Will Vincent

Developer 🥑 at JetBrains
🐍 Python Software Foundation (npub1vv8…6fhk) Fellow
:django: former Django (npub1l0c…kt92) board member
✍️ https://learndjango.com/books/ - Django for Beginners/APIs/Professionals
:github: https://github.com/wsvincent

Old posts are automatically deleted after a while.

PERSONAL WEBSITE: https://wsvincent.com
WEBSITE: https://learndjango.com
GITHUB: https://github.com/wsvincent

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Last Notes

2026-04-27 17:40:42 UTC

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Right, very cheap, but also need a middle class with spending power as customers. That to me has always been the issue.
US business owners were happy to sell out their workers for more $ moving production abroad. But I suspect we'll see more and more protectionism in the future, and so where are the customers?

2026-04-27 14:56:50 UTC

Gary's Economics most recent video is
"Will AI destroy the economy?" and he makes the point that past technological revolutions had a market of consumers to sell into. Britain during the Industrial Revolution sold into the whole world. China has sold for the last 30 years into the U.S. middle class. Who is AI selling into? Where is an undiscovered pocket of consumers with money willing to displace an incumbent? Programmers alone aren't enough.
https://youtu.be/DBvrwWoyYQM?si=5MNWjOpaCrO_eTW-
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/477/250/108/882/012/original/81dd3f1e20cf4468.png

2026-04-16 16:38:53 UTC

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I love the PyTV shirt! And the rest of it.

2026-04-16 16:37:38 UTC

I decided to do a super simple Django blog tutorial and repo.
https://github.com/wsvincent/django-blog
Likely the launching point for a bunch of future tutorials around deployment....
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/415/361/753/168/764/original/323e17c36c6be230.mp4

2026-04-15 21:17:16 UTC

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Yes! Such an enlightening chat. I hope everyone in Athens gives you feedback and kudos on it.

2026-04-15 21:06:31 UTC

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Thank you!

2026-04-13 12:24:24 UTC

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Maybe you are aware of this? I shared the piece with someone in the UK who received this notification.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/397/378/248/824/296/original/1c7ec3935472fe6e.png

2026-04-10 23:05:42 UTC

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This is an impressive piece of writing. Well done.

2026-04-10 14:18:01 UTC

Dealing with dead links on a Friday morning.
https://wsvincent.com/dead-links-2026-edition/
Tried to vibe code a fix, which half worked. Ended up correcting Claude quite a bit. Probably would have been faster to just do it manually. Only was able to fix it at all cause I've had to manually fight with DNS, Jekyll, Cloudflare, Netlify, and so on for years. :eyeroll:
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/380/835/928/735/007/original/41c94907139b7d12.png

2026-04-09 10:54:07 UTC

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How do you really feel this morning? But more seriously, yes to all this.

2026-04-08 18:37:51 UTC

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Need to connect it to your web browser as well for a full analysis I would suspect.

2026-04-07 13:50:51 UTC

Them: How's it going today?
Me: Great, thanks for asking.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/363/744/517/632/167/original/54328d1e7d1be4a1.mp4

2026-04-03 11:27:53 UTC

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Thank you for that! Jeff is a great colleague on it and other projects. It means that when one of us needs a week or two off, the other picks up the slack. Essential for keeping up with a weekly cadence.

2026-04-03 11:24:00 UTC

Welp edition 331 of Django News Newsletter is out. Hard to believe @npub1nsp…ahke and I have been doing this for over 7 years now, every single week.
We're at 4,300ish subscribers: large enough to reach the people who influence Django, small enough to be a drop in the ocean of developers actually using Django.
It's a somewhat odd place to be.
https://django-news.com/issues/331#start
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/340/518/802/289/038/original/2f7ec6426bdfed59.png

2026-04-02 18:48:21 UTC

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It's worth reading/viewing both more than once. The book is so good though. Wow.

2026-04-02 18:47:39 UTC

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I'm waiting for one of these models to add an easter egg that puts your face on the pelican Simon.

2026-04-02 18:15:42 UTC

https://browsergate.eu/ tl;dr LinkedIn Searching Your Computer via Chrome browser extensions
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/336/473/539/067/614/original/bf2552be5d4a99cb.png

2026-04-02 17:25:34 UTC

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You summed up essentially my thoughts as well here. Good piece.

2026-04-02 16:33:33 UTC

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Search functionality on your site would be nice. Since you liked Paterson, I'm curious what you think of Train Dreams and The Tree of Life.

