Your Django Story: Meet Michela Dai Zovi
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Michela used to be a wildrness guide and social worker, but now she’s a full-time digital nomad with her travel-blogging Liebensabschnittspartner. She learned Python this year from Coursera’s Programming for Everybody and Codecademy, and then moved on to learning from YouTube tutorials to produce her first Django project: http://www.smartderby.net/. Michela does all kinds of other things, including but not limited to writing about contraceptives, selling roller skates, and teaching. She thinks Django is really fun and can’t wait to add more features to her project.
How did your story with code start?
I starting learning Python just over a year ago, primarily from Coursera’s Programming for Everybody, and then Codecademy, various other MOOCS, books, YouTube tutorials, etc.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
Jack of all trades, master of none– I used to be a wilderness guide, then I was in social work, then I taught English abroad, and I frequently spend my summers working at a roller derby skate shop. I also wrote a book about how mad I am that copper IUDs cost $900 in the US and $20 elsewhere. Now I just finished my first Django site.
What do you love the most about coding?
The 2 things that I love most are the low barrier to entry– anyone with time, a computer, and internet access can learn how to code if they’re willing to focus on it. Also, I love that there is always something to learn. Usually the minute I start to feel good at something I begin to hate it. There’s so much to know that I don’t think I’ll ever actually feel like I’m good at programming, which means I might actually manage to enjoy it for quite some time.
Why Django?
First I chose Python because it was highly recommended as the first programming language to learn. Then I chose Django for my specific project because it has a large, vibrant, community, and I was confident that it would be easy to find any answers that I needed from the large pool of people who have already struggled with and solved the same problems that I would have. The impression I got from what people said when comparing frameworks was that Django was a big time investment that would pay off if you were willing to learn it, which made it sound like the winner, in my eyes.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
Just yesterday I deployed my first big project, which is a roller derby stats and gear site http://www.smartderby.net/
I wrote an algorithm to rank individual players, which is something that I’m not aware of anyone else in the sport having done yet, and I hope to develop that into fantasy roller derby.
It’s far from finished, more at the minimum viable product stage. There’s still a lot to improve, but I’m happy to have gotten it to the point where I can deploy and see if anyone but me thinks that I’m onto something.
What are you the most proud of?
I was really hoping to deploy my site less than a year after typing “Hello World” for the first time, but unfortunately that deadline came and went. But I still managed to get it up less than a year after finishing my first programming MOOC. I don’t know if that’s a good timeline or a bad one, but for me, going from not even knowing where to start on a completely novel skill set, to accomplishing my goal within a year, made me happy. Also, I’m old. I know the stereotype is that you learn to program as a 10 year old whiz kid and if you didn’t do it then, you don’t have it in you, but I’m 32, just now learning, and probably wouldn’t have had the attention span for it prior to now.
What are you curious about?
I think making a game with Unity would be really fun. Maybe I could use the player stats to make a game based on real athletes. That’s probably not legal without their permission though. Also, 3Dprinting.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I haven’t actually managed to get paid for coding yet, so I guess that’s my hobby. I travel a lot– my partner writes a travel blog and we’re full time digital nomads. For example, my derby site was built from Germany, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Philippines, and the United States.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Advice 1:
When you’re learning something new, seek out several sources, so that you’ll learn which parts of it are essential (what does everyone do the same way) and what is subjective (what does each person do differently).
Advice 2 (This one is the most important):
Don’t pigeonhole yourself. Certainly different people have different aptitudes, but most people can be taught to do most things, so the worst thing you can do is limit yourself by deciding you’re not “the type of person that…” My brother has been into CS since he was prepubescent, and my partner has his MA in programming, so I’ve always been around computer dudes but I never considered it for myself. I had pigeonholed myself as a Walden Pond “type of person that” would never be interested in coding until I got the idea for my derby site.
That was stupid. The first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning is the last thing I did to my project the previous night, and what I need to do today. Whether or not I like to code has nothing to do with stupid stereotypes about “the type of person that” does or does not share unrelated common interests with me. People are more complex than they give themselves credit for.
Thanks Michela! :)
