart jump each time I hear her laugh, each time she runs to me and hugs me and tell me she loves me.

Abby is almost five! Five years old! All parents gush about how smart their children are - but we both know there's something special and unique about her. There's more to her than a pushy 4.5 year old, there's something magical about her that we both see. I can not verbalize or put to words my thanks to you for her. She's a gift you've given to me.

Then there is Addison, our bubbling eight month old. What can I say about someone who greats me with a smile and a laugh whether it's five in the morning, or me just coming home from a hard day at work?

Addison is more than a gift; she's a blessing - the past year shows that even in our darkest hours, sitting there in a hospital not knowing what will happen, something watches over us. Addison's happiness and flourishing is not just due to doctors, or therapists - it's directly tied to the amazing love and care you provide to her.

Every time I look at Addison, I see an extension of you - your smile, your happiness (and when she giggles when she rams me with her walker, your sense of humor). Addison is again, a gift and blessing you've given me.

You've given me so much; you've changed me so much. You've made me look outside of myself and think of others - you, our daughters, you've driven me to try to change the world and help as many people as I can. You've driven me to be better - a better man, a better husband, father and human.

Times change - people change. We have our hard times - we have those times when we both want to go lock ourselves in the bathroom just to get a moment of quiet. We have times when we just don't know what will come, and times when we wish what had came had not. We have persevered over the hard times we've faced until now, and those hard times we face now, we face together, as one.

You are beautiful - you always have been, you are strong - you are honest and critical. I might say half-jokingly that you're my better half some times - but you really and truly are (You are also better looking than me!).

You, and the gifts have given me - our daughters, have given me more than a reason to just keep working, just to keep moving from day to day. You've given me a reason to truly live, to truly push myself beyond anything I could have imagined eleven years ago. You've given me a place and arms to cry in, to laugh in, and to grow in. You've given me a view of life, of living, of loving I never dreamed of having.

I know that once again we face hard times. I thought that perhaps this year might be a little easier on us - but so far, we both know it isn't, and there are probably harder times coming for us. I am sorry that I can not always give to you all the things you so richly deserve - I'd give you anything, I'd buy you anything if I could. I am sorry I don't have anything I can give you today other than my words - darn those hard times!

My gift to you is this - my expression of how much I truly value you, cherish you and how grateful I am - in spite of all the hard times - the good times, the memories, our daughters and most importantly our love. I am but a broken man, but with you I am whole.

Thank you for being who you are.

Thank you for being with me.

Thank you for loving me.

Thank you for letting me love you in return.

Jesse

p.s. Churchill loves you too:

You can see from the post quite a bit of the capital spent goes to support other conferences - as I've stated before, money that comes into the foundation in the forms of donations and PyCon "revenue" goes back into the system to be issued out to things like this.

This is why I am so hot to encourage grants around Porting to Python 3 - I think that the PSF can, in the next year, increase grant work for conference and outreach as well as developer work (such as porting libraries and other projects). None of these things should be solely focused on CPython alone - PyPy, Jython, etc should all be recipients of grants.

And therein lies the rub.

The PSF does not "go looking" for places to issue grants - the PyPy grant at PyCon 2011 was a bit of an aberration in that I proposed it to the board directly.

We need applications from the community! We can do things such as cover meetup fees for user groups, or help fund conferences, or development work. Jessica McKellar, I and others recently revamped the PSF grants page to hopefully provide a better outline of how grants work.

If you have more questions - feel free to ask me here or via email - the PSF's mission is happily broad, and we're here to serve and represent the community as best we can. But we do need to hear from you!

In this post's case, I'm taking stock of the things that changed for me - things that stick out in my mind and projects I've either started, floundered or run completely into ground.

Design and Experience Matter

Perhaps the biggest shift for me in Python-as-a-whole is a movement more towards the social / management aspects. I'm a Python Software Foundation board member, so obviously me needing to take a "bigger view" isn't that surprising. What has been surprising to me is that everywhere I turn, I see things we as a whole can do better.