2026-04-02 16:31:47 UTC

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I am pleased you liked Paterson though. I loved that movie and saw it when it came out. If you didn't like THAT then I was really going to question your taste 😉
https://www.jmduke.com/posts/paterson-2016.html

2026-04-02 16:31:01 UTC

A non technical thought for a change, but I was reading through [@jmduke](https://hachyderm.io/@jmduke ) excellent site with movie reviews, and I have to disagree around Tinker Tailor Solider Spy. I love this book and I think this movie is magnificent. Definitely a 5 star movie for me, not 3!
https://www.jmduke.com/posts/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-2011.html

2026-04-01 22:53:33 UTC

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Thank you for your service. Generally not funny people making not funny and confusing announcements on this day is not something I will ever understand.

2026-04-01 22:50:15 UTC

Me: Can't wait to watch Artemis II live launch.
NASA: Hold my beer....
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/331/891/115/071/901/original/cb40d8e0733b3c61.png

2026-04-01 21:13:04 UTC

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https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/331/510/517/040/357/original/cef19fef1036bf0e.png

2026-04-01 13:28:07 UTC

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This one was really out there. I found myself asking, who is the author again? What is he smoking? I know Yegge likes to take big swings and is clearly super smart, but yikes. Never have I felt more like Kermit here.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/329/681/691/774/084/original/ed1393579a753bd1.mp4

2026-04-01 13:25:53 UTC

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The adversarial AI agent said the code generated by the other AI agent was good, so what's the issue? (sarcasm)

2026-04-01 13:25:07 UTC

The latest Django Chat episode is out with the one and only @npub18ae…55j8!
We talk about his latest book, how he's using Django today, incorporating AI tools, consulting work at Rippling, and all the things. It's always a pleasure to chat with Adam.
🎤 https://djangochat.com/episodes/boost-your-github-dx-adam-johnson
🎥 https://youtu.be/PWzy1MEV-8g?si=5DaFE2pAVnWaCtS8
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/329/663/080/063/026/original/e9bae281ce7559a3.png

2026-03-31 15:23:38 UTC

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This is a poor take. If you look at the open source code you'll see that drf-spectacular has been there long before LLMs became public. You are also welcome to contribute and improve this if you have strong opinions.
Dumping on maintainers and alleging AI slop when that is factually wrong is not cool.

2026-03-24 16:18:49 UTC

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🐴 🛏️

2026-03-19 16:20:57 UTC

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Or premium and future tools only being for OpenAI and companies. I share your caution. It's not just an acquihire.

2026-03-19 16:18:16 UTC

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I would say Charlie and the Astral team have handled everything extremely well so far. But... hard to know.

2026-03-19 16:07:46 UTC

OpenAI acquiring Astral is sending shockwaves through the Python and AI programming communities.
I believe it opens up a 4th way to solve a historic problem: how to fund open source.
https://wsvincent.com/openai-acquiring-astral/
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/256/689/424/730/518/original/efdf5b75bf8b73af.png

2026-03-13 13:51:45 UTC

I wrote up a recap of the PyTV Python Unplugged conference last week.
Lots of photos and some insights into all the effort required for just a one day event. Hats off to organizers of multi-day events like @npub1wcx…kjdc, @npub1zsj…wjsv, and @npub1alk…dg9z!
https://blog.jetbrains.com/pycharm/2026/03/python-unplugged-on-pytv-recap/
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/222/190/107/569/065/original/4221340622c63efe.png

2026-02-23 13:16:10 UTC

If you are NOT reading the London Review of Books on the regular, try out this latest piece on Updike and see if it is of interest.
So many laugh-out-loud phrases that only a Brit could write. I can't quote most of them here.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n03/james-wolcott/what-you-can-get-away-with

2026-02-22 18:43:00 UTC

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What are the steps to avoid? I mean, it's like worrying about the end of the universe, not much we can do until it happens, but everything I've seen is that unless there is a big change in LLM architecture (likely, though we don't know what) it's hard to avoid model collapse at some point soonish. Anyhoo. I'll use the tools until then. Not much action we can take.

2026-02-22 14:04:54 UTC

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I'd also add that a coding flow where ONE model writes the code and ANOTHER checks it will be the default. Also there should be good default prompts for a Python file versus all coding.
Basically, to me, the UX is the issue. Even if the models stop advancing right now, there's so much to unlock so a regular user can get the best of out them. Cause most of us aren't.
We should use the models well until model collapse/drift result in end times 😀 .

2026-02-15 19:19:47 UTC

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Thanks for flagging this, Florian.

