It is an exciting moment for the Python community. After two decades of careful innovation that saw the language gain features such as context managers, generators, and comprehensions in a careful balance with its focus on remaining simple in both its syntax and its concepts, Python is finally taking off. Instead of being seen as a boutique language that can be risked only by top-notch programming shops such as Google and NASA, Python is now experiencing rapid adoption, both in traditional programming roles, such as web application design, and in the vast world of “reluctant programmers,” such as scientists, data specialists, and engineers—people who learn to program not for its own sake but because they must write programs if they are to make progress in their field. The benefits that a simple programming language offers for the occasional or nonexpert programmer cannot, I think, be overstated.

About the Authors

Brandon Rhodes is a consulting programmer who also teaches the Python language professionally for organizations that are adding the language to their tool set. He has spoken at PyOhio; at PyGotham; at national PyCon conferences in Canada, Ireland, and Poland; and at Django conferences in Portland, Wales, and Warsaw, where he was delighted at the creativity of the organizers, who rented a circus tent for the occasion. He will chair the flagship PyCon North America conference in Portland in 2016–2017. Brandon is interested in how ideas like the Clean Architecture can help programmers organize code more effectively and in what we can learn from writers in other fields about offering kind and actionable critiques of each other’s work. He currently lives in tiny Bluffton, Ohio, with his wife Jackie and their two cats.

John Goerzen is an accomplished author, system administrator, and Python programmer. He has been a Debian developer since 1996 and is currently president of Software in the Public Interest, Inc. His previously published books include the Linux Programming Bible, Debian Unleashed, and Linux Unleashed.