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Testing the feed in English and check If it's going to Debian Planet.

Is Python pass by reference or pass by value? This question intrigues every Python programmer coming from a C or Java background. In this tutorial, you will get its answer and learn the meaning of “pass by reference” and “pass by value” along with their difference in Python. Python Pass by Reference vs Pass by […]

The post Pass by Reference vs Pass by Value in Python appeared first on TechBeamers.

Hi there!
A big joint release today. Mostly security fixes but we also have the final release candidate of 3.13 so let’s start with that!

Python 3.13.0RC2

Final opportunity to test and find any show-stopper bugs before we bless and release 3.13.0 final on October 1st.

Get it here: Python Release Python 3.13.0rc2 | Python.org

Call to action

We strongly encourage maintainers of third-party Python projects to prepare their projects for 3.13 compatibilities during this phase, and where necessary publish Python 3.13 wheels on PyPI to be ready for the final release of 3.13.0. Any binary wheels built against Python 3.13.0rc2 will work with future versions of Python 3.13. As always, report any issues to the Python bug tracker.

Please keep in mind that this is a preview release and while it’s as close to the final release as we can get it, its use is not recommended for production environments.

Core developers: time to work on documentation now

• Are all your changes properly documented?
• Are they mentioned in What’s New?
• Did you notice other changes you know of to have insufficient documentation?

As a reminder, until the final release of 3.13.0, the 3.13 branch is set up so that the Release Manager (@thomas) has to merge the changes. Please add him (@Yhg1s on GitHub) to any changes you think should go into 3.13.0. At this point, unless something critical comes up, it should really be documentation only. Other changes (including tests) will be pushed to 3.13.1.

New features in Python 3.13

• A new and improved interactive interpreter, based on PyPy’s, featuring multi-line editing and color support, as well as colorized exception tracebacks.
• An experimental free-threaded build mode, which disables the Global Interpreter Lock, allowing threads to run more concurrently. The build mode is available as an experimental feature in the Windows and macOS installers as well.
• A preliminary, experimental JIT, providing the ground work for significant performance improvements.
• The locals() builtin function (and its C equivalent) now has well-defined semantics when mutating the returned mapping, which allows debuggers to operate more consistently.
• The (cyclic) garbage collector is now incremental, which should mean shorter pauses for collection in programs with a lot of objects.
• A modified version of mimalloc is now included, optional but enabled by default if supported by the platform, and required for the free-threaded build mode.
• Docstrings now have their leading indentation stripped, reducing memory use and the size of .pyc files. (Most tools handling docstrings already strip leading indentation.)
• The dbm module has a new dbm.sqlite3 backend that is used by default when creating new files.
• The minimum supported macOS version was changed from 10.9 to 10.13 (High Sierra). Older macOS versions will not be supported going forward.
• WASI is now a Tier 2 supported platform. Emscripten is no longer an officially supported platform (but Pyodide continues to support Emscripten).
• iOS is now a Tier 3 supported platform, with Android on the way as well.

Python 3.12.6

This is an expedited release for 3.12 due to security content. The schedule returns back to regular programming in October.

One notable change for macOS users: as mentioned in the previous release of 3.12, this release drops support for macOS versions 10.9 through 10.12. Versions of macOS older than 10.13 haven’t been supported by Apple since 2019, and maintaining support for them has become too difficult. (All versions of Python 3.13 have already dropped support for them.)

Get it here: Python Release Python 3.12.6 | Python.org

92 commits.

Python 3.11.10

Python 3.11 joins the elite club of security-only versions with no binary installers.

Get it here: Python Release Python 3.11.10 | Python.org

28 commits.

Python 3.10.15

Get it here: Python Release Python 3.10.15 | Python.org

24 commits.

Python 3.9.20

Get it here: Python Release Python 3.9.20 | Python.org

22 commits.

Python 3.8.20

Python 3.8 is very close to End of Life (see the Release Schedule). Will this be the last release of 3.8 ever? We’ll see… but now I think I jinxed it.

Get it here: Python Release Python 3.8.20 | Python.org

22 commits.