Now, before you think I'm about to go off the deep end; let me assure you - I wouldn't trade the community I'm lucky to be part of for anything, as I've said more eloquently before. However, only a fool believes that anything is perfect, and only the insane only focus on the flaws.

Taking a step back, I've seen more and more things that I think we can do a better job at, and these realizations all revolve around my continued "transition" from more back-end to more front-end design and coding. As I've become more focused on the users/community and those who are new, I've grown to internalize the fact that design and experience matter not only in code, and in a GUI, but they matter to a community and language as a whole.

I've spent the better part of this past year focused on issues around this - encouraging people to get involved in the "softer" side of things - helping out with documentation, mentorship and education, trying to get people to think more about one another and those just getting started and introduced to things.

I think that we as a community - and I mean everyone - from Django to Plone, from Twisted to Tornado, from PyPy to cPython can take a look at the "more human" aspects and find things to improve. Sometimes it requires fresh eyes to show you what's broken - people who do code reviews regularly know this.

For an example, look at Kenneth Reitz' Requests module - billed as "HTTP for Humans" - this might be a perfect example of the point I'm trying to get across. Built on top of "less friendly" libraries, it's API is a joy to use. It's simple, it's clear - the documentation is well done and the entire project feels very welcoming. Perhaps "Welcoming" is the best word for what I'm looking for.

I get stuck in wanting to fix "all the things" - and I can't help but get mired down in the details of how we make everything more welcoming and the experience better, how do we lower the barrier and reduce friction. The result is that I've broken my promises to myself and taken on more things than I can possibly hope to do justice.

How do we make things more welcoming, how do we help the new people, how do we help those of us growing stuck in our ways to find and explore new things? How can we do this as a community to lift us all up? What I think we need is a series of small, positive changes. Little things like, say:

• User friendly READMEs and Documentation. Yes - I said friendly - don't assume your users are magical super smart engineers and users. While the article is more web focused, I enjoyed "The Myth of the Sophisticated User" - please don't assume people are running bleeding edge version of everything, and please don't assume everyone knows 20 years of Python package development.
• Mentorship! Set up something within your project or team that is focused on mentoring people to a point where that person is comfortable to be a contributor.
• Stop the vitriol. If you find yourself angry when you're typing that reply to a mailing list; walk away. If you see others being hostile or just flat out rude, call them out on it (privately first, no reason to be a jerk). Aim to be polite and welcoming.
• The next time you're putting something up on the web? Take a moment to think about or learn about making something - yes - pretty and usable. Even if it's something simple, take a moment to realize that you're building something that may be your future user's first experience with you. It may be as simple as picking up "Design for Hackers" (which I quite liked) or just going with something with sane defaults - like twitter bootstrap.
• Speaking of sane defaults - please be opinionated. When a new user wants to install something, don't give them the complete history of packaging, just gently explain to them how to do it. Even if I don't agree with the way you do that, it's a far cry from 20 years of development history being dumped on someone when a simple pip install <blah> could work. The same goes for your software: Pick sane, rational defaults and abstract away as much as you can. Put examples of usage before the API in documentation.
• APIs and syntax matter: your communications channels to your users are APIs and syntax just as much as your actual code and libraries.

Moving on - I hate to say it this way; but think of the Users and target audience. Remember, you - the person reading this - and I - are in a tiny minority of the population where software (for the most part) isn't magic, we understand history and we're very tolerant of unfriendly things and failures because that's how we "grew up".

Not everyone knows how to build an interpreter; or a web framework - it doesn't mean they still can't contribute.

The Python Software Foundation

As most of you know - I am one of the directors of the Python Software Foundation, and have been the past two years. 2011 was another year where the PSF got to do some pretty cool things. I've been stressing and pushing more and more that the PSF has to be focused not just on the "IP" of Python, or just on cPython development - we have to take a larger view of the entire community - this means encouraging projects such as PyPy, outreach workshops, conferences, etc via grants and support.

You should really take a look at the Python Software Foundation's blog - Doug Hellmann, Brian Curtin and others have done their best to document and showcase what the PSF has been up to, and where we're trying to help.

