Table Of ContentPython
Interviews
Discussions with Python Experts
Mike Driscoll
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Python Interviews
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Foreword
Welcome, all, to Python Interviews!
People often get confused about open source programming
languages, focusing merely on the technology behind the language
— be it the language itself, the libraries available for it, or the
impressive products that are built with it — and not on the
ecosystem of individuals that are responsible for the language
existing in the first place.
Python is an open source language, driven mostly by volunteer
efforts from all around the globe. It's important to focus not only
on the technology behind what makes Python great, but also the
individuals that make it great as well.
The world of Python is not one comprised merely of code, but of
a community of like-minded individuals coming together to make
the world a better place through the open source ethos. Thousands
of individuals have contributed towards the success of Python.
This book contains interviews with an excellent selection of the
individuals that power Python and its wonderful open source
community. It dives into the personal backgrounds of these
individuals and the opinions they have about the community, the
technology, and the direction we're headed in, together.
But, must importantly — it exposes that Python, the programing
language, is indeed comprised of persons, just like you, trying to
make a difference in the world, one step at a time.
Kenneth Reitz
Director at Large for the Python Software Foundation
Contributor
About the Author
Mike Driscoll has been using Python since
April 2006. He blogs for the Python Software
Foundation. Other than blogging, he enjoys
reading novels, listening to a wide variety of
music, and learning photography. He writes
documentation for the wxPython project's wiki
page and helps wxPython users on their mailing
list. He also helps Python users on the PyWin32
list and occasionally the comp.lang.py list too.
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Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Chapter 1: Brett Cannon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2: Steve Holden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter 3: Carol Willing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 4: Glyph Lefkowitz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Chapter 5: Doug Hellmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Chapter 6: Massimo Di Pierro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Chapter 7: Alex Martelli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Chapter 8: Marc-André Lemburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Chapter 9: Barry Warsaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155
Chapter 10: Jessica McKellar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183
Chapter 11: Tarek Ziadé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Chapter 12: Sebastian Raschka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205
Chapter 13: Wesley Chun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .221
Chapter 14: Steven Lott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231
Chapter 15: Oliver Schoenborn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241
Chapter 16: Al Sweigart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .263
Chapter 17: Luciano Ramalho. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .281
Table of Contents
Chapter 18: Nick Coghlan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .297
Chapter 19: Mike Bayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .323
Chapter 20: Jake Vanderplas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .337
Chapter 21: Other Books You May Enjoy. . . . . . . . . . . .345
Artificial Intelligence with Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Understanding Software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Leave a review - let other readers know what you think . . . . . . 348
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Page ii
Preface
Near the end of 2016, I was brainstorming with my editor about
the kinds of books might be of interest. I had been doing a series
of articles on my blog called PyDev of the Week that inspired us into
crafting a book based on interviewing core members of the Python
community. I spent some time hashing out 20 names of people that
I thought would be good for the book and then I started contacting
them in 2017.
Over the course of about 8-12 months, I ended up interviewing
20 pillars of the Python community, although my list changed
several times over that period. Some people weren't available or
couldn't be reached. But I persevered and managed to pull together
a well-rounded set of representatives of the Python programming
community.
In this book, you will get interesting anecdotes about the history of
Python and its creators, such as Brett Cannon and Nick Coghlan.
You will discover why Python didn't have Unicode support in its
first release, and you'll hear from core developers about where they
think Python is going in the future. You will also hear from some
well-known Python authors, like Al Sweigart, Luciano Ramalho, and
Doug Hellman.
I also spoke with some of the creators or core developers of
popular third-party packages in Python, such as web2py (Massimo
Di Pierro), SQLAlchemy (Mike Bayer), and the Twisted Framework
(Glyph Lefkowitz), among others.
