DSF member of the month - Ken Whitesell
For September 2026, we welcome Ken Whitesell as our DSF member of the month! ⭐
Ken has long been part of the Django community, serving for many years as an helper in the Django forum and recipient of the Malcolm Tredinnick Memorial award. He has been a volunteer for DjangoCon US for over ten years. He is a DSF member since September 2017!
You can learn more about Ken by visiting Ken's blog and his GitHub Profile.
Let’s spend some time getting to know Ken better!
Can you tell us a little about yourself? (hobbies, education, etc)
Hi everyone! I've been retired for a little more than a year now. After 45 years working in software development, I'm now free to spend my time working on what interests me. (You could say that what used to be my hobby is now my profession.) I'm currently living in the mountains about 60 miles south-east of Pittsburgh.
I mostly consider myself a boardgamer. Boardgaming has been a serious hobby for me for more than 50 years now, and has been one of the driving forces in my personal development as a programmer. Not in terms of programming or developing games, but doing analysis. I enjoy looking at the probabilities and patterns that may exist in particular games. To a lesser extent, I'm starting to develop an interest in using AI to create computer opponents.
My education was primarily informal. I had a BASIC class in high school, along with a touch of Fortran and COBOL. College didn't go nearly as well - I withdrew about mid-way through my first semester. (I guess I would say that I really wasn't ready for it on a number of different levels.)
About nine months later, I enlisted in the US Air Force. That's where my education really took off. I had a variety of experiences that exposed me to technologies that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to see. The training opportunities were amazing, and I'd like to think I took advantage of most of them. Beyond that, the rest of my education has been primarily self-directed.
How did you start using Django?
I was first exposed to Django at the first PyCon after it was released, but my job and other interests prevented me from looking at it in detail. It wasn't until 2014 when I took a job to help build a system using it that I got serious about learning it.
What other framework do you know and if there is anything you would like to have in Django if you had magical powers?
Oh my. We could split a lot of hair trying to define "framework" and "know". To some degree of knowledge I've worked with Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, CherryPy, Nevow, Spring, meteor.js, LifeRay, ASP.NET, and Zope. (There may be others that I've worked with but don't remember right off-hand.)
Aside from my professional responsibilities, my pet project is something I've been trying to do for more than 20 years. I've looked at a large number of frameworks
Is there anything from those other frameworks I'd like to have? I've never honestly thought about it in those terms. Every other framework I've used has come up short in at least one area I consider critical - that's why I've looked at so many of them.
I won't say that Django is perfect, but it is a perfect fit for me, how I look at the web, what I want to do, and how I want to approach those solutions. It's the closest match to how I think. I encounter a lot less friction when trying to get stuff done with Django than I ever had in any other framework.
What projects are you working on now?
My primary project is my boardgame-playing engine. I've got a handful of games that I enjoy playing, but are ignored by the "mass market" sites such as Boardgame Arena and Tabletop Simulator. I'm doing browser-based ports of them to support competitive play of those games. I also have a couple websites I maintain for my boardgaming community.
Which Django libraries are your favorite (core or 3rd party)?
First and most important to me is Channels. My boardgame site wouldn't exist if I didn't have a "Django-friendly" way of using websockets. Related to that, but not a Django library, would be HTMX. It provides the browser-side of the websocket connection in a way that works for me.
Beyond that, I rely heavily upon Django Crispy Forms, Django Extensions, and Treebeard.
What are the top three things in Django that you like?
Top of the list is the basic fact that it's written in Python. Given the choice, I'll pick working in Python over any other language.
Next is the ORM. I don't mind working with SQL, but I appreciate the layer that builds objects from the results.
Last of the three would be forms, both their ability to render HTML and to validate input.
You have been helping community members in the Django forum for many years and for some time in Django Discord. Thank you so much for your help. What made you start helping people in the first place and keep doing it?
Community has always been important to me. When I went to my first DjangoCon in 2014, I knew I had a lot to learn. Fortunately, there were a number of Djangonauts willing to spend their time helping me get past a number of conceptual hurdles.
At DjangoCon 2018 and 2019, Carlton Gibson gave talks titled "Your web framework needs you!" They were more than inspiring, they were reminders to me that as a member of this community, I had a responsibility to help keep it going. (In my case, that meant doing more than just working the registration desk.) I started looking for ways that I might be able to contribute.
Also in 2019, Andrew Godwin announced that the Django Forum was launched. I had been reading the mailing lists, but I wasn't particularly thrilled with that as a medium for discussion. I was looking forward to the forum becoming an active venue. I wasn't active at first - I didn't have any specific questions needing to be asked and there weren't any questions posted where I felt confident enough to answer them.
