About the Author
Mark Lassoff, according to his parents' frequent claim, was born to be a programmer. In
the mid-eighties, when the neighborhood kids were outside playing kickball and throwing
snowballs, Mark was hard at work on his Commodore 64, writing games in the BASIC
programming language. Computers and programming continued to be his strong interest
in college, where Mark majored in communications and computer science. After
completing his college career, Mark worked in the software and web development
departments at several large corporations. In 2001, on a whim, while his contemporaries
were conquering the dot com world, Mark accepted a position training programmers in a
technical training center in Austin, Texas. It was there that Mark fell in love with teaching
programming, which has been his passion ever since. Today Mark is a top technical trainer,
traveling the country providing training for software and web developers. Mark's training
clients include the Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, Discover Card Services, and
Kaiser Permanente. He has consulted for companies such as Dell, Target, and Lockheed
Martin, and government agencies including the US House of Representatives. In addition
to traditional classroom training and consulting, Mark releases video tutorial training
for aspiring programmers on his websites. He lives in coastal Connecticut near the
Connecticut River, where he is in the process of redecorating his house.
