I attended the TriPython event on 25 May during which Stacy Morse presented on Python Microservices. I was a little nervous going into the event given my relative inexperience with Python (and because I was a little bit late), but the event was very laid back. The group was fairly small (less than 30 people) so everybody was able to go around and introduce themselves, their current knowledge of Python, and what they do, which I thought was really nice to get to see some variety in expertise and profession. Also, I was expecting that the presentation would be more formal, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was very informal. It seemed that the presenter was just a normal attendee of the group, rather than some big shot person that they’d brought it, and she presented on a project that she had worked on during her own time for her own benefit, which brought a nice sense of intimacy and “realness” to the presentation.

I enjoyed the presentation because I was able to learn something new about Python in general (not just specific code), and microservices seems like a really interesting way to work. Rather than having one giant program, you basically break up the program into smaller programs that communicate with one another to achieve the same end result as a giant program (which the presenter referred to as monoliths). The presenter did a good job of outlining the potential pros/cons of microservices versus monoliths in ways that even I, a newbie, could understand. She also really highlighted the necessity for extensive pre-planning, given that sometimes a program can’t be broken down into microservices or that there are places where the relationships between parts of the monolith are so intertwined that it doesn’t make sense to break up the monolith. There were some vocabulary words thrown around (of which I took note to look up later) that I did not understand, however, these did not hinder my comprehension of the overall presentation at all, which I really appreciated.

I definitely think I would find value in this kind of event after class and could potentially see myself becoming a member of a professional community like this in the future (I’m shy, so that’s why I only say “potentially”). I usually attend a number of talks and presentations at my current job and really enjoy getting to hear about other people’s work, but this kind of event is less stuffy, more open to novices, and more open to diverse opinions and ways of doing things since people’s jobs and experience varied so much. Also, at the end of the presentation, they opened the floor for others to give smaller talks or pose questions to the group. Even though this was probably the hardest part of the meeting for me to follow along with (lots of jargon and talk about systems and processes I wasn’t familiar with), it seems these meetups are great places to not only learn new things, but also to collaborate with others doing similar work , which is really valuable.