Acknowledgments

As I write this fourth edition of this book in 2009, I can’t help but be in a sort of “mission accomplished” state of mind. I have now been using and promoting Python for 17 years, and have been teaching it for 12 years. Despite the passage of time and events, I am still constantly amazed at how successful Python has been over the years. It has grown in ways that most of us could not possibly have imagined in 1992. So, at the risk of sounding like a hopelessly self-absorbed author, you’ll have to pardon a few words of reminiscing, congratulations, and thanks here.

It’s been the proverbial long and winding road. Looking back today, when I first discovered Python in 1992, I had no idea what an impact it would have on the next 17 years of my life. Two years after writing the first edition of Programming Python in 1995, I began traveling around the country and the world teaching Python to beginners and experts. Since finishing the first edition of Learning Python in 1999, I’ve been an independent Python trainer and writer, thanks largely to Python’s exponential growth in popularity.