2024 Session 1 Mission Debrief

Thank you, Congratulations, You are all now ⭐ Stars ⭐

All of our Djangonauts worked hard during the eight week session, let's congratulate and celebrate all of their hard work. We are all excited to see what you accomplish going forward. 🚀

⭐ Mohammad Alsakhawy
⭐ Jessie Auguste
⭐ Pradhvan Bisht
⭐ Elineda Ferreira Lannic
⭐ Adrienne Franke
⭐ Emmanuel Katchy
⭐ Velda Kiara
⭐ Marijke Luttekes
⭐ Nina Menezes
⭐ Juliana Nicacio
⭐ Elijah Oklello
⭐ Priya Pahwa
⭐ Keanya Phelps
⭐ Eliana Rosselli
⭐ Shafiya
⭐ Raffaella Suardini
⭐ Lilian Tran

Our Officers

We were able to create 6 great teams with two volunteer officers each: a Captain and a Navigator. Four teams worked on contributing to Django Core while two others worked on thirty party packages: django-cms and django-debug-toolbar.

A huge virtual applause to our wonderful volunteers 👏👏👏👏👏👏

Jupiter : Bhuvnesh & Tushar
Mercury: Tom & Peter
Saturn: Ryan & Nishant
Venus: Thibaud & Akash
Mars (django-cms): Mark & Anvansh
Neptune (django-debug-toolbar): Tim & Psalms

Let's Look at the Stats

28 Blog posts
6 Django News “Updates to Django”

PRs: 29 Opened, 23 Merged 🎉
- Django, 18 PRs opened, 12 merged
- Django-cms, 7 merged
- Django-debug-toolbar, 4 merged

48 Weekly team meetings 💻
72 1:1 calls with Captain
Even more space puns 🌌

Plus Lots of Laughs 😆

Screenshot of video call with six members laughing
Meetings both big and small provided great connections, insights, and of course some good belly laughs.

1 Musical performance 🎸

Screenshot of four folks on a video call the one playing guitar
Moe gave us an exclusive show of his amazing guitar skills. Rock on!

3 Guest Speakers

Let's become confident about Django documentation, Right Now - by Daniele Procida

daniele_django_documentation

Daniele Procida offered up his expertise in Django Documentation. His talk initiated some great discussions.

Know your limits, On Surviving Open Source - by Carlton Gibson

A screenshot of a video call with a presenter on screen, "Know your limits, on surviving open source"

Carlton Gibson gave a very relatable talk and a nice reminder to take care of yourself and to know your own limits in open source contributing. Our Djangonauts took this to heart.

Accessibility Testing - by Thibaud Colas

A screenshot of a video call on screen with a webpage inspecting accessibility as a background
Thibaud Colas, participating as a Navigator in our program, noticed an interest in learning more about accessibility among all our Djangonauts so he offered up a talk examining accessibility tools. We all learned something during this insightful talk!

16 very cute cat photos 😺

a collage of cat photos, one wearing a santa hat, one one curled up sleeping, one looking out a window
Cats, Dogs, Giraffes and other animals also had some honorable mentions of fun images shared among our members. Recently though, We've moved on to sharing photos of homemade bread. 🍞

Lots of Lessons Learned and Wonderful Words of Wisdom

"The Djangonaut Space thrives on collaboration and shared passion. Dive in, learn from the best, and contribute your skills – at your own pace. Whether you share code, insights, or just soak up the knowledge, you'll have a ton of fun on your journey of contributing to the Django ecosystem."

"When you face a problem ask for help because someone could have faced it before and know how to fix it, or maybe they don't have a solution but a change of perspective is something that could enrich you."


"Ask the question! There are no stupid questions"

"
Pace yourself. Celebrate your wins, celebrate your "failures", they are equally important. Always remember your contributions are significant, no matter how small you think they are, or how big you think the codebase is. Open source is fun, so have some fun while at it!"

"Go for it!"


"
To really make the most of the program, it's not just about what you do while you're in it, but also what you do once it's over. Stick to the steps(no matter how small) what you were taking within the program, and you'll be on a path to be a well rounded developer."

"Do not be afraid of not being good enough to join the program. You can learn any skill, but motivation matters most. Make sure you have the time, though."

"For me, you need to choose the right issue adapted on your level on Django and python. Even it's starting on the documentation."


"
If you find yourself wondering about something, ask! Don't be afraid to reach out to your navigator or captain or organizers."

And we even had one poem!

"Each ticket on the Trac explored, each discussion on the Django forum initiated, each line of code contributed,
or each insight on the Discord shared, becomes a Django-knot.
These knots aren’t just lines of code, but threads of connection woven during Djangonaut Space together as a community.
If I go a bit poetic way, Through Django Dev’s profiles, fellows of the frame,
A beacon pierced the nebula’s haze, Djangonaut Space, forever to acclaim. Mentorship’s light, courage fuelled by stardust with a supernova’s call,
This insightful program has been my launchpad, my answer to it all."