Your Django Story: Meet Lacey Williams Henschel

This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Lacey is a Python/Django developer with the University of Texas at Austin, but she telecommutes from Portland, Oregon. She’s currently working on organizing the first Django Girls workshop in Portland, and in the meantime is getting to know her fellow PyLadies in the Pacific Northwest. You can reach her on Twitter @laceynwilliams.

How did your story with code start?

When I was in grad school pursuing a master’s in English, I took a workshop in TEI, an XML language used to represent manuscripts and archival texts in a digital form. I wound up finishing my degree and getting a Digital Humanities certificate along the way, then applying to the University of Texas’s Software Developer Training program, which is like a dev bootcamp where they pay to teach you Python, Django, and a mainframe language (UT Austin is still on a mainframe, but we’re working on moving off!)

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I was an English student looking to get a PhD and become an English professor. Writing code is a surprisingly natural extension of this work. My exposure to feminism, queer theory, disability studies, and ethnic studies makes me a better and more empathetic programmer.

What do you love the most about coding?

I love that I get paid to solve puzzles all day. Sometimes the puzzles are simple and only take a couple of hours; sometimes they are more complex and I get to work with a team of smart people for several days or weeks to solve them. Since I work in a university, I also love that most of my work is geared toward making the lives of administrative personnel, faculty, and students easier.

Why Django?

Although I didn’t choose Django so much as my employers did, I love working with Django. The community is friendly to newbies and constantly working to be more diverse; the resources to learn and grow with Django are rich and wonderful; and the PyLadies and Django Girls organizations mean there is a lot of support for a woman Django developer who wants to learn and teach.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

I’m working with my friend Kenneth Love of Treehouse on putting together a Django Girls workshop in Portland, OR. I’m also developing a Django course (more details on that later… watch my Twitter feed!)

What are you the most proud of?

I’m proud that I’m a part of so many aspects of developerhood. I’m a programmer, but still both a student and a teacher. I know that I’m a role model for the women I’ve helped teach at the University of Texas, and I’m so proud of that.

What are you curious about?

I’m curious about contributing to an open source project. I’d like to make that my goal for the next year– to tinker with open source in some way.

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

I love to bake. I was recently gifted a sourdough, started and I am obsessed with feeding it and making things from it. I also do yoga, hike (Portland is great for urban hiking), read, and am part of a young adult literature book club. Portland is the craft brewery capital of the world, so there’s that!

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Keep trying! Everyone learns differently, so if one tutorial doesn’t make sense to you, find another one. Ask a friend to help you. Find a local meetup or workshop. Search for a YouTube video. Sign up for a free trial on an online learning site. It may take awhile to figure out how you best learn, so be patient with yourself.

Anna Ossowski

@OssAnna16

Your Django Story: Meet Lieke Boon

This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Lieke is a Dutch Ambassador for European Codeweek, (co-)organizer of different Rails Girls events in the Netherlands and PyLadies in Amsterdam. She is a historian, a developer and currently working at VHTO, the Dutch national expert organisation on girls/women and science/technology. She loves running, music & cats and is very committed to increase the involvement of women and girls in IT. You can find her in Amsterdam, the Netherlands :)

How did your story with code start?

Well, actually, I only started a couple years ago. I have a background in history, and only after finishing my master thesis, I discovered the joy of coding. Inspired by websites like code.org, Codecademy or Coursera, and people around me, I started reading on the subject and doing more and more development. I fell in love and haven’t stopped since then. This enthusiasm led to being involved with PyLadies and Rails Girls.

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I’m not really a programmer at the moment. I’m still programming, but only in my free time. I worked as a developer for six months and really loved it (!). I eventually decided to switch jobs, because it took me too much time commuting. Now I work for VHTO, the Dutch National Expert Organisation on Girls/Women and Science/Technology. I’m responsible for the DigiVita Code Events, where girls between 8 - 18 learn how to code. Before my job as a developer I was just a history student, trying to find her passion :)

What do you love the most about coding?

