Understanding Python Programming Language

Python is a powerful dynamically typed, interpreted and object oriented high level programming language for Rapid Application Development. Python was created in 1991 by Guido van Rossum as a multi-purpose programming language with easy to use and simple syntax.

What makes Python Good

Following are some of the important features of Python programming language.

Simple and Expressive Syntax

Python has a simple syntax with focus on solution rather than syntax, which makes it easy for programmers to write programs in Python.

Portability (Write once run everywhere)

Software programs written in Python are platform independent; this means you can execute programs written in python on all supported platform (including Windows , macOS and Linux) without making any changes in your code.

Broad Collection of Standard Libraries

Python has a huge set of standard libraries, which enables rapid application development without reinventing the wheel.

Extendable and Embeddable

You can extend the functionality of Python programs by writing Python Modulesin C or C++ and on the other hand Python itself can be embedded in applications written in C or C++ to enable scripting using Python language.

Object Oriented Language

Python supports Object Oriented Programming language.

Python 2 vs. Python 3

There are two available flavors of Python, Python 2 and Python 3. Python 3 is the recommended version for development of new applications as Python 2 is approaching it’s end of life in 2020.

Python Implementations

Python itself is a programming language specification that is implemented by different vendors. In this section we will explore some of the major implementations of Python language.

CPython

The reference implementation written in C is CPython. CPython compiles the source code to intermediate bytecode which is then executed by the CPython Runtime or Virtual Machine. CPython enables us to extend the functionality using modules written in native C.

Jython

The implementation of Python for JVM (Java Virtual Machine) is known Jython. Jython compiles the source code to JVM bytecode that will be executed by JVM. Jython enables use of Java code and libraries as Python modules.

IronPython

IronPython is the Python implementation for .NET Framework. IronPython enables us to use .NET Framework code and libraries from within the Python code.

Python Distributions

Following are few of most popular distributions other than official CPythondistribution.

ActivePython

ActivePython is Python programming language implementation provided by ActiveState. ActivePython is available for all major platforms including Microsoft Windows, macOs and Linux.

Anaconda

Anaconda is an open source Python distribution. Anaconda distribution also includes implementation R Language for statistical computing. An uses Anacondafor package managment and provides a user firendly GUI based installer for all major platforms including Microsoft Windows, macOs and Linux.

In next section we explore different approaches to execute Python code.

Programming with Python Series

1. Python: Getting Started with Python Virtual Environments and pip

References

1. What is Python? Executive Summary

This article is part of Python Programming, IoT, Big Data, Data Science, AI and Machine Learning Tutorials Series, please click here to visit the complete list of articles and tutorials in this series.

That’s it, hope you enjoyed it. You like this article, have any questions or suggestions please let us know in the comments section.

Thanks and Happy Learning!