The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source - OSCON and Open Source (Interview)

Episode Date: September 25, 2015

Rachel Roumeliotis, the Strategic Content Director at O’Reilly Media, joined the show to talk about the history of OSCON, what you can expect from this year's conference and the importance of open source software.

Welcome back, everyone. This is The Change Log, and I'm your host, Adams Tukovyak. This is episode 175, and on today's show, I'm joined by Rachel Romeliotis, the Strategic Content Director at O'Reilly Media. She's also the Programming Chair for OzCon and also O'Reilly Software Architecture Conference. Great show today with Rachel. A lot of deep dive into open source, open source at O'Reilly and all the fun they've had for the past 18 years with OzCon. We had four awesome sponsors, CodeShip, TopTile, DigitalOcean, and Imagix. Our first sponsor of the show is CodeChip. They've launched

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with this new feature and save 20% off any premium plan you choose for three months by using our code, TheChangeLogPodcast. Once again, TheChangeLogPodcast. You'll save 20% off any plan you choose for three months. Head to codeship.com slash TheChangeLog to get started. And now on to the show. I am here with Rachel Romeliotis. Rachel is the strategic content director at O'Reilly Media. She's also the programming chair for OSCON and another awesome O'Reilly conference called Software Architecture Conference. So Rachel, it's been awesome to chat with you before all this, but I'm so glad you're here at the show. So welcome.

Thank you so much. Happy to be here. We've been, I guess we can maybe even open this show with telling the world that we're, that the Change Log is newly an O'Reilly partner, which is kind of exciting. Absolutely. It's great. What part do you play in that partnership program that O'Reilly has? Well, I guess I play whatever part they want me to. So we, you know, the partner program is really a fantastic way. We can talk with people who do podcasts, people who are part of meetups. It's a way for us to communicate with them the content that we have that we want

them to get out to the people that we hope really need it. It's kind of, it's a two-way street, I think of it as. We're creating a street team of people that can go out and, you know, talk about what we have to offer. And then hopefully we're giving out some information for free. You know, it's books, it's pieces of video. I know we give away tickets to some of our conferences. So we've found that by creating a partner center, it kind of standardizes a little bit for us and we're able to put out a wide variety of content so that there's something for everybody yeah i've been really interested in in what it uh is going to do for us because i think it's it's definitely a partnership and definitely a fun way to approach what we're already doing and i think i was telling um

jeez i've talked to so many people from o'reilly recently i can't remember who i was talking to i think it was jenny and i can't remember the other person's name right now, but I'm sad about that. But I was saying how excited we were because, you know, who doesn't know O'Reilly and who doesn't like the things and stuff that O'Reilly does? Sure. She was like, that's very interesting that you say that like that. And I was like, well, that's how I feel. You know, we, who doesn't know O'Reilly and how couldn't we, you know, love what you do. So, well, I'm, I'm happy you feel that way because I, I too feel that way. And I want to make sure that that's something we continue to do over time and that changes and how we can do that. Right. Well, that's not where things began though for you. I mean, like, like all of us, we've started somewhere and I can't imagine your first job out of anything was O'Reilly Media.

So where did things begin for you? Like you're strategic content director. I'm not really sure exactly what that breaks down to be, but I'd love to, you know, help us understand who you are and help tell your story to that got you to where you're at today with O'Reilly and what you're doing for OzCon and the Software Architecture Conference. Sure. So I always like to start with how I went to college at NYU for acting and English. So I was really thinking, how can I create a stable job for myself? And then after a few years of not getting that stable job, I thought, you know, I really like books, like a lot of people that you'll find in publishing. And I ended up putting together, you know, a resume that somehow got me in the door at a technical publisher called Elsevier. And so I actually,

I got in there into the sales group, some reorg happened. I was gone a month after that and then somehow got back in as editorial, which was really what I wanted to do anyways. And I was in the electrical engineering area. What I really liked about it at first was that I kind of had to figure out a problem. To me, it was a problem that I had to figure out what the audience needed. Now, of course, I started out as an editorial assistant. And so that wasn't the big, that wasn't my problem to solve right away. But I saw that that was the problem that needed to be answered kind of on a continuous basis as things changed in technology. And so I really liked not necessarily even having a really, really deep understanding of, say, optical engineering, but trying to talk to people and figure out how we could actually help them and move that field forward.

And so I, you know, went up the ranks in Elsevier. I covered different types of electrical engineering, embedded engineering, went over to do some computer security stuff with an imprint called Syngris, and then moved over to Morgan Kaufman, who does some computing publishing, more on the theoretical side, though not completely, and looked at UX and artificial intelligence and stuff like that. And so it was during that time that I really, that was about seven years, and that I really started to, you know, we look at the competition, obviously, and I would come up against O'Reilly, and I'd be like, Oh, they're selling more than us. And yeah, well, and actually, I should point out one other thing. So way before that, you know, I would go to Barnes & Noble all

the time, just looking for books. And even, you know, 10 years ago, there were a lot more books, computer books in the brick and mortar stores. And so I actually remember seeing the O'Reilly books. So it's interesting how the animals make an impression, even if you're not in that field. I think, you know, it was the time when everyone was like, let's make websites. So I think I knew O'Reilly from back then. But on a professional level, I, you know, I saw them, they kept coming up, they were doing good. And it just seemed like they were a little bit different than the other publishers, even that, you know, that I worked for or that we came up against or we met at conferences. And so, you know, at a certain point, I was like,

okay, you know, time for me to move on. Where do I want to go? And I thought O'Reilly. And thankfully, they hired me. And I've been here a little more than four years. And everything that I thought about O'Reilly before I got here was true. And it's gone beyond that. I know that sounds like I love O'Reilly, but I guess I do. So basically, the idea that O'Reilly didn't just sort of, and this is, I guess this isn't completely true about publishing, but in a very simplified version of it, you know, taking, working with people in the community, taking that knowledge and then selling it back to that same community. I felt, and this was before I even got in, I still believe it's true, that O'Reilly really is part of that community.

Like, in many different ways. And so I wanted to be a part of that. And I feel that we're doing that. And I feel like that's something that is really important to us. We're still a business, of course, but we really do think about, you know, how can we help people, you know, on a daily basis? How are people learning now? You know, like print books was the big thing before. Now, you know, then it went to digital books. Now it seems like people are looking at videos and maybe going to conferences and maybe it's not one thing, it's a multitude

of things or it depends what you're learning. And so we're changing with the times so that we can do that. Another aspect, I guess, of that is, I mean, thinking about things like the democratization of coding, you know, like in the nineties, I don't think anyone was like, I'm going to go check out this HTML even, you know what I mean? And change that around. And now people do that. And so how does that affect us? Do we, you know, work on putting together some content where we try to get into, you know, the AP level stuff at school. So it's an ongoing thing, you know, and it's, it's, there's lots of different places to go, I think, with that content

and, and what I like about O'Reilly, I guess this goes a little bit beyond my background, but what I like is that we keep trying things and keep trying different things. And we are not, I wouldn't even call us a publisher anymore. We're definitely a media company. So you're following, filling out your, the tail end of your business name, which is O'Reilly Media. Yes, exactly. So, so yeah, so here, you know, I hopefully, you know,

really enjoyed what I was working on, worked hard, started actually in the Microsoft space, speaking of not open source, although they've become open source over the time, mostly that I've been here. Started in the Microsoft space, you know, just really took to sort of like the whole programming languages stuff, you know, went up the ranks and became strategic content director for programming. So let me explain what that is. And it's not a static thing, of course. It's always changing.

