Roll call: women in python
Lately I’ve been wanting to talk more about women in python, which I see as a subset of the women in open source conversation that’s been taking place. I really wanted to start by talking to other women, though, to see who they are and what their experiences have been and how mine compare.
Except… who ARE the women in python? I can name eight, including myself. There must be more, right? There must be women using python who don’t participate in the larger community. There must be women who ARE active and whom I’m just not aware of. It can’t possibly just be eight. My Planet Python RSS feed shows me no regular female contributors (that can’t be right, can it?); three PSF members are female (out of 112) but none of them are officers or are on the board; nobody on python core is female.
My view is fairly limited in scope, so what I want to know is: are there really so few women using python in the first place? Or are there women using it who keep their heads down or don’t engage with the larger python community? It seems to me that those are separate issues, to be addressed in different ways.
So I am proposing a roll-call. Are you a woman using python? At work, at home, at school, in any capacity whatsoever? Raise your hand. Be counted.
(Men, please do not raise your hand on behalf of your female colleagues or friends. Send ‘em on over. Let them speak for themselves.)
pam
Wednesday, 12th August 2009 at 5:55 pm
Me.
Kaitlin Duck Sherwood
Wednesday, 12th August 2009 at 6:21 pm
Um, I did a significant project in Python in 1994, and have been aPython voyeur since. I also worked at OSAF in a non-programming role, and have use Python a little outside of work (e.g. for Algorithms homework problems).
I realize I doesn’t *really* count, but I wanted to boost the numbers…
foxfirefey
Wednesday, 12th August 2009 at 6:33 pm
Me! I’ve been starting to use Python more and more in the past year, for things I used to use Perl for. I’ve been improving data analysis at my work with Python scripts, and doing some web application development using Django. And I use it for some personal scripting, too.
Amanda Ruzin
Wednesday, 12th August 2009 at 6:34 pm
I do, for small personal projects and simple reformatting tasks for work. I wouldn’t call myself a “real” python programmer, though.
murklins
Wednesday, 12th August 2009 at 7:47 pm
Me! For personal use, mostly related to Delicious.com and the extraction/posting/etc. of links therein. Sometimes I use the pydelicious library, sometimes I roll my own.
Katie Cunningham
Thursday, 13th August 2009 at 8:50 am
Me! I’m a technical lead at NASA, and we use it for most of the business apps I take point on.
Pamela M
Thursday, 13th August 2009 at 9:47 am
Me! Web based marketing stuff, python-only for 8 years now.
Julie Steele
Thursday, 13th August 2009 at 11:33 am
I stand with Kaitlin as a Python voyeur of sorts. I’m an editor of books about Python, user group attendee, PyCon veteran, and all-around fan of the community. So far, my coding experience has not extended much beyond the “hello world” kind of thing, but one of these days in my copious spare time… :-)
Monica Toth
Thursday, 13th August 2009 at 8:17 pm
Python was my first language and still, so far, my favorite. Count me in.
Lee Ann Rucker
Thursday, 13th August 2009 at 8:26 pm
python and 20-odd other languages (overall; maybe 5 I’m actively fluent in).
Valkyrie
Thursday, 13th August 2009 at 9:00 pm
I’m here. :)
Liz
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 3:39 am
Yup, me.
Leigh Honeywell
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 3:41 am
Hi there!
I program for fun in python (perl for work!) and am just getting my feet wet in a project called Basie, doing security testing.
I also run a weekly free Python programming class at HackLabTO in Toronto, Canada. I’m going to send in a paper to PyCon about the class, as it’s been a lot of fun and a huge learning experience for me (and hopefully the students!)
-Leigh
Leigh Honeywell
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 3:49 am
Forgot to mention: I work full time at a large computer security company, and am studying for a double-major BSc in Computer Science and Equity Studies at the University of Toronto. The CS school teaches Python in first year, and Jennifer Campbell just finished co-authoring a new introductory CS (and Python) textbook, woot!
Gloria
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 5:48 am
I use python at work. Trying to fight elderly men who’re stuck with Java…
Donna 'SnowWrite' Snow
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 10:52 am
Me also. I work with Zope/Python/Plone though my actual Python knowledge is limited I promote and develop with the above. I’m also teaching myself Django. I prefer python based technologies to anything else.
I’m active in the Plone community, just not as active in the Python community.
Meenal
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 11:18 am
I have worked in Python for the last 5 years, 3 of these were only Python, at NCSA in Urbana Champaign. Currently I am seeking a job and learning to use Python in web development.
Catherine Jones
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 11:41 am
I use Python to sort fabrics on Etsy by color (i.e., to run morecloth.com) and for some textile-design purposes.
Liz
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 12:43 pm
Oh, that’s awesome. Do you think you might you write more about the code behind morecloth.com on your blog?
