I have been lucky enough to be able to attend PyCon UK 2022 along with some of my colleagues at Mod25 over the three days from September 16th to the 18th at Cardiff City Hall. It was a real privilege to be sent to the event, which I initially didn’t think we would get much value from due to the mix of topics, but I am very pleased to be proven wrong.
One of the key things that I had underestimated was the sheer amount of enthusiasm I would come back with. Spending time with many different people applying python to different problems and disciplines really shook up my viewpoint of what I am doing, making what I have been working on day-to-day feel a little less mundane. It seems to be an almost universal truth that no matter how good what you are doing is, without some context it is easy to lose sight of what makes it special.
Another is that while many of the talks did not directly impact what I did, they all had learnings that I could take away from them, be it deep insights into the inner workings of the language, or high level ideas such as developing personal knowledge graphs.
Inclusivity was a big deal for the community, with the organisers making as many accommodations as they could including subtitling talks in the main assembly hall and providing a free crèche. They really went out of their way to make everyone welcome and that was reflected in a warm and welcoming community.
This year was a short format event, running for only 3 days due to the ongoing uncertainty of COVID19 when planning. 2023 will be back to a 5 day event and something to watch out for.