Yes, which again is really cool, I think. So I run a team in editorial, which again, editorial seems to be becoming an antiquated term because I feel like it's so much more than that. So I run a team of people, let's say, that some of them go out and, including myself, go out and talk to people in different areas and figure out, you know, what they're doing, what they need, what are the pain points. And sometimes we talk to certain people and we figure out, you know, they really have something to say, like whether it's at one of our conferences, another conference, blog post.

And we find that they have something to say and it's something that will, you know, a best practice or something say. And we'll talk to them and we'll talk to them no longer about, you know, hey, do you want to do a book with us? But like, how can we work with you to take what you have to say and amplify it? And that might mean, you know, giving a session at OzCon. It might mean, it might mean doing a book. It might mean doing a webcast. Usually it means a bunch of things. So working together with people and then figuring out. So that's one, right? Then taking something, you know, an idea or a person and figuring out, okay, what's beside that? What's more advanced? What's before that? And sort of stitching together this network of people and ideas and topics and, you know, anywhere from like basic stuff that wouldn't change that often to cutting edge stuff that may fall off the face of the earth tomorrow.

So working with my team to basically figure that out. And then in some cases, like you were saying, software architecture, I'll sort of do that role a little bit myself. So figuring that out and then also working with we have we still do have development editors that work on the books and the videos and to some extent the webcasts and helping to flesh out those ideas. It's not like, great job, come work with us. And then we're like, let us know when you're done. So we actually, we work with the person to figure out how best to explain something or present it depending on the medium. And then I'm sure

there's many other things, but the last thing I could think of that's sort of a big idea is that I'm also chair of OSCONs, the two OSCONs that we have this year, and software architecture conference that we just started this year as well. So those are sort of the really big sort of bucket concrete things. I'm sure there's many other things and obviously like figuring out what to do in the future, you know, and keeping an eye out. Like right now, one of the languages we're keeping an eye on is Rust. And so we, you know, we put together a plan for that.

So we earlier this year, we did a webcast. We've had it. We've had sessions at OzCon, we're going to have one at OzCon Amsterdam in October. We just put out a report called Why Rust, which is basically like, why would you even consider this? Why does it exist? And we're going to do a book and videos. And so the idea of, you know, seeing something that, you know, Rust, I guess at the most simplest level is kind of like C++ with security. Seeing something that people are starting to use and how are they using it? How can we make sure people are using it well and thinking about it? So and that's a combination of free material that's out there and,

and stuff you can pay for. So it's interesting. That's interesting. Your take on the editorial piece too, because you had said that, you know, you're no longer just a publishing company that you've expanded and you truly are a media company now fleshing out and being the,

the, the latter part of your business name and also coming to the table when it comes to new topics that are fresh to you or fresh to the community that you're not just saying, okay, that's automatically a book. It's more like how can we best help you explain? Is it a blog post on your own site that we promote? Is it a cross promotion through our own blog? Is it a video series?

Is it, you know, how can we amplify this message, this new found message and, you know, help would-be programmers out there or developers out there get interested in a new topic or educated in a new topic? That's really an interesting take. Yeah. And, you know, it can depend on the topic. Like, for instance, something with design obviously would do better if you can see it. Or I know with the hardware, we did a video on Raspberry Pi where you could literally see the guy, you know, putting the wires into the breadboard and stuff like that. So that's stuff you just never be able to do in a book. So that's really fun. And I think the idea is that just people don't necessarily consume things in one way any longer. I think it depends on the person. I think it depends what the topic. But yeah, and I think, I don't know. I mean, I think it depends as time moves on. We see, you know, what makes sense or, I mean, we're continually learning.

I mean, obviously, we've been doing books for, you know, over 30 years. So I think we have a pretty good sense of what works in books. So we're still learning what that is, you know, when we create something that's interactive or a video. And I think we're still learning that. And I think that we've got some great things. And I think that we can do even better. Conferences, too. I mean, mean conferences I think we have great conferences but that doesn't mean that we're not going to

change them I mean OzCon for instance we the one we just had in Portland had a whole new track system and so it used to be very much based on here's the Python track here's the pearl track you here's the Perl track, PHP, whatever. And we really changed that to be what we thought reflected what the programmer or the software engineer out there really dealt with, which was architecture, performance, security. And then the secondary sort of tag that we gave it was like, oh, by the way, this will be in Python. But recognizing that developers, you know, it's kind of like there's so many tools. You pick the tool you like or pick the tool that works the best.

But these issues that we're bringing up are the issues that most of the people are going to have. And that's where we really want to help. What exactly is a ProHermie chair? I know there's three of them on the OSCON team. Yes. You know, do you divide the responsibilities up individually? Do you attack it holistically?

What exactly is that role and what do you do for OSCON? So it's been really fascinating. So it's been about a year since I became the OzCon chair. So I can give you a little sort of view of it, I guess, and maybe sort of like in my time. So last year, this time, you know, they're like, Hey, we want you to do this. And I'm like, fantastic. And so when I first started, you know, there were, um, chairs that were already there, Matthew McCullough, uh, Sarahotny, and Simon St. Laurent, who is my colleague here at O'Reilly. And so as a new chair, I just wanted to basically get all of the information that they had downloaded into my brain, which is a lot and really doesn't happen instantaneously.

So we start off, we talk about, you know, what was going on at the last OzCon and we figure what worked, what didn't work. And, and we had already been talking internally, maybe about switching things up and how they were presented. And this was something that, that did really start, um, even before the last OzCon, not this one this year, but the one before. And so that's really the time, I guess, like maybe the three to four months after the event where we're thinking, okay, what do we want next year to be? So we're already thinking that. And then putting together, taking those thoughts, figuring out how this event fits with the rest of our

content plan and the rest of sort of the software engineering world. And then trying to figure out how to put that succinctly, that idea of what we want next year to be, putting that succinctly into our call for papers. And our call for papers certainly doesn't have to be like the final word, like that's the way it's going to be. But it's kind of gives us an early deadline to say, okay, this is what we way it's going to be. But it's kind of gives us an early deadline to say, okay, this is what we think it's going to look like. And so last, I think it must have been December-ish, last December-ish, that's when we put together like, okay, we're not going to do language tracks, we're going to do it like this. And so we put that out. We're responsible for

like, kind of like figuring out what that bigger program is going to be then we put out the call for papers for oscon we get um about 1200 uh proposals which is a lot nuts yeah so that's insane it would take you like how long to go through it's crazy and it's hard because oscon's super diverse right so you could never be... Everything's interesting. Everything's interesting, but also you couldn't be a super expert on everything. Or if you could, let me know and come on and be on the committee. But so basically that's when we do... So we have a program committee. And when we first started, the program committee, I think, is about 70 people for OzCon. And I was like, why do you need that many people? And then I figured out it's because we have 1200 proposals and we want to make sure that everything gets reviewed thoroughly.