2026-02-14 11:03:18 UTC

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Yup! I completely agree. SQLite is having a comeback in web applications for sure. I hadn't thought of it in the context of something non-managed, but that's interesting!
For Django specifically, there are a number of Postgres-only features, but as ever, it depends on what exactly you're building.
Thanks for the good point!
PS. You've seen https://simonwillison.net/tags/sqlite/ I assume? He's been writing about what SQLite can do recently quite a bit.

2026-02-12 20:02:33 UTC

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Very cool! Love that soundtrack. I think that was one of the first movie soundtracks that sold a lot on its own?

2026-02-12 18:44:50 UTC

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Very cool. I also think at this point "every" model maker must have the Simon's Pelican on a Bike filter set to 100% for pre-launch, no?

2026-02-12 13:47:15 UTC

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Ok, it seems people do know Carlton and me. Yes, Carlton = Ken, Will = Maverick, at least online 😎 ✈️

2026-02-12 13:46:29 UTC

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Indeed. Sadly or proudly I can confidently quote about 90% of that movie on command.

2026-02-12 13:45:10 UTC

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I really liked this issue!

2026-02-11 20:30:19 UTC

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I thought it was obvious. Carlton and I regularly send individual versions of this to each other. Maybe a poll is in order?

2026-02-11 18:15:57 UTC

The PyCharm team at JetBrains is hosting the inaugural PyTV Python Unplugged conference on March 4th in Amsterdam.
It's a FREE, online Python conference available to everyone everywhere. The event will be livestreamed and available on YouTube afterward.
Django-specific speakers include @npub1f7y…q8xt, @npub10c6…0j74, and @npub1mfs…ngvj, among many others.
Please register to enter for a chance to win prizes and to receive the livestream link and event reminders. Link in the comment 😉 .
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/053/353/975/330/369/original/0352c58f73cdc4e3.mp4

2026-02-11 16:10:14 UTC

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Another episode in the bag by @npub1mfs…ngvj and moi.
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/052/866/360/028/329/original/e7f5d22a004e24a0.mp4

2026-02-11 13:48:41 UTC

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This was a really fun chat. Hard to keep up with all the work Adam has been doing.

2026-02-10 17:02:55 UTC

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Thanks! Your feedback was really helpful. I've shared it with our team and it will be shared with the PSF, too.
I'm pleased that Hacker News IS on the list of resources for the Django Survey. I was frantically checking it against your comments!

2026-02-10 16:04:56 UTC

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I have some insight here as I'm on the team at JetBrains. You have valid questions about the survey. But I'm realizing the messaging needs to be better around "why" for the survey.
For JetBrains, we run it more as a service for the PSF and also Django (that survey coming later this year) than as just a data grab.
But I think we need to communicate better. It's a lot of work internally to produce.

2026-02-09 20:51:59 UTC

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It's a somewhat counterintuitive take I suppose, but if you have enough experience, I think it's pretty non-debatable :)

2026-02-09 14:19:51 UTC

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Thank you. @npub12q0…sm0v also informed me of this. I'm in favor of greener hosting, all things being equal. I agree it probably deserves its own category on a matrix of what to choose.

2026-02-07 19:05:53 UTC

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I've had some of these convos over the years, and the unfortunate reality is that Python and then Django are usually an afterthought in terms of customers/volume than PHP or JavaScript deploys.

2026-02-07 19:05:10 UTC

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or just have you on to do a 2026 version...

2026-02-07 18:47:06 UTC

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Agreed. We have some correspondence with people at La Suite Numérique to hopefully have them join @npub120g…wm7n soon to share more about it.

2026-02-07 16:32:20 UTC

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That looks very familiar indeed.

2026-02-07 16:22:48 UTC

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https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/030/266/562/475/942/original/ce39995aafff55c9.png

2026-02-07 12:50:13 UTC

Heroku is (Finally, Officially) Dead. I wrote up some extended thoughts on this and what comes next for many of us as Django developers.
https://wsvincent.com/heroku-is-finally-dead/
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/029/429/238/563/460/original/2be189c06e603da8.png

2026-01-28 14:59:07 UTC

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Yup, this was a particularly good one. As I said separately to Carlton, any piece that starts off quoting James Baldwin is headed in the right direction.

2026-01-26 17:33:31 UTC

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RSS Feed plz

2026-01-26 13:38:36 UTC

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Thanks for the tips. I've read both Huck Finn and Ulysses, but been thinking I could use a refresh on them, especially since there is a new translation of Ulysses by Emily Wilson that is supposed to be great.

