Python Introduction
Python is a programmer's friendly high-level programming language, created by Guido Van Rossum and released in 1991.
By using the Python language, we can double up applications like Gmail, Calculator, etc.
Ease of Python
Compared to other programming languages like java, c++, C#.net, etc... Python is very much easier to learn, to understand. Also, the Python codes are very much compact and concise in their way.
Let us understand this with an example, to print "Hello world," in Java we need to write at least seven to eight lines but in the case of python, to print Hello world, we can complete the code in only one line.
print('Hello World')The Python can accept any values whether it may be int type, float type...etc.
History of Python
Why the name Python :
Guido van Rossum, when he was implementing this programming language, that time, there was a comedy show broadcasting on BBC called "Monty Python's Flying circus," and he thought he needs a unique, concise, and peerless name for his programming language and hence he called it as Python.
Python as an all-rounder:
Python has derived some features of all the other programming languages like C, C++, pearl, etc.
Let us see why it is called an all-rounder
- Python carried out a Functional Programming Language feature from C Language
- Object-Oriented Programming Language feature from C++
- Scripting language feature from Perl and String Language and also
- Modular programming features from Modular-3 language.
Uses of Python
Python is used in the following fields :
- software Development
- Web-Development(server-side)
- system scripting
- Mathematics
- Desktop applications
- Network applications
- Games Development
- Data analysis
- Artificial intelligence
- Machine Learning application..., etc.
World-class Companies which are using the Python
Features of Python
The Following are the features of python :
Simple and Easy to learn :
Python is easy to learn, and it is as simple as just reading English statements if you can able to understand these statements, then it will be very easy to understand the syntax of python.
And also Python contains 33 reserved words; if you understand these correctly, then it will be easier to understand.
Freeware and Open source:
Python is freely available on its official website, and also we can get the source code freely on its website and hence it is Open source.
High-level Programming language:
The high-level programming language enables the developer to write programs in many user-friendly formats that mean the programming language is more independent of computer language.
Platform Independent:
Python is a platform-independent programming language that means we can implement the program in one machine and can use it on different machines without making any changes to the program and this is possible only through Python Virtual Machine which provides a general programming environment. this programing language comes under the concept of write once a run anywhere programming language.
Example: we can use Python application on Linux platform, windows and also on Mac platform
Portable:
The process of migrating python applications from one platform to another platform without any changes in the programming language is called portability; this is possible because of its platform-independent nature.
Dynamically typed:
Compare to other programs, in Python no need to declare the variables before assigning any valves for that, and we can directly assign the values as an assignment statement.
We can use the same variable for multiple data types.
Example: we can use a=4, a=dyani, a=apple etc..
Procedure Oriented and Object-Oriented
Procedure Oriented and Object-Oriented:
Python supports the concept of classes and objects and hence can be used as a procedure-oriented and object-oriented language because it is an all-rounder.
Interpreted:
As we all know that python has a virtual machine, and hence it will internally compile the program, and thus there is no need to compile explicitly, and also it will execute the code line by line, and thus the debugging becomes much easier.
Extensible:
In python, we can use the non-python codes, and also we can improve the performance of the application by using the other language codes.
Embedded:
It is the reverse of Extensible as we can use the python code in any other programming language.
Extensive Library:
Python is having a huge library in it, and hence we can write concise code.
Ex: random library.
Limitation of Python
As we know some of the uses of Python and it is also having some Limitations such as
- Python is not suitable for Mobile applications
- Enterprise applications ex: Banking applications and Telecom applications.
- Low Performance.
Flavors of Python
We also have customized versions of python to full fill the specific requirement, where python is having multiple numbers Flavors, some of them are:
- CPython : which is best suitable to work with the C language programs.
- Jpython or Jython : It is suitable for Java language programs, as it will understand the Java virtual machine language.
- Iron Python: It will be used to work on C# .net
- Ruby Python : To work with the Ruby platform.
- Anaconda Python : It is suitable to work with Data Science, Artificial intelligence like broad volume data types because it has several inbuilt libraries.
- Stackless : python for concurrency
- pypy : python for speed
Python Versions
Python is having several versions of itself, and the very first released version of python is 0.9.0 on Feb 20th, 1991.
And some other significant versions of python are
- Python 1.0 on Jan 1994
- Python 2.0 on Oct 16th, 2000
- Python 30 on Dec 3rd, 2008, and the latest version of Python is 3.7.3( as of Jun 11th, 2019)
And every new version should support the old version programs, and this is called backward compatibility. Where the backward compatibility doesn't support Python language, this is also having the advantage that we can add some other new features to it.
