Thank you, Guido

When I was in my early 20s, I was OK at programming, but I definitely didn't like it. Then, one evening, I read the Python tutorial. That evening changed my mind. I woke up the next morning, like Neo in the matrix, and knew Python.

I was doing statistics at the time. Python, with Numeric, was a powerful tool. It definitely could do things that SPSS could only dream about. Suddenly, something has happened that never happened before -- I started to enjoy programming.

I had to spend six years in the desert of programming in languages that were not Python, before my work place, and soon afterwards the world, realized what an amazing tool Python is. I have not had to struggle to find a Python position since.

I started with Python 1.4. I have grew up with Python. Now I am...no longer in my 20s, and Python version 3.7 was recently released.

I owe much of my career, many of my friends, and much of my hobby time to that one evening, sitting down and reading the Python tutorial -- and to the man who made the language and wrote the first version of that tutorial, Guido van Rossum.

Python, like all open source projects, like, indeed, all software projects, is not a one man show. A whole team, with changing personnel, works on core Python and its ecosystem. But it was all started by Guido.

As Guido is stepping down to take a less active role in Python's future, I want to offer my eternal gratitude. For my amazing career, for my friends, for my hobby. Thank you, Guido van Rossum. Your contribution to humanity, and to this one human in particular, is hard to overestimate.