If you want to get up to speed on what happened in the world of Python in June 2021, then you’ve come to the right place to get your news!
June was a month of change. Ewa Jodlowska, the Executive Director of the Python Software Foundation (PSF), announced her departure after serving for ten years, and the PSF Board of Directors gained three new directors.
Let’s dive into the biggest Python news from the past month!
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Ewa Jodlowska Steps Down as PSF Executive Director
On June 16, the Python Software Foundation (PSF) announced that Executive Director Ewa Jodlowska has decided to leave the foundation at the end of 2021.
Even if you haven’t heard of Ewa, you’ve undoubtedly been impacted by her work. As Executive Director, Ewa is responsible for ensuring that the PSF achieves its mission “to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers.”
The PSF is responsible for managing and maintaining the python.org website as well as the Python Package Index. The PSF also supports and funds events and workshops for organizations such as Django Girls and PyLadies as well as other Python conferences and meetups worldwide.
In addition to managing community outreach, the PSF supports and funds Python software development. This includes organizing, funding, and supporting CPython sprints. As you’ll learn later in this article, the PSF’s funding and support go beyond support for the core Python language. The PSF also helps Python libraries with various grants and fiscal sponsorship programs.
As Executive Director, Ewa is involved in all of the PSF’s programs. Her leadership and dedication have helped the PSF and the Python language reach incredible heights, and her work has positively impacted Python developers everywhere. Now that Ewa is stepping down, the PSF Board of Directors will begin searching for a new Executive Director. Keep an eye on the PSF blog and Twitter account for updates and the upcoming job listing.
If you’d like to learn more about Ewa and her work for the PSF, check out Real Python’s Community Interview with Ewa Jodlowska.
The PSF Announces Board of Directors Election Results
In other PSF news, June saw the election of three new directors to the Board of Directors!
The new directors are:
- Joannah Nanjekye
- Débora Azevedo
- Tania Allard
Congratulations to the new directors and to everyone who was nominated!
PSF Directors are volunteers who help oversee and manage the business and affairs of the PSF, including appointing officers and determining budgets for committees and working groups. They serve as ambassadors and represent the many diverse interests and goals of the Python community.
You can learn more about what PSF directors do in the video Life As a Python Software Foundation Director.
Jazzband Accepted to the PSF Fiscal Sponsorship Program
Have you ever used django-debug-toolbar to debug your Django application or pip-tools to manage your Python project’s dependencies? If so, then you’ve directly benefited from the work Jazzband does to make sure great Python packages continue to be maintained and supported.
Jazzband’s mission is to help open source projects—specifically those with just a few maintainers—break free of the stress from maintaining open source software. They do this by fostering “cooperative coding,” which helps keep projects alive and lowers barriers for contributors. There are currently fifty-five projects in the Jazzband lineup.
On June 4, 2021, Jazzband founder Jannis Leidel announced that Jazzband had been accepted to the PSF Fiscal Sponsorship Program.
Fiscal sponsorees receive 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and help with back-office issues such as accounting, cash flow, insurance, and legal support. As a fiscal sponsoree, Jazzband can now accept donations from individual and corporate users.
If you’d like to donate to Jazzband, you can do so via the PSF donation page.
If you’re new to the world of Python packages and you’d like to learn more about using open source libraries in your own code, then you can start learning about package managers in What Is Pip? A Guide for New Pythonistas. If you’re interested in releasing and maintaining your own Python package, check out How to Publish an Open-Source Python Package to PyPI.
Microsoft Is Hiring to Help Speed Up Python
Microsoft has announced a new Senior Software Engineer role dedicated to speeding up Python. The position was announced on Twitter by Python creator Guido van Rossum.
The job posting describes the primary responsibility of the role as “perform[ing] tasks related to significantly improving the runtime performance of the Python programming language as implemented in the open source CPython interpreter.” The position is remote-friendly and open to recruits outside of the United States.
For more information, check out the official job listing.
PyCon US 2021 Video Recordings Are Now Available
In last month’s news roundup, we covered the annual PyCon US conference. All of the video recordings from this year’s virtual conference, including talks and tutorials, are now available on the PyConUS YouTube channel!
We’re especially excited about Real Python’s own Geir Arne Hjelle’s tutorial on Python decorators, which is a fantastic complement to his article Primer on Python Decorators.
What’s Next for Python?
June was an eventful month for Python! At Real Python, we’re excited about Python’s future and can’t wait to see what new things are in store for us in July.
What’s your favorite piece of Python news from June? Did we miss anything notable? Let us know in the comments, and we might feature you in next month’s Python news roundup.
Happy Pythoning!
