Python Instructor David Beazley is the author of the Python Essential Reference and the developer of several open-source software development tools, including SWIG (a popular tool for integrating C/C++ programs with other programming languages including Python, Perl, Tcl, Ruby, PHP, and Java) and PLY (A Python version of the lex/yacc parsing tools).
Dave has been programming Python since 1996 and helped pioneer the use of Python with scientific computing software while working at Los Alamos National Laboratory. From 1998-2005, he was an assistant professor in the department of computer science at the University of Chicago where he taught courses in operating systems, networks, and compilers.
Dave has been active in the Python community for more than ten years, having given several conference presentations and tutorials on Python-related topics at both the Python conference and the O'Reilly Open Source Software Conference. Dave is currently a freelance software developer and musician living in Chicago.