Goals

The Scientific Python Developer Summit provides an opportunity for core developers from the scientific Python ecosystem to come together to:

1. Improve joint infrastructure

Collaborate to adopt and improve infrastructure, tools, and processes used across projects. This includes infrastructure already described in Scientific Python Ecosystem Coordination documents (SPECs), as well as, but not limited to, tools for documentation, testing, benchmarking, packaging, and Continuous Integration (CI).

2. Better coordinate core projects

A central goal of the Scientific Python project and, by implication, the summit, is to better coordinate maintenance of the different projects. We want to write up a maintenance manual with community best practices, agree on a common release schedule, establish channels for regular cross-project communication, and decide on joint governance structures.

3. Work on a shared strategic plan

The strategic plan will identify core needs and future challenges of the scientific Python community. Rather than focusing on the technical details of one particular project or domain area, the strategic plan would discuss the challenges shared across projects and domains. The plan will also be used by the community for support when applying for federal grants.

Logistics

We have funding (i.e., for travel, food, and lodging) and space for 40 participants for five days and six nights. This will be an invite-only event that requires upfront agreement to: (a) take part in two of the three one-hour pre-summit planning meetings, (b) collaborate with fellow participants on a work plan, (c) attend the one-week summit in-person, and (d) participate, to whatever degree possible, in several months of post-summit implementation.

Participants

Participants will be recruited from the community of developers of packages such as NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib, xarray, pandas, scikit-image, scikit-learn, NetworkX, and IPython, as well as domain stacks including Astropy, Pangeo, and scikit-HEP.

Dates

Participants will be expected to participate in two of the three planning meetings and the weekly long summit.

• February planning meeting (TBD)
• March planning meeting (TBD)
• April planning meeting (TBD)
• May 22-26, 2023 Summit

The planning meetings will have two or three “parallel tracks” so that smaller groups can focus on their subprojects. Attendees would preferably arrive the day before the summit starts, and stay for the entire duration of the summit.

Pre-Summit Planning

Participants will be responsible for attending two or more one-hour video meetings (the planning meetings mentioned above) and for participating in a planning repository via PRs, issues—as both contributors and reviewers. There is no heavy top-down structure: participants themselves will organize the work that needs to be done ahead of time. They will deciding on topics, divide the work, and schedule the meeting.

Summit Execution

The goal of the summit is to be a hands-on work meeting. That said, there will be some free time scheduled to brainstorm new ideas, and to discuss current community projects and activities.

Post-Summit Implementation

After the meeting, attendees will collaborate on their assigned tasks until completion. The Scientific Python project also has funding to further develop some of these tasks, and will apply for additional funds to complete some of the rest.