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Barry Warsaw No Photo
What Is Python? 
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Building 3 Auditorium - 3:30 PM
(Refreshments at 3:00 PM)

Barry Warsaw will talk about "What is Python?". In this talk, Barry Warsaw will answer this question by giving a brief history of the Python programming language, and a somewhat less brief introduction to the language.  The talk will include code samples that illustrate the most salient properties of Python: its open-source licensing, cross-platform availability, object-orientation, dynamic typing, byte-compilation, modularity, and extensibility.  This talk is aimed at programmers who do not know Python but would like to whet their appetite.  Some programming experience is expected, but knowledge of Python is not.

The Barry Warsaw has been a core Python developer since 1995. A professional programmer for over 25 years, Barry started his career with 10 years with the federal government at NBS/NIST. In 1990 he moved to the private sector and in 1994 joined the non-profit Corporation for National Research Initiatives in Reston VA. There he met Guido van Rossum, Python's inventor, and worked with him until 2003 when Guido moved to California. Now Principal Software Engineer for Secure Software, Inc. in McLean VA, Barry continues to do most of his development work, both professional and extracurricular, in Python. He continues to lead the GNU Mailman mailing list management project and contributes to numerous other open source projects, including Python.

IS&T Colloquium Committee Host: Karen Moe