This was my second time at PyCon Lithuania and, for the second time in a row, I leave with the impression that everything was very well organised and smooth.\nMaybe the organisers and volunteers were stressed out all the time — organising a conference is never easy — but everything looked under control all the time and well thought-through.<\/p>\n
Thank you for an amazing experience!<\/p>\n
And by the way, congratulations for 15 years of PyCon Lithuania.\nTo celebrate, they even served a gigantic cake during the first networking event.\nThe cake was at least<\/em> 80cm by 30cm:<\/p>\n I'll be honest with you: I didn't expect the cake to be good.\nThe quality of food tends to degrade when it's cooked at a large scale...\nBut even the taste was great and the cake had three coloured layers in yellow, green, and red.<\/p>\n The organisers prepared two<\/em> networking events, a speakers' dinner, and three city tours (one per evening) for speakers.\nThere was always<\/em> something for you to do.<\/p>\n The city tour is a brilliant idea and I wonder why more conferences don't do it:<\/p>\n I had taken the city tour last time I had been at PyCon Lithuania and taking it again was not a mistake.\nHere's our group at the end of the tour, immediately before the speakers' dinner:<\/p>\n The conference organisers even made sure that the city tour ended close to the location of the speakers' dinner and<\/em> that the tour ended at the same time as the dinner started.\nAnother small detail that was carefully planned.<\/p>\n The atmosphere of the restaurant was very pleasant and the staff there was helpful and kind, so we had a wonderful night.\nAt some point, at our table, we noticed that the folks at the other two tables were projecting something on a big screen.\nThere was a large curtain that partially separated our table from the other two, so we took some time to realise that an impromptu Python quiz was about to take place.<\/p>\n I'm (way too) competitive and immediately got up to play.\nAfter six questions, which included learning about the existence of the web framework Falcon<\/em> and correctly reordering the first four sentences of the Zen of Python, I was crowned the winner:<\/p>\n The top three players got a free<\/em> spin on the PyCon Lithuania wheel of fortune.<\/p>\n On each day of the conference there was an egg hunt running...<\/p>","summary":"In this article I share my personal highlights of PyCon Lithuania 2026.","date_modified":"2026-04-18T17:13:32+02:00","tags":["python","conferences","opinion"],"image":"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-lithuania-2026\/thumbnail.webp"},{"title":"Personal highlights of EuroPython 2025","date_published":"2025-08-11T14:46:00+02:00","id":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/personal-highlights-of-europython-2025","url":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/personal-highlights-of-europython-2025","content_html":" In this article I share my personal highlights of the 2025 edition of the EuroPython conference in Prague, Czech Republic.<\/p>\n\n EuroPython was my first in-person conference, ever, and for that reason EuroPython holds a special place in my heart.\nThe conference is genuinely fun, the community is very welcoming, and the organisers and volunteers are extremely warm, so going to EuroPython doesn't feel like work.<\/p>\n Walking up to the venue on the first day to check-in and get your badge is a really joyful feeling.\nCombined that with the fact that EuroPython 2023, 2024, and 2025, were in the same venue\/city, I got this warm fuzzy feeling of familiarity as I arrived on Monday morning.<\/p>\n Python conferences will usually have stickers for you to put on your badge, to make it your own.\nBut also, to provide useful information to others meeting you for the first time.<\/p>\n This year, EuroPython prepared badges with dedicated spots to put stickers and they also created a bunch of useful informational stickers that all had the same shape.\nThe stickers provided included:<\/p>\n That meant it was particularly easy to customise your badge and to provide extra useful information to folks meeting you.<\/p>\n In my badge picture above you can see an “organiser” sticker.\nThat's because I was part of the programme team, who is responsible for going over the ~600 proposals that EuroPython receives to create the EuroPython programme that, hopefully, everyone ends up enjoying.<\/p>\n I was part of a wonderful team co-lead by Cristián Maureira-Fredes and Jodie Burchell, who also counted with the help of Marina Moro López, Diego Russo, Naa Ashiorkor Nortey, and Yuliia Barabash.<\/p>\n The work of the programme team is time-consuming and tiring, but it would be impossible without the help of everyone who takes part in the community voting (when past participants vote on the submissiosn that seem interesting to them) and without the dozens of reviewers who participate in the blind review phase, reviewing dozens of proposals, scoring them, and leaving written reviews with their thoughts on why a proposal might look particularly suitable or unsuitable for the conference.\nThank you, everyone!<\/p>\n Despite being a lot of work, I enjoy volunteering with the programme team and hopefully they'll have me again next year!\nBut my involvement with the conference didn't end with the programme team...