Programming Languages from a Javascript Lens ep.5 — Python

Alex Ruben
Nov 1 · 3 min read

Welcome back to my series Programming Languages from a Javascript Lens where once again I will talk about a different programming language every week, discuss their origin stories, go over some fundamentals of the language, and give my opinion on them from the perspective of myself, a Javascript developer. In this episode, we will be going over a very popular, multi-use language: Python

A quick fun-fact before I begin: I almost began my programming career in Python. To be quite honest with you I was initially going to choose Python over Javascript because… the word “Python” kind of sounded better to me than “Javascript”. But I had better opportunities taking the JavaScript path so here I am now, a Javascript developer. Without further ado, let us learn some Python!


Python is an interpreted, object-oriented, general-purpose programming language. It was created by a programmer by the name of Guido van Rossum in 1991. Many developers say Python has great readability with easy to understand syntax, along with being very versatile. Python gives programmers the ability to develop desktop GUI applications and web applications and is great for data analysis, Artificial Intelligence, scientific computing, and machine learning. Python is also the most taught programming language in Universities, surpassing Java. When put up against other languages, the vast majority of programmers and data scientists seem to prefer Python over any competitor. This is because of the versatility and power that comes with the language.

Although Python was released in 1991, the language was conceived and initialized in the 1980s. Rossum began creating Python’s application based work in December of 1989. He stared creating Python as a hobby project to keep him occupied during Christmas. It is said that the programming language that Python succeeds is the ABC programming language. ABC was released in 1987 and was intended for the casual user. It was quickly proven unsuccessful, but also the inspiration for Python. Rossum took the syntax from ABC along with some of its good features to assist in building out his language. The name Python came from one of his favorite TV shows, ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’. He was the leader, or “Benevolent dictator for life” (BDFL), of the language until he stepped down on July 12th, 2018. Rossum is currently working at dropbox and a member of the Python steeling council.

This graphic is a visual timeline of Python’s life-span and how much it has progressed from the time it was first updated in 94':

We are currently on Python version 3.7.3

Now that the history lecture is over, time to get our hands on the language.

Setting up Python

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