What is Python

Python is well know popular programming language Created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is general purpose, platform independent, interpreted, strong and dynamic typed programming language.

As opposed to old school static typed programming languages like c and c++, python is strong and dynamic typed programming language. Python is basically interpreted programming language, where we don’t have  the intermediate process called compilation to generate machine readable code. If you install python, you will get command line tool python which is basically the python interpreter. Which compiles the each line from the source into byte code called byte compilation and executed by python virtual machine. Python(syntax and vm) is written in programming language “C” is  so called CPython, which is majorly used implementation across the glob. There are other implementations and dialects of python Which are IronPython, Jython, MicroPython, PyPy, Numba, Stackless Python.  Dialets Cython, RPython.

Download and Install Python

You can download python stable at it’s official website python.org  See Installing Python for more information on how to install Python.

Why Python

Well there are more than hundred programming languages out there why choose python ?

Python is Open Source

First thing is first. Python is open source it is release under the license PSF which is compatible with GPL read more at python license.  No hidden fees no subscriptions you are free to use it for any purpose. Yes, It can be used for personal, non-commercial, commercial or proprietary use. You can browse or download the source code python here at cpython.

Python is Simple  and Elegant

Python is general purpose platform independent scripting language. It is not dedicated to specific field or application unlike PHP, SQL and other domain specific programming languages. It’s Eco system is very big.  As said it is general purpose, it can be used any where from build command line applications to emerging Artificial Intelligence  and deep learning.

More than any thing it’s beauty lies in it’s elegant syntax and structure. Python offers great power with out compromising code readability, infact many people love this language because of it’s elegant syntax and code readability.  Python doesn’t use open and close curly braces { }  to define blocks instead it uses indentation ( spaces ) which makes code look clean. It won’t us line ending delimiter semicolon (;) as well. Well multiple statement in the same line can be separated by semicolon otherwise it is not required.

Here, take a look at simple function definition and function call

def printGreetings():
   print("hello world!")

printGreetings()

Python is very productive

Python is know for it’s shorter code. You can get work done with less number of lines compared to other programming languages. Because of it’s high level abstracts and rich libraries and frameworks shorted code is required to get task done. Python development speed is rapid if you compare  with other static typed languages like C and C++. Also it is very quick to test because of no build cycle. Unlike Java, c and c++ you don’t have to compile every time you make changes to your code, as it is interpreted which happens at runtime.

Quick Prototyping

Regardless of what kind of programming language or software stack you use. Python is good and quick to prototype your concept and ideas. Its makes it even easier with jupyter notebook .   If you type just python in the shell/cmd   you will be taken to python interpreter which is playground to quickly test your chunk of code. Imagine in C language you would need to compile whole file event to  test how particular expression evaluates.

Batteries Included

Python comes with rich set modules and packages called “standard library” . Python works great out of the box with the help of standard library. Python standard library includes custom data structures, numeric and mathematical tools, compression support, cryptography tools, Concurrency, networking, libraries for internet protocols cgi, http, smtp, xmlrpc etc and many other modules are included to get work done out of the box.

Rich Community

One of  the pythons strength is it’s community. It has huge community. If you are stuck somewhere or learning something, you are not along. You can get get help from stackoverflow python, daniweb python,  python mailing list or  community from corresponding frameworks or libraries like django, celery etc.  Visit Python Community.

Python is organized

Well organized and developed  by team of core developers, contributors and officers and board of directors.

Python every where

As said python is general purpose programming language it can be used in all most all areas. Python got rich set of frameworks and libraries, with the help of them you can use python for creating any kind of stuff you want.

Python for web applications

There you go, Python can be used to create  websites(backend) we got lot of web  framework for creating web applications. Django is popular among them.

Python for Desktop GUI applications

   

Python for networking

Python can be used to deal with protocols and networking stuff. Twisted is the popular event driven network programming framework.

Python for Data Sceince

Python is now effectively  being  used in data science competing   R programming language.  Following libraries made significant contribution to bring python to this level in data science.

                   

Python for Data Visualization

Python for scientific computing

             

Python for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep learning

Every industry is going to take big leap by using artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning. Python is playing active roles in these fields. Following are python frameworks helpful in these fields

    

 

Python for 3D

 

Python game development

     

 

Along with above mentioned areas python is used in many other fields like internet of things, embedded systems, algorithmic trading and VOIP

 

Awesome third party frameworks and libraries

Python not only comes batteries included but also it got amazing third party frameworks and libraries. Few frameworks are mentioned in the above section . It is highly difficult to make a website or desktop application or any computer  application without using any kind of third party framework using pure python.  As they say, don’t reinvent the wheel. These frameworks help you to speed up your development by solving most common problems. So, you can focus on development by having most out of these frameworks.

A list of available python categorized  frameworks and libraries  can be found at  awesome-python .   This is may not be definitive but for sure it would hep you.

Where and Who is using Python

Want to read more? visit Python Success Stories