My primary focus has been encouraging things such as the Outreach and Education committee, and working behind the scenes with a lot of people to improve the Python.org infrastructure. More recently I've been working on a project which should hopefully become public soon - but is tied to my first point about Design and Experience and the PSF.

I want the PSF to grow in the good works it performs - more grants as we can afford it, getting better hosting for things as needed, helping out projects like Read The Docs or helping push forward Python 3. The PSF is the Python Software Foundation - we need and should be supporting and helping everything from PyPy to PyPI, cPython to Scipy.

I think the best way for me to help here is to pick up where I left off documenting the PSF. Once again - the design and interface matter.

The Sprints Committee

As part of my board work back in 2010 I helped start the Python Sprints project - and under Brian Curtin's guidance in 2011, it has continued to make small donations in places it matters. In 2012, I'd like to see if I can spin back around and help it grow more and flourish, perhaps even be able to provide more money where it's needed. It's growth has been slow - but that's also due to us seeing less sprints overall it seems.

GetPython3.com

Started as a side project (yes. another one. sigh.) Get Python 3 is meant to serve as a pile of information and resources about Python 3 - and as many of the aspects of Python 3 as possible. Where to get funding, how to port, what is ported. I've actually gotten some excellent help from others (see github) and I'm hoping to grow it more. I've gotten pretty good feedback on it - and I never turn down a patch!

Python (Core) Mentorship

Driven from my experience with the first point about being welcoming, I've done my best to spin up the Python Core Mentorship group, a team / list focused on mentoring new people into contributing to core Python. To quote the home page:

The mission of the Python Core Mentor Program is to provide an open and welcoming place to connect students, programmers – and anyone interested in contributing to the Python Core development. This project is based on the idea that the best way to welcome new people into any project is a venue which connects them to a variety of mentors who can assist in guiding them through the contribution process, including discussions on lists such as python-dev, and python-ideas, the bug tracker, mercurial questions, code reviews, etc.

While traffic is low, I think it has done it's job - as with everything else on my list, I'd like to see growth - as it is, due to everything else on my plate, others have stepped up to help lead and guide the group. As it is, I've run into a case where as I've found with many other projects like this - people are already "tapped out" - myself included. More on resource contention later - and I should really do a poll and gauge the list for the relative level of success they feel the group has engendered.

Python Speed Project

Another side-burner project is the Speed.python.org project - this one makes me sad(der) than my other time-starved projects. While we have finally been able to set it up as a PyPy build slave and have it feeding results to speed.pypy.org (see the speed-python results), it has not taken off as much as I hoped. We have a beast of a machine (see my initial announcement) - but we've hit the resource wall like everything else. Not enough people with enough time and the right skills.

The Elephant in the room: PyCon 2012

My single biggest project this year has been getting PyCon 2012 ready to fly - everything from getting the new website launched, the staff assembled, writing a code of conduct, and providing white-glove service and support (and getting) our amazing list of sponsors.

I can't really estimate how many hours I've "worked" on Python - but I can tell you every hour has been worth it. Even though it's sucked my time from other things and projects, it looks like it's going to be an amazing conference. We have robots, we have amazing talks, amazing keynote and plenary speakers (Paul Graham and Stormy Peters for starters). We have awesome tutorials and even more to come.

PyCon represents the single biggest "community act" that the Python Software Foundation performs - not only does the PSF fund PyCon, but it manages it, assumes the risk, etc. I wrote about it in detail in my post "Making the Case for Sponsorship" and in the "Everybody Pays" post. I'm hoping to continue to write up more and more of the details of the inner workings of PyCon, as I think it's an important series of data points and lessons. Remember - any funds "left" from PyCon go the PSF which allow the foundation to issue grants to other conferences, to developers, groups and workshops. It helps us help you.

PyCon 2012 is the thing I am most proud of; we have 80 sponsors and partners (Such as OpenHatch and PyLadies), we have a solid team of organizers working together to bring PyCon 2012 to fruition. We have a robust financial aid program as is tradition. I can only hope that I have the tenacity and will to see it come together and be able to look at a sea of 1500 Pythonistas - new and old in Santa Clara.

ps: You can register here. :)

Blood from a Stone

How do you get more time from people who are busy? Time and Time again, I've found myself asking that question. Each one of the projects I've listed has hit the same issue over and over again. How do you get the volunteers necessary to help? Heck, even my call for help with multiprocessing in August fell on a mostly flat note - probably due to me.