<\/p>\n EuroPython 2025 was my fourth in-person EuroPython conference.\nIt was simultaneously the best so far, and the most tiring so...<\/p>","summary":"In this article I share my personal highlights of the 2025 edition of the EuroPython conference in Prague, Czech Republic.","date_modified":"2025-08-12T14:56:00+02:00","tags":["conferences","opinion","python"],"image":"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-europython-2025\/thumbnail.webp"},{"title":"PyCon Portugal 2025 programme mafia","date_published":"2025-07-27T12:14:00+02:00","id":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/pycon-portugal-2025-programme-mafia","url":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/pycon-portugal-2025-programme-mafia","content_html":" The PyCon Portugal 2025 programme appears to be dominated by a mafia of a few speakers... Let me explain!<\/p>\n\n PyCon Portugal 2025<\/a> had a total of 18 talks (2 keynotes + 16 regular talks) and 6 workshops, for a total of 24 sessions.\nThis means that PyCon Portugal 2025 could have given the opportunity to 24 different speakers to lead a session.\nInstead, PyCon Portugal had 19 distinct speakers, including a duo that led one of the keynotes.\nMore specifically, there were 5 speakers who were responsible for 11 sessions.\nWhy?<\/p>\n When the programme team was selecting the talks and workshops, we started by selecting the workshops because we always have fewer quality workshop proposals, making it easier to do the selection.\nThe blind reviews made it even easier and we ended up selecting 6 workshops by 6 different speakers, among which you could count three key people:<\/p>\n (These names will be important later.)<\/p>\n Then, we moved on to selecting the talks, and we looked for 16 quality talks by 16 other different speakers.\nThis wasn't that easy, because we had a healthy number of good proposals, but we eventually did it.\nAcceptances were sent out and speakers confirmed their proposals.<\/p>\n For the keynotes, we got a local duo to lead one of the sessions, and then I invited Pablo Galindo Salgado to come give the other keynote.\nHere's the fourth key person:<\/p>\n That was it and we had a full line-up.\nAnd then...\nThey started.<\/p>\n I've been a part of the EuroPython programme team a couple of times already so I know that it is quite common for speakers to cancel their sessions.\nIt is unfortunate, but it happens for a variety of reasons (some good and some bad, from the point of view of the speaker).<\/p>\n The first cancellation happened two months before the conference, which is great in the sense that you get plenty of time to find a replacement.\nWhat wasn't so great was that it was a workshop cancellation.\nBetween the lack of proposals and the withdrawal of the other workshops that we had in the waiting list, we were left scrambling for a minute...<\/p>\n But then I reached out to Cristián Maureira-Fredes to invite him to give a workshop at PyCon Portugal.\nThere's the fifth key person:<\/p>\n There's one thing that is worse than a cancellation two months away from the conference: a cancellation 5 days before the conference!\nAnd PyCon Portugal 2025 had seven<\/strong> of those.\nIn the 5 days before the conference, 30% of the programme was redone!<\/p>\n PyCon Portugal 2025 had more last-minute cancellations than EuroPython 2025, which had a programme that was 8 times larger...\nLast-minute cancellations aren't funny for anyone because they typically involve sudden health issues or travel complications.\nI know it from...<\/p>","summary":"The PyCon Portugal 2025 programme appears to be dominated by a mafia of a few speakers... Let me explain!","date_modified":"2025-07-27T15:05:55+02:00","tags":["conferences","opinion","python"],"image":"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/pycon-portugal-2025-programme-mafia\/thumbnail.webp"},{"title":"Personal highlights of PyCon Italy 2025","date_published":"2025-06-05T18:39:00+02:00","id":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-italy-2025","url":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-italy-2025","content_html":" In this article I share my personal highlights of PyCon Italy 2025, including stories and anecdotes.<\/p>\n\n PyCon Italy is one of my favourite Python conferences.\nThere is just something about the warmth of the community that is unmatched by other conferences I've been at!\nThis year was the second time I attended and I want to thank the organisers for helping me attend the conference.<\/p>\n In this article I will share some random stories and my personal highlights of the conference in no particular order.\nIt's just a brain dump of the experience!<\/p>\n I went to PyCon Italy to give an introductory talk to metaprogramming<\/a> but at the last minute I had to prepare a second talk where I talked about the module I haven't bought a clicker for myself yet, although I always ask around for one when I'm presenting...\nThis time, it wasn't any different, and I got a clicker for the first talk but then that person left the conference.\nSo, I looked around for someone who could lend me their clicker for the second talk, and eventually I got to Sebastián Ramírez, the creator of FastAPI, Typer, and others.\nAnd just like that, I borrowed Sebastián's clicker!