Security content in today’s releases

• gh-123678 and gh-116741: Upgrade bundled libexpat to 2.6.3 to fix CVE-2024-28757, CVE-2024-45490, CVE-2024-45491 and CVE-2024-45492.
• gh-118486: os.mkdir() on Windows now accepts mode of 0o700 to restrict the new directory to the current user. This fixes CVE-2024-4030 affecting tempfile.mkdtemp() in scenarios where the base temporary directory is more permissive than the default.
• gh-123067: Fix quadratic complexity in parsing "-quoted cookie values with backslashes by http.cookies. Fixes CVE-2024-7592.
• gh-113171: Fixed various false positives and false negatives in IPv4Address.is_private, IPv4Address.is_global, IPv6Address.is_private, IPv6Address.is_global. Fixes CVE-2024-4032.
• gh-67693: Fix urllib.parse.urlunparse() and urllib.parse.urlunsplit() for URIs with path starting with multiple slashes and no authority. Fixes CVE-2015-2104.
• gh-121957: Fixed missing audit events around interactive use of Python, now also properly firing for python -i, as well as for python -m asyncio. The event in question is cpython.run_stdin.
• gh-122133: Authenticate the socket connection for the socket.socketpair() fallback on platforms where AF_UNIX is not available like Windows.
• gh-121285: Remove backtracking from tarfile header parsing for hdrcharset, PAX, and GNU sparse headers. That’s CVE-2024-6232.
• gh-114572: ssl.SSLContext.cert_store_stats() and ssl.SSLContext.get_ca_certs() now correctly lock access to the certificate store, when the ssl.SSLContext is shared across multiple threads.
• gh-102988: email.utils.getaddresses() and email.utils.parseaddr() now return ('', '') 2-tuples in more situations where invalid email addresses are encountered instead of potentially inaccurate values. Add optional strict parameter to these two functions: use strict=False to get the old behavior, accept malformed inputs. getattr(email.utils, 'supports_strict_parsing', False) can be use to check if the strict paramater is available. This improves the CVE-2023-27043 fix.
• gh-123270: Sanitize names in zipfile.Path to avoid infinite loops (gh-122905) without breaking contents using legitimate characters. That’s CVE-2024-8088.
• gh-121650: email headers with embedded newlines are now quoted on output. The generator will now refuse to serialize (write) headers that are unsafely folded or delimited; see verify_generated_headers. That’s CVE-2024-6923.
• gh-119690: Fixes data type confusion in audit events raised by _winapi.CreateFile and _winapi.CreateNamedPipe.
• gh-116773: Fix instances of <_overlapped.Overlapped object at 0xXXX> still has pending operation at deallocation, the process may crash.
• gh-112275: A deadlock involving pystate.c’s HEAD_LOCK in posixmodule.c at fork is now fixed.

Stay safe and upgrade!

Upgrading is highly recommended to all users of affected versions.

Thank you for your support

Thanks to all of the many volunteers who help make Python Development and these releases possible! Please consider supporting our efforts by volunteering yourself or through organization contributions to the Python Software Foundation.

–
Łukasz Langa @ambv
on behalf of your friendly release team,

Ned Deily @nad
Steve Dower @steve.dower
Pablo Galindo Salgado @pablogsal
Łukasz Langa @ambv
Thomas Wouters @thomas

 

 

Focus

This month I didn't have any particular focus. I just worked on issues in my info bubble.

Changes

• duck: add indicators (1 2)
• Debian wiki pages: PortsDocs/New, Rust

Issues

• Regressions in adequate (1 2 3 4)

Review

• Debian publicity: reviewed Debian birthday post

Administration

• Debian servers: contributed to a review of current Debian Partners

Communication

• Respond to queries from Debian users and contributors on IRC

Sponsors

All work was done on a volunteer basis.

Whilst speaking with Dave Liddament last week, I remembered a slide I've seen in some of his previous presentations, such as Effective Code Review.

On the slide is a graph that shows the amount of time needed to fix a bug at different stages of the development lifecycle.

Fixing a bug is the quickest and simplest when writing code.

It's harder when being code reviewed or QA or client tested, more so when it's being released, and the most difficult and expensive once it's in the maintenance phase.

Once it's live in the production environment, there's additional cleanup work to do which adds to the time and cost, and potentially damages your reputation.

The sooner you can find a bug, the better.

This is where tools such as automated testing, static analysis and CI pipelines shine and make it easier for you to find and fix potential bugs sooner.

The KDE community has charted its course for the coming years, focusing on three interconnected paths that converge on a single point: community. These paths aim to improve user experience, support developers, and foster community growth.