I no longer feel "ok" asking for help with new projects simply due to the fact that I know everyone is busy - it's insane of me to ask people to take their time away from their projects or families or jobs.

What that means however is that I have completely failed in the not-taking-on-new-things department - and I don't see this changing much without me flat out learning to tell myself "no". I believe in this community - I believe in the people, the friends I have, the language and everything involved. It's not just another tool for me; it never has been. I'm still learning, and mostly failing (or flailing, depends on where I'm standing).

Finishing this one off

Looking at the list I've typed out above, I suddenly have the feeling that I didn't actually do much last year, I know thats wrong (a nasty look from my family members would easily remind me of that). I have been able to help out where I can making things more friendly, more welcoming and to reach out when and where I can to offer help, and support.

I've watched the community change in some dramatic ways, I've looked on as PyPy has gained amazing momentum, more and more vendors and companies have come out with Python support and stating that they're using Python (and are hiring). I've gotten to work with PSF members, the board, and many, many others - all I can do is keep at it, and hope I do things justice.

I've decided to break this reflection into two related parts - the more personal stuff (this one) and the big-P Python stuff - both have seen shifts and changes worth noting, and both are inextricably tied for me. I've intentionally skipped all of the Python** stuff (including PyCon) that I've been working on - that's going to come next.

Personal Changes

In late 2010 I was playing paintball - something which everyone should try at least once - it truly is a blast. However, at the time I was grossly overweight (280/285 lbs heading to 300) and running around outdoors with 20+ lbs of equipment. It was a normal Sunday game when I pivoted in the perfectly wrong way - my foot had gotten stuck in some tree roots and when I pivoted, my right knee dislocated and I collapsed face-first into a pile of tree branches.

I did not realize that my knee has dislocated, just that my leg wasn't working. I slapped my knee, hard, bent it and got up and kept playing. The adrenaline kept me going for several more hours while I continued to play on a knee of questionable veracity. When I got to my car a few hours later, all I knew is that my knee felt funny, and my cargo pants where tight where my knee was.

When I got home and changed, the truth came out. My knee had swollen to the size of a cantaloupe and turned several ugly colors. I figured I has injured it, and largely ignored it. Then the pain set in the next day.

Fast forward through many doctor appointments, MRIs, and two more dislocations - once getting my daughter out of the bathtub which required my wife to come in and put my knee back into place because I was busy crying on the floor, and the second just getting out of bed. My knee, from that initial dislocation had become very weak. The doctor told me flat out that I needed physical therapy and rehab, otherwise surgery was going to be required.

He told me I needed to change things. Looking at myself in the mirror, I realized that something had to be done - I was stressed, overweight and my path was out of whack. I couldn't deal with surgery with three year old and a now pregnant wife. I got a cortisone shot and went up the street to the local Bikram Yoga studio - I had never done yoga before - I walked in, slapped down some money and went into a 120 degree studio.

This is a photo of my from June 2010:

I became a Bikram convert over night - the owner of the local studio Bob is an amazing man, friendly, kind - all of the instructors helped me through learning and growing and pushing through the pain, the heat and everything that comes with a grossly overweight ex-smoker who was drinking 2+ pots of coffee a day jumping in head first. I quickly ramped to doing classes 3 times a week.

Additionally, I completely altered my diet - I've long dabbled in low-carb/no-carb/ketogenic, but this time I jumped in no-holds barred. No sugar, I cut my coffee intake to one cup a day, no carbs/gluten, period. 2011 came quickly, and I kept it up. Yoga, diet - lather, rinse and repeat. I shed enough weight that people at PyCon 2011 didn't recognize me. Good. Not good enough. Throughout 2011 I kept this up - dropping from an easy 280 lbs to 165 at my lowest. Later in the year I added weight lifting with coworkers at lunch - even later I started the couch to 5k program to start running (even doing it the "barefoot" way).

