Python is one of the world’s fastest growing programming languages. It is an object oriented, interpreted and high level language that also supports procedural and functional programming.
It is popular among beginners as well as those who are expert in the field of programming. The language is a go to choice of students and is widely taught in many technical institutions. Not just technical grads, but coding enthusiasts also choose python over other languages for many different purposes.
History of Python Programming
Python was created by Guido Van Rossum who also worked at Google for 7 years. The first version of Python was released in 1991 and ever since, many versions have came into picture. The last version of Python 2 is Python 2.9 and that was deprecated by the end of 2019. Python is one of the three official languages at Google with the latest version being Python 3.9.0.
Python is rapidly growing but sadly, the name of the language is thrown around a lot. A few people think that the name belongs to some serpentine family which is not at all true. The creator of the language being an avid fan of the cult comedy show Monty Python’s flying circus, thus named it as Python.
What Makes Python Programming So Popular?
By now, you must be wondering what makes this language so popular and widely used. Well, the language owes its popularity to a variety of reasons. Let us look at them one by one.
English like Syntax
The language uses very simple words, many being picked from the English language itself to define lines of code. This makes it very easy to learn python as a beginner.
Readability
Python does not need unnecessary delimiters and curly braces to show a block or terminate a line of code. In C programming language, a semicolon is used to end a statement but in Python, a line break works well. Also, a block of code contained in a loop in C requires the use of curly braces; but in Python, indentation can be used to represent a block of code. This keeps the code minimal and easily readable.
Dynamically Typed Data
Like other programming languages, Python does not require you to declare variables beforehand. In Python, variables can be used without declaration.
Interpreted
Since Python is an Interpreted language, it does not use a compiler for executing a code. The source code is changed to byte code, which is then executed to produce the final output. However, while using other programming languages that make use of a compiler, the code goes through two stages; compilation and execution.
Scalable
The Python code is scalable, which means that it can efficiently respond to a rapid increase in the number of processing requests.
Large Standard Library
Python has an extensive library with many ready to use modules and packages. For big projects, one does not need to write the code from scratch and can use the in-built modules provided by python.
Open Source Software
Python is publicly accessible and free to use for everyone. The entire documentation and IDLE is available at python.org and are open to all.
Platform Independent
Python can work equally efficiently on all platforms like Windows, Linux and macOs.
Extensible and Embeddable
Python is extensible, which means that the code of some other language like C++ can also be used in it.
Python is embeddable, which means that the code of python can also be embedded in other programming languages.
Used in Popular Applications
Python has been used in designing many popular applications like YouTube, Google, Dropbox, Instagram, Quora and Bittorent.
Uses of Python Programming Language
Starting from students in school, Python is used by professionals in diverse fields. The programming language is versatile and finds extensive use at multiple places. It is ideal for beginners to take up as their first programming language as well as for professionals to work on a big project. Owing to its easy structure, the language is ideal for rapid development. It is used by giants like Google, Netflix, Spotify and countless other organizations.
Python is highly in demand and a must skill for anyone looking to ace in technological domain. With so many applications, Python ensures a promising career and satisfactory pay. Following are the major areas where Python finds its use.
Web development
One of the top uses of Python these days is in Web development. And the reason is simple. The extensive library support of Python along with an array of frameworks like Django, Pyramid and Flask makes working with huge codes that go behind in the making of sites like Reddit and Spotify, really very easy and manageable.
Data science
The amount of data that is produced each day is insane. This enormous amount of data needs to be worked with which cannot be done by humans. Some technology is required to manipulate and organize that data repeatedly. This is where Python comes in. The language is well supported to carry out efficient analysis of huge amounts of data and is used primarily by Data Scientists.
Applications
Just like Python finds use in Web development, it is also used to make applications. Python can be used to create files, directories, GUIs (Graphical User Interface), and APIs etc.
Machine learning and AI
Machine learning and AI are extensions in the field of Data science. The flexibility and simplicity of the language makes it a perfect choice of Data scientists to use in Machine learning and AI (Artificial Intelligence) applications.
Game development
Any kind of game is an application in itself. And when Python can be used to make applications, why not use it for making games. Very simple games like the Hi-low game can even be styled on a webpage as a beginner project.
Computing
Python has a number of mathematical libraries like SciPy and Pandas and thus it can be used for scientific and numeric computing. The basic Python IDLE, even acts as a simple calculator.
Education
Python is perfect to be used as an introductory programming language. It is widely taught in schools as well as in professional degree courses in the technical domain. Not just this, individuals seeking jobs in tech domain also choose Python over other languages to get started with coding.
Software development
Python has the perfect set of tools to be used in build control, automated compilation, testing, bug tracking and project management. This makes it a perfect choice to build new software.
Desktop applications
Also known as Desktop GUI, Python can be used to make crisp and to the point desktop applications like widgets, calculators and to-do lists. However, this does not mean that big applications can’t be worked on with Python.
Web Scraping
You must have come across sites which compare the price of various items on different websites. This comparison cannot be done without having the basic data from all the sites. However, collecting data manually is not an efficient way of working through this problem. This is where Python comes into play. This large amount of data can be scraped or say pulled from these websites with the help of Python. This is how Python helps in Web Scraping.
Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed the history, specialties and uses of python programming. You can study more about different python libraries to know more about uses of python programming language.