Streamlined Application Development Experience

This goal focuses on improving the application development process. By making it easier for developers to create applications, KDE hopes to attract more contributors and deliver better software for both first-party and third-party applications. A notable task within this goal is enhancing the experience of building KDE apps with languages beyond C++, such as Rust or Python.

Champions: Nicolas Fella and Nate Graham

We care about your Input

KDE has a diverse users base with unique input needs: artists using complex monitor and drawing tablet setups; gamers with controllers, fancy mice, and handhelds; users requiring accessibility features or using a language optimally types with complex input methods; students with laptops, 2-in-1s, and tablets — and more! While KDE has made significant progress in supporting these diverse sources of input over the years, there are still gaps to be addressed. This goal aims to close those gaps and deliver a truly seamless input experience for everyone.

Champions: Gernot Schiller, Jakob Petsovits and Joshua Goins

KDE Needs You! 🫵

KDE’s growth depends on new contributors, but a lack of fresh involvement in key projects like Plasma, Kdenlive, Krita, GCompris, and others is a concern. This goal focuses on formalizing and enhancing recruitment processes, not just for individuals but also for institutions. Ensuring that bringing in new talent becomes a continuous and community-wide priority, vital for KDE's long-term sustainability.

Champions: Aniqa Khokhar, Johnny Jazeix and Paul Brown

Join us!

Your voice, your code, and your ideas are what will shape the KDE of tomorrow — whether you're a user, developer, or contributor. Let’s go on this journey together and make these goals a reality!

Join the Matrix room and keep an eye on the website for the latest KDE Goals updates.

Python programs are created in code editors, and can be run using system command prompt.

Table of contents

1. The Python REPL
2. Definitions: program, script, command-line, editor
3. Creating a Python program in a code editor
4. Running our Python program
5. Printing to see program output
6. Python programs are not launched from the REPL
7. Different operating systems
8. Python scripts are run from the command prompt or terminal

The Python REPL

This is the Python REPL, also known as the Interactive Python Interpreter:

>>>

How can I tell it's the Python REPL?

Well, the prompt shows three greater than signs (>>>), which indicates that we're in the Python REPL.

Typing all of your code in the Python REPL is pretty limiting.

Our code disappears right after we've typed it. Also, if we'd like someone to be able to import our code as a module, they can't.

Definitions: program, script, command-line, editor

Let's make a Python program.

Read the full article: https://www.pythonmorsels.com/creating-python-programs/

We are thrilled to announce that Djangonaut Space, a mentorship program, is open for applicants for our next cohort!

Djangonaut Space is holding a third session this year! This session will start on October 14th, 2024. We are accepting applications until September 14th, 2024. More details can be found in the website.

Djangonaut Space is a free, 8-week group mentoring program where individuals will work self-paced in a semi-structured learning environment. It seeks to help members of the community who wish to level up their current Django code contributions and potentially take on leadership roles in Django in the future.

“I signed up for this program with the goal of starting my journey as a contributor, but I ended up gaining so much more. In this community, I found incredible people who not only guide you toward solutions but also encourage and celebrate every achievement along the way.” - Raffaella, Djangonaut

If you have questions, they are holding an AMA session on Zoom next week. See their social media account for more details:

• Twitter/X
• Mastodon

How does cta1href sound to you? Gibberish, right? :D
Jesse “jessebaker” Baker pointed out that Experience Builder (XB) in its current state was subjecting its users to such nonsense! Fortunately, thanks to every Single Directory Component (SDC) specifying a title for each prop, we were able to automatically generate the much more readable CTA 1 link — thanks to foundations Ben “bnjmnm” Mullins did in #3461422 from 3 weeks prior.

Utkarsh “utkarsh_33” and Omkar “omkar-pd” Deshpande eliminated an extraneous “preview” request from the client, hence improving performance (as well as sanity).

Ben & Jesse made XB’s Cypress end-to-end tests leap massively ahead (especially compared to Drupal core’s use of Nightwatch), by introducing cypress-terminal-report. The resulting test failure output on GitLab CI makes it far easier to figure out where something is going wrong: a big productivity boost!

Two weeks ago I alluded to it, and now it finally happened: after months of getting basic infrastructure off the ground, we now finally were able to Kyle “ctrladel” Einecker’s set of representative SDCs that Lauri approved, Ivan “finnsky” Berdinsky and I reviewed, and Ted “tedbow” Bowman pushed across the finish line.
(Not everything Kyle proposed landed, because XB and the SDC subsystem do not yet have all the capabilities needed for some of the SDCs he wrote — see the follow-up if you’re interested.)

