layout: post

title: "PyDelhi Conf 2017: A beautiful conference happened in New Delhi, India"

date: "2017-07-21 18:14:03 +0530"

tag:

- python

- conference

- django

- talks

![PyDelhi Conf

2017]({{site.url}}/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/group_photo.jpg)

[PyDelhi conf 2017][pydelhi_conf_2017] was a two-day conference which featured

workshops, dev sprints, both full-length and lightning talks. There were

workshop sessions without any extra charges. Delhiites should not miss the

chance to attend this conference in future. I conducted a workshop titled

**“Tango with Django”** helping beginners to understand the Django web

framework.

![PyDelhi

Community]({{site.url}}/assets/images/pydelhi_conf_2017/pydelhi_community.jpg)

<p class="center"> PyDelhi conf 2017 volunteers </p>

The [PyDelhi community][pydelhi_community] was known as NCR Python Users Group

before few years. This community is performing a role of an umbrella

organization for other FLOSS communities across New Delhi, India. They are

actively arranging monthly [meetups][pydelhi_meetup] on interesting topics. Last

[PyCon India](https://in.pycon.org/2016/) which is a national level conference

of Python programming language was impressively organized by this community.

This year too they took the responsibility of managing it. I am very thankful to

this community for their immense contribution to this society. If you are around

New Delhi, India then you should not miss the chance to attend their

[meetups][pydelhi_meetup]. This community has great people who are always happy

to mentor.


<p class="center"> Conference T-shirt </p>

PyDelhi conf is a regional level conference of Python programming language

organized by PyDelhi community. It is their second year organizing this

conference. Last year it was located at [JNU University](http://www.jnu.ac.in).

This year it happened at [IIM, Lucknow](https://www.iiml.ac.in/) campus based in

Noida, New Delhi, India. I enjoyed various talks which I will mention later

here, a workshops section because I was conducting one and some panel

discussions because people involved were having a good level of experience. 80%

of the time slot was divided equally between 30 minutes talk and 2-hour workshop

section. 10% were given to panel discussions and 10% was reserved for lightning

talks. The dev sprints were happening in parallel with the conference. The

early slot was given to workshops for both the days. One large conference hall

was located on a 2nd floor of the building and two halls at the ground floor.

Food and beverages were served on the base floor.


<p class="center"> Panel Discussion </p>


<p class="center"> Registration desk </p>


<p class="center"> Tea break </p>


* [**Mr. Ricardo Rocha:**](

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardo-rocha-739aa718/?ppe=1) Mr. Rocha is a

software engineer at [CERN][cern]. I got some time to talk with him

post-conference. We discussed his responsibilities at [CERN][cern]. I was

impressed when he explained how he is managing infrastructure with his team.

On inquiring opportunities available at [CERN][cern] he mentioned that the

organization is always looking for the talented developers. New grads can

keep an eye on various Summer Internship Programs which are very similar to

Google Summer of Code program.


* [**Mr. Chris Stucchio:**](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/) Mr. Stucchio is

director of Data Science at [Wingify/ VWO](https://vwo.com/). I found him

physically fit compared to other software developers (mostly of India). I

didn’t get much time to have a word with him.

Because I took the wrong metro train, I was late for the inaugural ceremony. I

also missed a keynote given by Mr. Rocha. Below talks were impressively

presented at the conference.

* [**Let’s talk about GIL by Mr. Amit Kumar:**](

https://youtu.be/CwTnUvHo6d8?list=PL3Aq1JLV2oFZFzSGsDUcc6BieBEvUDzJg)

[Mr. Kumar](http://iamit.in/) discussed various ways to trace threads first and

then moved the track towards Global Interpreter Lock. He described why the GIL

is important in [CPython][cpython].

* [**Concurrency in Python 3.0 world - Oh my! by Mr. Anand Pillai:**](

https://youtu.be/QCZ31d9dqF4?list=PL3Aq1JLV2oFZFzSGsDUcc6BieBEvUDzJg)

[Mr. Pillai][mr_anand] is well experienced in programming using Python

language. I like getting his advices on various programming topics. He

explained how [async][async] IO can be leveraged to boost your programs. I got

few correct references on understanding latest API of the [async][async]

library.