We all know what 2020 brought. In my case, it brought a lot of free time I wouldn't have otherwise had. In Feburary, I saw a question I felt comfortable answering. Then in March, I saw a couple more. I did my best to answer them. Since I wasn't getting corrected or told that my comments were unwelcome, I kept going. (Even after working with Django for 5 years at that point, I still wasn't all that comfortable with my understanding of a number of concepts.) Then during that summer when all my other plans had gone out the window, it became a major part of my day. I also began to realize that I was actually contributing to the Django Community and it felt good! I knew that I would never be able to really contribute code. But I also thought if I spent my time answering questions, then the people working on the code wouldn't feel the need to do that, and so indirectly I was helping move things forward by reducing at least one roadblock from their path.
So that became my motivator. I doubt I'll ever submit a PR. But if I can do anything that helps the Fellows or the other significant developers move Django forward, I'm going to be quite happy with that.
My activity on Discord is rather limited. For quick questions or open ongoing discussions I guess it's ok. But it would be my last choice of a platform to try and help someone with a detailed technical question.
You are a Malcolm Tredinnick Memorial award recipient, could you tell us a bit more about this award and what does it mean to you?
As far as the award itself, I think the Django docs say it best:
The award will be ... awarded annually, to the person who best exemplifies the spirit of Malcolm’s work - someone who welcomes, supports and nurtures newcomers; freely gives feedback and assistance to others, and helps to grow the community.
What does it mean to me? I see it primarily as validation and inspiration. It's validation that I think I am generally successful with what I'm trying to do. And it's inspiration for me to keep doing it. It's that little voice in me that says "Yes, what you're doing is worthwhile. You are helping people."
As far as knowing him, no. I was not fortunate enough for that to be the case. Malcolm passed in 2013, before I started really using Django. However, it's almost certain that I "met" him at least once while working at the PyCon registration desk from 2005 - 2010. But about the only thing I would have said to him would have been "Hi! Welcome to PyCon! Your name please?"
You are recently part of the security team, how have you seen Django security evolve through time?
To be honest, I'm not sure I'd describe it as "evolving" as much as simply "growing". One of Django's strengths to me has always been its focus on creating a secure environment. As far as I can tell, the project has always worked toward the ideal of "Security by design". And, when vulnerabilities are exposed, they get fixed. So I don't see it so much as anything is changing - just that the amount of work is increasing.
This is a process that has become more difficult through the years as Django continues to grow. The Django project has always been fortunate in that there have been some really amazingly astute people working to keep Django secure in the face of ever-increasing threats created by bad actors and AI. I'm just hoping to be able to help maintain that effort.
You know and have used Django for long time, do you have any advice for new learners or any Django user/developer?
For new people, my pet catch-phrase is "Don't fight the framework". Learn how Django does things, and adapt your mindset to match it. Do things the Django way. Don't try to make Django look or act like whatever framework you've used before. Once you really understand what's going on, if you want to make changes, fine. But ensure you understand the implications of those changes before making them.
Also, never forget that Django is Python. Nothing will help you understand Django more than having a very strong foundational understanding of Python.
What do you think of the evolution of Django through the years?
I think the stability and consistency through the years has been absolutely amazing. I could probably pull out some of the code I wrote in 2014 for Django 1.4 and have it running today with almost no effort. Django has done a wonderful job of moving things forward without unnecessarily throwing things away from the past. This stability is one of the reasons why I appreciate Django as much as I do.
After so much time in the Django community, what makes you stay?
It's the community itself, primarily the DjangoCon community. (Yes, I know that the Django community is significantly larger than just those attending DjangoCon, but my interactions with the community primarily revolve around DjangoCon, the forum, and (now) Discord.)
People come and people go. I miss some people that came to DjangoCons 10+ years ago, but I'm meeting new people every year - and that feeling doesn't change. There's something special about us, where everyone is open to share thoughts and ideas, and being friendly and helpful when doing so.
I start looking forward to the next DjangoCon the day after the previous one ends. How do you envision the future of Django from your perspective?
Technically, mostly stable with some gradual improvements. I don't see the possibility of any change being introduced that would make me want to make major changes to what I have running today. If something were to fundamentally change within Django that would break my existing system, I'd probably stay on 6.1 until I couldn't run it any more.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Thank you for inviting me to share my story!
Thank you for doing the interview, Ken !
