Keynote: Emails from my Grandad
Sauganash Ballroom | Audience level: Audience level: All
About this session
Code review can be a painful and anxiety-inducing experience. As developers, our work is regularly scrutinized by our colleagues. Comments about bugs, edge cases, or “code smells” are a normal part of the process, but when you’re the author, it can sometimes feel like you’re under attack.
I learned at a young age that my grandad would light up if I involved him in my work. When I told him about a presentation I was preparing, a few days later an email would arrive (often with a Word document attached titled something like “Sarah ideas” or “Sarah extra ideas”). Inside were pages of suggestions. Sometimes they were small. Sometimes they were big...
And yet, through those emails, I always felt something else: love.
In this talk I’ll explore how we receive feedback and our relationship with it. Drawing on lessons from those emails and experiences in code review and mentorship, I hope to invite you to reconsider criticism, not as an attack, but as a gift.
Presented by
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Sarah Boyce
Hello, I'm Sarah Boyce 👋
I've been working as a Django Fellow since April 2024 having previously been on Django's Review and Triage team. I'm also a co-founder of Djangonaut Space - a mentorship program developing contributors to Django and beyond.
I love badminton, drawing/painting people, laughing and (unsurprisingly) Django and it's community.