Catherine Jones
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 4:40 pm
Thanks for the encouragement. It’s all done with open-source: Linux, Python, and ImageMagick. I’ll write something up in the next couple of weeks and let people know.
Skud
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 12:49 pm
If you do write about it, please let me know! I would like to link to it from our Geek Feminism group blog!
vibha
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 12:35 pm
typing with 1 hand…am a python lover…used to write all kinds of automation tools using python at work…on maternal sabbatical for now…but will sure love to come back and write morw python code – it’s cuter than Java or c++ which I also code mostly with….
Jennifer
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 12:48 pm
I have been using python doing web development for the past 2 year for MerchantCircle whose goal is to help local businesses get more customers online. (www.merchantcircle.com) It has been fun and less pain using Python… I would choose it rather than Java, c/c++ any day
Darlene Wong
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 2:00 pm
I’ve been using Python on and off since 2001. I’ve used it for an enterprise build breakage repair system, a pattern recognition tool, web crawling/scraping, data processing, image processing, and a couple of web tools (TurboGears & Django).
Amy Farrell
Friday, 14th August 2009 at 10:38 pm
I use python at work, but I’m largely language-agnostic.
pfctdayelise
Saturday, 15th August 2009 at 4:19 am
Python is the first programming language I’ve used in a serious way (since 2000) and still my favourite. I use it for scripting at work and home (and as a calculator :)). I’ve also started using it for web development.
But it doesn’t surprise me that _users_ of Python are not that visible. I also use OpenOffice, Thunderbird, Firefox, Livejournal, Gmail….. a million other things, and I don’t participate in those communities. My impression is that things like planets are more for developers than users.
Anna Ravenscroft
Saturday, 15th August 2009 at 3:58 pm
You already know me. So I didn’t respond to this until someone emailed me and asked why I wasn’t on the list. So, here. I’m on the list now. ;-)
Natasha
Saturday, 15th August 2009 at 4:19 pm
I program in python in my elusive free time at home. I started working with django and do some small programs in python.
I’m not active in any communities since my schedule is packed with school in c/c++/java and part-time work in java. Hopefully I can become active once I graduate :).
Gloria W
Saturday, 15th August 2009 at 6:25 pm
Python simply rocks. I’ve written all of my code for start-ups and peripheral projects in Python since 2001. It’s fun to give tutorials in Python as well. People tend to pick the language up quickly, and enjoy writing code in this great language.
Mackenzie
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 4:21 am
I don’t often use Python, but I have some experience with it. I used it for an internship a couple years ago and am decent enough with it to fix small bugs in PyGTK programs. I gave an Edubuntu laptop all setup for Python development along with some PDFs of Python books for kids to my 9 year old (female) cousin for Christmas and started showing her the basics, so count this comment as two!
Sabrina Leandro
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 5:28 am
I worked with Python on my previous job, it was the first language I really fell in love with.
Now, I try to program in Python in my spare time.
Yvi
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 9:18 am
I have been using Python at university for several years now – I do Bioinformatics. Some with normal scripting, some with Biopython.
Lauren
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 1:35 pm
I learned Python while doing observational astronomy research, and now use it doing high energy physics research (usually in combination with C++).
Madeleine
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 2:57 pm
I introduced Python as a first-year course where I lecture and have used Python Server Pages on the mobile webserver. Plus I’m planning a big project on mobile Python for next year :-)
Karin
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 5:12 pm
This and last summer, I have using python heavily in my summer job (which involves data aquisition for testing of electronics).
Last fall term I had an algorithms course that used Python, but as I am really a maths student (and focus on the more theoretical parts), I haven’t used it much more for school after that.
However, it is my language of choice when doing project Euler :)
Fiona
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 5:22 pm
I’ve been programming since I was 9. Python is the only language to hit all my happy places.
I use it in my work and home.
I ended up getting into web development but my love is in writing games.
I wrote a library that wraps pygame that almost completely emulates another obscure language I used to write in. I am currently writing a large complex game using it that I hope to sell.
SarahD
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 5:23 pm
I code in python. FIrst encountered it 7 years ago for some scripting duties. Then ran into it again a couple of years ago. Have done a couple “crap, I gotta do that again? now it’s a script” type programs for myself. Writing some Django based web-services in it these days.
Only knew to come here and be counted because one of my co-workers forwarded your plea to an internal company mailing list. I wouldn’t call myself a Python expert or stand up to lead in the Python community. I’m more of a “is the language procedural and vaguely C-based? yeah, I can read it and probably code in it” kind of jill-of-all-trades.
SarahD
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 5:30 pm
Hrm. Didn’t mean procedural exactly. Mostly meant “not one of those wacky Haskell-like languages”. *sigh* See? This is why I sit quietly over in the corner and just write code. The English language does not mean what I think it means. (And, yes, I am a native speaker.)
Pinar
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 6:25 pm
I am using Python for 3 years and developing GUI applications with PyKDE & QT.