And so we have the 70 people plus the chairs and they take a look at that content and we rate it and we put in, we put in comments to make sure it isn't just like, this is a two, this is a five, you know, we really want to like have qualitative comments in there. Because say, for instance, something like Docker, which is obviously the hotness right now, we could get 15 proposals, you know what I mean? And, and it's hard to be able to, you know, read through all 15 of those, you kind of have to put together a little like crib sheet on like, this did this and this did this and this is why we like this one. So we do that. We have a period where we're looking through everything. At the end of that time, the chairs will take a look at all of that, basically everything that the program committee has done, and then put together the final program. So that's a combination of seeing

sort of what rankings we've had, what, how the tracks have matched up, say, for instance, like the architecture track would get, and these are not real numbers, but say it got, you know, 250 proposals and say we did, I don't know, like a design track and for whatever reason it got 15. So then we're thinking, okay, maybe this audience isn't too into design. Maybe we won't do that. And maybe we'll do, you know, maybe we'll expand the architecture track to make it two days or whatever. So those are the bigger sort of things. And then we actually literally go through everything and start to work through it and figure out like, what sessions are we going to accept? And so we do that. And then we have to schedule it, which is a beast. Because last year,

we had 10 tracks. The year before, I think there were 15. So thankfully, yeah, there were 10 tracks. And so we actually schedule it. So that's just the sessions. Then the tutorials are, you know, are just even more in depth. So you have to think, are we covering what we want? So it's this combination of sort of, I guess, in a nutshell, kind of, you know, telling everybody about it, like putting together the program at like a very high level, explaining to everybody, you know, what that program is about, working to get people to put in, you know, content for the proposal search, reviewing stuff, and then taking all that, seeing how it fits with that initial vision, tweaking it how you think it needs to be tweaked, and then actually scheduling that. And at that point, you know, working with operations and figuring out,

okay, where does this go? Where does this go? Big room, small room. And then of course, you know, continuing to let people know about it and then actually being sort of like the MC host at the event. Well, it makes sense for you to have a background in, you know, in journalism and then being, you know, an editor in an editorial because a lot of what you're doing there is figuring out what content, what is it that makes sense

from all of the work that you've done to gather the necessary topics for the different tracks you have. And does it fit or does it not fit? Where does it fit? Wow, that's a lot of work. It is. And it's funny that you said that because I actually found as I was, you know, it's daunting, right? I'm excited, but I'm thinking, oh my gosh, how am I going to do this? And it was very much to me, like what I had already been doing, you know, in my past,

which was acquiring books to fit into a larger program. And this just happened to be a heck of a lot of sort of programs together. And in, you know, just in a session form, like forget about books. So it was kind of, so it spoke to me in that sort of like, I was like, oh, this is fun. You know, it was kind of, it was kind of instant. It was, you know, when you're working on a book, it's like, you have to work on this proposal and then reiterate, you know, iterate on that. And then this was sort of like an instantaneous, like, I've got 1200 things to play with and figure out, you know? So I really enjoyed it. I do enjoy it. And so we actually, at this point, we just put out the CFP for software architecture, which will be next year.

So we've got that going. And then we actually, I had promised that we weren't going to basically rest on our laurels and keep OSCON the same. So we just finished putting together the copy for the CFP for OSCON next year. And it's early because we're shifting it from July to May. And we just finished that. And so sneak preview of that is that some of the tracks are the same. There's architecture and performance and some other things, but we're also shaking it up.

And a couple of my favorite new tracks are, uh, business of open source, which we'll talk about, um, you know, like from startups to, uh, enterprise, like what are best practices and how do you make sustainable open source, um, open source one-on-one, which basically is like you use open source. So how do you go from like user to contributor to creator, which I think will be really cool. And then my actual personal favorite that I created, which is going to be called in real life or IRL track, which is, which I really want to be all about like successes and failures and stuff in between, but that like really happened to you. Because I think that's so insightful hearing what other people have gone through. Right. Either because you're like, oh, it's not just me,

or like, oh, my God, I better not do that, or I will do that. Or they really aren't that superhuman. They really are human. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. There's some people who just produce so much out there, you're like, I cannot keep up. I have a wife.

I have children. I have a life outside of this thing called programming, and how do they do it? And you realize that people are actually a bit more human than, than you led yourself to believe they're super human abilities. Yeah, exactly. So I just,

I think that will be, I think that will be entertaining and educational. So it sounds like it. Yeah. Well, let's, let's take a quick break, pay some bills,

introduce an awesome sponsor that makes this show possible. And when we come back, we're going to dive a little further into this discussion around OSCON and what's happening this year and just in general about open source around OSCON. So we'll be right back. You've heard me talk about TopTal several times on this podcast, but today is different. I've got a special treat for you. I went out and spoke with a listener who a year ago had never heard of TopTile. He listened to the show just like you're doing right here, right now, today, and heard us talk about TopTile and what they're all about. And he decided to get in touch. And now he's living the dream as a freelance software developer with TopTile. His name is Daniel Elzon.

And I sat down and I talked with him. I said, hey, what is it that you love most about TopTile? Take a listen. Well, for me, the thing about TopTile, which I thought would be very hard for me personally as I transitioned to a more consulting role, was the way I would have access to new clients and what quality those would be. So I found that I've had access to awesome clients through TopTal and it hasn't been that hard to find because they have a lot of choice. And even more than that, there's enough choice and I can actually be a little selective about

what kinds of things I want to be working on. So I use that as a way to sort of hone my skills and go towards the technology that I think are worth investing in for the future. So whether it's including new front-end frameworks or doing a little DevOps work on the side, I usually am able to find clients who have the needs of the things I want to get better at.

That's been truly useful. All right, that was Daniel LaZon, a listener of The Change Log and also a freelance software developer with TopTile. If you want to follow in Daniel's footsteps, go to toptile.com slash developers. That's T-O-P-T-A-L dot com slash developers to learn more about what TopTile is all about and tell them the changelog sent you. All right, we're back with Rachel and we are talking about OzCon. Now, Rachel, I would definitely say that this is a conference that the changelog should have been at long before now, but we have never had a personal presence at any O'Reilly OzCon I'm

pretty sad about that but um I hope to change that in the near future but I'd love to dive a little further into your role there as a programming chair and and what it's like to run this it sounded like you said 10 or 15 track event what's many tracks does OzCon have? It is, well, this past year it was 10, 10 tracks. Okay. And so when you say last year, you mean Portland, right? Yes. Yeah, Portland 2015. And so Amsterdam coming up here soon.

Amsterdam is actually happening on the 26th and 28th next month in October in Amsterdam, Netherlands. So how is this event different than the stateside version? That is a good question. It is. do it and i'm sure the everyone out there listening is like yes could the next could the next season of beyond code be at the next oscon and i would say i would love that but i think it's gonna be next may to to be honest with you which i would love to do october well either way it's gonna be fun i'm glad you're gonna be with us. But yeah, so how is OSCON Amsterdam different? So as part of sort of evolving OSCON, it's, so it will take some of what we've done with, with OSCON 2015, which is changing the, the way we construct the program from languages to basically problems and solutions. So you're going to see a lot of the same tracks. You're going to see data architecture. We're going to

do a foundations track. We're going to do a collaboration and craft track like we did at OSCON 2015. So I guess what I would say to put it in sort of a succinct answer is that it's half of it's sort of like the best of OSCON and sort of what I think we've seen from the US. uh, people in Europe that are, um, are from that continent talking about what they, they have done with open source over the past, uh, year or so. And so I wanted to make sure it was a mix. So, you know, it's an opportunity to bring over some of what we've been doing that people might not have a chance to see, um, due to location. And then also, obviously the audience is going to be, uh, predominantly, uh,

European, I would guess. And so making sure it's not just like, Hey, the Americans have come to tell us everything. Um, definitely don't want to do that. I'm incorporating some people from one that stood out to me.

