My 2024 in review

A quick review of my 2024 done in a hurry, trying to remember the many experiences I had, the people I met, the places I visited and the changes I went through.

Preface

As it is now tradition, I’m here literally on the last day of the year, writing a review of my 2024. Despite my innate nature to procrastinate on non-urgent things, I found it very interesting to read my review of last year.

During these holidays I decided to take some time for myself away from any kind of commitment, from social media, even from the community, the only exception being this short time in which I’m writing this review. I hope it will be useful for you to read, I’m sure it will be for me next year.

The soundtrack as I write this article is “Scenes from a memory” by Dream Theater.

Work

2024 has been a busy year from a work perspective. After 8 years spent in 20tab, the last ones as CTO, I decided to take on new challenges, always continuing to work with Python, Django and the many Open Source technologies that I have always used and sponsored over time.

I also wrote an article to thank all my former colleagues at 20tab, wishing them all the best for the future.

The interesting thing was, after a long time interviewing people in the Python and Django field and understanding the dynamics of job interviews, receiving unexpected rejections or seeing interesting offers run aground.

I tried to understand what it would be like to work in an Open Source project and I also applied for the role of Django Fellow, after Mariusz retired, it was a very interesting experience, and I was still happy to see Sarah chosen for the role, I think she is doing a great job together with Natalia.

Community

2024 was a year in which I worked in the community on various fronts. At the beginning of the year, I attended various meetings to share my various ideas on the Django road map and I shared it in an article.

The work in the Python Pescara community has grown, we started to hold meetings with talks, in addition to simply meeting to have a beer together, we created a website and various channels, but I only now realize that we have not yet written any articles about our activities.

I also helped this year in organizing the PyCon Italia conference, and like every year it was tiring but beautiful to collaborate with such passionate and capable people and to host so many members of the largest international Python and Django community in Italy.

It was also an opportunity to meet the organizers of the local Italian Python communities and start to promote more these grassroots initiatives that keep the Italian Python community alive throughout the year.

This summer I was nominated PSF Fellow together with Adam Johnson, which made me very happy and I wrote a short article for the occasion. I had the pleasure of being invited to participate as a navigator in the third session of the Djangonaut Space project, a very engaging experience, which unfortunately I have not yet had time to write about.

Finally, I renewed my commitment to the Django community, I tried to give more of my contribution to the team dedicated to the website, also trying to have my say for the formation of a specific working group for the website.

For the third year in a row I tried to run for the role of board member of the Django Software Foundation, and I was elected, I wrote an article with my statement, some thoughts on my election and also the experience of participating for the first time in a meeting with the DSF board, with the outgoing and new members, I hope to work a lot in 2025 in this new role, and I’m confident that with the other excellent board members we will do many things for the Python community.

Talks

This year I kept the same pace as last year regarding talks. I actually opened the year with an interview for the PyBites podcast. I then proposed to Python Pescara the idea of ​​a talk on new technologies that I was experimenting with.

Since I was not selected as a speaker for PyCon US, I participated as a remote speaker for an online lighting talk, and similarly I presented a lightning talk at DjangoCon Europe 2024 (Vigo, Spain) in which I presented in 5 minutes the talk that I had proposed and that had been discarded.

I presented a talk during PyCon Italia in Florence, and in the same period I recorded a talk for Posetteconf that was published a few weeks later. In July, I returned as a speaker to Prague for EuroPython 2024, now almost a regular event for me.

Finally, I had the pleasure of participating again as a speaker at DjangoCon US 2024 for the second year in Durham, and I met the American Django community. With great pleasure, I presented my latest talk at the first meeting of the newborn Python Marche community, to which we tried to give a hand with some members of the Python Pescara community.

Trips

In addition to the cities I visited for conferences, this year I was in Barcelona (Spain) and Madrid (Spain) for the first time.

In Italy, I finally spent some time in Alto Adige/Südtirol and visited many beautiful places in the Dolomites. I returned to visit again some beautiful Italian cities (Rome, Turin, Rimini, Bologna, Venice).

Sport

This year I did some nice trekking in the Abruzzo’s Apennines and in the Dolomites in Alto Adige. I also did some nice cycling in the mountains using e-bikes. I also saw some live sporting events, such as the Rome International Tennis Championships, the ATP Finals in Turin.

For the first time I attended the finals of the European Athletics Championships in the beautiful “Stadio Olimpico” in Rome and also a Rugby match between Italy and New Zealand “All Blacks”.

The greatest satisfaction, however, was being back swimming in the pool again this autumn, and I hope to continue consistently during the next year.

Writings

This year I didn’t write as many articles as I would have liked, in addition to those related to my talks I wrote:

• an article about my ideas for a Django road map
• the Postgres upgrade guide
• a short article about my election as a PSF Fellow
• an article for my years spent in 20tab
• three articles related to my elections as a DSF board member

I also happened to write the preface for Antonio Mele’s book “Django 5 by example”, it was nice to receive the proposal from Antonio but also to write the preface for one of the most read books in the Django community and I told the experience in a short article, together with the preface itself.

Final notes

Like last year, in my haste I will surely have forgotten to mention some experience, or thank someone for the year just gone by.

There are some things that I would have liked to do last year that I hope to complete in the next one that is about to begin.