The very first component tree rendered in Experience Builder: both slots of this ‘two column’ SDC contain other SDCs!
Issue #3446722, image by me.

Some of the people working full-time on XB are doing so using DDEV. And running end-to-end tests that use WebDriver with both the test runner and the system under test living in a Docker container turns out to be quite challenging! Besides us, we know that many (most?) in the community use a DDEV-based development environment, and we’d love to welcome as many contributors as possible. Not being able to run the most important tests of all then is of course quite a problem.
That’s why Travis “traviscarden” Carden had been diligently (he actually joined a few weeks ago!) working on making that painless. The result: the ddev-drupal-xb-dev DDEV add-on — once installed, running (and seeing!) the XB end-to-end tests requires only ddev xb-cypress-open :)

Missed a prior week? See all posts tagged Experience Builder.

Goal: make it possible to follow high-level progress by reading ~5 minutes/week. I hope this empowers more people to contribute when their unique skills can best be put to use!

For more detail, join the #experience-builder Slack channel. Check out the pinned items at the top!

Feliksas “f.mazeikis” Mazeikis is back full-time on XB, and he’s started working on the super important #3463999: Auto-create/update Component config entities for all discovered SDCs that meet XB’s minimum criteria. It’s a critical piece in making Lauri’s product vision come to life: it will ensure that any SDC that we’re confident will work in XB becomes available automatically.1 While working on that, he discovered that there was a pretty big oversight in the StorablePropShape work I landed two weeks ago: in some places Drupal core does not distinguish between “instance settings” and “storage settings” at all (and nor did the code I landed then), but in some places it actually does. Felix was running into that now, thanks to config validation, and so he fixed that.

Many of the things that happened this week were on the “enablement” side of things. Nonetheless, the XB UI also made progress:

1. Harumi “hooroomoo” Jang and Jesse landed the updated “insert” UX and hierarchy view, based on the updated design.
2. But, most importantly, nicely rounding out this post by combining “enablement” and improved UX: Bálint “balintbrews” Kléri implemented error boundaries. In principle, you should never see these, but we all occasionally have internet connection issues. At those times, Bálint’s “Try again” addition works beautifully :)
   (And as a bonus it accelerates debugging failing server responses!)

Error boundaries with a friendly ‘Try again’.
Issue #3461431, image by Bálint.

Thanks to Travis for reviewing this!

Week 14 was August 12–18, 2024.

1. At this early stage, it’ll happen indiscriminately. Later, we’ll ensure that on production environments no new SDCs will be made available to the Content Creator without explicit approval by the Site Builder. See the first steps towards auditability of the available XB components if you’re interested in this aspect. ↩︎

• Drupal
• Acquia
• Experience Builder

• The very first component tree rendered in Experience Builder: both slots of this 'two column' SDC contain other SDCs!
• Error boundaries with a friendly 'Try again'.

In an exclusive interview with The DropTimes, Vincenzo Gambino, a Drupal Architect and Senior React Developer, shares his journey from Palermo to London, exploring how Drupal shaped his career. From working on high-traffic projects for Cambridge University to co-authoring "Jumpstart Jamstack Development", Vincenzo discusses Drupal's evolution, its role in headless architectures, and the future of open-source technologies. With over 12 years of experience, he offers insights into Drupal's flexibility, security, and performance, as well as its adaptability to modern web development trends.

We’re excited to announce the September 2024 release of the Python and Jupyter extensions for Visual Studio Code!

This release includes the following announcements:

• Django unit test support
• Go to definition from inlay hints with Pylance

If you’re interested, you can check the full list of improvements in our changelogs for the Python, Jupyter and Pylance extensions.

Django unit test support

We are excited to announce support for one of our most requested features: you can now discover and run Django unit tests through the Test Explorer!

In order to enable this feature, you will need to add a MANAGE_PY_PATH environment variable, pointing to your Django application’s manage.py file. To do so, you can follow these steps:

1. Set "python.testing.unittestEnabled": true, in your settings.json file.
2. Add MANAGE_PY_PATH as an environment variable:
   1. Create a .env file at the root of your project.
   2. Add MANAGE_PY_PATH='<path-to-manage.py>' to the .env file, replacing <path-to-manage.py> with the path to your application’s manage.py file.

      Tip: You can copy the path by right clicking on the file in the Explorer view and selecting Copy Path.

