 He holds a Laurea in Electrical Engineering from Bologna University (1980); he is the author of "Python in a Nutshell" (recently out in a third edition, which Martelli wrote with two co-authors), co-editor of the "Python Cookbook"s first two editions, and has written other (mostly Python-related) materials.Martelli won the 2002 Activators' Choice Award, and the 2006 Frank Willison award for outstanding contributions to the Python community.Before joining Google, Martelli spent a year designing chips with Texas Instruments; eight years with IBM Research, gradually shifting from hardware to software, and winning three Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards; 12 as Senior Software Consultant at think3, Inc., developing libraries, network protocols, GUI engines, event frameworks, and web access frontends; and three more as a freelance consultant, working mostly for Open End AB, a Python-centered software house (formerly known as Strakt AB) located in Gothenburg, Sweden.