Tim Peters | |
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Occupation | Software developer |
Awards | PSF Distinguished Service Award |
Tim Peters is an American[citation needed] software developer who is known for creating the Timsort hybrid sorting algorithm and for his major contributions to the Python programming language and its original CPython implementation. A pre-1.0 CPython user, he was among the group of early adopters who contributed to the detailed design of the language in its early stages.[1][2]
He later created the Timsort algorithm (based on earlier work on the use of "galloping" search)[3] which was used in Python from versions 2.3 to 3.10 inclusive,[4][5] as well as in other widely used computing platforms,[6][7][8] including the V8 JavaScript engine powering the Google Chrome and Chromium web browsers, as well as Node.js.[9][10] He has also contributed the doctest and timeit modules to the Python standard library.[11]
Peters also wrote the Zen of Python, intended as a statement of Python's design philosophy, which was incorporated into the official Python literature as Python Enhancement Proposal 20 and in the Python interpreter as an easter egg.[12] He contributed the chapter on algorithms to the Python Cookbook.[13] From 2001 to 2014 he was active as a member of the Python Software Foundation's board of directors. Peters was an influential contributor to Python mailing lists.[14] He is also a highly ranked contributor to Stack Overflow, mostly for answers relating to Python.[15][11]
Peters' past employers include Kendall Square Research.[16][17] Tim Peters was granted the Python Software Foundation's Distinguished Service Award for 2017.[11][14]