I once read a blog from Sam Stokes on what programming is like, I think he’s describing it perfectly:

“Programming is like building structures out of Lego, but I never run out of Lego bricks, and if there’s no brick with the exact shape that I need, I can make that brick. I can take the structures I build and use them as bricks to build bigger, more ambitious structures. I can build tools out of bricks to help me build quicker. If I build a model city, or a crane for building model cities, I can offer them to millions of people to download and play with, in any part of the world.”

Programming is just awesome :)

Why Django?

Python was the first programming language I ran into. I followed a lot of courses and got excited to build my own web-application. I think Django is a great framework for ‘newbies’ because of the supportive community, when you’re stuck, there’s always someone willing to help you out.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

Right now, I’m very excited about the Code Events I’m organizing for VHTO. There we’ll be six events, each in a different city in the Netherlands. It’s a big project with a great goal: getting more girls excited for IT!

What are you the most proud of?

I’m proud of a couple things, like building my first real web application all by myself. But I really love the times, at for example code events, when a girl comes up to me and tells me that she is so excited about programming and didn’t know that ICT was this awesome (and really not boring at all!). That’s when I’m really happy with everything I do :-)

What are you curious about?

That’s a difficult question. I’m curious about how the world will be in 10 years: what I’ll be doing then, where I’ll be living, what languages will I know, everything that the future holds. I’m also curious about a lot of things and topics and I’m trying to learn as much as I can.

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

I love running, reading books and spending time with people close to me. Besides that I’m keeping myself quite busy. I’m following university courses in Computer Science, and I’m (co)organizing Rails Girls on different locations in the Netherlands and PyLadies in Amsterdam (including a Django workshop in April!).

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Ask yourself, Why do I want go get coding and what do I want to get out of it? Would you like to be able to build your own website? Or are you just curious? Either way, there are so many resources online. You could start at Codecademy and find out if coding is something you’d like. Read some books about coding and start coding yourself. Don’t be afraid to break it, learn by doing (break your code, fix it). Keep putting into practice all that you’ve learned. I’m currently running a website with all kinds of resources to get you started: codepancake.com. Happy coding!

Anna Ossowski

@OssAnna16

Your Django Story: Meet Jamillah Mayombwe

This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here. 

Jamillah is a software developer currently living in Kampala, Uganda. She’s very excited about tech innovations and pushing boundaries with everything she sets her mind to, to be the best she can be in whatever she does. When Jamillah isn’t writing code, she spends her time giving the fictitious characters that run in her head life and a home in her very personal journal that will one day become a best seller.

How did your story with code start?

I started coding when I joined university, that was about four years ago. I was doing software engineering in school, but to be honest it was not love at first sight. The first programming lecturer I had was really intimidating and she never passed on the chance to let us know how hard it was. So I stayed away from coding and stuck to writing project documentation which most of the female students in class did.

But in my second year at university I started attending hackathons and coding events, that’s when I realised that I actually enjoyed coding. I joined all female communities like Girl geek and WOPA that were about empowering girls in tech. This really built my confidence and I begun to realise that it wasn’t as hard as some people made it out to be, it was a whole world of new possibilities. And I have never looked back ever since then.

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I was basically a student, but beyond that I did some personal fictional writing. I still do but not as much as I would want to.

What do you love the most about coding?

Coming up with solutions to everyday problems that could be affecting people all over the world, that to me is something that adds meaning to my life. Being able to use code to leave a positive mark on the world, thats what I love about coding.

Why Django?

I was first introduced to Django 10 months ago, prior to that, I had heard about it but I had no idea what it was about. But doing the WOPA workshop that was happening at Outbox which is a tech hub in Uganda I had to learn how to use the technology. It weird because I used to be more interested in mobile development than web development until I read about Django and all its capabilities and how it made separation of responsibilities so easy and well defined. I had used MVC- pattern in Android but it wasn’t as clean as it was in Django. I just made it easy for me to learn Python which was a new programming language to me at the time.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

I am working on a application to help small scale businesses in Uganda better cost their products and also another application that can be used by primary school kids in my country for revision in their different subjects. I have repos of this on my github account.

What are you the most proud of?

Being part of a team that is initiating young female programmers into the world of tech and coding. Being able to explain the concepts that I myself have just recently learnt and passing them on to someone else.

