Brett Cannon – Python core developer and dev lead of the Python extension for VS Code – joins us on The Changelog podcast to discuss the human side of sustaining open source.
Brett's 15 years of experience in the community have taught him a ton. He took a hiatus in 2016 to avoid burning out, and his message comes from a powerful place:
The whole reason I've put in the effort into doing the talk, and the blog post, etc. is specifically because I care so much about the people involved in it... Because I don't wanna give it up. I wanna make sure that I feel like I want to keep coming back, so I'm doing the best I can to try to make sure that it continues for me personally, and for others as well, so they also are going to have the same benefits I've received.
This is a great conversation! Take a listen:
(Stick around after the outro for a bonus segment on Kylo Ren, the marines, and how great weather is never enough to make us happy. 😭🤣)
Top comments (6)
Love everything you and Adam do at the Changelog. Looking forward to hearing this one!
Thanks Lewis! 💚
I have a reasonable fear that too many projects replace meritocracy by a "safe space", as if nice people automatically make better contributions...
Nice people can be taught how to be better developers.
Mean people are rarely open to learning how to be better people.
People of true merit rise above only looking at people for one skill set (tech skills) and at the whole person.
For every over-enflated egomaniac "rockstar", I can find a dozen someones that are genuine and coachable and teach them tech skills.
I'm tired of seeing meritocracy held up as some sort of bastion of "the way it should be".
I instead choose to define merit as having skills beyond just technical skills. Hell, technical skills are becoming the easy side of the equation to fill out.
A true meritocracy is also unrealistic, because people have different opportunities.
This is a false dichotomy. There is no such thing as "nice people" and "mean people". We can all be kind to one another, irrespective of our code's merit.