Interview with python-developer Alexander Koshkin about the Python language and life in the USA
A series of interviews with PyCon Russia speakers continues the conversation with Alexander Koshkin , a python-developer at Positive Technologies. Recently, Alexander lives in Boston and has been developing various components of PT SIEM. We talked with Sasha about python and his life in the USA.
- How did you come to the development in python?
- I came to programming from solid-state physics, where we worked on what is now (with a known skepticism) called nanotechnology. There I first had to write more or less serious code. For the first time, Python used to parse some abinit logs and autogenerate half of my thesis.
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- What are you working on right now?
- I am developing SIEM in Positive Technologies, people will slowly be interviewed, by the way, do you want to try?
- What is the best and worst part of your work?
- The worst is to fix other people's bugs, the best is to create your own.
- What do you consider your main achievement in life and career at the moment?
- I am very grateful to my university for having taught me to think, instilled curiosity. I think this is most important.
- In your opinion, in what direction will Python develop in the coming years?
“I think that the future is with alternative implementations of the interpreter, Pyston looks good. CPython has too many birth injuries.
- What, in your opinion, is the most important issue facing the Python developer community now?
- The main problem - bad pythonists, no matter how sad. The python has too low a threshold of entry, as a result of a new acquaintance pyton after a week of dating, he thinks he knows everything.
- What tools do you use to organize work (including time planning, work space organization, etc.)?
- The corporate youtrack and teamcity is enough for me (here could be your advertisement).
- Do you read any professional blog? What information resources could you recommend to colleagues for the development of skills?
- I read BDFLa - his historical essays are very curious, Eli Bendersky with his literature reviews. Yaniv Aknin has a very interesting blog. Well, and so, nothing such - I follow Selivanov's github, the history commit is his blog.
- What do you like to do when you do not write code? Are you able to keep work & life balance? If so, how, if not, do you need it at all?
- I like to work in fragments for a couple of hours throughout the day, if it were not for my wife, I would have stayed at home =) In my free time I try to read clever books with varying success.
- What is the difference between the life and work of a python player in Russia and in the USA? Did you have to encounter something unexpected / unusual in terms of organizing work, life, maybe mentality?
- I continue to work in the Russian branch of Positive Technologies, so I don’t say how to be a Pythonist in the States. I can only say that the driving spirit in general is much more than in Russia, everyone is busy with some startups, there is a feeling that by tearing your body off the couch, you can raise a cool business. I do not know why, but living in St. Petersburg, I did not feel that way. However, this fades against the background of another industry, which is now gaining momentum. Her name is biotechnology. I have never seen such a concentration of biological laboratories and, as a result, a concentration of big money, as in Boston, I think in the coming years we should expect significant results in this area.
As for life, then, of course, it is very comfortable even - it is clean on the streets, everyone is polite and sympathetic. Of the minuses - I was very surprised by the inaccessibility of quality medicine, to go to the doctor is very dreary and expensive.
Can I advise to move to the States? Yes, if you are brave, clever and able, because life here is completely different and native birches do not make noise with their crowns.
On July 3-4, Alexander will be at PyConRu and will give a talk with the wonderful name “Know and love your CPython in the name of the moon and great justice”. Alexander will consider the blocks from which the interpreter is made, tell you how they interact, explain how they work at a low level and show what profit and problems can be obtained from this.
Back in the program of this year: Raymond Hettinger (Python core developer since 2001, author and maintainer of many parts of the language, USA), Martin Gorner (Google, France), Nathaniel Manista (Google, USA), Armin Ronacher (Flask framework, Austria) , David MacIver (Hypothesis, UK), Jackie Kazil (Capital One, USA), Ben Nuttall (Raspberry Pi, UK), Alexander Sibiryakov (Scrapinghub, Czech Republic), Andrey Svetlov (DataRobot, Ukraine), speakers from Rambler & Co, JetBrains, Ostrovok .ru, Yandex, HeadHunter - and that's not all.
Join now!
Thanks to our sponsors: General Sponsor - Positive Technologies , Gold Sponsor - JetBrains , Silver Sponsor - Rambler & Co , Bronze Sponsor - Ostrovok.ru .
