Locating the labyrinth and meeting the meetup
For a few months, I had been working on the courage to check out one of the many coding-related groups held all across Melbourne each month. There are the MPUG/PyCharmers meetups, various Code Like A Girl networking events and more data science groups than I could possibly list here (if any of these peaks your interest, check out the meetup list here). Still, as a scientist-turned-programmer (and a shy one at that) I wasn’t too quick to jump in the deep end with a roomful of people who of course I assume know everything there is to know about programming. Eventually, an email popped into my inbox with details for an upcoming PyLadies Melbourne Meetup centered around a tool I had been using (and hating) almost daily, and finally, I thought, “This is it. It’s now or never”. So, a cold Melbourne Monday night I bundled up my backpack and headed into the city after a long day at work.
After a tricky start (getting into locked business buildings in the heart of the Melbourne CBD is not my strong suite – mastermind criminal I am not!), I finally made it to a table jam-packed with Souvas accompanied by a fridge full of beer and cider (or apple juice poppers if that’s what you’re into). I was one of the last to arrive, so I quietly slunk in the back and collected some food before introducing myself to the orchestrator of the event. Not long after a quick round of “What’s your name, what do you do…”, we were bundled through to a second room where there was a bunch of tables and chairs set up around a projector.
For the next 90 minutes, Ashley Anderson enthralled and entertained with her tales learning python’s premier plotting library, matplotlib. I won’t go too much into the finer details of her talk – you can check it out here. But, I will tell you a little about Ash and why her talk being my first foray into python meetups was so important. A masters student come research assistant, Ash is a bench-trained scientist with a flair for uncovering transcriptional signatures of immune genes in cancer. She came into python as the only scientist in her lab using this language and has built analysis pipelines for her work from the ground up. Coming into python as a scientist was definitely something I could relate to! Ash was brutally honest about how hard she found it at times to navigate the various Matplotlib interfaces. She unashamedly admitted how easy it was to spend hours ‘prettifying’ your graphs. And most importantly for me, she had a room full of fellow pythonistas, mostly software engineers and data scientists, nodding along. It was unbelievably reassuring to hear that I wasn’t alone in my experiences of matplotlib-induced pain. On top of that, having someone methodically explain the basic concepts, the tricky syntax and the bizarre labeling conventions was so helpful for crystallising the knowledge I had slowly accumulated over the last year or two since starting to use matplotlib more regularly. I even learned a few new tricks (aspect=’auto’ anyone??).
I know it may seem like I’m gushing (and maybe I am, a little) but it truly was a revelation to me that scientists could have something so useful and relevant to contribute to what (on the surface) seemed like a simple conversation for those ‘in the know’. The PyLadies are an incredibly welcoming bunch, and I can’t wait for next month to ‘meetup’ with them again.
The nitty gritty
When: Third Monday of each month
Where: Melbourne CBD
Who: Anyone identifying as female who is interested in python.
What: The presenters and topics vary by month, so for all the details make sure to check out the PyLadies meetup page.
Note: The details I’ve included here are for the PyLadies Melbourne Meetup. If this is not near you, don’t dismay – there are PyLadies groups all over the world and most likely one near you! There are even remote PyLadies groups that regularly post talks online if this sounds more like your jam head here to check it out.
Python not your thing? There are so, so many different groups on meetup, I am sure you will find something that takes your fancy!
Resources
If you’re in a world of matplotlib pain, here are a few of my favourite resources that (along with Ash’s talk) really help to lay out ground rules and will hopefully give you a fighting chance:
- https://realpython.com/python-matplotlib-guide/
- https://python-graph-gallery.com/