<\/p>\n One of the cool things about the Python community is that these folks that we may look up to, and that are essentially “celebrities” of the Python world, are alwasy very down to Earth and friendly!<\/p>\n (10 minutes before my talk I decided to test the clicker and for my dismay the clicker didn't work.\nEvery button was working except for the “next slide” and “previous slide” buttons...\nThen, I realised they were working, but they were bound to the up and down arrow keys instead of the right and left, so in a last-minute desperate effort I installed some random program I found online and remapped my up\/down arrows to the right\/left arrows...)<\/p>\n Lightning talk are one of my favourite parts of any Python conference – and I don't get why other conferences don't have these.\nPyCon Italy 2025 was no exception.<\/p>\n First, PyCon Italy's lightning talks this year featured a pizza wheel that you could spin to get an extra challenge while presenting your talk.\nWhen I spun the wheel I got the BBQ pizza, so they gave me some sausage glasses<\/a>.\nAs far as the challenges went, that was pretty easy to handle.\nI am not sure!<\/p>\n I like the sentiment of adding a fun twist to lightning talks, but I am not a huge fan of the challenges they created.\nI think lightning talks are already very fun and dynamic and there is no need to make it more confusing for others.\nAt least, we should figure out a way for others to feel less pressure to play the game.\nSpinning the pizza wheel is optional and no one is forced to do it, but there is obvious pressure to do so and it was...<\/p>","summary":"In this article I share my personal highlights of PyCon Italy 2025, including stories and anecdotes.","date_modified":"2025-07-23T16:49:02+02:00","tags":["conferences","opinion","python"],"image":"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-italy-2025\/thumbnail.webp"},{"title":"Personal highlights of PyCon US 2025","date_published":"2025-05-21T14:46:00+02:00","id":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-us-2025","url":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-us-2025","content_html":" In this article I share my personal highlights of the 2025 edition of the PyCon US conference,.<\/p>\n\n This year was the second time I went to PyCon US and that would have not been possible without the help of the PyCon US travel grants<\/a>.\nSo, first and foremost, thank you to PyCon US for the opportunity!\nNext, I'd like to express my heartfelt appreciation for everyone<\/em> involved in making the conference possible, especially the volunteers and organisers.\nThank you!<\/p>\n This article won't be very well structured, it's just a brain dump of my personal highlights for the conference!\nHere I go.<\/p>\n To get this out of the way, I had the opportunity to give a tutorial (“Reimplementing the module The organisers also gave me, and every other speaker, a very kind “thank you” note where they shared their appreciation, that they all signed.\nAs if organising the whole conference wasn't enough hard work, they went through the trouble of signing each note by hand...\nThese small things are why I love the Python community so much!<\/p>\n PyCon US hits different than the European conferences because it's where you get to meet many people that are based in the US (or elsewhere) and that don't usually go to European conferences.\nPyCon US aggregates a huge number of people, and if I go ahead and list everyone I was happy to see at the conference, I will both<\/p>\n Instead, let's just say I was particularly happy for finally meeting Marlene<\/a>, who I “met” on Twitter, Jim, and Mike.\nI had good conversations and moments with dozens of others and that's what “I came for the language but stayed for the community” means to me.<\/p>\n I'd also like to thank Anaconda and Astral for the two “parties” I was at on Friday and Saturday, which provided a venue and food so that dozens of us could hang out after the conference ended for the day and to keep the conversations going.<\/p>\n One of the nights, I found myself at the Westin lobby listening to Pablo talk about his PhD thesis on theoretical physics.\nI don't know for how long I was there.\nMaybe 2 hours?\nI was completely wrecked since I had been sleeping so little the previous nights to finish the prep for my tutorial and talk.\nPlus, Pablo's PHD THESIS wasn't on some trivial topic.\nIt's...<\/p>","summary":"In this article I share my personal highlights of the 2025 edition of the PyCon US conference.","date_modified":"2025-07-23T16:49:02+02:00","tags":["conferences","opinion","python"],"image":"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-us-2025\/thumbnail.webp"},{"title":"How I prepare a technical talk","date_published":"2024-09-25T23:00:00+02:00","id":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/how-i-prepare-a-technical-talk","url":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/how-i-prepare-a-technical-talk","content_html":" This article outlines the steps I follow to prepare my technical talks, including notes on slide design, engaging with the audience, how to prepare the delivery, and how to manage the Q&A.<\/p>\n\n I have a lot of fun giving talks at conferences.\nI am not the best speaker ever and I am far from being a prestiged speaker.\nHowever, I have had enough positive feedback from enough talks to claim with some confidence that I am a decent speaker.