In what may or may not be a scheme to make money from tourists missing their trains, Bologna train station has a Platform 3, a Platform 3 (ovest) and a Platform 3 (est). They are not near each other. I stubbornly find the right platform anyway, in time to board the late train to Europython. Unexpectedly for the time of night, it is loud and full.
My carriage is replete with young men and a few young women. There are no old, fat or peaceful people. The young men are competing for the young women, smoking and throwing things out of the window. After two hours the doors open and they vomit forth, clambering directly over the train tracks, shouting “A Rimini! A Rimini!”
It turns out that the conference has been scheduled to start on notte rosa, a famous party night, and this is not simply how trains work in Italy.
Rimini is a seaside tourist town. The beach-front consists of nine miles of shops selling exfoliating rubber sandals for twelve euros. It is not urbane to find such a town pleasant or charming, but it manages to be both. There is a good cheer in the streets, and you’ll sometimes get a friendly “Ciao” from a stranger.
If you want to get cash you have to go into a squalid little bank with a one-in, one-out policy, enforced by automatic doors and a buzzer with a red light. Bzzzz!, it goes, and I am momentarily confined in some sort of airlock. I feel like I’m visiting a family member in prison.
The Palacongressi is in the town centre, and the hotels are on the coast. The two loci are connected by a long, thin park through which a path winds. There is a line on the path dividing it into a footpath and a cycle path, which everybody ignores. There are two subways and a bridge on the way. One of the subways is adorned with skilful spray-paint illustrations of multicoloured robots, each one superimposed — presumably by a later artist — with a bright cyan penis. The bridge is long and high and admits no shade in the 30 degree heat.
The conference centre is an imposing mushroom-shaped building with skateboarders outside. In the entrance hall, a large granite sphere rotates ominously in a pool of water. A smell of chlorine emanates from it.
Python is a difficult thing to have a conference about. The disparate projects which are similar only in their use of Python share little else in common; it’s like having a conference about things made using screwdrivers. The tool is mature; the use-cases well-known. Talks at such a conference necessarily fall into a few categories: firstly, low-effort affairs from companies wanting to get their logo on the big projector screen: here’s how we use screwdrivers — also, we're hiring. Secondly, some novelty can be had by strong-headedly using screwdrivers for tasks better suited to other tools: here’s how you can use a screwdriver to brush your teeth (but don’t!) Thirdly, talks by screwdriver industry employees with “give a presentation” in their SMART goals: here are ten slides of bullet points about screwdrivers that I researched on Google; I will now stand behind the podium and slowly read from them. Finally, introductory talks for those new to the scene. It is here where I believe most of the value in such a conference lies. The more you focus on a specific tool, the more your conference will tilt away from being a proving ground for new ideas and more towards being a place where beginners learn accepted practice.
A large hall in the middle of the convention centre has been given over to the event's sponsors, who have set up brightly-coloured booths around the perimeter. I approach the PyCharm booth. It is slick, and there are bright screens and tables of branded stickers and yo-yos.
“Do you use PyCharm?” says a German-accented man.
“Yes, I use it for refactoring,” I say. He does not respond.
“I’d use it more, if the Vim bindings were better. Can’t do without them. Too much Vim in my fingers I guess!”
“Do you want a PyCharm yo-yo?” he says.
Most of the talks are to happen in nearby rooms Anfiteatro 1 and Anfiteatro 2. The similarity of this word to the word antifeature is a source of some amusement.
I struggle to stay focused as a Polish developer gives a very informative but equally dry talk about security. A German man opens his talk with a photograph of him inserting a large sandwich into his mouth. I am engaged and entertained throughout. I begin to rethink my image of myself as a rational person unswayed by marketing.
That evening we go for a long swim in the sea before dinner. I try to float without moving and fail. My new friend Diego shows me the proper procedure. He is blown away that I don’t know how buoyancy works.