What are you curious about?

I’m curious about life, about the possibilities that are out there that I can be apart of.

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

I like to write, I like trying out new dishes and also searching for new indie rock music on the internet.

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Do not sit in a corner with your laptop and a textbook and think you are going to spend 24 hours with yourself and learn to code. Go out and meet like-minded people, join the community and have fun writing code You can learn a lot more by being around people who have been coding longer than you have. May the force be with you.

Thanks Jamillah! :)

Anna Ossowski

@OssAnna16

Your Django Story: Meet Victoria Martínez de la Cruz

This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Victoria is a software engineer at Red Hat, former Outreachy/GSoC intern, OpenStack Zaqar and OpenStack Trove core developer, OPW/GSoC volunteer coordinator, FOSS passionate and tech in general enthusiast. She is eager to learn about new technologies, to contribute to different open-source projects and to get new people involved with open-source philosophy.

How did your story with code start?

I got involved with computing when I was quite young. When I was 13 years old, I heard about FOSS and I decided I wanted to learn about it, and someday, become a contributor. I started experimenting with GNU/Linux different distros and gaining insight about its internals: operative systems concepts, networking, using the shell and more. That made me learn about Bash, and start writing different small scripts with it.

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I started programming very young… so its a tricky question! I have been always interested in computing, and before starting programming for real, I used to spend a lot of time experimenting with software and reading about tech stuff in forums.

What do you love the most about coding?

I love the fact that the main focus is in solving problems. Problems vary a lot. One day you can start working in the front end, making things usable for users to interact with, and another day you can find yourself working in the back end, putting your hands directly on the engine. You cannot ever get bored. Also, I cannot describe the happiness you feel when you see that a piece of software you developed is being used for many people and its making their lives easier.

Why Django?

I started working with Django thanks to the Outreachy internships and OpenStack. I worked on the Horizon project, the OpenStack dashboard, for my Outreachy experience in December-April 2013. My dear mentor, Julie Pichon, helped me with my first steps and she shared with me the love for Django.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

We recently set up a new LinuxChix chapter in my country, so we are planning a sprint for July/August to develop our website - using Django! <3. Apart from that, I’m working full time as a software engineer, so I actively contribute to several coding projects in OpenStack.

What are you the most proud of?

I’m proud of making a living of something I love. A lot of people told me, when I was just starting, that computer science was really hard, that it was a ‘men career’ and that I wasn’t going to make it. And now I’m a professional software developer ;)

What are you curious about?

Oh that’s hard to answer. I’m curious about everything, all the time. I always want to know how things work and why they work and how people think and why they do think like that.

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

If I say ‘programming’ then you will think I’m a bot, so… another interest of mine is reading. I like reading a lot. I love nature as well so, when I can, I take a weekend to go to a place nearby and enjoy being outdoors, with family or friends.

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Sure thing. I have many in fact! First, don’t ever allow yourself to get frustrated. If something doesn’t work at first, take a moment to relax and try it again later. Look for answers in blogs or forums, ask people. You will be able to solve it, sooner or later. Ideas come alone, you cannot force them to appear. Second, don’t get married to technology. I hear many people saying ‘yes, I program in X language’. There is a lot to learn in this field and its good that you try new things, all the time. Third, and last, find a community to support you. Programming is awesome, but if you can do it with a team, its even better. Sharing is good, and you will notice that you learn faster and better with a community that supports you. I really care about my colleagues, without them I wouldn’t be as I am right now.

Anna Ossowski

@OssAnna16

Django Girls still at EuroPython 2015

Following the recent controversial comments made by one of the EuroPython 2015 organizers in the Python en español podcast, we at Django Girls feel that we should communicate our response globally to all our friends and supporters.

Firstly, we must express our disappointment that a person who holds a key position on an organization team for one of the biggest Python conferences in the world, would make such offensive statements whether in jest or in earnest.

Moreover, as the proverb goes, “behind every jokes there is a grain of truth”, and writing off offensive statements as jokes helps naught but aggravate the situation further, which was apparent from EuroPython’s hastily-prepared initial apology.

Our mission, one which we proudly share with groups such as PyLadies, RailsGirls and Women Who Code (to name but a few), is to create a safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment for women in the IT fields.

We expect the organizations that we partner with to share this approach too, and when we became aware of this interview and the statements that were made, we immediately had to reconsider our upcoming workshop and other collaboration efforts with EuroPython 2015.

Thankfully, the EuroPython organization team has taken swift and direct action, as described in their follow-up blog post. We are relieved to see that EuroPython does lead by example, and hope that they will continue to do so to prevent future incidents.

Bottom line: We’re not going to let a few bad apples spoil our bunch! At this time, our workshop at EuroPython 2015 is still underway, and we believe that storms like this one won’t discourage diversity groups, but instead reinforce our common purpose and strengthen the much needed support from the communities.

Yours,
The Django Girls team

Your Django Story: Meet Agata Tyśnicka

This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Agata is a software developer working at 10Clouds and also a proud Django Girls Wrocław coach. She graduated with a degree in Electronics and Computer Engineering from Warsaw University of Technology. She lives in Warsaw, but has Amsterdam in her heart. Agatha is a proud pole dancer, slow runner and first class procrastinator.

How did your story with code start?

Unfortunately I don’t have long history of coding. A computer was in my home since I can remember but I never actually used it for things other than talking to my friends or playing games. I had my first chance to start coding at university. I absolutely hated it. I studied electronics and among all classes I had, programming was what I had most problems with. My friends from back then still cannot believe this is what I do know. Over two years ago I got a job in a fantastic startup. At first my job had nothing to do with programming, but I had a chance to work with great coders who encouraged me to learn and meet the Warsaw Python community. And then Python, this beautiful language, made me fall in love with coding.

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I was studying electronics and dreaming about working in a radio station as sound engineer. I even had an internship at Polish Radio.

What do you love the most about coding?

Nothing is impossible. There may be only a complex problem that needs to be solved. (I definitely need to apply this approach to my life more often!) Of course, I can get really frustrated during that process. Me and coding is still very passionate love-hate relationship.

Why Django?

I started with Django by accident, but it was a fortunate accident. Django is handy. It’s a powerful tool that makes your work so much easier and cleaner. Oh, and I love Python.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

I gave C++ another shot. At university, this is why I hated programming, but after all this time it doesn’t seem that bad at all! And I’d like to try some 3D game development, but I’m too shy to admit.

What are you the most proud of?

I do things that I never expected I would do, and I’m only getting better.

What are you curious about?

So many things. Living in another country. And another, and another…

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

I like to get sweaty and pole dance is my favourite way to do that. I also love to travel, but what I love even more is to grumble to my boyfriend about not traveling enough. And I read a lot about all those places.

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Ask questions! There is nothing wrong in not knowing stuff, everybody has to learn. Don’t ever think that you won’t be capable of doing things that more experienced guys do now. You need your time.

Anna Ossowski

@OssAnna16

Your Django Story: Meet Lynn Asiimwe

This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Lynn is a software developer at access mobile in Kampala, Uganda and also runs weekly Python/Django classes at outbox incubation hub under the Women Passion Programme. She has a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Cape town, South Africa. Lynn also had the opportunity to work with the Praekelt consulting software team in Cape town, South Africa.

How did your story with code start?

My story with code started when I “accidentally” took a computer science class in my first year of university. This one computer science class led to another and I ended up completing the entire computer science syllabus.

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I initially wanted to be an electrical engineer. The reason for taking on programming rather than electrical engineering was because the problems I could solve navigated a variety of spaces including electrical engineering and also I could work on these problems with only the aid of my laptop.

What do you love the most about coding?

I love problem solving. I was a huge math geek in high school much as the problems were exciting, all the problems I did ended on paper. Unlike my math problems, coding allows me to solve problems that might change people’s lives. Coding also allows me to easily contribute to new things that are being created in the universe. I’m not sure any other discipline gives that much freedom.

Why Django?

