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What is Python?

In this tutorial, we will learn about what is python, the history of python programming, and all the necessary information you require to get started with python.

What is Python?

Python is a general-purpose interpreted, interactive language that supports object-oriented programming. It is a high-level programming language. Python can also be used as a scripting language. It is a general-purpose language that can be used in many ways.

It is a cross-platform programming language that can run on any platform like Linux, Windows, macOS, and virtual machines running on Java/.NET.

Who Created Python?

Python created by Guido van Rossum during 1982-1990. At Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica(CWI) in the Netherlands.

Found of Python.
( Guido van Rossum)

Where python was created.
(CWI)

Why Named Python?

Guido Van Rossum is a big fan of ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus,’ a famous TV show in the Netherlands.

When Was Python Created - Python Timeline

  • First public release (USENET) - Fed 1991
  • The python.org website introduced in 1996 - 1997
  • Python 2.0 was released on 16 October 2000.
  • Python 3.0 was released on 3 December 2008.
  • Python 3.7 was released on 27 June 2018. (Current in the market)

Where is Python used?

  • Software Development
  • Web Application
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Scientific and Mathematical
  • Robotics
  • Embedded / Internet of Things Applications
  • Data & Business Analyst
  • Game Development
  • Cyber Security
  • Big Data

As python is a general-purpose programming language; thus, it can develop desktop applications(GUIs), AI for robotics, and virtual assistants. It also operates in scientific calculations, Web Development, Big data, Game Development and Cyber Security.

What can I do with python?

You can do things like building web applications, doing data analytics, making robots using machine learning, and making games using python.

Why Python?

  • Fun and easy to learn.
  • Similar syntax to the English language
  • Works on different platforms.
  • It runs on an interpreter system.
  • High salary.
  • Python is blessed with a large community.
  • Portable & Extensible.

There is no doubt that python is very popular among developers and tech giants.
As you can see in the graph below, python’s popularity has grown very fast in the last five years.
Shows the growth of the python programming language.
Now let’s discuss why developers love python and why it is so popular.

1) ### Python is Easy to Learn and Implement.

Python language is straightforward to use and learn for new beginners and newcomers. The python language is one of the most accessible programming languages available because it has simplified syntax and is not complicated, emphasizing natural language. Due to its ease of learning and usage, python codes can be easily written and executed much faster than other programming languages.

2) ### Hugh Python Community and Supportive Members.

Python is almost 30 years old, which gives a lot of time to mature their community and experience developers. Since python adapted Machine learning, python learners had very massive growth.

3) ### Python Has Some Big Corporate Sponsors

It helps big time when a programming language has a corporate sponsor. C# has Microsoft, Java had Sun, and PHP is used by Facebook. Google adopted Python heavily back in 2006, and they’ve used it for many platforms and applications since.

4) ### Python Has a large variety of Libraries.

As Python has a large community and great corporate sponsors, they have various libraries regarding their fields, such as Django and Flask. For GUI development, it has Tkinter. For game development, it has Pygame, and for Data Analytics and machine learning, it has NumPy, pandas and scikit-learn, and much more. Libraries can help you save time and cut down on the initial development cycle.

###

5) ### Python has Big Data.

Big data and cloud computing solutions in the enterprise world have been boosted after the success of the python language in teams of data collection which makes python one of the most popular languages used in data science.

Top Companies using Python.

Many world-class companies use Python-like Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Instagram, Netflix, and Quora. NASA uses python for in-depth space research projects.

Google

Google is one of the top players to use python initially for Artificial Intelligent, cloud computing, and even in improving its search engine. Google used python to power their most advanced AI DeepMind. As Google engineer said:
”Python where we can, C++ where we must.”

Facebook

Facebook uses python in technologies like managing infrastructure, binary distribution, hardware imaging, and operational automation. Almost 21% of Facebook codebases are written in Python. Facebook also has its real-time web framework developed in Python called Tornado.

Instagram

In 2016, the Instagram engineering team members announced that they are running the world’s largest deployment of the Django web framework, which is entirely written in Python. a software engineer at Instagram quotes:

1
“We initially chose to use Python because of its reputation for simplicity and practicality, which aligns well with our philosophy of ‘do the simple thing first.’“

Dropbox

A vast percentage of Dropbox’s server-side code is written in python. Dropbox once employed Guido Van Rossum. The Director of Engineering of Dropbox says about Python:

“The Dropbox desktop client is written in Python, and it’s one of if not the largest piece of desktop client software that is out, and Dropbox has 400 million users. There aren’t that many pieces of desktop software that don’t sort of bundled with an operating system distribution, that have that level of the user base.”

Netflix

Netflix uses the power of data analysis for its movie recommendation system using Python.

Python Syntax Comparison

Python is straightforward to implement and easy to read compared to other programming languages like Java, C, and C++.

LanguageCode Example
Java 
 public class Main {
 public static void main(String[] args) {
 System.out.println(“Hello World”);
 }
 }
  
Python 
 print(“Hello, World!”)
  
C++ 
 #include
 using namespace std;
  
 int main() {
 cout « “Hello World!”;
 return 0;
 }
  

How python is different from other languages

As you see, the above example of Java and C++ uses multiple lines just to print a single text. Still, as compared to them, python uses only one line to print a simple text. It shows how easy python is compared to other programming languages.

How python works?

Python did not work like other programming languages, which convert codes into machine language. Still, python code transforms into something called byte codes, compiled within the python interpreter, which will not convert code into machine language.

Types of Python

There are many python types available.

  • CPython
  • Jython
  • IronPython
  • PyPy

Tips for Beginner in Python Programming Language

Tip 1: Practice every day, make your hand dirty by coding every day by executing the exercise
We have given in (exercise page link).

Tip 2: Make Notes. Start writing handwritten notes based on your understanding, which will help you better understand the particular topic.

Tip 3: Make Something. Based on the learning, start developing your programs.

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