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

2017-07-21T12:44:03+00:00

TL;DR

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.

Detailed Review

About the PyDelhi community

PyDelhi conf 2017 volunteers

The 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 on interesting topics. Last PyCon India 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. This community has great people who are always happy to mentor.

PyDelhi conf 2017

Conference T-shirt

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. This year it happened at IIM, Lucknow 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.

Panel Discussion

Registration desk

Tea break

Keynote speakers

Mr. Ricardo Rocha: Mr. Rocha is a software engineer at CERN. I got some time to talk with him post-conference. We discussed his responsibilities at CERN. I was impressed when he explained how he is managing infrastructure with his team. On inquiring opportunities available at 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: Mr. Stucchio is director of Data Science at Wingify/ VWO. 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.

Interesting Talks

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: Mr. Kumar 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.
Concurrency in Python 3.0 world - Oh my! by Mr. Anand Pillai: Mr. Pillai is well experienced in programming using Python language. I like getting his advices on various programming topics. He explained how async IO can be leveraged to boost your programs. I got few correct references on understanding latest API of the async library.
Property based testing 101 by Aniket Maithani: I always enjoy chit chatting with Mr. Maithani 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.

Volunteer Party

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!

My workshop session

Me conducting workshop

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.

Dev sprints

Me hacking at dev sprints section

The dev sprints were happening parallel with the conference. Mr. Pillai was representing Junction. I decided to test few issues of 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.

Why attend this conference?

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.

What was missing?

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.

Thank you PyDelhi community!

I would like to thank all the known, unknown volunteers who performed their best in arranging this conference. I am encouraging PyDelhi community for keep organizing such an affable conference.

Jaysinh’s own heed