What is Python? [trending Programming Language]

What is Python ?

What is Python ? It is a high-level, structured, open-source programming language that can be used for a wide variety of programming tasks. Python was created by Guido Van Rossum in the early 1990s, its following has grown steadily & programmers are getting attracted day by day.

It is very user-friendly language, its syntax very much similar with what we write in English with some programming rules.

It’s an interpreted language, it reads a high-level program and executes it, meaning that it does what the program says.

When we say it is open source it means, it is freely available on internet to download and get started with. You can download and install Python from its official website.

In addition, some third-parties offer re-packaged versions of Python that add commonly used libraries and other features to ease setup for common use cases, such as math, data analysis or scientific use.

Features of Python!

Python features a dynamic type system and automatic memory management and supports multiple programming paradigms, including object-oriented, imperative, functional programming, and procedural styles.

It has a large and comprehensive standard library.

  • Easy to Learn

    It is very simple and easy to learn language with knowing some basic programming concept, but it is not monetary. You can start with Python from scratch.

  • Easy to read

    It is meant to be an easily readable language. Its formatting is visually uncluttered, and it often uses English keywords whereas other languages use punctuation.

  • High-level Language

    A programming language like Python that is designed to be easy for humans to read and write.

  • Indentation

    Python uses whitespace indentation, rather than curly brackets or keywords, to delimit blocks. This feature is also sometimes termed the off-side rule.

  • Interpret

    To execute a program in a high-level language by translating it one line at a time.

  • Interactive

    Python is very interactive & user-friendly programming language. You can interact with your program using python shell interface.

  • Multi-paradigm

    Python supports functional & structural programming methods as well as Object Oriented known as a multi paradigm programming language.

  • Integrated

    It can be easily integrated with C, C++, COM, ActiveX, CORBA, and Java.

History of Python!

Python is an open source programming language that was made to be easy-to-read and powerful.

A Dutch programmer named Guido van Rossum made Python in 1991. He named it after the television show Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

The language’s core philosophy is summarized in the document The Zen of Python (PEP 20), which includes –

  • Beautiful is better than ugly
  • Explicit is better than implicit
  • Simple is better than complex
  • Complex is better than complicated
  • Readability counts

There are major two versions of python available now (Year: Mar-2020) that is, python 2.X and 3.X. Python 2.0 was released on 16 October 2000 and Python 3.0 (initially called Python 3000 or py3k) was released on 3 December 2008 after a long testing period.

Python 3.X is a major revision of the language that is not completely backward-compatible with previous versions 2.X

Python Release Notes:

List of python releases, you can opt any version and directly install on your computer. Installables are available on its official website python.org
Always prefer to install latest version of software which has upgraded functionality.
Python Version 3.x & 2.x
VersionRelease Date
Python 3.8.224-Feb-20
Python 3.6.1018-Dec-19
Python 3.5.317-Jan-17
Python 2.7.1317-Dec-16
Python 2.7.1023-May-15
Python 2.6.929-Oct-13
Python 2.5.626-May-11
Python 2.4.619-Dec-08

Python is used for?

Python is used by hundreds of thousands of programmers and is used in many places. Sometimes only Python code is used for a program, but most of the time it is used to do simple jobs while another programming language is used to do more complicated tasks.

It has wide varieties of standard libraries made up of many functions that come with Python when it is installed. These libraries make it a powerful language.

There are many other libraries available on internet that make it possible for the Python language to do more things.

Areas where python is often used:

  • Web development
  • Game programming
  • Desktop GUIs
  • Scientific programming
  • Network programming

Fun with Python!

Writing python program is itself having a fun, you will get know how when you explore more python world.

Here we start with our first program in python. You can write same python program in many ways as per your programming structure with same output.

This is the first simple python program to print Hello World!”

print(“Hello World!”)

Or you can write in another way!

ready = True

if ready:

    print(“Hello World!”)

You can create variables and assign any values – number or string to them, even you reassign them multiple times at any point in your program without worrying how it internally works.

Python is super awesome when it comes to variable assignment and memory management.

For brief description about variables & data types in python take a look at my other post.

print(“Thanks for visiting www.tekkiehead.com”)

Leave a Comment