That was a past guest on the show was Curtis Poe. Yep. Yeah. So, I mean, exactly. So yeah, which Pearl six is going to be fascinating. Anyways, I hope to see that come out on time at the end of the year.

That's always next year, right? I don't know. I had the world, but there are definitely shades of difference in how I think open source is used. And most notably, it's used, I think, just as sort of like a de facto standard in government, it seems like, much more over in Europe. And then that the security and privacy and identity stuff is a little bit further along, it seems like, or the expectations of what people want and what companies can do is much different than the U.S. And the final thing I noticed was that just due to it being different countries, different languages, that's much more fragmented. So it's really interesting. I've learned a lot about it in the past few months,

and I'm continuing to do so. So I think it will be a good mix. I mean, there's certain, like, Docker is just like, you could say that anywhere. I feel like people will be like, oh, yeah, tell me about it. Yeah, anytime we have Docker listed in our email, it's our change of the weekly email on Saturdays. It tends to get not the most, but definitely a lot more clicks than, you know, something that's not Docker, for example. Yes.

And I think the point that people are at with Docker particularly is like, is not that how awesome it is. It's like, how can I actually use how awesome it is? And I think that's where a lot of people are. It's like, does it really make sense for me? And there's some places where it does in a developer standpoint. There's some places in a, you know, in a continuous deliveries workflow

that you want to make sure that, you know, that Docker's a part of that. Yeah, and it's, yeah, it's funny because, you know, we, I talk to a lot of people that create the content and then I talk to people that attend conferences and that's a very small percentage of the developers out there. And so it's funny, I talk about, you know, Docker every day and microservices and I try to remember that people are at different points depending on what they're working on. And so Docker could be new to a lot of people still. And like you're

saying, they're just figuring out, like they've heard about it, maybe they're figuring out how to actually incorporate that into their workflow. And like I said, in a variety of different ways, we're trying to figure out how we can let people know that. And then, I mean, that's just, that's a tool that talks about, you know, the much bigger change that is sort of DevOps and continuous integration that is happening. That's one of the biggest, the last couple of OSCONs, you know, Docker, Kubernetes, CoreOS, distributed systems, that whole thing has been one of the most popular things, or anything that has to do with them is one of the most popular things or anything that has to do with them is one of the most popular things

that we've had recently at our events. And like you said, you know, and it spans from developers to operations people. That line has just totally been blurred. I think the breakthrough with that too is that people have started to realize how much they can do on the operations side to really support the newer applications that need to be developed for scale. It's such an interesting thing that

has come out of Google with Kubernetes and ultimately the collaboration with CoreOS and being a containerized based operating system. I think there's a lot of interesting things happen in that space that people just cannot help but pay attention to because there's just so much new and inventiveness coming. Whereas in other areas, not that they're not new and inventing, but there's a lot of new happening there every single day. Yeah.

And it's funny because then you'll find the person that's like containers have been around forever and you're like, OK, but this time, you know, it seems like for whatever reason, they've gotten people's attention. And I think that there's, I think the and the idea that, you know, it's all the cloud and that you don't just like throw your project over the wall to operations is just a massive change for a lot of people. And I don't think it's just like, oh, we're there now. You know, it's something that's going to continue to go on. I mean, you know, we talked about software architecture that, and that's one of the things I like here constantly is, you know, microservices. Like, I can't imagine that like everyone, you know, six months ago was like, oh, let's close down the monolithic architecture we have and let's just do microservices. Cool, right? You know what

I mean? Like, it's not like we're just going to get rid of everything that we've had. So, so it's interesting so i think it fits into different it's gonna be tough to do in the kind of conference you have because you have to be so wide yes i almost feel the same pain we feel here at the channel because we're not like uh we're not ruby changelog or go changelog or kubernetes changelog it's like we're you know we're interested in open source. Obviously, that's the same mission of OSCON and a larger part of O'Reilly's mission

is open source software development. And we've been advocates for that for many, many years. And that's what we eat and breathe every single day. That doesn't mean we camp out in Python. That doesn't mean we camp out in Ruby too long. It means that we look at open source holistically. And even us, we have the same trouble because we have four shows a month, basically. You know, one show a week.

And we want to stay on the edge, but we also want to serve things that are timeless and timely even. And so it's really difficult to choose the path of our own editorial because, just because there's so much there's so much going on out there yeah i i do feel your pain and i think i guess the way i look at it is that we have sort of we you have to pick some focuses where you go deeper in than others where you think um you can make the most impression i I guess. And so that change, that distributed developer tool system and those changes that come from that, all the way from architecture down to, you know, how operations has changed. That's something I think that we see as important. And there's a lot there to figure out. You know, I was just, it's funny because I

was just mapping out sort of like our products for the rest of the year. And I can see, you know, we choose to focus on certain things. So I can see that for the rest of the year, we're focusing on architecture and branching off of that, we're focusing on a lot of Java specifically in that. And then we're also focusing on Python. You know, we weren't focusing so much on C for instance, which is still out there a lot. You know, and so it makes me think, so one of the things I will be thinking about is, you know, do we want to do more in C? If we do, why do we want to do that? You know, the IoT sort of explosion, does that necessitate people getting back into that? Is that going to be exciting? Or like Linux, for instance, you know, you see a lot of times people on, what do you call it, people looking for jobs, they're like,

okay, you need to know Linux. And, you know, does everybody know that still? Do we need to do refreshers on some of our content for Linux basics? How much do you need to know about that to use Docker or CoreOS? So I think you have to make some choices and I think you have to continually be watching in front of you for what's next. And then, and this goes back to back in the day when I would really focus on books, you can, I kind of broke it up into three pieces. One was sort of like those evergreen things like, I don't know, computer architecture, like the basics of that, right? And then sort of the more, the things that change, like say, maybe a language, which changes versions. And then the stuff that really is like super cutting edge, and they're going to change it in three months. And so with that, hopefully there's some sort of

like churn, but there's still that backbone that generally doesn't change all that much. Although I feel like that's kind of actually changing now too. But, but, you know, so a combination of like, I don't know, algorithms plus Rust is coming out plus, and these have nothing to do with each other, but, you know, Selenium has come out with this newest thing. So I don't know, It's kind of, I don't know. It's funny that you say that because it's kind of like, I think you're certainly informed by facts and by people. And then I think you have to like throw it in your head and think about what has worked. I mean, it certainly has a lot to do with the past and talking with people.

But then something, I don't know, some pattern emerges in my brain that I'm like, this is it. Well, I'm sure it's going to be tough putting on a large conference like OSCON. So I'm kind of curious how much of the history of the conference did you go into or did you learn about to kind of figure out where you can go with it? Because I think it's a 10-year-old conference. I can't remember the exact timing of it, but I'm hoping you can piece it together for us. Yeah, yeah.