Conference-goers, I discover, eat at restaurants every night. Every restaurant in Rimini is good. I discover that, here on the Italian coast, the cuisine consists mainly of pasta and fish, and I smile, satisifed that, in some small way, the world makes sense.
On the second day, the scorching heat does not relent. I have travelled light and am not properly prepared for it, so I hit up the local shops looking for some summer-conference clothing; something comfortable yet professional, Mediterranean but not gauche. I buy a pair of Italian-flag sandals and a hat with seashells on it.
Determined not to be the monolingual Brit, I also download a language app and set about my education.
The first word my app teaches me is ragazzo. This appears to be the most used word in the language. “Eyyyy, ragazzi!” says everyone, everywhere, all the time.
Breakfast at the hotel is served on a large circular table, a pie chart of 10% meat, 10% fruit, and 80% cakes, pastries, sugar-dusted croissants, and treacle tarts.
I fire up my language app again as I eat. “Translate this sentence,” it says. “il ragazzo mangia lo zucchero”.
Lunch at the conference is included in the ticket price. I sit down opposite an intense British man who tells me something stung him in the sea. I am now wary of our next trip to the beach. An American talks Clojure to me. I promise to teach Django to a German.
I go to some more talks. I start a mental checklist of things to do if I ever find myself giving a talk. Move around. Enunciate. Mentioning cats does not count as a joke.
We go for a swim again that evening, and this time the Thing stings me. It's like a horror movie monster that can only get you once you’ve heard about it. I resolve to tell nobody, and hide my pain like a hero.
The next morning, a man reads slowly from his slides, umming and ahhing and forgetting his place. At one point he whispers “fuck...” into his microphone, and it's all over. I stay in my seat in a show of solidarity, determined not to join the insensitive people who are now starting to get up and leave as he soldiers on. It must be terrifying to get up there and give a talk to a packed anfiteatro. I decide that, since I could never do it, I don't get to leave.
Later, I notice that I've found a way to benefit personally from the situation: realizing that that really is the worst that could happen, I now feel like I probably could give a talk after all, if absolutely necessary.
I decide to visit some of the less technical talks. Some are lighthearted. Some give tips for speakers. Some give tips for attendees. In a talk on cognitive biases, we are instructed never to ask “are you a programmer?” to a female conference attendee. I experience a moment of guilt, certain that I've said this already, although, not remembering whether this was to a man or a woman, I am unable to calculate exactly how much of a bigot I am.
On Thursday evening there is a social event at a beach nightclub. The VIP area is full of conference-goers, and the regular area is full of regular people. Despite my new cognitive bias training, I am able to correctly identify which is which.
I sit with two guys who are the spitting image of Stephen Mangan and Frankie Muniz. Stephen Mangan is Czech. "Nemluvim cesky," I venture. "Yeah, you can’t," he says. We talk about Rimini and the coast. Forgetting myself, I mention being stung in the sea. He calls me a baby. I play with my PyCharm yo-yo.
The next day, on a whiteboard, amongst other writing, large letters call out: “How I got my Pants Stolen at Europython: a Real Story”. Around it, people have chimed in: “OMG!” “Yes please!” It is the board where people propose their lightning talk ideas.
In the evening, we head to the lightning talks. Anfiteatro 1 seems more densely packed than usual. Half way through, between talks, somebody shouts out: “where's the pants guy?” The event staff ignore him.
At the end, a staff member starts to say, “that's all we've got time for today—”, but a woman near the front calls out over him: “what about the guy who lost his pants?”
The crowd becomes noisy and as it seems that a chant of “pants, pants, pants” is all but inevitable, Pants Man stands up with a laptop and the hosts cede the stage to him.
The pants presentation consists of six stock photographs and a short anecdote which amounts to “I left them on the beach.” The audience, having already worked themselves up, give him a standing ovation.
On the last day, I make good on my promise of teaching Django to the German. We sit down and I help my new friend implement his harbour software in Django. It's the most fun I've had all week. I decide to get more involved at my next conference.