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About the Author
After an idyllic childhood spent playing with BASIC on French 8-bit computers like the
Thomson T-07 whose keys go “boop” when you press them, Harry spent a few years
being deeply unhappy with economics and management consultancy. Soon he redis‐
covered his true geek nature, andwas lucky enough to fall inwith a bunch of XP fanatics,
working on the pioneering but sadly defunct Resolver One spreadsheet. He now works
at PythonAnywhere LLP, and spreads the gospel of TDDworldwide at talks, workshops,
and conferences, with all the passion and enthusiasm of a recent convert.
Colophon
The animal on the cover of
Test-Driven Development with Python
is a cashmere goat.
Though all goats can produce a cashmere undercoat, only those goats selectively bred
to produce cashmere in commercially viable amounts are typically considered “cash‐
mere goats.” Cashmere goats thus belong to the domestic goat species
Capra hircus
.
The exceptionally fine, soft hair of the undercoat of a cashmere goat grows alongside
an outer coat of coarser hair as part of the goat’s double fleece. The cashmere undercoat
appears in winter to supplement the protection offered by the outer coat, called
guard
hair
. The crimped quality of cashmere hair in the undercoat accounts for its lightweight
yet effective insulation properties.
The name “cashmere” is derived from the Kashmir Valley region on the Indian sub‐
continent where the textile has been manufactured for thousands of years. A dimin‐
ishing population of cashmere goats in modern Kashmir has led to the cessation of
exports of cashmere fiber from the area. Most cashmere wool now originates in Afgha‐
nistan, Iran, Outer Mongolia, India, and—predominantly—China.
Cashmere goats grow hair of varying colors and color combinations. Both males and
females have horns, which serve to keep the animals cool in summer and provide the
goats’ owners with effective handles during farming activities.
The cover image is fromWood’sAnimateCreation. The cover fonts areURWTypewriter
and Guardian Sans. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe
Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono.