Your Django Story: Meet Nicole Harris

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

Nicole Harris is both a professional web designer and developer - having originally started out on the design side of things, exposure to Django’s templates eventually led to her learning the rest of the framework, brushing up on her Python and JavaScript skills along the way. Nicole recently moved to the UK after running her own business (Kabu Creative) in Australia for 3 years. Whilst “down under”, she reinitiated and led the Australian chapter of PyLadies (a non-profit group aimed at encouraging more women to get involved with Python) and designed the official website for PyCon Australia 2014 / 2015. You can follow Nicole on twitter @nlhkabu or read her blog at whoisnicoleharris.com.

 

How did your story with code start?

I studied film and photography at university and wanted to make a portfolio for my animation work. I asked my boyfriend (now husband) to help me; he encouraged me to learn HTML and CSS, and the next thing I knew, I was hooked! From there I became a web designer, during which time I became familiar with, amongst other things, Django templates. Learning to code with Django was a natural next step.

 

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I was a web designer. Ironically, I had very little interest in server-side programming, thinking at the time that it was not interactive and creative enough for me - but once I eventually dipped my toe in the water, I quickly realised just how wrong these assumptions had been! In fact, there is a huge amount of design involved in programming!

 

What do you love the most about coding?

I love the creativity! I enjoy the process of making something from nothing and solving complex problems with creative thinking.

 

Why Django?

I can’t really take too much credit for initially choosing Django - my husband was already well-versed in it, and it was his encouragement that pushed me towards this particular framework. However, I certainly did choose to stick around! Perhaps my favourite thing about Django is its incredible community - everyone is really friendly and helpful. Also, the docs are stand-out fantastic.

 

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

I am working on a moderated social network called Connect. It’s an invitation-only space designed to help users connect with each other based on skills, location and experience. My initial motivation was to make it for PyLadies Australia, but I’ve since open-sourced it and am hoping to launch it as a mentorship platform for Django too.

 

What are you the most proud of?

Constantly challenging myself.

 

What are you curious about?

Different foods, cultures, ways of thinking. On the coding front, I’m currently interested in architectural questions (how can I better structure my code) and learning some more JS - at the moment this means making a small app with Ember.js.

 

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

I LOVE food, and I really enjoy cooking, especially baking. I’m also a huge fan of curries (I lived in India for six months, where I got to sample quite a few of them)! I am also midway through making a huge multi-coloured quilt, though I’m still waiting for my sewing machine to arrive from Australia, so it could be a little while yet. I am also learning French, which is a pretty big challenge.

 

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Don’t be afraid to ask questions - no question is stupid. Asking questions isn’t just about helping yourself - you’re also teaching the community how they can better help beginners. If you don’t understand, then your teacher/ the community / the docs need some improvement - it is not a reflection of your intelligence or ability to learn. You can do it!

Thanks Nicole! :)

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