Post by Miriam España Acebal

The videos from PyConES 2025 are now available, and I’m really excited to share my talk “When Python hides an exception: in-depth debugging across code, system and distribution.” Although the talk starts with a bug in Python, it actually explores something I’m passionate about: how to trace a problem when the obvious answer doesn’t explain what’s happening, by delving through the different layers of a system and the interaction of its components until you find the root cause, even collaborating with other engineers outside your organisation. At this PyconEs, I also attended a panel discussion on women in STEM led by María del Carmen Romero Ternero Romero Ternero, which made me reflect on something I’d never considered before: who have been my role models? I realised that, when I imagined the Linux distribution engineer I wanted to become, I wasn’t actually thinking about a job title or a company. I was thinking about a way of practising engineering: rigorous, curious, committed to users and to free software, and always willing to share knowledge. For me, that way of practising engineering had a name: Steve Langasek. My talk was about what a Linux distribution engineer does. That’s why I decided to change the ending of the talk to dedicate a few words to him. It was a small and humble tribute to someone who left a huge mark on Ubuntu, Debian and on many of us who were lucky enough to know him and who learnt by observing how he understood this craft… “Would this change I’m making pass Steve?” As he himself used to write at the end of his emails: “Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS to set it on, and I can move the world.” I hope you enjoy the talk as much as I enjoyed giving it. 🎥 https://lnkd.in/eNB3PEkg #PyConES #Python #Ubuntu #Azure #OpenSource #Debugging