Nā taku rourou: getting involved in (C)Python development
2025-11-23 , Plenary Space

There are many ways to contribute to Python; here is mine.

It can be daunting to engage with a mature, large, and complex code base, and the associated processes, community, and culture. This talk will discuss my experience as a new CPython contributor, my approach, how it is going, things I've learned, and what I hope to do next.


I've had the privilege of being able to dedicate a fair amount of time to open-source work recently. I've spent several months going through CPython's open bugs: looking at interesting ones, reproducing and verifying, analysing, and providing a comment or bug fix if it seems useful and appropriate.

I'll discuss why I want to contribute to CPython, how I am going about it, some preliminary results, metrics, technical challenges, reflections, and plans for the future.


What is the anticipated audience for your presentation?:

Anyone

I am a freelance programmer, currently working primarily on CPython. Formerly a Principal Software Developer, working on proprietary mathematical modelling software. I have several decades of professional programming experience, in various languages and domains, but enjoy working on lower-level, performance-critical code the most.