While at university I took on an internship with a software company called Praekelt. At Praekelt many of the developers were Python enthusiasts. The Praekelt team was aware I had no experience in coding outside of academia and introduced me to Python and later on Django. I found Python and Django easy to grasp with a great online and offline community.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

Currently at the company I work for, messaging is the core of our company. We decided to adopt certain Python open source technologies (for example vumi) to make our messaging more robust and scalable. This has given me the opportunity to do a deep dive into Python and Django and push the limit on my problem solving skills.

What are you the most proud of?

I’m most proud of the work I’m doing with the Women Passion Programme. The Women Passion programme is technical programme at a local incubation hub (outbox) that seeks to increase the number of women involved in our technical community in Uganda. I think writing code is easy, however teaching people how to write code is more complex. I believe if we can teach as many diverse people as we can how to code, we can increase the set of problems we can solve by a large margin.

What are you curious about?

I’m curious about learning and inclusion. Learning in the sense of how problems are represented and later on solved. Inclusion in the sense of how to pull a diverse set of people to work together. If a community can master those two concepts the problems a community can tackle increases by a large margin.

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

Jogging is currently what I like to do in my free time. I do a lot heavy lifting with my mind, I should do the same with my body so that both are at par. My hobbies vary from year to year this year I’m into meditation last year it was photography .

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Just do it! Its going to feel like riding like a bike, you’re going to fall several time and get lots of bruises. However with a number of tries (more like years) you get the hang of it.

Thanks Lynn! :)

Anna Ossowski

@OssAnna16

Your Django Story: Meet Corryn Smith

This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Corryn is a recent graduate from University of North Georgia with a degree in Applied Environmental and Spatial Analysis. She enjoys studying Geographical Information Systems, Remote Sensing, and Python Programming. When she’s away from the computer, she likes exploring the great outdoors and binge watching Netflix while learning how to knit. Corryn plans on going to graduate school to get her master’s in Geography; while attending grad school, she wants to continue her passion for coding by completing free courses on codecademy, and going through some Django tutorials during her free time. She hopes that one day she can travel the world to tell people about how awesome the GeoSpatial Technology field can be.

How did your story with code start?

I was first fascinated by code when MySpace was popular; I enjoyed playing the the HTML code to make all of the different MySpace layouts. When I started college, I decided to continue learning about code by majoring in Computer Science. However, when I took Computer Science I, I just didn’t like the class and felt that I wasn’t learning anything. I changed my major to Environmental Spatial Analysis with a concentration in Information Technology. I took the class “GIS and Python” with a different professor, which sparked my interest for code again.

What did you do before becoming a programmer? I was an undecided full-time student who worked part-time as a cashier at a grocery store.   What do you love the most about coding?

I enjoy the satisfaction when I write a script and it finally works.

Why Django?

While in college, my professor taught his Application Development class how to use and operate Django. I really didn’t have a choice since that was what he wanted to do for the class, but I’m glad he taught us Django. I used Django for two classes, and created three projects with the framework. Since my degree focuses on GIS, we use GeoDjango for most of our projects.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

I am currently working on an interactive campus map website using GeoDjango with two other friends. The goal for that project is for new students to be able to use the website on their phone to help them around campus; I built in a geolocation tool so they can see where they are on campus.

What are you the most proud of?

I am proud of how much I learned in the past year. Coding may look intimidating, but it’s just like learning a second language. You can teach yourself with all of the tools available on the internet, and if you ever have a question, there are people out there who can help.

What are you curious about?

I am curious what I will do next. I think I will make a personal site using Django so others can view my story and what I’ll do next. I am also curious to know more about hosting a Django Girls event in Atlanta, Georgia. If I can find enough people, maybe we can host one in the Atlanta area in the near future :)

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

When I’m not at a computer, I really enjoy spending time outside. I enjoy hiking, camping, and geocaching.

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Practice, practice, practice! If you get stuck, Google is your friend! The Django documentation is pretty helpful as well. When you want to learn how to make your Django projects pretty, you can learn how to write HTML and CSS for free from www.codeacademy.com.

Thanks Corryn! :)

Anna Ossowski

@OssAnna16

Your Django Story: Meet Caroline Simpson

This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Caroline is a software developer who loves working in Python. She works as a web developer at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. She co-founded a local Python user group with a friend and fellow Python enthusiast. She loves learning new things and making fun stuff.

How did your story with code start?

When I was little we had a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A home computer that hooked up to a television. There was a TI BASIC programming book which provided some example programs, one of which was a mastermind game. I used to copy out the game so that I could play. As it didn’t have a hard drive, each time the computer was turned off, the game was gone. Sometimes I would tweak the code and try out different things rather than just copying it out exactly as provided.

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I think I’ve really always been a programmer to some degree, but in the summers of high school I also worked in a convenience store and in a restaurant. During university I had the opportunity to work as a quality assurance specialist for a few co-op work terms. I think that experience definitely made me a better programmer. It helps to think about how software can be tested and about the usability of the software while making it.

What do you love the most about coding?

I really like making things. I always love the time when the program is complete enough that you run it and it really looks like something or does something neat/useful. And then knowing that you made that happen.

Why Django?

I wanted to get into more web development, so I started learning Ruby and working with Ruby on Rails. Then I ran into some problems and kept getting stuck. I didn’t know any other Ruby programmers but my boyfriend had a friend who worked in Django. I talked to him and decided to give Django a try and haven’t looked back since. To help me get started, he let me help out on a website he was building. He reviewed my code and gave me feedback about how I had done things. Now when I run into problems and can’t find the answer on the web, I have someone that I can explain my problem to and get help. Now I continue to use Django because I like it. The abstractions make sense to me. I don’t have to spend a lot of extra brain power thinking about the framework, so I can just focus on the details of the site I’m building.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

I’m currently working on my second iOS game. I’m thinking about using open data to generate the game behaviour, but I haven’t worked out all the details of how it will come together.

What are you the most proud of?

I thought about this for a while, and I think I’d have to say that I’m most proud of my firsts. For instance, I’m proud of my first iOS game, Bambookie Monster. It has a panda. And cookies! I was a little surprised when there were downloads that weren’t just my friends and family. And I recently finished sewing my first dress, and was really happy with the outcome. I’m also proud of co-founding our local Python user group. It’s great to be able to contribute to such an awesome community and to have the opportunity to meet so many other people with a shared interest in Python.

What are you curious about?

Everything really. There are so many interesting and fascinating things to learn about.

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

As I mentioned above I really like making things. Most of my hobbies involving making things in one way or another. I like to take photos. I have an adorable little cat that I love to spend time with. In the winter I knit, and I’ve recently taken up sewing as well. In the warmer weather I like to garden. I also play a lot of board games with friends. And in reality I spend a lot of my free time coding, because that is what I really do love to do.

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Find someone or a community that works in the language or framework you are trying to learn, it really helps to have someone you can talk through problems with. Sometimes it can save you a lot of struggle to get a nudge in the right direction. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to work through things on your own, but sometimes when you are learning, you might meet a problem that seems like a wall; it’s nice if you have a friend that can give you a boost to get over the walls.It also helps if you have a project that is interesting to you. Something that you will actually use for yourself. It can be that extra motivation you need to finish the project.

Thanks Caroline! :)

Anna Ossowski

@OssAnna16

Your Django Story: Meet Cea Stapleton

This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Cea comes by coding through a pre-teen desire to have her own website and a fascination with Formal Logic. Her experience with academic Philosophy (especially philosophy of language and formal logic) will always influence how she looks at code. She has a BA in Religious Studies (and a BS in Information Science and Technology) and will happily talk your ear off about how a humanities discipline bent on a multiplicity of methodologies both does and doesn’t apply to crafting good software. These days she’s pursuing her masters in Computer Science at UW Madison and applying her consulting-earned skills to a library resource management framework.

How did your story with code start?

With a pre-teen desire to have a website for my online Roleplaying character. No, really. When I was 11 I taught myself CSS and HTML so that I could have a dedicated page to talk about the intricacies of my character’s magical powers, how she might destroy you if you crossed her, and what her house looked like. Since then I’ve always had a web presence of some sort, although thankfully I’ve moved past the need to put my terrible attempts at poetry on the internet (I’ve moved from online Roleplaying to full-fledged Dungeon Master).

