The Python world has lost a great friend in Frank Willison. Frank died yesterday of a massive heart attack. I've searched in vain for a biography of Frank for those that didn't know him but perhaps he was too modest to put his biography on the Web. Suffice to say that before there were 30 or 10 or 5 Python books, before acquisitions editors started cold-calling Python programmers, Frank had a sense that this little language could become something. In Frank's words: "This is my third Python Conference. At the first one, a loyal 70 or so Python loyalists debated potential new features of the language. At the second, 120 or so Python programmers split their time between a review of language features and the discussion of interesting Python applications. At this conference, the third, we moved onto a completely different level. Presentations and demonstrations at this conference of nearly 250 attendees have covered applications built on Python. Companies are demonstrating their Python-based products. There is venture capital here. There are people here because they want to learn about Python. This year, mark my words: Python is here to stay." http://www.oreilly.com/frank/pythonconf_0100.html The O'Reilly books that Frank edited helped to give Python the legitimacy it needed to get over the hump. I carefully put in the word "helped" because Frank requires honesty and modesty: "O'Reilly doesn't legitimize. If we did, lots of technology creators who enjoy their status as bastards would shun us. We try to find the technologies that are interesting and powerful, that solve the problems people really have. Then we take pleasure in publishing an interesting book on that subject. I'd like to put another issue to rest: the Camel book did not legitimize Perl. It may have accelerated Perl's adoption by making information about Perl more readily available. But the truth is that Perl would have succeeded without an O'Reilly book (as would Python and Zope), and that we're very pleased to have been smart enough to recognize Perl's potential before other publishers did." http://www.oreilly.com/frank/legitimacy_1199.html Frank was also a Perl guy. He was big enough for both worlds. To me he was a Perl guy but *the* Python guy. Frank was the guy who got Python books into print. He and his protege Laura Llewin were constantly on the lookout for opportunities to write about Python. Much more important than anything he did with or for Python: Frank was a really great guy with an excellent sense of humor and a way of connecting with people. I know all of that after only meeting him two or three times because it was just so obvious what kind of person he was that it didn't take you any time to figure it out. You can find more of Frank's writings here: http://www.oreilly.com/frank/ Paul Prescod
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Paul Prescod