Published July 28, 2026
This past weekend I attended PyOhio for the first time. In many ways it was what I expected from a Python conference - lots of interesting talks, good keynotes, great conversations, and an overall fun weekend. Before I do a complete recap, here are some of the highlights:
On Friday, the day before PyOhio kicked off, the Black Python Devs held their Community Leadership Summit. This was a great way to start the weekend. There were 2 keynotes, one of which was effectively rewritten on the fly as some of the discussion from earlier in the day very much changed what she wanted to say. There were 3 additional talks by members of the community focused on community organizing. In the middle there was a "chop it up" session.
BPD includes "chop it up" sessions in many of their events and this was my first time attending one. As we registered for the event, we were asked to take a moment and write down on a sticky note what we hoped to get from the summit. Those sticky notes because the inspiration for the discussion as we chopped it up. While there were a few different themes on the notes, the discussion primarily focused on detecting burn out (in ourselves and others) as well as ways to handle it. I'm not going to go into the session any more than that but, suffice it to say that it was interesting and informative to all of us in the room.
For me the best part of any Python conference, and the reason to attend, is the people we meet and interact with over its course. I was very happy to be able to reconnect with some friends I've made at previous conferences as well as make some new ones. I enjoyed spending time with some people with whom I had had some limited interactions with before but had not had the chance to actually have a real conversation with. With that I think the best part is the interactions with people I had never met before. People I probably would never have met had I not gone to PyOhio this year. These interactions will come with me and I look forward to crossing paths with these people again.
A few months ago I blogged about going to Ohio. I wrote about deciding to submit an offer to the CFP based on the blog post I wrote about NaN. Well, I went ahead and did that. And they accepted it. On Saturday afternoon I gave the talk. It was a joyful experience standing in that room in front of the 20 or so people that decided to come hear it. I got to entertain and amaze people with things they probably didn't know about one of the weirder things in computer science. Multiple people came up to me when I was done and told me it was both informative and funny, so I definitely achieved the goal I set for myself.
In the not too distant future the video of it will be on YouTube and you'll be able to watch it as well. As a bonus, one of the people in the room was an organizer of a meetup not far from where I live (that I didn't know existed!) and asked if I would be willing to give the talk there. I can't think of any greater praise I could receive.
If you're interested, you can find all the resources I used for the talk at https://github.com/brass75/nan-talk including the deck, code, and description and outline that I used when submitting to the CFP.
If you don't know what one is, a lightning talk is a 5 minute presentation (with a hard stop!) about anything you think will interest the audience. Getting up and giving a talk in a 30 minute slot is hard. Getting up and giving one in 5 minutes is harder. But both slots are so rewarding. I had the joy of standing in front of everyone at the conference and informing them on a topic I know well and think is very important.
At PyCon US 2025 I gave a talk about security advisories at the Maintainers Summit (this wasn't a "conference" talk) and on Saturday afternoon I reprised it as a lightning talk. I gave the highlights with enough information that people can look at how they write - and read - security advisories and start making them better.
I know I said that the reason I go to these conferences is the people - and that's 100% true - but it's not just for the social interactions, it's for what I can learn from them. I learned so much over the course of the weekend. Just a handful of highlights:
[~n] to go to the nth index from the right side of a list in Python.That's just some of the things I learned. While I didn't go to as many talks as I would have liked to (I was too busy on Saturday getting ready to give my talk and then the lightning talk that I didn't have the head space or time) the ones I did get too were great. I learned from the conversations, from the keynotes, from listening and being present.
To recap the recap, I had an amazing time in Cleveland at PyOhio. I highly recommend you come next year (July 24 & 25 2027!) if you can. If Cleveland is a bit too far out of the way, maybe there's a different regional conference in your neck of the woods. Or a meetup. If you do choose to come (or go to a different event) come for the community and stay for the community and the language. That's where all the value really is.