Now, as the year turns, I weigh a healthy 175 lbs - I've put on muscle mass, kept my flexibility, kept on my diet which has shifted into a more Paleo form than what it had been (mainly adding fruit back in, but still skipping carbs/gluten/sugar - I still mostly only eat meat and vegetables). I can now run for 30 minutes without feeling like death and hit 4.2 miles. My knee still bothers me sometimes, but I've dodged surgery. I can now look at my daughters and wife and hope that I'll be around a lot longer than I would have been had I not done these things. I feel more alive than ever before.

Me, December 2011:

During 2011, I also switched to an all standing desk setup (yup, despite the knee):

• "Switching to a Standing Desk"
• "The standing desk experiment - 5 months in"

I'm happy to say that this continues - thanks to an excellent gift from my wife, I even have a nice standing setup at home now. It's been over 7 months since I last sat down at work to work. Sure, I sit at lunch, and in the car - I'm not that weird, but I continue to reap the benefits I outlined in those posts.

I also started working on my mental health, and focus. Trying to learn how to meditate, working on minimizing distractions and building small improvements to my workflow. Focusing on being open to change and criticism. Focusing on things I had ignored for a long time.

You can't go and just fix your physical self - you have to take care of the mental aspects as well. I've had to learn this over and over the hard way, and it is still a daily fight between what I was, and what I want to me. I have to focus on small changes and improvements constantly - otherwise it's deadly simple to fall back on old ways.

I did a post some time ago - "On Family, Cranking and Changing" - I still read this once in awhile to remind myself where I need to go and what I need to accomplish. I can't lose sight.

Now for the hard part.

Children

2011 also brought my family to the brink - and I mean that in the literal sense. There was a time where my wife and I would look at each other hopelessly, wondering what we would do and how we would pull through. In June, we had our second daughter Addison Joy. The pregnancy was really rough and my coworkers and boss supported me through the needed "disappearing". My wife spent a lot of time in the hospital, and there were many times where we were worried that things wouldn't work out.

Luckily, my wife - and Addison, pulled through. I don't know how they did it, and I suspect we've burnt a lifetime of karma and luck in just a few months, but they both came through. Addison was born, and I once again new the joys and pains of having a new born daughter. Throughout all of this, our oldest daughter Abigail trooped on through - it was a lot to ask for a 3/4 year old, but she continually amazed me. To look at her face and see how much she worships and loves her mother - to see how she loves Addison - that's to know something you'll never see anywhere else.

Not everything was well - and we didn't know it yet, but the worst storm was yet to come.

To quote my post - "Thank you - the impossibility of "It's going to be OK"":

But, so, AJ was born - and at first, everything seemed to be fine. 10 fingers, 10 toes and pooping - that's sort of what you hope for in a newborn. We took her home, she saw her pediatrician, and that was that.

Well, no. Around the time Addison was three weeks old (shortly before my first child's birthday) my wife Dusty started noticing that Addison was behaving erratically/oddly - and if you have any experience with infants, you'd know how hard it is to actually determine "odd" behavior. Almost everything they do is odd, down to timing exactly the worst moment when to spit up on you (point of fact - it is after you've showered, and are walking out the door).

In this case, the odd behavior my wife noticed was actually a pattern - and that's when you need to worry. You want consistency in certain areas, you want to see continual improvement, you want them to consistently eat, poop and sleep. However, a pattern of odd movements tipped my wife (who is a fantastic analyst) off that something was not quite right.

What my wife found was that Addison for periods of time anywhere from 1-2 minutes her eyes would slit and roll back and she would freeze up. The best way to describe it is it was almost as if she would just "check out" - as if someone hit a power switch.

