Justin is the founder of Buttondown, a newsletter service built with Django. We discuss scaling the code, and the team behind the project, the email space in general, new developments in web development, and Django features he’d like to see.
I heard many folks at PyCon — including a few very prominent ones who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty! — claiming that “black text on a white background” is uniformly and obviously the superior accessibility choice for conference presentations, for various reasons. This is, at the very least, debatable, and I think it would not be too spicy of a take to say it is straightforwardly incorrect. Some evidence follows: 🧵
@glyph > the ADA standards specifically say (in section A4.30.45) that “The greatest readability is usually achieved through the use of light-colored characters or symbols on a dark background.” for signage.
That's for printed signs, right? I wonder if that is accurate for projection screens?
I have a longer rant about this that I will write up at some point, but here's the TL;DR: yes, you should attend conference talks, and please stop telling other attendees (especially those new to the community) to categorically skip them. Supporting conference speakers and the staff and volunteers that work to make the talks possible is a very cool decision.
@jonafato I'll write my own "how to conference" post after reflecting on the most recent PyCon. I'm going to suggest finding some talks to go to, because while you can watch them later it's an entirely different experience to see a talk in person.
One thing I don't see discussed much is the more focused hallway track that happens right outside an interesting talk once it lets out. Those are particularly interesting discussions based on the shared experience of just having seen the talk live.
@jonafato I have years-long friendships in the community that started by sitting next to random people at talks, and talking with people outside of talks that just let out.
I just did my post-#PyConUS covid test and it came up negative. Sharing a sold-out conference with 2,500 people and not coming home with some bug is no small feat, and I'm glad that PyCon has a sensible mask policy (mask indoors, but not at meals or when speaking or taking photos).
@krayola@AlSweigart I took a test tonight because seeing all these tests made me notice every possible symptom I might be feeling. It was a reassuring negative.
It also takes me 3-4 days to get back on this timezone, so I always feel a bit off after an east coast conference.
Hummus, muhamara, tzatziki. Some pita there but more off screen and grilled chicken souvlaki that we did in the wood oven. Soooo yummy and just what I needed. AND got to cook with Lavender.
I'm using it to parse a file that's about 100 lines, in a project that makes a bunch of network calls. I'm sure there's no measurable difference between the two approaches in most of my use cases.