The Rising Star Of Programming Language — Python
In my entire career, I have seen various programming languages which can be cumbersome to design and develop while there are other which develops applications within simple coding and techniques.
Being a Managing Director of a software company hasn’t pulled down my spirits in going next level in programming and software design, but somehow along the way, I really like people questioning my thought process and ideologies.
Recently one of my employees asked me, Nidhin, among the various projects we handle, most of them run on Python. Why is it? Is it a client requirement? Trust me, I like people pushing me to my limits and making me go back to my basics. So, I decided to research and find out what makes Python so special.
Python — The Popular One
As per the Stack Overflow Trends, in the past five years, the growth of Python in high-income countries has been tremendous. It is indeed a fast-growing programming language which is used in all kinds of applications and platforms. The growth is so high, that by the close of 2019, Python might overthrow Java as the next-best programming language.
Python — The Fun One
For a common man, especially the non-developers, all programming languages might seem related to animals. Like Java which is related to the tropical Java bird, in the same way, some might feel that Python is related to the non-venomous snake that swallows its prey as a whole. But it isn’t.
Python was created by Guido van Rossum, a Dutch programmer in the year 1991. He named it after the British comedy group of the 1970s called Monty Python, whose die-hard fan he was. And the best part is that he integrated the comedy group surreal idea into the coding. For making the language enjoyable, users of the language are called Pythonistas, Pythonists, or Pythoneers and they always avoid unrequired complexities.
For example, unlike programmers of Pascal or C, Pythonistas will be using special cases and lesser syntactic exceptions. Also, at times Python uses jolly references most of the time in its documentation materials like the metasyntactic variables are traditionally called as bar and foo while in Python, it is called as eggs and spam.
Basic Application Of Python
Some of the applications that can be designed by Python are -
■ Web applications and frameworks
■ Operating systems
■ GUI related desktop applications
-Games
-Scientific & computational applications
-Image processing and graphic design applications
■ Prototyping
■ Enterprise and business applications
■ Language development
Perquisites In Using Python
1) Used By Leading Software Companies and Corporates
More and more leading software companies are using Python as their preferred programming language. It even includes most of the IT giants and world-leading corporates like Dropbox, Google, Instagram, and Spotify.
Currently, this trend is spread too wide and far industries like gaming, science, and graphics, which means that firms like Disney, Electronic Arts, and NASA have placed Python as the central part of their system. Isn’t that great?
2) Uses Less Code, Takes Less Time And Money
Since Python has less coding, it takes less time to complete a project. So, from the viewpoint of a client, it means less money. The thing developers like about Python which they often discuss in various platforms is that it takes less effort to write programs in Python compared to other programming languages like Java and C++. Since developers work fast, a small team is enough for handling Python-related projects.
In C++, for printing something like “Hello, How Are You!”, you need to write the following codings -
#include <iostream>
int main() { std::cout << “Hello, How Are You! “; return 0; }
But in Python, it is quite simple as you only need to write -
print(“Hello, How Are You!”)
3) Extensive Amount Of Support Libraries
Unlike other programming languages, Python has a huge amount of standard libraries, including areas like string operations, internet protocols, operating system interfaces, web service tools. There are various high usage programming tasks that are scripted in the standard library, thereby reducing the coding length significantly.
4) Open Source And Free To Use
Since Python is created under the OSI-approved open source license, it is not only free to use but even to distribute and that includes for commercial purpose. Also, the development of Python is characterized by huge communities collaborating for codes by hosting conferences and mail listing where numerous codes are produced.
5) Fast And Productive
One of the best parts of using Python is that it has numerous features. Enhanced process control capabilities, object-oriented design, text processing capabilities, strong integration, etc. are some of the basic ones that help in increasing the productivity and speed of Python. No doubt, it is the best tool for creating complex multi-protocol network applications.
“Using Python is great. But one must know there are two sides of a coin” — Anonymous
It is true that Python has huge benefits and advantages especially since programmers like to use it as it is easy and simple to code and learns. But still, there are some roadblocks you might come across while using Python.
One of the major ones is programmers will find it difficult to use other languages. Python lovers get so much used to the extensive libraries and features available in Python that they face extensive issue while working or learning other programming languages.
Python has made extensive growth in desktop and server platform, but still, it is on the weaker side in terms of mobile computing. As one starts using Python, they might experience the slowness in execution as Python executes coding using an interpreter rather than a compiler.
At times you might come across run-time errors while using Python as it is dynamically typed, which leads to various restrictions in design. Even some Python developers felt that Python takes more testing time and errors only crop up when the applications run at the end.
Even though there are certain setbacks in using Python, still it is the best programming language as it is robust and provides the easy usage of coding lines. Plus it has huge importance all over the world after Google made it as one of best and its official programming language.
