David Beazley

David Beazley is an independent author, educator, and researcher, widely known for his contributions to the Python community. Early in his career, he worked on high-performance scientific software, leading to the creation of SWIG—a compiler that enabled the integration of C/C++ code with Python and other dynamic languages. In 1999, he wrote Python Essential Reference, the first Python reference book. From 1998 to 2005, David was an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, where he taught courses on operating systems and networks. Since 2007, he has been developing his own educational project, Dabeaz LLC, humorously calling it a "one-man graduate school." David is the author of the third edition of Python Cookbook (2013), the book Python Distilled (2021), as well as video courses and numerous well-known presentations ranging from live coding to experiments with WebAssembly. In 2023-2024, he taught a course on programming language design and implementation at Brown University, jointly with Shriram Krishnamurthi. David holds a Ph.D. in computer science and master's and bachelor's degrees in mathematics.