DjangoCon, first day, impressions

I am so happy that I am here! It was one of the best decisions in my professional life. My goal is to grow, and I grew more this one single day than I normally do in a whole year.

The Django community is really awesome! They are really smart people. The speakers all had a very clear way of thinking, and they all conveyed messages worth conveying. They are also open minded and brave in picking their subjects. And above all, they are respectful and welcoming people. The whole community is.

The location is magnificent. The beautiful classical building of the City Hall, and the magical dinner location of the National Museum. They are inspiring, and they help remember: we programmers are in a privileged position. And we should use this power to make the world a better place.

I was sitting at dinner with an Estonian, an Icelandic, a Russian, a Norwegian, a Swedish from Finland and a Czech. Myself being Hungarian. We talked about languages. Not just programming languages.

We had a speaker who opened my eyes: Lucie. An academic researcher from the field of social sciences. And she found Django to be the most useful tool to manage their data. And she just learned it! Wow!

I met Ola Sitarska and Ola Sendecka. The founders of DjangoGirls. Inspiring young women. Strong and smart – and at the same time: kind and friendly.

I listened to modern poetry presented by the author himself. It showed me how wide the world is, and this puts things into perspective. It also woke up the child inside me, who is a dreamer and used to practice poetry and philosophy before computers and maths took over my brain.

I heard a lot about burnout. And I agree, it is a topic worth speaking publicly about. And the conference organizers are well aware of this. I saw that talented and successful people are affected by it too. And I saw how you should never, no matter how depressed you are, forget that you are a valuable person.

I could go on with this list… There is a lot more to take in.
But there is another conference day ahead of me.
I am so happy to be here!