I am also in FLOSS community since 2003 and leading a local women in computing group under ACM-W Turkey.
Nadia Alramli
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 6:29 pm
Python is fun, I use it daily at home and work. I also contribute to an open source project written in Python. When I find free time I write some Python-related tutorials in my blog.
Python is also my preferred language in project Euler :)
Dorothea Salo
Sunday, 16th August 2009 at 10:14 pm
I’ve used Python on and off for about ten years, mostly for text-munging and data conversion.
Laura Creighton
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 2:31 am
I only program in Python or C these days.
C if I need to write a device driver, and
Python for everything else. I do a fair bit of
scientific programming, and teach Python.
I used to program a lot more, but these days keeping the small computer company I founded with some friends in business
takes up most of my professional time. I am
interested in the mathematical aspects of
computer science, language design, and
user interface design.
PSF board members keep pestering me to
join the board all the time. But I don’t have
time for such things right now. I’m pretty
active in PSF member discussions, though.
Fiona
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 3:41 am
Assuming you’re the same Laura Creighton I’d like to thank you for helping to put on a great conference in Europython, you’re not giving yourself enough credit. :)
Melita
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 2:54 am
Python is my preferred programming language, I used it at college, for GSOC project and at work.
Cath the Canberra Cook
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 6:04 am
I use python where possible. My last good work project was all python. It was a gene ontology package I named Pygeon. Did file reading & stats calculations; based on a binary sparse matrix implemented as a couple of dictionaries.
Ramya
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 8:53 am
Me too
Barbara
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 11:36 am
I don’t use Python at work, unfortunately, but it’s my preferred language, the one I use for all of my side/contract work. I’m also fairly active in the Django community, although I’m not a contributor.
Stephanie Gokhman
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 2:26 pm
Python/Django developer for an Internet subsidiary of Newhouse Publications professionally for 2 years, recreationally and academically for 4.
Strata Chalup
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 4:02 pm
I recommend python for projects I manage, and last coded python in any substantive way in 2003 or 2004, creating automated install scripts for various RedHat packages on a contract.
The idea that engaging with a language community is a predictor of how many people are using a language seems kind of odd to me. There was a C community back when I programmed in C, but there seemd to be primarily two types of folks involved with it: language designer or heavy-duty CS type interested in compiler changes, or very active programmers giving/receiving mentoring. The kind of day to day, bread and butter programming types didn’t seem to show up there often; I had a read-only newsfeed view into comp.lang.c and similar sources.
Don’t get discouraged if there aren’t too many responses here… it may not be a good reflection of how many people are using python vs monitoring the blogosphere and/or python community pages. Maybe there could be an optional survey link at some ‘official’ python site? With questions about M/F, demographic, edu/business/school/personal use, etc?
Doesn’t touch the folks out there using apt-get and the like, but might yield some initial interesting data.
cheers,
Strata
Sarah Dutkiewicz
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 7:48 pm
I’m not a hardcore pure pythonista, but I present throughout the Midwest on the awesomeness of IronPython. My speaking credentials on IronPython include Cleveland Day of .NET 2008, CodeMash 2009, and PyCon 2009.
Rachel Blum
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 8:47 pm
I wouldn’t call myself a Pythonista, but I dabble a fair bit in it. All the random scripts at work, the back-end for my Starbucks Challenge webmap, whatever comes up. And definitely all prototyping I do. I wish I could do a real project in Python, but since I work on video games, there’s not too much room for it.
I also dabbled w/ Django & Python for my personal blog, but just decided that I’d rather write articles than create yet another blogging system ;)
I should probably get my act together and join a local Python group… Any local (Los Angeles) Pythonistas around?
Amantha
Monday, 17th August 2009 at 9:05 pm
I’m just starting Python, but im excited and eager to learn!
Ingrid Jakobsen
Tuesday, 18th August 2009 at 6:01 am
I think I began programming before python existed, so I hope I can be forgiven for my code in C. But since I discovered python, it’s been my preferred language, eg http://bioinformatics.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/6/535.
I’ve also taught it to university students (as part of a computational biology course).
Michaela Barrett
Tuesday, 18th August 2009 at 4:40 pm
I use Python for personal projects and my workplace is in the process of converting to Django for our webwork. Which is going to add a nice chunk of gals to the roster, as nearly half our ~200 coders are women.
selidor
Wednesday, 19th August 2009 at 1:01 am
I use Python for observational astronomy research tasks.
Sheila
Wednesday, 19th August 2009 at 10:00 am
I use python and jython at work in unsophisticated ways so I don’t normally tell other people I am a python programmer.
With respect to the community, I sometimes do gopher stuff at pycons though, and watch the pycon organizers and pycon av mailing lists. I was on the pycon chicago pc list thinking they might want the perspective of a beginner for vetting the beginner level talks. I go to the local python user group here (chipy.org) because they consistently have interesting talks.