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| 1 | +Title: My PyCon US 2025 recap |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +URL Source: https://treyhunner.com/2025/06/pycon-us-2025-recap/ |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +Markdown Content: |
| 6 | +I’m pretty much fully back to normal life after PyCon US 2025. |
| 7 | + |
| 8 | +I started writing this post shortly after PyCon, got side-tracked, and now I’m finally publishing it. |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +**My very quick recap**: I spent a ton of time at PyCon chatting with folks and I _really_ enjoyed it. As Ned wrote, [it’s like summer camp](https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/202505/pycon_summer_camp.html). |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | +My pre-conference (Monday and Tuesday) |
| 13 | +-------------------------------------- |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +I flew in a couple days early (Monday May 12) because Breeze airlines had a non-stop flight from San Diego to Pittsburgh that only ran on Monday or Friday. I listened to [The Upswing](http://robertdputnam.com/the-upswing/) as I flew in and wondered [how we can make our community less individualistic](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114496799621377766). |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +On Tuesday, I went on [a walking tour](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114495825740774796) of downtown Pittsburgh. Then I ate Indian food for lunch at Sree’s, which I chose because I saw they had great vegan lunch options and weren’t open for dinner. I was eating vegan during PyCon US (as I _mostly_ do at home) and I remembered to do [some research on vegan dinner restaurants in the area](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114506541091205849) this year. |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +On Tuesday night, as CPython core devs started showing up in the Westin lobby, I went on a walk with Anthony Shaw. Anthony asked whether I was up for “an adventure” and I said yes without asking questions. We walked across the river to Randyland (a.k.a. “the mattress factory”). It was fun, interesting, and quite odd. We were the only ones there and had plenty of time to look around at all the interesting items and art pieces that Randy had collected. |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +Anthony and I did dinner at Condado’s and ran into more conference friends at the bar (Kattni, Rose, and Kojo). |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +My tutorial on decorators (Wednesday) |
| 24 | +------------------------------------- |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +Wednesday was my tutorial day. |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +Attendees used sticky notes during the exercise sections to note when they needed help. I wrote about this system in my [blog post of tips for giving a good PyCon tutorial](https://treyhunner.com/2025/05/how-to-give-a-great-pycon-tutorial/). |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +The tutorial went well and the attendees seemed to enjoy it. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +The newcomer’s orientation & education summit (Thursday) |
| 33 | +-------------------------------------------------------- |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +Just before the opening reception on Thursday evening, Kojo, Sumana, and I ran the [newcomer’s orientation ](https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]/114512798321665686). Figuring out what exactly we want to say to help orient folks to PyCon is always a bit challenging. A first-time PyCon attendee gave me some ideas for how we could do it even better next year. I’ve taken notes and will revisit them later. |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +I also attended a few talks during education summit earlier in the day. Reuven Lerner gave a talk on how he recommends his students use LLMs and I was pleased to hear many suggestions that are closely aligned with what I recommend as well as a few insights I hadn’t heard before. |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +My lightning talk (Friday) |
| 40 | +-------------------------- |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +I gave a lightning talk on Friday evening (the first talk day). I called it [Systems, gates, and rage](https://youtu.be/Uuhu-F05A7k?feature=shared&t=3174). It seemed to go over well. Folks occasionally told me throughout the conference that they enjoyed it. I won’t spoil the topic of my lightning talk (you’ll need to watch it) but it’s a topic that I’d been thinking about for a few months. |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +Rodrigo gave a [meta lightning talk](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114519939925398070) as the first talk of the first day. I gave a meta lightning talk last year in the same slot. I hope this becomes a tradition, where the first lightning talk is a talk about someone explaining how to give a lightning talk. |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +The keynotes |
| 47 | +------------ |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +I really enjoyed the keynotes this year. |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +[Cory Doctorow’s opening keynote](https://youtu.be/ydVmzg_SJLw?feature=shared) was [_really_ thought-provoking](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114519939925398070) and [Lynn Root’s keynote](https://youtu.be/Bglsof9b23k?feature=shared) was on the importance [of “play”](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114519939925398070), which is a topic I’ve written about before to my [mailing list](https://pym.dev/newsletter). |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +[The Marshall project](https://youtu.be/qog-dGVhSBI?feature=shared) keynote and [The Carpentries](https://youtu.be/3UOLpTA7pRI?feature=shared) keynote were also great, though I missed portions of each (beginning of one and end of another) and ended up watching the full videos online after the conference. |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | +The hallway track |