3. Add Django test arguments to "python.testing.unittestArgs": [] in the settings.json file as needed, and remove any arguments that are not compatible with Django.

Note: By default, the Python extension looks for and loads .env files at the project root. If your .env file is not at the project root or you are using VS Code variable substitution, add "python.envFile": "${workspaceFolder}/<path-to-.env>" to your settings.json file, so the Python extension can load the environment variables in this file when running and discovering tests. See our Python environment variables docs for more information on environment variables.

Navigate to the Testing view, and select the Refresh Tests button to have your Django tests displayed!

For troubleshooting tips, please see our Django testing docs. As you explore this newly added feature, please provide feedback and report any issues in our vscode-python repo or by using the Python: Report Issue command.

Go to definition from inlay hints with Pylance

When enabling inlay hints with Pylance, you can now more conveniently navigate to a type’s definition through Ctrl+Click or Cmd+Click when hovering over it.

Other Changes and Enhancements

We have also added small enhancements and fixed issues requested by users that should improve your experience working with Python and Jupyter Notebooks in Visual Studio Code. Some notable changes include:

• You can now access the VS Code Native REPL for Python from the Command Palette (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + P) using Python: Start Native REPL(@vscode-python#23727)
• VS Code Native REPL for Python now starts at the project folder (@vscode-python#23821)
• Strings are now normalized when sending commands to the VS Code Native REPL (@vscode-python#23743)
• You can now restart the debugger when debugging tests through the debug control widget (@vscode-python#23752)

Call for Community Feedback

As we are planning and prioritizing future work, we value your feedback! Below are a few issues we would love feedback on:

• Design proposal for test coverage in (@vscode-python#22827)

Try out these new improvements by downloading the Python extension and the Jupyter extension from the Marketplace, or install them directly from the extensions view in Visual Studio Code (Ctrl + Shift + X or ⌘ + ⇧ + X). You can learn more about Python support in Visual Studio Code in the documentation. If you run into any problems or have suggestions, please file an issue on the Python VS Code GitHub page.

The post Python in Visual Studio Code – September 2024 Release appeared first on Python.

Are you interested in practicing your Python skills while learning how to solve astrophysics and astronomy problems? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder's Weekly articles and projects.

[ Improve Your Python With 🐍 Python Tricks 💌 – Get a short & sweet Python Trick delivered to your inbox every couple of days. >> Click here to learn more and see examples ]

I've got some big news.

On my way to Akademy, looking forward to meeting people there. Even though I’m traveling with spotty Internet access for now, let’s not loose good habits. Here is my web review for the week 2024-36.

The Internet Archive just lost its appeal over ebook lending - The Verge

Tags: tech, copyright, law, library

This is really bad news… Clearly the publishers cartel would try to outlaw libraries if they were invented today.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/4/24235958/internet-archive-loses-appeal-ebook-lending

In Leak, Facebook Partner Brags About Listening to Your Phone’s Microphone to Serve Ads for Stuff You Mention

Tags: tech, privacy, surveillance, advertisement

There, now this seems like a real thing… your phone recording you while you’re not aware for advertisement purposes. Nice surveillance apparatus. Thanks but no thanks.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-partner-phones-listening-microphone

Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, art, learning, cognition

An excellent essay about generative AI and art. Goes deep in the topic and explains very well how you can hardly make art with those tools. It’s just too remote from how they work. I also particularly like the distinction between skill and intelligence. Indeed, we can make highly skilled but not intelligent systems using this technology.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art

Challenging The Myths of Generative AI

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, criticism

Does a good job listing the main myths the marketing around generative AI is built on. Don’t fall for the marketing, exert critical thinking and rely on real properties of those systems.

https://www.techpolicy.press/challenging-the-myths-of-generative-ai/

Is Linux collapsing under its own weight? On Rust for Linux

Tags: tech, linux, rust, kernel, foss, politics

Interesting analysis. For sure the Rust for Linux drama tells something about the Linux kernel community and its complicated social norms.

https://sporks.space/2024/09/05/is-linux-collapsing-under-its-own-weight-on-rust-for-linux/

Rust for Linux revisited

Tags: tech, linux, rust, kernel, politics, foss

Politics in the Linux kernel can indeed be tough. The alternative path proposed to the Rust-for-Linux team is indeed an interesting one, it could bear interesting results quickly.