2026-01-24 00:48:14 UTC

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Nice list. James is on my longer list, as is Circe. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow has been on my shelf for a while, somehow didn't get into it the first time, but I will try again.
I like the Backlog section, ha. I have many of the same titles in mine. We'll see how much progress I can make...

2026-01-23 15:27:24 UTC

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If you go at Christmas they usually have a huge tree and such there too.

2026-01-23 15:26:51 UTC

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Hi! I was wondering if anyone saw that. So I've gotten through half those so far and just didn't comment out the last 10, but I've got them all on my nightstand.
I just love to read, and I'm curious. I read fast. I dunno.... books are the best.
I read in bed for about an hour at night. I try to cram a little in at lunch. And anytime I'm waiting around for my kids, more books 🤷‍♂️ .

2026-01-22 22:01:23 UTC

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Very exciting!

2026-01-22 22:00:53 UTC

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yup. And especially smaller companies, as said Andrew.

2026-01-21 17:47:00 UTC

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yup, sometimes it's just lazy paperwork. If someone is from a country your company hasn't hired from before, HR is just like, nah, we don't want the hassle. I've experienced this. Heck, I've had this for different US states let alone countries when it comes to remote employees.

2026-01-21 14:50:07 UTC

Another "Recently" update. Brief reviews of four books: Recursion, Apple in China, All the Knowledge in the World, and How the South Won the Civil War. Plus, Split Fiction coop game completed, and Mark Carney's talk at Davos.
https://wsvincent.com/recently-late-jan-2026/
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/115/933/632/628/582/878/original/d55dc7f7c79013b0.jpeg

2026-01-14 14:15:04 UTC

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Jodie gave me a really great in-depth analysis of model collapse yesterday in a work call. Maybe we can tempt her to do a video version of it...

2026-01-12 20:37:34 UTC

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Thanks for the encouragement. I do wonder if simple awareness ones have merit, but I'm certainly concerned/thinking about this, so good to hear others are as well.
I think many people don't care AI or not, just if they like it. That's probably most people. Like a song or video? That's enough. Like a political video true or not.... yeah. Post-literate society here we go.

2026-01-09 16:37:56 UTC

Another blog post (and video) as my brain warms up from the holiday break. This one on Model Collapse, something I can't stop thinking about these days.
https://wsvincent.com/is-model-collapse-inevitable/

2026-01-07 20:32:30 UTC

I posted on the Django Forum about the impact of LLMs on web traffic and related sponsorship options. Seems the appropriate place for a convo but linking here: https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/are-llms-decimating-web-traffic-and-sponsorship-options/43868

2026-01-06 18:12:07 UTC

"Is “People aren’t paying attention” just a dressed-up version of “People aren’t paying attention to me?
The suspicion that all this is élite anxiety in the face of a democratizing mediascape deepens when you consider what the attentionistas want people to focus on. ...When someone calls for audiences to be more patient, I instinctively think, Alternatively, you could be less boring."
An excellent piece by Daniel Immerwahr from last year.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/01/27/the-sirens-call-chris-hayes-book-review

2026-01-06 17:43:28 UTC

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2026 has officially kicked off

2026-01-06 14:13:21 UTC

Ok, that's another CFP filed away, this one for DjangoCon US 2026!
https://pretalx.com/djangocon-us-2026/cfp
If you're on the fence, just submit and see what happens. Or read Drew's post for inspiration: https://winstel.dev/2026/01/05/talk-ideas-for-dcus-26/

2026-01-05 19:25:11 UTC

A quick post on some fun I had redesigning (again) my personal website using an AI agent.
https://wsvincent.com/new-year-new-website-design/
We all need fun projects to hack on that have some meaning, but not so much that we could truly mess things up!

2025-12-19 14:56:45 UTC

Shout out to this 4-part series by Rutger Bregman on the BBC. The last mini-lecture is on "Fighting for Humanity in the Age of the Machine."
Interesting stuff....
https://youtu.be/tAhJkMi_V2Y?si=nGaPNAB_INOsveOh

2025-12-19 14:08:34 UTC

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Nice! Can't wait.

2025-12-18 21:51:17 UTC

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If I added one on my own volition, it would be Django on the Med! End of year is a weird time, for me, to commit to things is I think the issue. At this point, I'm mentally ready to hibernate until January 😀

2025-12-17 21:01:29 UTC

I wrote up my 2025 year in review 🎉
https://wsvincent.com/year-in-review-2025/

2025-12-12 12:23:44 UTC

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ok full version will be up in 7mins.
https://youtu.be/eW3PZinvjN0

2025-12-12 12:03:27 UTC

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upload issue apparently cause the actual video file is fine. Re-uploading to new URL etc.

