Mark Lutz's Supplemental Bio Page

This page has additional biographical information and links beyond the summary on my formal bio page. All the items here reflect this page's latest substantial update: mid-2017. See below for more on my 20-year training history, 22-year writing career, and 25-year Python tenure. You may also be interested in the more recent (and entertaining) career-retrospective page here, and the detailed summary of my 3-decade+ software career here.

Training

Update: After two decades, I ended my training business in 2016. You can read the announcement, find the now-public class materials online, and browse related links here.

From 1997 through 2015, I've taught 260 live Python classes to roughly 4,000 students. My classes have been held in the US, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, and my clients have represented a wide variety of software domains. The following links provide more details:

My training website lives here.
Lists of the classes I've taught and their locations can be found here.
The root page of the class workbook is online here.
Career details: my formal bio page and frequently out-of-date resume.

The web version of the class material and workbook are available on request to potential clients (though they are largely useless sans the class). Update: these are now available publically to all interested readers.

Writing

Much of the content and spirit of my classes is captured in my two primary books and their reference companion, available from O'Reilly Media and book sellers worldwide:

	The foundational book Learning Python, 5th Edition covers language fundamentals, and directly mirrors the majority of my 3 day classes.
	The follow-up book Programming Python, 4th Edition focuses on applications, and reflects my more advanced topics and class sessions.
	The reference book Python Pocket Reference, 5th Edition provides a concise companion and supplement for the other two books.

More Book Details

Learning Python most closely reflects the majority of the training sessions I've taught. Although it does not provide the live interaction of the classes, this book is designed to be a self-paced and more comprehensive analog to them, and can be a viable alternative for those seeking a first Python learning resource. Its latest 2013 edition is up to date with version 3.X and 2.X Pythons, and forms a solid base for following future Python evolution.
Programming Python, first published in 1996 and today current with Python 3.X, provides a follow-up for readers who wish to move on to explore Python's roles in common application domains, including GUIs, the Web, systems tasks, databases, text, and integration. Its content parallels application surveys of all classes, and topics of focus in advanced training sessions.
Python Pocket Reference serves as a companion to the other two books, providing supplemental details and concise reference materials in a quick-access format. Its current 2014 edition was updated for the latest Python 3.X and 2.X releases.

Together, my books have sold over 700,000 units as of late 2019; are available in at least one dozen languages; and form a 3-volume set of related Python documentation which spans 3,500 pages in its current editions, and 11,000 pages among all its editions. For more book resources, see my book website.

More Writing Activities

For links to some of the online articles, papers, and interviews I've done over the years, see these items, most of which are also now chronicled in my career retrospective page. I also occasionally post random writings to this page.

Python

Python itself continues to enjoy an active user community today. It is generally considered to be one of the top 5 or 10 most widely used programming languages in world, and is still growing in popularity by most metrics.

For more details, as well as links to Python resources on the web, please see the About Python page.

Books

Code

Blog

Python

Author

Train

Find