https://drewdevault.com/2024/08/30/2024-08-30-Rust-in-Linux-revisited.html

LSP: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Tags: tech, semantic, programming, protocols, language

Interesting view about the LSP specification, where it shines, and where it falls short.

https://www.michaelpj.com/blog/2024/09/03/lsp-good-bad-ugly.html

Python Programmers’ Experience

Tags: tech, python, community, data-visualization

Indeed this is a much better visualization. It shows quite well how the Python programmers pool is growing.

https://two-wrongs.com/python-programmers-experience

OAuth from First Principles

Tags: tech, oauth, security

Nice post explaining the basics of OAuth. If you wonder why the flow seems so convoluted, this article is for you.

https://stack-auth.com/blog/oauth-from-first-principles

Things I Wished More Developers Knew About Databases

Tags: tech, databases

Lots of things to keep in mind when dealing with databases. This is a nice list of “must know” for developers, false assumptions are widespread (and I fall in some of those traps myself from time to time).

https://rakyll.medium.com/things-i-wished-more-developers-knew-about-databases-2d0178464f78

The Latency/Throughput Tradeoff: Why Fast Services Are Slow And Vice Versa

Tags: tech, performance, latency

An old article but a good reminder: you have to choose between latency and throughput, you can’t have both in the same system.

https://blog.danslimmon.com/2019/02/26/the-latency-throughput-tradeoff-why-fast-services-are-slow-and-vice-versa/

The impact of memory safety on sandboxing · Alex Gaynor

Tags: tech, security, safety, memory, sandbox

Interesting point. As the memory safety of our APIs will increase, can we reduce the amount of sandboxing we need? This will never remove completely the need if only for logic bugs, but surely we could become more strategic about it.

https://alexgaynor.net/2024/aug/30/impact-of-memory-safety-on-sandboxing/

LazyFS: A FUSE Filesystem which can be used to simulate data loss on unsynced writes

Tags: tech, tests, storage

That sounds like a very interesting tool to simulate and test potential data loss scenarios. This is generally a bit difficult to do, should make it easier.

https://github.com/dsrhaslab/lazyfs

Greppability is an underrated code metric

Tags: tech, programming, craftsmanship

Good set of advices on naming variables, types, etc. Indeed this makes things easier to find in code bases.

https://morizbuesing.com/blog/greppability-code-metric/

Reasons to write design docs

Tags: tech, architecture, design, documentation, communication

Very good article. I wish I’d see more organisations writing such design documents. They help a lot, and that allows to have a way to track changes in the design. To me it’s part of the minimal set of documentation you’d want on any non trivial project.

https://ntietz.com/blog/reasons-to-write-design-docs/

Differing Values In A Team Are Costly

Tags: tech, values, organization, team, management

Aligning people with differing core values in a team is indeed necessary but difficult. It can kill your project for small teams, for larger teams you will likely need to think your organization keeping the misalignment in mind.

https://rtpg.co/2024/08/31/cost-of-a-values-gap/

Twelve rules for job applications and interviews

Tags: tech, hiring, interviews

Good set of advices. I wish more people applying for a job would follow them.

https://vurt.org/articles/twelve-rules/

Is My Blue Your Blue?

Tags: colors, cognition, funny

One of those essentials questions in life now has some form of answer. Where is the blue/green boundary for you?

https://ismy.blue/

Bye for now!

In this episode, we continued working with the Kamal deploy tool. Last time, we build a demo image. With this session, we created a Digital Ocean Droplet (i.e., VM) and deployed to that. Along the journey, we learned a lot about how Kamal operates.

In my 15+ years in the Drupal community, I've been fortunate to have been able to lead a few Drupal-related groups and I sometimes find myself in the position of encouraging other leaders - who are experiencing burnout - on how to gracefully step down from leadership positions after multiple years of service.

When I say "groups," I'm talking about things like:

• Drupal event organizers
• Drupal module/theme/project maintainers
• Drupal initiative leaders
• Drupal working group leaders

It seems counter-intuitive to encourage folks to step away from things they have successfully led, but I'm very fond of the concept that the true sign of a healthy organization is a successful change in leadership to make way for new perspectives, insights and ultimately fresh ideas.

In this article, I'll share some of my thoughts on my experiences in doing this exact thing with two prominent Drupal groups: the Florida DrupalCamp organizing team and the Drupal Community Working Group.