2025-12-12 12:00:46 UTC

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😕 ok, fixing...

2025-12-11 20:39:32 UTC

Ok, the YouTube video of the recent @npub120g…wm7n with Natalia Bidart on 6.0 is out.
Feel free to watch 30 seconds and give a thumbs up, if so inclined! Note, this episode is audio only. Most future episodes will also have video.
https://youtu.be/mmKNQqbZN_4?si=0nQz5RylF_XG7WFa

2025-12-11 20:19:00 UTC

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https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/115/702/781/434/859/893/original/5b113048b6f49363.jpeg

2025-12-11 17:11:57 UTC

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It's here! A day late, but here you go. A chat with the release manager and Django Fellow herself! And also @npub1mfs…ngvj who had "a little" to do with the Template Partials feature just shipped as well.

2025-12-09 13:41:19 UTC

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gotta prove we are human somehow

2025-12-08 16:38:30 UTC

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that's exactly the settings I use, too.

2025-12-05 12:28:12 UTC

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Yes, order. And team dots over here for sure.

2025-12-03 21:16:40 UTC

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A very apt comparison.

2025-12-03 17:54:34 UTC

A day in the life of a tech book writer.....
I'm currently updating the Production chapter in Django for Professionals. Quite a bit of newness but of course I focus on the opening paragraphs first. Look at the old version, hate it, spend 3 hours writing something else. Get lunch, return and read both. Go, old version wasn't so bad after all. Ultimate version will probably be 70/30 old versus new.
This is how updates go for me at least 😀

2025-11-23 22:54:22 UTC

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I've learned to be a lot more fast and loose with it. These days I'm doing video AND audio. For video, we've settled on Riverside (paid). I use Magic Audio and make small edits via transcript.
For audio, I still run through Auphonic and edit in Garageband. I have spent tons of time EQing and the rest, but ultimately I just 80/20 it all, for better or worse.
I tend to edit same time as recording so I remember anything to snip ASAP.

2025-11-21 15:25:52 UTC

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Hey! I should, honestly. And yes, new steering council and Jacob def worth mentioning.
I'm getting into more of a rhythm doing shorts for PyCharm and I really need to on this. I'm open to feedback! Or maybe I can send a script your way for review?

2025-11-20 12:50:21 UTC

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Graceful deprecation phase 2. This is how it's done people. Don't get so burned out that you rage quit and never come back. Wait until you are mostly burned out, still contribute, but have an exit in sight.
Open source gives a lot but demands much in return. This is a healthy cycle of things as Carlton is doing it.

2025-11-17 14:31:11 UTC

The final of 3 video shorts I took at @npub1wcx…kjdc is now up. This one focuses on favorite Django 3rd party package, always a fun discussion!
https://youtube.com/shorts/h5_tZxBAx0E?si=WKCz4OZYK1p21pWA
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/115/565/517/366/862/172/original/28130528a15521e5.png

2025-11-17 14:21:43 UTC

Another short video from @npub1wcx…kjdc is now up on the PyCharm YouTube channel, this one talking about how Django developers are using AI.
https://youtube.com/shorts/akcYRfec7Wg?si=qz4qsARZWQH1_P5x
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/115/565/480/082/739/422/original/babac4b3c2caff79.png

2025-11-14 17:12:45 UTC

Are you a developer who uses GitHub? You should check out @npub18ae…55j8's new book on it. There's currently a Black Friday deal for 50% off and the first two chapters are free.
Anything Adam writes is worth reading, in my opinion.
https://adamchainz.gumroad.com/l/byghdx
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/115/549/165/465/765/772/original/e2ff287addb2e4cf.png

2025-11-12 15:08:49 UTC

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Thanks for the feedback! We are working on posting short clips of highlights. We also have some younger guests queued up.
I think ultimately, for me and I suspect @npub1mfs…ngvj too, the show is meant to mimic a "hallway chat" at a DjangoCon, so it's more informal, tech heavy than a more entertainment-led kind of podcast. Probably costs us listens/views, but is certainly more authentic!

2025-11-10 16:39:58 UTC

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For me, to continue this trend, my sleep and heart rate in particular, are much better/lower when I have 4+ hours between last meal and bedtime. So I eat early rather than the usual skipping breakfast thing IF people do.

2025-11-10 16:22:49 UTC

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I don't want to get too bro science here, but I've found that some form of fasting helps. The idea is that it impacts insulin in particular, though of course calorie reductions helps, too.

2025-11-10 16:21:10 UTC

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Yup, this has been the plan.