I’m in Heidelberg for the djangocon 2018 (plus other info)¶

Tags: djangocon, triple-s, python

Yes, I’m in Heidelberg (Germany) for the annual European djangocon. That’s not a particularly shocking discovery, as I’ve been to quite a number :-) There are however some reasons for me to write this entry.

• The most important reason is that I’ve set up my old blog software on a brand new laptop. “Old software” means “python 2” and it is “python 3” now. And I’ve modernized the setup on my server a bit.

  So: this entry is my first test if my setup also works when writing a blog entry. That’s not something I want to test when I’m making summaries tomorrow.

• New laptop? Two months ago I asked advice: mac/linux. Both had advantages.

  What I type this on is a linux laptop. A powerful Dell precision 5520! I’ll probably write about my new setup later :-)

• New laptop? Yes, because of a new job. The company is also quite new (from February this year), it doesn’t have a website yet: “Triple S transformations”. I’d describe my job as senior developer with a big focus on python and open source.

  Triple S is part of VolkerWessels, the second biggest Dutch construction firm. The aim is to replace expensive and non-customizable commercial packages with open source throughout the company. With open source, the can adjust everything to our needs, be more effective and lower costs.

  They intend to be a good open source citizen, giving back most of our work. One of my responsibilities will be to help with that. I do have some experience at that within the python/plone/django world :-) Currently everything is a tad hidden away in a private gitlab instance. We’ll fix that.

• Django at the new job? Not immediately, but I’m pretty sure we’ll use lots of it. The python part that’s now in use is Odoo (formerly OpenERP), so I’ll probably look at that first.

• “Triple S”? 3xs: secure, scalable, simple. A bit of a motto. Security is a necessity. Scalability also, if you start small (for one of the 120 companies belonging to VolkerWesses) and want to roll out the open source goodies for all 120 of them!

• I went to Heidelberg with the train. For those interested in those kinds of things: I took the ICE to Köln, then through the beautiful Eifel region via Gerolstein to Trier. From there along the river Saar to Saarbrücken and on to Mannheim. Then in 10 minutes to Heidelberg.

  On the way back, I’ll go along the river Rhein (‘Rhine’) to Koblenz. Then along the river Lahn to Limburg-am-Lahn. Through the (hopefully beautiful) Westerwald via Westerburg to Au. Then on to Köln and back home again.

Now I’ll prepare the template for tomorrow’s summaries and go to bed afterwards.