| 56 | +----------------- |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | +The “hallway track” is the way many PyCon attendees describe **the discussions that happen organically in the hallway**. |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | +These discussions can happen at any time, including breaks, breakfast, lunch, and even during talks. I missed at least 3 talks this year because I was having a great discussion in the hallway and time got away from me. |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | +PyCon’s venue in Pittsburgh included a great [rooftop](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114512971414412295) so the **rooftop track** / **garden track** was a lovely spin in the hallway track this year. |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | +The open spaces |
| 65 | +--------------- |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | +The open spaces are a very important part of PyCon for me. |
| 68 | + |
| 69 | +Like the hallway track, the open spaces are mostly (usually) about having a conversation. Unlike the hallway track, the open spaces have a **set topic**. |
| 70 | + |
| 71 | +I attended open spaces (and [ran my own](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114526876252905533)): |
| 72 | + |
| 73 | +* **Education and Outreach Working Group Open Space**: I’m part of this newly revived work group and we held this to hear topics that community members are interested in seeing the PSF focus on more deliberately |
| 74 | +* **t-strings: Let’s build powerful templating together**: I am interested in the new t-string feature in Python 3.14 and wanted to listen to this conversation (I contributed _a little bit_ too) |
| 75 | +* **Computer Assisted Reporting and Investigative journalism**: I was curious to hear this conversation, which included journalists, government employees who respond to information requests, and many others |
| 76 | +* **Python Skill-Building**: I ran this open space on the roof during lunch time to chat about different Python skill-building services, including my own ([Python Morsels](https://pym.dev/)) |
| 77 | +* **Ask a Friendly Meat-Loving Vegan**: I also ran this open space, inspired by a conversation I had the night before in a hotel lobby about animal farming, veganism, nutrition, and other related topics I’ve thought/read a lot about |
| 78 | + |
| 79 | +I enjoyed meeting folks with similar interests and having fun and productive conversations (or at least listening to interesting conversations) in those open spaces. |
| 80 | + |
| 81 | +Dinners, games, and hotel lobby conversations |
| 82 | +--------------------------------------------- |
| 83 | + |
| 84 | +I ate at Bae Bae’s, Rosewater Grill, and APTEKA during the conference. I also ate at Condado’s at least 3 nights. |
| 85 | + |
| 86 | +APTEKA was a fun trek for [vegan PierogiCon ](https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]/114525581821316666) with mostly non-vegan folks. I’m sure the pierogis weren’t authentic, but we all loved the food. |
| 87 | + |
| 88 | +After dinner every night I went to the Westin lobby and either played [the Cabo card game](https://treyhunner.com/2015/06/cabo-card-game/) or chatted with folks ([1](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114509076754402356), [2](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114514682814457694), [3](https://mastodon.social/@treyhunner/114525878624139679)). |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | +On missing talks |
| 91 | +---------------- |
| 92 | + |
| 93 | +The keynotes and lightning talks are usually my favorite parts of PyCon. I tried to watch as many live keynotes and lightning talk sessions as I could this year. The morning lightning talks were hard to make it to because I kept sleeping in late enough that I missed most of them. |
| 94 | + |
| 95 | +Ultimately, I watched _very few_ live talks. I missed talks due to sleeping in, attending open spaces, visiting booths in the exhibit hall, getting lost in conversations in the hallway, and mid-day taking naps (in my hotel room, not during talks!). |
| 96 | + |
| 97 | +Hynek has [written about the downside of the hallway track and the importance of attending talks](https://hynek.me/articles/hallway-track/). I sympathize with Hynek’s argument that the hallway track is a trade off and there are downsides to missing talks, for both attendees and speakers. I am grateful that folks give talks and I want to support folks who do give talks, and yet, I often find myself attending few talks. |
| 98 | + |
| 99 | +Ironically, the one talk I ended up taking a nap through (again, in my hotel room, not _in the talk_) was Hynek’s. My brain was fried by the time of his talk and I’m glad I was able to watch it online the week after PyCon. He apparently had a completely packed room as it was! |
| 100 | + |
| 101 | +I did make sure to show up to a talk by a conference friend who I wanted to support (Michael Dahlberg’s [talk on honeybee swarms](https://youtu.be/LseCKvrp6og?feature=shared)). I have also binge-watched a dozen or so talks online that I had planned to attend but missed during PyCon. |
| 102 | + |
| 103 | +You can [watch all talks online now](https://www.youtube.com/@PyConUS/videos) (at least I _think_ they’re all up now?). |
| 104 | + |
| 105 | +Attend a Python event |
| 106 | +--------------------- |
| 107 | + |
| 108 | +I’m looking forward to PyCon coming to Long Beach next year. I’m in San Diego and it will be nice to _not fly_ to a PyCon for once! |
| 109 | + |
| 110 | +I highly recommend attending local Python meetups, attending regional Python conferences, and/or attending PyCon US. Most in-person Python community events are _pretty lovely_. The Python community generally goes out of its way to be more welcoming than most tech events. |
| 111 | + |
| 112 | +See you in Long Beach! |
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