Author Biography
Dusty Phillips is a Canadian author and software developer. He started programming at a young age, converting an ancient library book (he didn't have Internet) of Commodore 64 Basic programs into QBasic. He went through a Java phase before finally settling on Python several years ago. He completed his bachelor's degree online from Athabasca University in 2005. A master's degree specializing in Human Computer Interaction followed it in 2007. He currently works remotely as a software developer for YouGov. Dusty is well known in the Arch Linux community. He sells Arch Linux branded merchandise and maintains the print edition of the Arch Linux Handbook, now in its third version. In the past, Dusty spent two stints on the Arch Linux development team, first as documentation writer and later as a Django web developer. He also spent several years as Arch Linux forum moderator and administrator. After several successes in 2010, including the publication of his first book, Python 3 Object Oriented Programming and winning the Django Dash competition Dusty fell into a suicidal depression. Mental illness has haunted him for most of his life, but this episode was the first time he sought help. Starting with two weeks on the local psych ward, he tracked down every resource he could find on mental illness. He is now a wonderful example of positive mental health. The techniques he learned on this journey of self discovery led to the publication of this book.
