This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Emmanuelle is a full-stack developer who loves Django. She was born when programming was still done using punch-cards, in a body that wasn’t truly hers. She lives in Belgium and France. Emmanuelle first ran into python around 1998 and got her first python job as a core developer on odoo (known at the time as TinyERP or OpenERP). Her first contribution to open-source was known as Knoppix-Freevo. She first discovered Django in 2009 and started embracing her true self, meaning transitioning and becoming the woman she has always been in 2010 (both events are not linked). Emmanuelle has been curious about open-source in general ever since she got her first internet connection and she has also always been passionate about re-sharing what she has been able to learn. Her role-models in computer sciences have been her 3rd grade teacher who introduced her to computers and a colleague at one of her first jobs, both great women.

How did your story with code start?

My story with code started by getting myself kicked out of tapestry workshop in 3rd grade, but I guess it deserves a little more explanation :-)

When I was in primary school, every thursday afternoon, there were workshops and every kid from grade 1 through 6 could choose one of several workshops that they would attend for 3 months. There was cooking (not every time), tapestry and various kinds of sports. I wasn’t much into sports and liked cooking, so I would pick cooking whenever it was available and tapestry when it was not. But after attending the tapestry workshop for something like 4 times in a row, I was told I wouldn’t be allowed to choose tapestry anymore, that I would have to pick something else.

The next time, cooking was not available but there was this new workshop that was happening for the first time. It was called computer programming. The school had just bought a brand new ZX80 and one of the teachers had taken an introductory course and was willing to teach whoever wanted to learn.

So, I signed up for computer programming and during the first instance of the workshop I learned about writing some awesome program that would ask for my name and then personally say “hello” to me.

The time after that, I enlisted for the computer programming workshop again (with most of the people who were with me the first time), but this time we had ran through all what the teacher had learned during her introductory class, so she went and bought some books, subscribed to some programming magazines (there used to be those magazines that would publish huge print-outs of code that you could try for yourself, a bit like tutorials except you couldn’t copy-paste the code) and she learned more with us. I never got kicked out of the computer programming workshop :-)

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

My story with programming having started when I was 8, I’m not sure how to answer this question. I guess I was just a kid, I “sold” (I got paid with toys) my first real program when I was 15 so it doesn’t leave much for “before”, except being a kid.

What do you love the most about coding?

Well, to me coding is a lot like poetry.

It uses a language with its rules and its own set of guidelines. If you ask two people to write a piece of code to achieve a specific goal (to express a specific idea or feeling), they will write totally different things.

Like poetry, coding requires creativity.

Like well written poetry, well written code is somewhat artistic, it is not just attaining a goal, expressing an idea, it is more than that, if you know how to read it, it is beautiful.

I also like coding and more specifically open-source because I like to understand how things work and that’s something you can do with open-source code. If you want to know how django works, all you have to do is open it’s source code and start reading.

And finally I guess that writing something that works well and is useful to yourself or others provides a very rewarding feeling.

Why Django?

Django for several reasons. I have written my first web-framework/CMS around 2001 and the reason I did it is because I couldn’t find anything that allowed me to do things the way I wanted to do them. I improved and rewrote it several times but kept an eye out for something similar and better. And one day I stumbled upon Django and found out it was built around the same principles as what I had been building for year, except it also had a community. So that’s how I came to Django.

The reasons I sticked to Django is because it is well written, it gets the job done quickly and painlessly but also because of the great community and documentation.

I have seen too many projects stating things like “don’t even bother trying to contribute, you’re not good enough” or beginners asking questions and being turned down (quite rudely). I can’t say I’ve never seen this kind of behaviour inside the Django community but it is a minority and most people are trying to stay nice and be helpful which is great!

And as I was saying (IMHO) Django is the open-source project with the best and most complete documentation there is.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

Too many I guess… I am currently in the processes of setting up a new company (http://levit.be) which will revolve mostly around Django, there will be 3 of us, all girls, one of them is co-founder and the other one will start as a sub-contractor.

I am also working with a local hosting company which currently, aside from VPS and dedicated servers, only hosts PHP-based websites. Our goal is to build a “django-server” with an easy deploy mechanism that integrates into their current management interface.

And the last project I’ll mention is the tutorial series I’ve started this year (http://www.lasolution.be/blog/tagged/tutorial.html). It is a Django-based tutorial series whose goal is to learn how to build and deploy a Twitter-like website. It covers the most basic aspects of Django as well as bootstrap (and later some javascript too) and slowly brings the reader to more advanced topics. It is inspired by the Jobeet tutorial from Symfony (http://symfony.com/legacy/doc/jobeet/1_4/en/01?orm=Doctrine). And when I am done I am planning on turning it into a free e-book.

What are you the most proud of?

Never giving up I guess. I’ve run into several obstacles during my life, some bigger than others but I never gave up and I guess while mentioning that I also have to thank everyone who ever supported me when I needed them the most (they’ll know who they are).

What are you curious about?

A lot of things, ranging to from M-theory to why I can’t keep plant lice away from my basil pots. I like to understand how things work, taking them apart if necessary (and sometimes having trouble putting them back to together).

I guess being curious is a requirement for programmers ;-)

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

I like cooking a lot. Whether it be fancy meals, experimental cuisine or everyday food but I generally enjoy cooking them for different reasons. Experimental cuisine is another outlet for creativity (if you’ve never tried it strawberry/basil risotto is a treat), fancy meals are to please and everyday cooking is more like an escape from work.

I also enjoy reading and creating polymer clay jewelry.

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Don’t be afraid to take lots of notes, have a wiki, an ipython notebook or whatever full of them if you need it and don’t be afraid of looking at other people’s code. Like if you want to understand generic class-based views in Django, you can always go to http://ccbv.co.uk but the best way to learn is to look at the source code even if you don’t understand everything at first. The more you’ll look into other people’s code, the easiest it will be for you to understand it and to learn from it. And don’t be afraid to ask either, there are plenty of people out there who have the knowledge you are trying to acquire and who are willing to share it with you.

Thanks Emmanuelle! :)