Python was created in 1990 by Guido Van Rossum in Holland.
One of the objectives of the language was to be accessible to non-programmers.
Python was also designed to be a second language to programmers due to its low learning curve and ease of use.
Python runs on Mac, Linux, Windows, and many other platforms.
Python is:
- Interpreted: That means it can execute at runtime and changes in a program are instantly perceptible. To be very technical, Python has a compiler, the difference when compared to Java or C++ is how transparent and automatic it is, so we don’t have to worry about the compilation step and this is done in real-time. The tradeoff is that interpreted languages are usually slower than compiled ones.
- Semantically Dynamic: this means you don’t have to specify types for variables and there is nothing that enforces you to do it.
- Object-Oriented: everything in Python is an object. But you can choose to write code in an object-oriented, procedural, or even functional way.
- High level: you don’t have to deal with low-level machine details.
Python has been growing a lot recently due to its uses in but not limited to:
- System scripting: a great tool to automate everyday repetitive tasks.
- Data Analysis: it is a great language to experiment and has tons of libraries and tools to handle data, create models, visualize results and even deploy solutions. This is used in areas like Finance, E-commerce, and Research.
- Web Development: frameworks like Django and Flask allow the development of web applications, API’s, and websites.
- Machine Learning: Tensorflow and Pytorch are some of the libraries that allow scientists and the industry to develop and deploy Artificial Intelligence solutions in Image Recognition, Health, Self-driving cars, and many other fields.
You can easily organize your code in modules and reuse them or share them with others.
Finally, Python had breaking changes between versions 2 and 3.
Since Python 2 support ended in 2020, all the Python content in my blog is solely based on Python 3.