Alexander is the speaker of many conferences. For example, his speech “Know and love your PyObject, you are a programmer” at the Python Meetup in Minsk
- How did you come to the development in python?
- I came to programming from solid-state physics, where we worked on what is now (with a known skepticism) called nanotechnology. There I first had to write more or less serious code. For the first time, Python used to parse some abinit logs and autogenerate half of my thesis.
')
- What are you working on right now?
- I am developing SIEM in Positive Technologies, people will slowly be interviewed, by the way, do you want to try?
- What is the best and worst part of your work?
- The worst is to fix other people's bugs, the best is to create your own.
- What do you consider your main achievement in life and career at the moment?
- I am very grateful to my university for having taught me to think, instilled curiosity. I think this is most important.
- In your opinion, in what direction will Python develop in the coming years?
“I think that the future is with alternative implementations of the interpreter, Pyston looks good. CPython has too many birth injuries.
- What, in your opinion, is the most important issue facing the Python developer community now?
- The main problem - bad pythonists, no matter how sad. The python has too low a threshold of entry, as a result of a new acquaintance pyton after a week of dating, he thinks he knows everything.
- What tools do you use to organize work (including time planning, work space organization, etc.)?
- The corporate youtrack and teamcity is enough for me (here could be your advertisement).
Alexander lives in Boston, but travels a lot around the country.
- Do you read any professional blog? What information resources could you recommend to colleagues for the development of skills?
- I read BDFLa - his historical essays are very curious, Eli Bendersky with his literature reviews. Yaniv Aknin has a very interesting blog. Well, and so, nothing such - I follow Selivanov's github, the history commit is his blog.
- What do you like to do when you do not write code? Are you able to keep work & life balance? If so, how, if not, do you need it at all?
- I like to work in fragments for a couple of hours throughout the day, if it were not for my wife, I would have stayed at home =) In my free time I try to read clever books with varying success.
- What is the difference between the life and work of a python player in Russia and in the USA? Did you have to encounter something unexpected / unusual in terms of organizing work, life, maybe mentality?
- I continue to work in the Russian branch of Positive Technologies, so I don’t say how to be a Pythonist in the States. I can only say that the driving spirit in general is much more than in Russia, everyone is busy with some startups, there is a feeling that by tearing your body off the couch, you can raise a cool business. I do not know why, but living in St. Petersburg, I did not feel that way. However, this fades against the background of another industry, which is now gaining momentum. Her name is biotechnology. I have never seen such a concentration of biological laboratories and, as a result, a concentration of big money, as in Boston, I think in the coming years we should expect significant results in this area.
As for life, then, of course, it is very comfortable even - it is clean on the streets, everyone is polite and sympathetic. Of the minuses - I was very surprised by the inaccessibility of quality medicine, to go to the doctor is very dreary and expensive.
Can I advise to move to the States? Yes, if you are brave, clever and able, because life here is completely different and native birches do not make noise with their crowns.
A bold, clever, skillful Alexander is now photographed against the backdrop of palm trees, not birches.
On July 3-4, Alexander will be at PyConRu and will give a talk with the wonderful name “Know and love your CPython in the name of the moon and great justice”. Alexander will consider the blocks from which the interpreter is made, tell you how they interact, explain how they work at a low level and show what profit and problems can be obtained from this.
Back in the program of this year: Raymond Hettinger (Python core developer since 2001, author and maintainer of many parts of the language, USA), Martin Gorner (Google, France), Nathaniel Manista (Google, USA), Armin Ronacher (Flask framework, Austria) , David MacIver (Hypothesis, UK), Jackie Kazil (Capital One, USA), Ben Nuttall (Raspberry Pi, UK), Alexander Sibiryakov (Scrapinghub, Czech Republic), Andrey Svetlov (DataRobot, Ukraine), speakers from Rambler & Co, JetBrains, Ostrovok .ru, Yandex, HeadHunter - and that's not all.
Join now!
Thanks to our sponsors: General Sponsor - Positive Technologies , Gold Sponsor - JetBrains , Silver Sponsor - Rambler & Co , Bronze Sponsor - Ostrovok.ru .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/303654/
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