This week we welcome Shauna Gordon-McKeon as our PyDev of the Week! Shauna runs her own consulting business, Galaxy Rise Consulting and is a Django enthusiast. She has also spoken at several Python conferences! If this interview isn’t enough for you, you can learn more about Shauna over on the Django Girls blog.
Let’s spend some time getting to know her!
Why did you start using Python?
Right out of college I was working in a neuroimaging lab. We used Matlab to present our stimuli and to do the bulk of data analysis, but there was a lot of data cleaning and other odds and ends that needed doing. There were two experienced programmers in our lab, one who favored Perl and one who favored Python. My desk was right next to the one who favored Python…
What other programming languages do you know and which is your favorite?
Other than Python, right now I’m most fluent with JavaScript. In the past I’ve also been immersed in PHP, Java, R, and as I mentioned Matlab, and there’s a couple other languages like Lisp and Ruby I’ve played around with a little. I’ve found that if I’m not actively working in a language I grow rusty pretty quickly, which is only a good thing if the language is Rust.
What projects are you working on now?
My main project is Concord, which is a governance library I’ve been working on for a couple years. The goal is to enable developers to build sites which empower communities to democratically self-govern. I’ve learned a ton about Python and about software architecture and of course about governance from working on it…
What is your favorite thing about the Python community?
I appreciate how seriously it takes inclusivity and, even more simply, kindness. There are technical communities which are very unpleasant to be in. I feel for folks who need to be in those spaces for career reasons, or because it’s the only way to do the work they love. Life is too short to have to be constantly dealing with cruelty or bigotry…
Is there anything the Python community could do better?
…Something else I’d like to tackle is our relationship to industry. Many of us are employed in the tech industry, and many of the big tech firms sponsor PyCon and the PSF, but sometimes these companies are engaged in deeply unethical behavior. My hope is that as a community we can draw some lines in the sand and say, you know, if you make money from separating children from their families, you can’t have a table in our expo hall. If you illegally fire workers for organizing to improve their workplace, we don’t want your donation. That’s a discussion we need to have as a community, and I hope we have it.
Thanks for doing the interview, Shauna!
The rest of the post PyDev of the Week: Shauna Gordon-McKeon appeared first on The Mouse Vs. The Python.
from The Mouse Vs. The Python https://ift.tt/3lUcQh3