I dabbled with PHP from then on, especially with the early versions of Wordpress (that’s my claim to web developer hipster cred: I used Wordpress before it had static pages). In college I went three classes deep into the Mathematics-Computer Science major. I wasn’t prepared for the math but the taste of CS training stuck and I’ve been teaching myself languages and frameworks unabashedly since.

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I’ve always thought of myself as a programmer, but before I entered the industry I turned down two top divinity schools because I couldn’t justify spending $200,000 to gain entry into Academia. My first undergraduate degree is in Religious Studies (the second is in Information Science & Technology). I focused primarily on Secular Feminist Biblical interpretation, and my work for my capstone was centered on the naming of Eve in Genesis 1 & 2.

I have a deep and unbinding love of the Humanities, but have settled on CS for my primary focus.

What do you love the most about coding?

Any development project is a logic puzzle, and coding is the ongoing solution. It’s the puzzle-solving that makes me the happiest. Programming provides us with a succinct, clear language of instructions for solving puzzles under a multiplicity of conditions. Designing and writing solutions to logic puzzles engages my brain holistically in a way few other things do. Programming takes logic, creativity, and stubbornness. My brain is challenged when I program, and I love the exhilaration of deep thinking.

Why Django?

Django combines the fantastic community of Python with a beginner-friendly web framework. Web frameworks are very accessible to beginners because they easily get something working and visible. When I started using Django I was a Python beginner. I knew I wanted to start using Python, but I wasn’t sure how. At the time, I was working an a poorly designed PHP application that used a framework that was not suited to the project. I wanted to clean it up and rewrite, but I also wanted to take the opportunity to learn something new. Python had been on my list for quite some time, so it was an easy choice.

After trying it, I’m happy to say that I’ll often choose or recommend Django first. I’m familiar with a fair number of frameworks, but Django is clear, well-documented, and well-supported so I point to it often.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

I’m working on my masters degree in Computer Science, which will hopefully turn into a PhD in Computer Science. I think this is pretty fantastic, although it’s certainly not a narrow or particularly unique project. I’m also working with a few other excellent people to bring Django Girls to Wisconsin!

What are you the most proud of?

I’ve struggled with how to answer this question on multiple occasions, and I’m sure my answer will continue changing each occasion the question is posed to me. Right now, I must say that it’s my transition from Humanities undergrad headed towards Divinity School to CS masters student. It wasn’t something I did easily, and I was aided by a combination of early CS experiences and the right opportunities appearing at the right time. Still, I must take some credit and therefore pride in the fact that I’ve thoroughly shifted gears without immense time in between (~2 years).

What are you curious about?

I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I’ll spare you the diversity of questions that occupy my brain on a daily basis and say succinctly: anything and everything.

Less succinctly: Perhaps the above is a cliche answer, but it feels dishonest to narrow further when one moment I find myself considering whether Shakespeare is potentially the most famous Bisexual of the modern era, the next trying to remember how time dilations work, and then how many different ways I can strip the plastic coating off of my headphones’ jack so they fit through the tiny hole in my phone case.

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

I listen to probably 1-2 audiobooks a week, depending on their length. I listen while I wash dishes, while I walk places, while I’m on the bus. Most recently they’ve been fantasy novels, but I go through phases. I love to read, and this is the main way I have time to do it.

Most weeks I manage between 10 and 15 miles total running, split between ~3 days. When I can, and when it’s not -15F outside, I swim laps. I’m also an avid swing dancer; my partner and I teach workshops occasionally and attend social dances nearly every week.

I hate leaving out hobbies but I have too many to expand upon them all, so here’s a list of what I didn’t think of first: Dungeon Mastering a weekly tabletop roleplaying game, cosplay, sewing, Real Time Strategy video games, writing, hobby programming, and building computers (I build gaming desktops for my friends occasionally). There are more, but I’ve covered a fairly good taste of the diversity.

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Cultivate a healthy amount of stubbornness and apply it directly to programming. I’m not recommending inflexibility, but rather stubbornness that there is at least one solution to the problem you’re trying to solve. That solution may be to rethink the problem and/or change your focus.

Thanks Cea! :)

Anna Ossowski

@OssAnna16