So I want to say it was 18 years this year. Okay, wow. So it's a long time. Yeah, it was a couple years after the concept of open source specifically came out. And it really, I think either at that time, started as a Perl conference. And so you could definitely see that, um, still running through it even today. Um, and so because it started as that, it was, you know, heavy in Perl. And, and then I think it opened up the way it

opened up with the tracks and the languages, and this is all conjecture by me because it wasn't there, but it seems to me that, you know, they oh python's caught on java's caught on you know what i mean and and sort of did it like that and i have actually before this year i think i've been to three oscon so i i had you know been there and seen what it was like and um you know recognize that it brings together a lot of different communities and that there's you know along with sessions, there's a very healthy sort of hallway track. And one of the first things I came away with was the idea that, you know, it's cool to see some, you know, guy that's been doing Perl for a super long time talking to someone else about, you know, that's new to JavaScript or something like that. And what can you learn from that conversation? And that's what I really liked about OSCON.

And so the breadth of it, I think, is important, and more so because I don't think necessarily software engineers define themselves by language anymore. I think you can certainly have your favorites or maybe something you're working on now. But I think people, you know, engineers generally know more than one language and

pick depending on the project. So I think that combined with seeing, like the actual need for that, combined with seeing that like that was actually a cool thing for people to talk to, you know, people that were doing completely different things was sort of like that base layer of like this is what oscon's about yeah and then something similar here with this podcast too

whenever someone's like a fan of the changelog for example and they know that we try our best to cover you know really interesting topics we don't just sort of just do whatever. We really try to focus on what matters today. And we have people who listen to the show and give us feedback and say, well, even though I'm a programmer in this language, I still listen to the shows that are on WordPress, for example.

That was a recent show I got that feedback from. It was like, and PHP and WordPress and where that's going, because it's very interesting to hear the problems they're solving, even though I'm not playing with that language. It's still interesting to me because I'm getting a peek behind somebody else's veil of what they're doing and what's interesting to them and how things that my language or languages I'm interested in have played into effects in their languages. Sure.

And so you sort of see this cross-pollination, this cross-effect from language to language, camp to camp. And it's an interesting tale to sort of like watch and pay attention to. Yeah, it just makes you think, honestly. And so when I was putting together OzCon 2, I realized you layer on the open source part of it. And I was realizing when we were putting together the program that that was almost everything, which is really cool, right? Because I feel like OzCon has had a piece of that. So,

you know, my first thought was like, awesome. It's basically just like everything, but that's not completely true. I mean, so I think as much as open source is one, there's still work to be done to make sure that it stays healthy, I guess, and sustainable. And so layering that on top and making sure that the people that have been there for years, who it's been a passion for them to make this happen, and who have helped make like today happen is because of them to make sure that they're given a platform to talk about the history how they got there why they you know they decided to go down this path but also on the other side and this is i think really important is that the people that are new to it and have new and crazy ideas are able to voice those and then talk to the people that have been in it for 20 years. Yes. And maybe change their mind or not.

I don't know. You know what I mean? So it's the diversity is a really important piece of it. And there were some things that I did that I think were hard choices. You know, I de-emphasized Pearl. Pearl is still interesting. We were talking about Pearl Six. That's going to be

wild, you know, when that comes out. Perl is still out there and used. Probably not the most, you know, the most used language anymore. And there's lots of other things to be done. And sometimes Perl isn't the biggest, isn't the tool, isn't the language to be used. And so I had, I made the choice to de-emphasize that a little bit. And I think that was probably not super popular, but I don't know, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like, I don't know, you know, so, you know, we make changes. And then the other thing too, is like, if we made a change this year that didn't seem to go over well, I'm going to change it again. And that's what I mean. Like, we'll just continuously change. And I think that's the important thing. Like, obviously, you know, this last one was a good success. But that doesn't

mean we're just going to like, do nothing. You know what I mean? So it keeps changing. Like, yeah, so like the distributed thing. I mean, that I know, I keep going back to that. That's a big deal. Security for developers. Is that something? I mean, I know I keep going back to that. That's a big deal. Security for developers. Is that something? I mean, that's been a problem for a really long time. But like, when does it become, you know, instead of reacting to it? The most interesting thing to have, yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean?

So how do you get people to actually be like, I'm starting a project. What about the security? And maybe some people do. I don't know. You know what I mean? In finance, that's something that is a first level concern. I don't know. But, you know, so that and the community, I don't know.

Honestly, it's an honor for me to be a part of it. And I'm so glad that they didn't kick me out after this year. That's awesome. Well, I'm glad too. Because, I mean, I think you're doing some really great work. And I think it sounded like what you were saying was that the way your tracks have changed from before to this year, you kind of made some more influential changes to the way you've done your tracks and the way you've architected the different talks that can go on and whatnot. So that was a big, big change this year. who have never been to an OzCon or for those who aspire to go to one, because let's face it, it's not the most inexpensive event. Sometimes you don't always have the money to go or have, you know,

your employer's backing or your, the startup you're working at doesn't is not making enough money yet. So you can't go for it. So for whatever reason, you know, why, why should someone who's out there in the open source world building products every day or building software every day, what is it about OSCON that should bring them there versus, let's say, regional conferences that are a bit more specific to their interests? Why should they come to something like OSCON? What is it that OSCON delivers for the masses and the open source world? Well, I think it goes back to a little bit of what we talked about. I think it's a combination of being able to see such a wide array of content and having

that inform what you're doing. And then the group of people that it brings together, I think is fantastic. I mean, it's like I said, like it's, you know, people that created the projects or it's, you know, this year we're going to try, I believe we're going to try and do basically like a triage-a-thon, which is, you know, we'll bring, we'll have like open source projects and then you can actually go in and fix problems or add things. So I think it's the place to go to get a full picture of what's going on and to talk to a wide variety of people that are actually like in there creating the projects, uh, updating them.

And those are the people that are speaking. You know what I mean? Right. It's, it's, um, I don't know. It brings people together.

You know what I mean? Like generally in a local meetup it'll be you know if you happen to live near the people that are creating the projects that's fantastic they'll probably go to the local meetups this one just seems to be like sort of like the festival for the year where everyone's like I'm definitely going to that one you know I mean so I think that the the um the breadth of people that are there are great. And what's great for us is that a lot of those people are the ones that put in the proposals. And I just think it ends up being a great event.

Like I said, a combination of the people and the content that we put together. And hopefully, you know, as we've been talking, we're trying to be very thoughtful. You know, we have a view of the entire software engineering world. And, and I'm sure there's lots of people out there that put together the meetups, and they're great. And there's other conferences, and those are great. But we really think that we're putting together,

you know, a full sort of event that is a reflection of what is happening with best practices and what you should be focusing on. And, you know, like I would say, like, yeah, you should come to OSCON over something else because I put it together and I'm thinking these are the important things you need to be looking at. So. Well, also, when it comes to OSCON, I mean, you have several locations to like it was in Portland last year. This year, back stateside stateside it's gonna be in

austin which i'm excited about because i'm a houston native so that means it's just a two and a half hour drive for me which makes it a lot more easier for me to get to oscon but then you also have you know your european track versions of it is this the first time it's been um in amsterdam or is it is that the first for this conference? So we did do, uh, and I should have looked this up, but we did do a European conference, um,

an OzCon conference back in, I believe it was 2008. And I, I am not completely sure where that was exactly, but somewhere in Europe. And, um, so this is the first one back to Europe then. Yeah.

