Elephant in the Room, Episode 3: Building a CFP Review Platform with PostgreSQL & Django Live

In Episode 3 of Elephant in the Room, we move from discussion to delivery with a hands-on, live build of a real, community-focused application.

Join Jay Miller, Abigail Mesrenyame Dogbe and Andres Pineda as they collaboratively design and build a CFP (Call for Proposals) review platform using PostgreSQL and Django. The aim: create a practical tool that helps speakers receive better feedback and helps organisers discover new and diverse voices.

This two-hour session walks through the same decisions developers face every day, from data modelling and authentication to user roles, collaboration workflows, CI/CD and deployment trade-offs.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction & CFP Review App Overview

11:08 Data Models, Security & System Design

20:11 Guest Introductions - Abigail & Andreas

30:23 Conference Speaking & Mentorship in Python Community

42:52 CFP Review Experiences & AI-Assisted Development

54:45 Django vs Other Frameworks - When to Use What
1:05:15 UV Package Manager & Database Setup Challenges
1:17:00 Code Review Philosophy & Developer Workflows
1:28:32 Pull Requests & Development Best Practices
1:40:30 PostgreSQL Deep Dive - Features & Capabilities
1:50:03 JSON vs Normalized Data Debate
2:00:38 Local vs Cloud Databases & Wrap Up

Useful links:

• Elephant in the Room playlist: https://www.youtube.com/@Aiven/playlists
• Aiven’s PostgreSQL® JSONB Cheatsheet: https://aiven.io/developer/postgresql-jsonb-cheatsheet
• Django documentation: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.0/ref/contrib/postgres/

#postgresqltutorial #django #webdevelopment #livecoding #developertools