Amaze, Amaze, Amaze: Joining The 6th Session Of Djangonaut Space

I can't recall the exact date, about two or three years ago, when I stumbled upon the Djangonaut program. At the time I was pretty new to the Python ecosystem and had just started to dive deep into Django. I don't know why, but the moment I started working more with Django is the moment I started wanting to contribute to it.

So, I did what I usually do in these situations: I procrastinated. And I was really good at it, too. That is, until I finally stopped overthinking and started researching the topic. Thinks like how do people usually contribute? It's there any etiquette to follow? What's that thing called Trac? That's when I heard of the Djangonaut program for the first time and, lucky for me, I was just in time to apply.

And I didn't get accepted.

So I did what every sensible person would do in my situation: I cried.

Moving forward to the present, I almost forgot about the program. In the meantime, I tried to contribute on my own to projects linked to the ecosystem, like the django CMS framework or Jupyter (no, not the celestial body), but life got in the way and I took some time to serve coffee in the beautiful city of Lausanne, Switzerland. I also started learning french but I have made up my mind that this post would be about positive things and positive things only.

It was a couple of months after I returned to Spain when I heard about the Djangonaut program again and, once again, I was just in time to apply. I still wanted to contribute more to OSS and I still found the idea very appealing, so I just applied. And, this time, I got accepted.

Djangonauting with the Djangonauts

If you're here you probably know about the Djangonaut Space program but, if not, it is a mentorship program for contributing to Django and other related projects. You get the support of amazing people (really amazing) that will try to guide you and help you contribute to the project you have been assigned to. In my case, I was assigned to the Neptune team, which was in charge of contributing to the django CMS ecosystem.

You also have multiple channels to interact with not only the organizers, but also every other participant.

Why OSS?

I have always wanted to contribute to Open Source. Not only is it a great addition to any CV (which is true, even if a bit controversial), but also because it can be really fun. I also think that contributing to OSS is a great learning experience.

You're also forced to read code written by others. Code that has evolved over years. You have to learn to orient yourself, to try to understand the "why" behind certain decisions, and how the different piece work together.

My experience

So, how has my experience been? Really great, thanks for asking!

Jokes aside, the community has been incredible. Even though I wasn't able to participate as much as I wanted (this period of the year is typically one of the busiest for me), I could totally feel the support, the companionship, and the genuine care and love for the project. I still remember the incredible welcome I received when I posted in the introductions channel and how they showed a real interest in me as a person. Same interest I saw in every other thread in the channel, too.

I also really enjoyed the meetings with my team, the tips from Fabian, and the encouragement from Nathan (navigator and captain, respectively).

Regarding the coding part, I stated in one of my reports that: "It's a bit difficult to explain, but even though I'm happy with the opportunity and enjoy being in the program, I feel like the things I'm doing now are things I was already able to do before I joined. It's more a personal realization that I was the one holding myself back than anything else. And I am glad that I joined the program and I could realize it."

In the end, I just needed a little push. One I received collaborating with amazing folks.

Okay, but what DID you do?

I did quite a few things, actually. Some of them were as simply as removing some non-breaking spaces or fixing and cleaning some tests. I also updated some models and everything in between and, for some reason, decided that I was going to try to update the djangocms-history plugin.