* [**Property based testing 101 by Aniket

Maithani:**](https://youtu.be/n5xUTcsrRns) I always enjoy chit chatting with

[Mr. Maithani](http://www.aniketmaithani.net/) during conferences. He has

jolly nature and always prepared with one liner. He discussed various

strategies for generating demo data for test cases. I was amazed by his

references, tips and tricks for generating test data.

I love discussing with people rather than sit in on sessions. With that

ace-reason, I always lose some important talks presented at the conference. I do

not forget to watch them once they are publicly available. This year I missed

following talks.

* [**Optimizing Django for building high-performance systems by Mr. Sanyam

Khurana**](https://youtu.be/I41LTEWzluU)

* [**Mocking in Python by Mr. Saurabh Kumar**](https://youtu.be/xo9QhfaefzY)

I got a warm invitation by the organizers to join the volunteer party, but I was

little tensed about my session happening on the next day. So, I decided to go

home and improve the slides. I heard from friends that the party was awesome!


<p class="center"> Me conducting workshop </p>

I conducted a workshop on Django web framework. “Tango with Django” was chosen

as a title with a thought of attracting beginners. I believe this title is

already a name of famous book solving the same purpose.

* [Slides](https://www.slideshare.net/jaysinhp/tango-with-django-78119081)

* [Video Youtube](https://youtu.be/jr6LWM7Yquk)


<p class="center"> Me hacking at dev sprints section </p>

The dev sprints were happening parallel with the conference. [Mr.

Pillai][mr_anand] was representing

[Junction](https://github.com/pythonindia/junction). I decided to test few

issues of [CPython][cpython] but didn’t do much. There were a bunch of people

hacking but didn’t find anything interesting. The quality of chairs was so an

impressive that I have decided to buy the same for my home office.

* **Free Workshops:** The conference has great slot of talks and workshops.

Workshops are being conducted by field experts without expecting any other

fees. This can be one of the great advantages you leverage from this

conference.

* **Student discounts:** If you are a student then you will receive a discount

on the conference ticket.

* **Beginner friendly platform:** If you are novice speaker than you will get

mentorship from this community. You can conduct a session for beginners.

* **Networking:** You will find senior employees of tech giants, owner of

innovative start-ups and professors from well-known universities participating

in this conference. It can be a good opportunity for you to network with

them.

* **Lecture hall arrangement:** It was difficult to frequently travel to the

second floor and come back to the ground floor. I found most people were

spending their time on the ground floor rather than attending talks going on

upstairs.

* **No corporate stalls:** Despite having corporate sponsors like Microsoft I

didn’t find any stall of any company.

* **The venue for dev sprints:** The rooms were designed for teleconference

containing circularly arranged wooden tables. This was not creating a

collaborative environment. Involved projects were not frequently promoted

during the conference.

I would like to thank all the known, unknown volunteers who performed their best

in arranging this conference. I am encouraging [PyDelhi][pydelhi_community]

community for keep organizing such an affable conference.

* [Conference Photos](https://www.flickr.com/groups/pydelhi/)

* [Talk videos](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3Aq1JLV2oFZFzSGsDUcc6BieBEvUDzJg)

Dhavan Vaidya](http://codingquark.com/), [Mr. Sayan

Chowdhury](https://sayanchowdhury.dgplug.org/), [Mr. Trent

Buck](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TrentBuck)

[pydelhi_conf_2017]:https://conference.pydelhi.org

[pydelhi_community]:https://pydelhi.org/

[pydelhi_meetup]:http://wwww.meetup.com/pydelhi

[cern]:https://home.cern/

[mr_anand]:https://youtu.be/I41LTEWzluU

[cpython]:https://github.com/python/cpython

[async]:https://docs.python.org/3/library/asyncio.html