It's still hard for me to read that post - it's difficult for me to communicate the emotions - the fear, the outright terror of not knowing what was wrong with our baby girl. More hospitals, more doctors. My new born daughter with a helmet of leads and electrodes coming off of her head. Sleeping in cots in hospital rooms. My wife eloquently wrote a series of posts:

• "Welcome AJ"
• "One of Many Hard Days"
• "The Diagnosis and moving forward"
• "Updates"
• "God, Are you there?"
• "I make her smile"

Something I say in that thank you post is something that will stick in my mind forever. When my friends and people I barely knew in the Python community heard and saw what we were going through as a family, the support we got was flooring. It still makes me tear up thinking of all the cards, well wishes and other things - a little toy for Abigail, Doug Napoleone coming over to help me out with something, everything that the Python community did for our family. It is, and was amazing. I can never thank all of you enough for what you did for us, and how you helped us pull through.

The number of emails I got from other parents in the community who suffered through things like this, the well wishes - I, I can't even go into everything that happened. Words can not express it. All I can say is that many times, my wife and I found ourselves in tears, crying with one another because of some act or gift or email from someone in the community.

In October, I did a quick Google+ post, providing an update on how things had panned out - quoting that post:

Addison's diagnosis - if you want to call it that - is Cerebral Palsy - Hypertonia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertonia). This means that she does have a disorder, but it's not one treated with drugs - just physical therapy and frequent checkups. We have a nurse and a physical therapist who come weekly and check on her thanks to early intervention. She's developing well - she's eating baby food, smiling and generally being a normal baby. All we have to do is keep up with the therapy and in theory her brain will "auto correct" as time goes on. She's 17lbs and counting at just about 5 months and just giving hints of crawling.

In addition to the hypertonia, she was diagnosed with non epileptic seizures - again, not something we can do much about other than to love her, keep up with checkups and wait.

So that's where we are - we have a happy, cooing, laughing, happy baby and just have to keep a close eye on her and work through things that come up. It's too early to tell if her problems will have long term consequences. The doctors all hope that she's "error correct" around these things and she'll be OK. But we won't know until we see her development at 6 months, 9 months and 1 year - we still have that "threat" that something could happen - her brain could stop developing, or conditions could get worse.

But its hard to think about that - because I don't see the problems - every day, I pick up and hold and play with a beautiful, cheerful baby who wants nothing more than to chew on my fingers (she's teething) and laugh. I don't think about the future much, because it's unknowable, and we'll cross that bridge when it comes. Sometimes it pops into my head - that worry, that doubt, and I push it to the side and think of what we've already gone through.

It's now December - almost January. Addison has continued to thrive - the fear and the worry aren't forgotten - we have regular visits from a physical therapist and nurse to continually check on her. She still has some issues we continue to work through, and we've got a series of appointments with neurology specialists, but its hard to think that anything is "wrong" with her at all.

She's almost 20lbs (huge baby!) - she's babbling, she's gotten her first tooth (on christmas eve to boot) - she loves her walker and worships her sister. She laughs more than any baby I've ever seen, and that laugh is angelic. I don't know what the future holds, and I don't know how long our luck will hold out, but what I do know is that I have two beautiful daughters who have changed my life forever.

I have found friends where I did not expect, compatriots and support. I have found that my coworkers, community and friends are more amazing than I could have ever expected. And Addison thanks you:

Finally, Work

I love my job, what more is there to say? 2011 was a break out year for me personally - and a break out year for Nasuni - we've built something amazing, something that companies want. With any luck, we have begun to change how businesses will store their data and what they come to expect from an enterprise class product. I get to do what I love, with people that are awesome.

Of course, 2011 found me growing more into doing things I never really expected to be doing - I've continued a shift from the back end/glue and more into the front-end, spending most of my time working on user interfaces, beating my head against internet explorer. I've spent more time in JavaScript than I care to admit. Learning CSS, re-learning design, layout, thinking constantly about user experience, staring at color palettes for days.

And I - We - are far from done. I've mentally grown into a mindset that "UI" (user interface) doesn't just stand for the graphic design of a site - and that UX (user experience) isn't just about how things are laid out on a page. UI/UX has to be thought about from the part the user sees, feels and uses all the way down to the lowest level API of your system.

Good Design (notice the big D) means APIs matter. It means that everything from error messages, to documentation to customer support and care matter. You can't ignore any of it. You can't slap a CSS framework into place and think you're done with "Design". It means caring about the user completely, and without regard to your biases or skills.