<\/p>\n The article will be split into five sections outlining my thoughts on:<\/p>\n I will also include some notes on how I personally prepare the content for my talks<\/a> and I will close this article with a very important note regarding the fact that, obviously, all of this is subjective<\/a>.<\/p>\n Most presenters use a slide deck as the medium for the content of their presentation.\nMy audience will spend a great deal of time looking at my slide deck, so it is important that my slide deck is a tool that helps me deliver an excellent technical talk, and not something that hinders my performance.<\/p>\n When creating my slide deck I try to follow these guidelines:<\/p>\n In this opinion piece the author expresses his views on what makes a good (Python) tutorial and how that differs from a long talk.<\/p>\n\n The title of the article should say it all but I'll elaborate a bit on what I mean by \u201ca tutorial is not a long talk\u201d\u00a0and I'll share what I think makes a good tutorial.<\/p>\n I've been to talks and tutorials at different conferences (mostly Python conferences) and I've attended great talks, great tutorials, terrible talks, and terrible tutorials.\nI've seen it all.<\/p>\n Why do talk speakers sometimes ask questions to the audience?\nWhy do talk speakers sometimes make jokes during their talks?\nBecause they don't want their talk to be boring and they want to engage with the audience.<\/p>\n In tutorials, the levels of engagement cannot<\/strong><\/em> be equal to this.<\/p>\n If you're giving a tutorial, you're not supposed to spend all of your time talking, showing slides, or shuffling code around.\nIt's also not enough<\/em> to do live coding.\nFor your tutorial to be a tutorial, the audience must<\/em> participate actively through:<\/p>\n If the audience can sit through your presentation with their arms crossed, you're not giving a tutorial.\nYou're presenting a (long) talk.\nPlease, don't do this.<\/p>\n If you're giving a tutorial, it's fine to show a couple of slides to get everyone up to speed.\nBut the point of a tutorial is to give hands-on experience to the audience.<\/p>\n Q: But my tutorial covers very advanced material that the audience won't be able to keep up with... A: Make it less complex. No one said giving a good tutorial is easy!<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Q: But I don't have a lot of time. A: Make it shorter. No one said giving a good tutorial is easy!<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n If you have any more questions, feel free to drop them below and I'll add them to this FAQ.<\/p>","summary":"In this opinion piece the author expresses his views on what makes a good (Python) tutorial and how that differs from a long talk.","date_modified":"2026-06-03T17:59:29+02:00","tags":["conferences","opinion"],"image":"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/a-tutorial-is-not-a-long-talk\/thumbnail.webp"}]}
![\"A](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-lithuania-2026\/_cake.webp\" "\\"The")
Social activities<\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"Some](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-lithuania-2026\/_tour.webp\" "\\"Some")
![\"A](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-lithuania-2026\/_quiz.webp\" "\\"The")
Egg hunt and swag<\/a><\/h2>\n
EuroPython feels like home<\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-europython-2025\/_venue.webp\" "\\"The")
Badge stickers<\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-europython-2025\/_badge.webp\" "\\"My"){kind=icon}
Co-organising the programme<\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-europython-2025\/_programme.webp\" "\\"The")
EuroPython 2025 was... surprisingly tiring!<\/a><\/h2>\n
Programme composition<\/a><\/h2>\n
The selection process<\/a><\/h2>\n
The cancellations<\/a><\/h2>\n
The last-minute cancellations<\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"Popular](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/pycon-portugal-2025-programme-mafia\/_this_is_fine.webp\" "\\"My")
Sebastián Ramírez's clicker<\/a><\/h2>\n
itertools<\/code><\/a>.<\/p>\nLightning talks<\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-italy-2025\/_lt_sausage.webp\" "\\"Sausage")
![\"My](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-us-2025\/_badge.webp\" "\\"My"){kind=icon}
My personal involvement<\/a><\/h2>\n
itertools<\/code> for fun and profit”<\/a>), a talk (“503 days working full-time on FOSS: lessons learned”<\/a>), and a lightning talk (“Meta lightning talk”<\/a>).\nThe participants engaged with me during my tutorial, asked lots of questions, and seemed to enjoy the exercises I gave them.\nI also got some excellent feedback following my talk, so I am very happy about that.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-us-2025\/_thank-you-note.webp\" "\\"A")
The people & socialising<\/a><\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/personal-highlights-of-pycon-us-2025\/_marlene.webp\" "\\"Marlene")
Slide design<\/a><\/h2>\n
![A meme that shows Bart Simpson at detention in school, writing the sentence \"a tutorial is not a long talk\" on a chalkboard repeatedly.](\"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/a-tutorial-is-not-a-long-talk\/thumbnail.webp\" "\\"Bart")
\n
FAQ<\/a><\/h2>\n
\n