It's since, since 2008. Yeah. And, you know, like I said, so, you know,

there's shades of different, um, you know, how people are using open source in different areas. And, you know, going over there and hearing the different stories is really interesting. And I think recognizing that there is a little bit of a regionality to things that, you know, it is hard, obviously, if you're in Europe, going all the way to Portland, Oregon is quite a trip. Right. And so, you know, going somewhere where it is easier for someone from Germany to hop over to Amsterdam, you know, when we when we look at the stats, and this is why we're going to Austin, too, when we look at the stats, you know, 20% of the people, I don't know, that's kind of, you know, that's an average, come from, you know, generally that area. And so the idea of, you know, Portland is, I love Portland. Portland's been amazing to us. They've been a part of growing the open source movement. I'm sure we'll be back there.

But like giving, you know, kind of going to like middle America and being like, hey, everybody, what are you guys doing? Come and talk to us. You know what I mean? Um, so same idea with Amsterdam. So, I mean, I'd love to in future see us in other, other spots around the globe as well. And I think literally that is about, you know, again, there's shades of open source that are different in different areas and there can be different focuses, but I think it's about getting there, still having that sort of that flavor that OzCon has about like, this is our view. You know, these are the people that, you know, you should be talking to, get inspired by, learn from. Well, cool. Let's let's take that chance then to pause one more time. When we come back, we're going to talk a bit more about your influence in open source through this staple of a conference, OzCon.

So let's break. We'll be right back. Digital Ocean has expanded their reach even further into Canada's startup and developer scene with the launch of Tor1. That's T-O-R-1, their first Canadian data center in Toronto. Head to digitalocean.com and use the code CHANGELOG to get a $10 hosting credit when you sign up. Again, digitalocean.com.

Use the code CHANGELOG to get a $10 hosting credit when you sign up. All right, we're still here with Rachel. We're talking about OzCon. And, you know, like I've said before, Rachel, I've been a huge fan of O'Reilly for what seems like forever. As far as I can think back in my entire history of software development, O'Reilly's always been there with a book or with a blog or a podcast or even Ignite, for example. Which is like, you're not traditional OSCON or you're not traditional conference that you're putting on through O'Reilly.

That's a really interesting conference itself, Ignite. But, you know, this, OSCON has served the open source community for, it seems like 18 years now, if we go back in its time. This year, you've been making some changes. Well, actually last year, but this year kind of as a continuous, but net to the tracks and always evolving. And it seems like, it seems like the place to be, like last year, but this year kind of as a continuous, but to the tracks and always evolving. And it seems like the place to be, like you said, the festival of open source,

and this is your first year going back to Europe. So that's definitely a good thing to be back in the European areas. What do you expect from this year's conference? Now that you've got it laid out, it's a month away, basically. What are you expecting? What are your anticipations for the European world to sort of come into,

you know, into Amsterdam and come to this conference? What are you expecting for this year? I think from what I've seen and what I've heard from people so far,

like I said, so open source is kind of not a story in and of itself I feel like in Europe anymore. I feel like it's like, yeah, we use open source. What? I feel like it's more going to be a combination. Like the stories I'm looking forward to are, um, uh, the sort of privacy stuff that's going on and how

that, um, how you deal with that as a software engineer. Um, how does that affect, uh, you know, your company and, um, and what you're doing, you know, from like your, you know, line of code to like return on investment of projects. So that's something I'm really interested in because I feel like we're in a very different place from that. And then what I've really been hearing a lot about is the startups that are happening over in Europe. When I first started looking, it sounded like Berlin was a really big startup area, which I think it is, but it seems to me that Amsterdam has its fair share of startups. And I've been reading up on that. So I kind of want to see what that, what the startup scene is like over in Europe. And, and if it's different, you know,

the further you get from Silicon Valley you know, how much does it change? And, you know, because of, you know, is it different culturally? You know, is, you know, open source is used, but how do they think of it as far as, you know, is it just something free they can use? Do they really look at it as, you know, the open source community will help them as they get started? I think that's really fascinating. I'm, I'm really curious to see, um, you know, how are people getting into, into open source over there? Uh, again, is it something, you know, do they have, uh, an amazing amount of engineers that are, that are out there and using it, do they have, you know, do they do the same things, I guess? Do they have the same best practices?

Is it, you know, do they have the same stories that we have where they're like JavaScript, there's like 7 million frameworks, which one do we use? You know, I don't know. So I'm really interested in that. And I know that they're, like I know Raspberry Pi started over there for, maybe not for education, but it's used a lot in education in the UK, for instance. And how is that different? And do they think, you know, that's going to change the face of their workforce, you know, in, in 10, 15 years. So I do think there's a, there's stuff that's going to be different over there. And I do, I guess I'm most interested in the startup

thing. So that, that to me, I want to see to see you know now that you're across the world like what's that like because i feel like there's a certain culture certainly in silicon valley and that it just i don't know does that sort of like peer out as you get further away it'll be interesting right how does a source change you know i think everybody kind of thinks that Silicon Valley, San Francisco, is the epicenter of all software development. It is the largest e-commerce area, obviously. I think it gets a lot of credit for a lot of founding things and for good reasons. And I think in a lot of ways when you're there, you're like, no matter where you go, you're going to run into somebody that's an entrepreneur. Absolutely. Like, you know, no matter where you go, you're going to run into somebody that's an entrepreneur, somebody that's got an idea for an app, somebody that's building an app, somebody that's building a business.

You know, you're very much in the mix constantly. And the further you get away from that, you're wondering how consistent is that to be the norm for towns, you know, and for cities. And I think that you find that's not the case. Yeah, like you go to San Francisco and Silicon Valley and it's like, it's exciting and it's all up in your face and it's like, Google's here and Apple's here. And you know, um, how, you know, obviously people get excited elsewhere. So like, what's that like in Europe? Do you know what I mean? What are the, you know, obviously I'm sure they, they look at Apple and Google, but what are the local companies that they look at? I mean, one, um, I heard some cool stuff about booking.com. They're going to, we're going to have one of their engineers talking in the

keynote about how they're constantly doing this A-B testing with, with their site. And I think I heard that, you know, like a lot of it doesn't work. So I don't know, like constantly checking their, their, what they think is going to happen and seeing if it works or if it doesn't work. And then we're going to talk to some growth hackers. So I think there's a lot of cool stuff happening over there, and I guess I want to make sure that we unearth that. That's interesting. Yeah.

Well, how much does the geography play a part in this? Like, how difficult is it to plan not just the content, but the event itself a part in this? Like how difficult is it to plan, not just the content, but the event itself being so far away? Like this is the first year back into the European area. So how much of a trouble is it you and the other chairs to deal with the fact that it's not, you know, close to your backyard? Well, the good news for me is that we have an operations team that is excellent. And they're the ones that have to deal, unfortunately, with a lot of the sort of the distance to get things there to work with the people on site before we get there. You know, I know, for instance, I think they're getting ready to like ship out whatever stuff we need out there now. So it's a month ahead of time, they're already thinking about that.

