Top 10 Real-World Applications of Python
Learn about interesting real-world use cases of Python and what makes it so useful.
Python is one of the most popular languages in today’s world, and it is also most in demand, along with Javascript. This is simply because of its easy-to-learn syntax, user-friendly internal APIs and libraries, and also because it runs on all major operating systems like Windows, Linux, and iOS.
What makes it useful?
Easy to Understand
Python was created in 1989 by Guido Van Rossum and stresses the DRY principle (Don’t Read Yourself), which has made it a more readable language. Many people are introduced to the programming world through Python simply because of its easy-to-understand syntax, which is very close to English.
High-Level Language
Python is a High-Level Language like Javascript and Java, which reduces the developer’s effort as we don’t need to remember its system architecture, or manually manage memory allocation.
Portable
A Python program written on a Linux-based system can run on a Windows machine, or any other major OS and vice versa. This makes it a highly portable language.
Extensible
Python is also an extensible language, which means you could use Python in other languages like Java, which makes the code reusable.
Open Source
Python is an open-source language, which means it is freely available to everyone, anyone can have a look at its internal code and implementation. Also, anyone from the developer community can make changes to the language and improve its features.
Huge Collection of Libraries
As it comes with a vast collection of libraries, Python finds its use in a variety of applications including web browsers, databases, image manipulation, data science, artificial intelligence, and many more.
Where is Python applied?
As told earlier, Python is one of the most in-demand languages and has many applications in the real world. The most popular use cases are listed here:
Web Development
Python is one of the most used languages in the web world, thanks to frameworks and libraries like Django and Flask, which make application development a lot faster and easier. These frameworks provide security, scalability, and convenience out of the box, which is very commendable when compared to building an application from scratch.
Major organizations like Instagram, Pinterest, Udemy, and Coursera all use Django for their web applications.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
Python is the most preferred language for developing ML and AI applications, simply because it has a huge collection of libraries such as Tensorflow, Keras, etc, which make it convenient to use Machine Learning algorithms, using a simple syntax. The huge community supporting the language also helps a lot.
Top companies like Netflix, Google, and Facebook all rely on Python for ML and AI applications.
Data Science and Visualisation
When it comes to data science, Python again shines here with the help of its multiple libraries like Pandas, Numpy, etc. These libraries help in extracting valuable information from data. Furthermore, data visualization libraries like Matplotlib help a data scientist to visualize the data through charts and graphs.
Again, the top companies which use Python for ML and AI, naturally use it for data science applications as well.
Web Scraping
Python also comes in handy when we need to scrape or pull a large amount of data off websites, which could be used for creating a dataset or used in processes such as job postings, price comparison, sports score analysis, etc.
Beautiful Soup is a useful package used for web scraping.
Desktop Apps
Python is also used for developing desktop applications. Using libraries like Tkinter, Kivy, PyQT, etc we can develop interactive interfaces.
DropBox desktop client uses Python.
Game Development
Python is also used for developing video games using libraries such as Pygame, Panda3D, and Soya3D. However, Python performs poorly when there is a requirement for high-speed 3D rendering, which is limited by Python’s speed and memory constraints.
Games like Battlefield 2, The Sims 4, Vega Strike, and World of Tanks have been developed using Python.
Image Processing and Graphic Design
Surprisingly, Python also finds itself to be useful in Image Processing, Graphic Design, and even Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). It is used to build popular imaging software such as GIMP, Inkscape, and Scribus. Even Maya, Blender, and 3ds Max use Python.
A very popular use case of Python in the CGI world is that of Industrial Light and Magic, the studio which has created the FX for Star Wars and Star Trek.
Robotics
Python is pretty popular in the world of robotics, be it in development using Raspberry Pi hardware, or finding its use in Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
An industrial example of Python being used in robotics is in the development of robotic arms which can be used in tandem, developed by companies like Rozum Robotics.
Automation
When it comes to repetitive tasks, automation is generally the solution to get out of the boring loop, and what better than Python. There is almost no end to tasks which you could automate.
For example, Python scripts can be used to automate the deployment of applications, i.e. in DevOps. Another example where it could be used for personal interest is to respond to emails or get notified when your favorite pair of headphones on an e-commerce website are on sale.
Education Industry
Due to its easy-to-understand syntax, Python is generally the first language that people use to get into programming. It is also being adopted in middle and high school syllabi as it is easier for children to understand code in Python. Even analysts who have been working with just Excel and SQL can learn and get trained in Python to fully utilize its data processing capabilities.
We’ve had a look at all of the major use cases of Python in the real world, and also the companies using it. It is a must-have skill, as it has created a lot of jobs, and it would be in demand for years to come.