Being a leader in the Drupal community comes with responsibilities, but it also comes with prestige. Leaders tend to be more visible and therefore able to promote themselves or their organizations to their advantage. 

Background

My leadership positions were gratifying, and I was still committed to them, but from my perspective, I had remained in them longer than was good for the organization or for me. But, I had an incredibly strong drive to ensure that I left the group in better shape than when I joined.

I was one of the original organizers of Florida DrupalCamp and ended up being the leader of the team by attrition. The other original organizers became less involved as the years went on, and I ended up taking on more-and-more duties. There wasn't a breaking point, but I realized that things weren't heading in the right direction.

For the Drupal Community Working Group, I was added to an incredibly strong team dealing with really difficult issues, but without a structured plan for length of terms or any other way to protect the mental health of its members.

In both cases, I was incredibly proud of the work we were doing, but didn't see a clear path to roll over leave either team in a healthy manner. 

The good news

From my perspective, there are two things people need to do in order to successfully step down from leadership positions:

1. Train your replacement(s).
2. Codify roles and responsibilities.

The bad news

Neither of these two steps can be done overnight.

The detailsTrain your replacement(s)

You (yes, you) need to make a concerted effort to identify, approach, and ask someone (or in many cases, "someones") to fill your role when you leave. Once you find these magical people, then it is (again) up to you to train them in what you do. It is important that you communicate not only the work involved in being a leader, but also the advantages that come with the role.

For Florida DrupalCamp, I made it known well in advance that I was looking to step down as its leader (but willing to stay on in a lesser capacity). I knew it would be good for the event and community if there was new leadership. I told the other organizers as well as mentioning it during the event's opening and closing sessions. Most importantly, I did it early and spoke about it often. This directly led to several people stepping up.

This will likely be a time-consuming process, but it will make the team stronger. It will force you to document and organize what you do, and just the act of explaining it to someone else will allow you and your replacement to identify things that need to be documented as well as possible opportunities for efficiency gains.

Assume that you'll need to be training your replacement for at least a few months, but the timeframe really depends on the cadence of your team's primary tasks. 

Codify roles and responsibilities

This was especially important for the Drupal Community Working Group, as prior to my joining the group, there weren't any guidelines for length of term, how the leader was selected, and how to step away gracefully. Under the leadership of George DeMet, our team implemented all of these, and more. Both George and I led the team for more years than was probably healthy for either of us, but by the time I stepped away, there were clear guidelines for all of these things (with a significant focus on the mentally draining Conflict Resolution Team).

For less formal teams, this could be as simple as a wiki page or an issue in the project's queue with what you and the other leaders do, what your boundaries are, and what your plans for the future are. This can be especially effective when someone makes a request of you that you feel is above-and-beyond - it is nice to have a document that you could point to where roles and responsibilities are detailed.

I'll admit that I skipped this step when stepping down as leader of the Florida DrupalCamp organizing team, as I wasn't leaving the team completely - I just stepped down into a lesser role but was always available to the new leaders for questions and advice. 

Getting started

There are many Drupal groups that have informal leadership roles, with many leaders who definitely feel that if they leave, then the group will fall. Clearly, this is not a healthy situation.

In this case, my advice is this: start by writing up a document/drupal.org page that describes what you do as leader and share it with the rest of the group. Then, be proactive and find a potential replacement and start the training process using the document as a guide. 

No replacement

It should be obvious that the "finding your replacement" step requires a human being other than yourself being involved. But what happens if you can't find someone…

This situation can be stressful and heartbreaking at the same time, but I have a strong opinion on this - if you find yourself in this situation, then maybe it is time for the team to be disbanded or go dormant. If there's not enough interest in the community to keep the group alive, it's not your responsibility to sacrifice your time/money/mental-health. My advice is to write up your thoughts, announce your intentions (and time frame) and post it to all members of the group. This can be done in a way that sets up a future leader to use the codified roles and responsibilities as a framework to get things moving again. In a way, you're still training your replacement - just not in realtime.

Will there be people who are disappointed and/or angry with you for "abandoning" the group? Perhaps, but you'll need to do your best to ignore those folks and focus on setting up the next leader for success.

I would suggest that you keep things simple and focus on the main goal of always leaving the group in a positive manner, setting up future leaders for success.

Thanks to AmyJune Hineline, Adam Varn, Mike Herchel, George DeMet, and Gwendolyn Anello (who reviews pretty much everything I write) for reviewing this post prior to publication.
 

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