It's interesting, I think, you know, there's, there's not as many huge places over there to have conferences. Um, so that's, you know, you have to figure out where to have something. And then something I think that affected us all is figuring out where, where to have something, you know, for us, I think it came down to, uh, Berlin, London and Amsterdam. It's hard though, you know, like from afar figuring out, you know, where do we want to, who has the space for us? What's the, what's the tech world like in that, in that immediate area? You know, do they want a conference that's in the English language? It's, it, it's definitely more complex. I mean, I think it's just when you, whenever you like cross the border, you're like,

oh my God, I'm in another country. And then, yeah, you know, figuring out, you know, obviously we, like I said, there's some things that are global, I think, but then figuring out, you know, what things are local to Europe and to Amsterdam and trying to figure out that balance between sort of, you know, what's generally going on and what's really going to speak to the people locally. I always find it interesting to try and think about something so far away. And then obviously you've got the language barriers and you've got different things

and you've got opinions about languages, not only in the technical space, but also in the physical space where you're trying to communicate through a language. That was funny, actually. One funny little tidbit I can tell you is that for whatever reason we got many more uh proposals on ruby is that right yeah i don't know what that means exactly but ruby's popular and there you have it yeah i don't know ruby's big there yeah yeah i mean i'm i'm uh i'm always fascinated by how much effort it takes to produce a conference. Like, for example, Jared Santa, the co-host of the show, was just an organizer of a small regional conference in Nebraska, in Omaha.

And a little thing like that, and I guess you could also say they're all new and too, cause it was the first year any of them had ever done any of that. Um, but how much work it is to produce a conference, not only just like to program like you all have, but all the logistics, all the operations, it's so much work.

And, uh, and you're just like, at the end, you're just wondering, will it work? Does it work out? And I guess you do have the oscon history behind you so you can say you know without a without a doubt yes that it has worked out but nonetheless you're like so much work so many people involved and uh in such a big event to plan i can't even imagine being in your shoes yeah well it's funny

you know like i said it's not just like onite. I mean, we started, you know, planning for next year, like almost immediately. And yeah, I mean, can you imagine like, just like figuring out the registration or like how to feed people? Um, I agree. It's quite something. And, and I have to say, I'm proud of, of the, the events that we have. Um, cause I'm sure like everyone we've been to ones that, you know, are great and aren't so great. And there's many great ones outside of us too, but yeah, it's, um, it's something, I mean, I know I was very proud after we, we finished OzCon, uh, 2015. So maybe that's something you guys can do in terms of education is let the world in on

your secrets of running a big conference like that or how to produce a conference. Because you see a lot more, like you said, meetup groups turn into basically small conferences, regional conferences. And those things only affect the big things anyway. So the more of those there are, the more big things there are going to be like OSCON, for example. So that would be interesting. Yeah, there's a lot of cool local conferences that have blown up to 1 be interesting yeah there's a lot of cool um local conferences that have like blown up to 1500 that's a lot of people oh yeah i mean it's

yeah we were just a gopher con in denver and i couldn't believe it that there were that many people yeah like doubled yeah it was yeah it was exactly it went from like 700 to like 12 or 1300 people really easily yeah and there's i say really easily but to Eric and Brian, it wasn't very easy. No, I'm sure. You know, and it's interesting. I know. So I was at the first one and, you know, it was single track. And then I saw, I think on this year it was single track again.

Yeah, it was single track again. Yeah. So that's interesting. I mean, that's the choice they have to make. Like, so I wonder, like, I'm sure they're already thinking, do we do single track again? Do we split it up? Do we have it at the same spot? You know, what was popular? What wasn't? So it's, it's a lot. It's, it always seems to like with the CFP, I was like, Oh my God, it's already due. How is that possible?

Cause you know, it's, we do a lot of different things here, but it's exciting. It's, it's fun to do. It's, it's a lot of work, but work. But when you're actually at the event, it's cool to be able to pay off of that work. It's really cool. Let's take one final break. We'll tail off the show. I know there was probably not much of a gap between the last break and this break, so I apologize about that. We've got a time limit to kind of hit here, though. But let's break.

We'll do some of our closing questions for rachel and uh and look forward to the next oscon so we'll be right back imagix is a real-time image processing proxy in cdn and let me tell you this is way more than image magic running on ec2 this is way better it's everything your friend and developers have dreamt of output Output to PNG, JPEG, GIF, JPEG 2000, and several other formats. And if you're like me, and you've ever argued with your boss or a teammate about serving retina images to non-retina devices, you'll appreciate their open-source, dependency-free JavaScript library that allows you to easily use the ImageX API to make

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from the changelog sent you. All right, we are back with Rachel. And Rachel, I'm excited because I think I've learned quite a bit about you, learned quite a bit about O'Reilly and this really awesome conference, OzCon. And it's just so exciting to see such a staple of a conference keep going year after year after year and then not even being so into itself that it's humble enough to say, well, we can change and we can even change up our tracks this year and morph and iterate for the community. And I think that's just really interesting the way

that you all put this conference on and what a big deal it is to serve the open source community as you have for so many years. So kudos on that part for sure. But some closing questions we have I think are pretty interesting. And I figured no matter who you are, you've got to have a programming hero. So it's somebody that's influenced you, influenced your writing, influenced your team, your program yourself. So what is it? Who is your programming hero, I guess, is the easiest way to ask the question. That's a good question.

I guess the first person that comes to mind, and I don't know if this is completely because of programming, but is Guido van Rossum from, you know, creating Python. And I think Python's awesome. It's, it's simple. But what I think, I don't know, this might be a couple, but the community around Python is just so amazingly wonderful. And I can't help but think that while Guido is obviously a great programmer. He's created a community around that language that is welcoming and, you know, continues to move that language forward, I think, in great ways. And yeah, that's the first person, because, you know, you mentioned that before, and that's the first person that came to mind.

So the person's name is again? Guido van Rossum. Guido van Rossum. i'll have to get the show notes link for that one oh yeah no i yep unless you know the url by by uh just off the top of your head i don't or twitter handle or something i don't know i might be able to well no i will get that to you so maybe we can like pop that in there okay and i And I guess for someone like you, you've got to listen to some podcasts. So I'm sure you listen to The Change Log, right? Obviously. And you listen to O'Reilly Radar.

Yep. But what other podcasts out there do you keep track of that help inform you and your team of things that you're working on at O'Reilly? So the one that I found most recently was, uh, Cloudcast actually. Um, you know, we were looking at podcasts recently just to see sort of what, um, what was going on and because I had been out of it a little bit, uh, Cloudcast just seemed to have a lot of cool people on that were, were talking about technology and in a bunch of different ways. Um, and I really

enjoyed that. The tech guy, I don't know, I kind of like the ones that are general, I guess, because OzCon is so general. So I like the tech guy, the wired podcast stuff. And I came across your podcast rather recently and was like, this looks really great. Because, again, because it had so many different languages and frameworks and people. So, so that's kind of what I look for. So.