Good Design also matters in communities - user experience, interfaces - thinking about others - of course, I'm getting ahead of myself and delving into the second post.

Wrapping this one up

On a personal level - 2011 was a year I doubt I'll forget any time soon. It's been a mixture of pain and pleasure and constant evolution and change. 2011 changed who I fundamentally am as a person, and I hope I'll never be the same.

Again, thank you all - you know who you are.

And to my family: Dusty, Addison, and Abigail (who is so smart it scares me) - I love you.

Here is a working example (forms.py) - just so I don't forget it:

from django import forms
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from django.contrib.auth.forms import UserCreationForm

class UserCreateForm(UserCreationForm):
    email = forms.EmailField(required=True)

    class Meta:
        model = User
        fields = ("username", "email", "password1", "password2")

    def save(self, commit=True):
        user = super(UserCreateForm, self).save(commit=False)
        user.email = self.cleaned_data["email"]
        if commit:
            user.save()
        return user

You have to modify the save method on the form to add the email to user object returned by the super call. You can use this to expose other fields on the User object as needed.

Recent posts and discussions around porting of existing libraries and frameworks to Python 3 have been pretty interesting. I think that there have been a lot of good points brought up in the discussion (See: Armin's Post (and followup), Nick's entry on Python 3 and Nick's email to Python-Ideas).

On a personal level; I've felt frustrated that there's not much that I can do myself - I do believe that 2.7 is the proper end of the road of Python 2, and I do think that Python 3 is the future of the language. Does that mean Python 3 is perfect? Oh hell no. Does it mean that we can do work to make Python 3 the "Python 3" we all want and need?

Yes it does.

So; while there is nothing I can do directly other than continue to work on the site I've been slowly building - GetPython3.com with help from the community - there is an aspect I can help with from a Python Software Foundation / Grants level. That means money (well, not unlimited).

As some of you might know - the PSF has actually issued grants to developers who have applied to port important libraries to Python 3 - as I say on the GetPython3 page:

In short: yes - there's a bevy of information, videos and blog posts out there that can help you on your way. Python 3 is the future of the Python language, and entities such as the Python Software Foundation strongly believe in supporting the porting effort.

For example, the Python Software Foundation has issued developer grants to port projects such as the email package, PyOpenSSL, and WebOb. It has also provided developer grants for other general Python development work, such as to Brett Cannon that allowed him to completely revamp the Python developer's guide.

The Python Software Foundation is here for not just CPython, or python-core, or python-the-language. It is here for Python - the community, it's efforts, its developers, designers and people.

Certain projects - most notably PyPy - have already started donation programs to help fund large-scale development efforts to Python 3. Others may soon follow.

Additionally to the grants-to-developers aspect - the PSF Sprints project has been issuing grants for Python sprints in general, which means you can apply / ask for a grant for a port-to-python3 workshop or sprint any time!

But; back to where I was going...

My offer to you, the community is this - I can not guarantee you will get a grant, or funding - but what I can do, and what is within my power as a fellow member and PSF Director is offer to help write, and review applications to the PSF Board of directors for grant applications.

That's right - I will assist you in writing an application that will be submitted to the PSF Board for approval, for grants aimed at porting libraries or frameworks to Python 3; or doing specific documentation / core work for Python 3. I can help you write it; provide templates, discuss it with you (I may have some elves help me) and ultimately help you put it in front of the board for approval.

Obviously; the PSF does not have unlimited funds; nor can it spend funds irrationally. Python 3 is important however - critically so - and while we can not fund everything, we can do what we can. I am aiming at libraries/frameworks which are in widespread use (e.g. notable) and that other projects/libraries/frameworks depend on heavily (for example, see the Py3k poll).

Before getting started, you should read the basic PSF Grant guidelines and you should look through the information on http://getpython3.com/.

If you are interested in this; drop an email to jnoller@python.org - I don't promise immediate up-to-the-second turn around - I've obviously got a lot on my plate right now, but I will do my best to help.