Diversity. Yeah, that's, that's what I've been looking for. I mean, there, there's other ones that are specific that are great, but sort of where I'm at right now, sort of in my career, I need to know a bunch about a bunch of different things. So I try to figure out where best to get that. And then when I need to drill down, I'll try and drill down. Interesting. So I guess then the only other question I think might be pretty interesting to ask you is an open source radar. When it comes to software development, open source, what's interesting out

there that if you had a weekend to look into or play with or talk to a community, who would that be? Yeah, so it's interesting. So I think two of the things I'm really looking at right now are the idea of reactive programming. So that's really interesting to me. And specifically, React.js seems really interesting. I kind of want to delve into that. That's something I would definitely like to look into. And then also, I guess, you know, as part of that sort of like the whole microservices world, there's no open source frameworks for that right now. There's, I guess I was talking to some people and I guess there's some, you know, for pay ones, but I was like, no way, not open source frameworks for that right now. There's, I guess I was talking to some people

and I guess there's some, you know, for pay ones, but I was like, no way, not open source. So looking into, I know we're working on something, microservices and Go, which is really awesome. Go is also a really cool, cool area that I want to look into. I really like emerging languages. I love the idea of, you know, like Java's awesome. It's been around forever and it will be around because there's so much, you know, so many programs that

are created in it. But, you know, now that it couldn't be what it, like if you were creating a language today, it would be much different because it's just the technology is much different. So I love, you know, finding out about Go and Rust and some of the other languages, you know, like Kotlin and Elm and Elixir. I mean, those are just, that's fascinating to me as far as that. And then, which are all open source, obviously. And then the other piece of open source that I've really been kind of digging into is, so like I said, we, you know, we've won open sources, you know, basically everything. So that doesn't mean we can be like, fantastic,

you know, like, how are these, you know, how are enterprises working with open source internally? And how are they putting together projects and working with individuals? And like, what's Cloud Foundry doing? And what's OpenStack doing? And sort of figuring out what they're doing. And then, you know, what are the best practices? How is that influencing the open source community? I don't completely know yet. That's something I'm going to be looking at for the next OSCON. Yeah, so that's really interesting to me. And the idea that we can't kind of leave open source without someone at the helm or a bunch of people, I guess, right. If it's open source. And I don't think it's necessarily, you know, I kind of want to be up there like,

where are we going, everybody? Okay, cool. You know, you know, and maybe, you know, giving, you know, a little opinion every now and then, but trying to figure that out, I guess, and have OzCon be a part of that. You mentioned Go and you mentioned microservices, and recently, I don't know if you've ran into this fellow or not, but he actually is in Berlin, Peter Bergan. No, I don't know him. He was on the show, and he also spoke at GopherCon,

but it was July 3rd he was on the show, episode 163. I'll link to that in the show notes for the listeners. But we talked heavily about microservices in Go using his open source, I guess, kit would be the easiest way to describe it, but it's called GoKit. So when you think about Go and you think about distributed services and microservices, or distributed systems, I should say, then GoKit is an interesting library. And Peter Bragon is a really good speaker on it.

We had him on actually season three of Beyond Code. He'll be in that with GopherCon and he was on a recent episode and gave a talk at GopherCon too. So that think about that. That's an interesting fellow to talk to. Yeah, that's interesting. That's really interesting. And Go is interesting anyways, because it was sort of like built for this distributed systems. But yeah, I'm definitely going to, I'll actually reach out to that guy.

Yeah. That's really cool. Peter's awesome. Fan of the show and, you know, all around good guy, you know. Can't go wrong with Peter. Nice. He's a good guy. Cool.

But that does wrap up what I was thinking of for the show, Rachel. Is there anything else that you wanted to add to the end here? I would add one thing. Okay. Basically, I want to hear from you. When we put AusCon together or any of our content together, it only gets better if we know what sort of information you need. If you have something that you think people need to hear, we'll work with you and see if that's something that we believe in. So for instance, um, software architecture, call for proposals is open.

So I want to hear from, you know, people, um, and OSCON will be open in a couple of weeks. So I guess I just want people to be involved and know that we are, we want to hear different voices and new voices. Um, and so definitely get in touch with us in some way. What's the best way to go about getting in touch with, let's say, specifically those two conferences or any, what is the best way to reach out? Would it be you or would it be someone else? So the best way for the conferences, truly, I mean, I'm on Twitter, so I can answer questions on there, certainly. And we can put that, I suppose, in the show notes, right? My Twitter handle. But going to the CFP, we do put a lot of copy in that

saying what we're looking for. And then that is how we intake all of the proposals. If you have another idea, there is, I want to just, I'm looking this up as we speak. I think there's a work with us email for O'Reilly. It's literally like work with us at O'Reilly. And I'm looking that up right now. If it comes up really quickly. Yeah. There's a work with us at O'Reilly. And I'm looking that up right now, if it comes up really quickly. Yeah, there's a work with us page. It's literally work with us at O'Reilly.com. So that's a good way to sort of come in, the person that sits next to me mans that and, you know, and it will get thrown to the right person. So that's the best general way to do it. And if you are at one of our events, please come up and speak to me, or one of my colleagues, depending on the event.

Like I said, I mean, our program is only as good as sort of the information that we gather and the people that we work with externally. It's an interesting sort of system for our business because our network makes us so much stronger. So those are the best ways. Well, cool. Well, Rachel, it was definitely a pleasure to have you on the, here on this show. It was great to kind of hear all about the ways that open source has changed over the years and just the ways that O'Reilly's conference has changed over the years. And even your new work in Portland and then now in Amsterdam and the work you're doing for the future conferences is really great to hear about.

And just being so open, I'm excited to hear about that. So we'll put your Twitter in the show notes. If you're not familiar, there's a site called O'Reilly.com. O-R-E-I-L-L-Y.com. Go there.

Tons of information, books, conferences, videos, podcasts. You name it. And Rachel and team are there. Tons of information, books, conferences, videos, podcasts, you name it. And Rachel and team are there. And if you're interested about OSCON, O-S-C-O-N dot com, that's where you can find that conference. And right now the homepage is focused on the European version of it. So you mentioned a couple of weeks. The CFPs will open up for here in Austin. So something will change on the front page, right?

Yeah, it should be the first full week of October. It should be up there. Okay. Awesome. Well, Rachel, thank you so much. For those who listen to this show weekly know that we have something new out. It's called Beyond Code. If you go to beyondcode.tv, that is our brief interview series that we shoot only at conferences

after parties so sometime soon you might actually see us uh releasing a season from moscon here in austin so we'll be excited about that to to get those who come out to that uh that conference to to share what they think about uh open source software development and everything we cover here at the changelog and we also have two emails changelog weekly and changelog nightly go to changelog.com slash weekly or changelog.com slash nightly to subscribe to those super awesome emails and uh rachel i don't know if you subscribe to those but for me i do actually you so you subscribe to those emails? I do, yes. Fantastic. And they're always informing me on what's fresh and what's new. And a show we're about to put out today, actually, was informed by that.

A recent episode was also informed by our email. So if you're not tracking with those emails, you've got to check them out. Make sure you do so. But that's all I wanted to cover in this show, Rachel. So at this time, let's say goodbye. It was a pleasure. Thanks so much. Thank you next time.