What is Python language and why is it so popular? This is a common question at Google today, even as more and more people are turning to software programming/software development as a career choice. There are many programming languages today. But Python leads the pack. What is the reason behind the increasing demand for Python programmers? We’ll be looking at this and more in our latest blog.
First, let’s look at the Python language.
Introduction of Python
Python is a high-level, interpreted, general purpose language focused on code readability with significant indentation. Introduced dynamically and collected for garbage, it supports many programming paradigms, including structured (especially procedural), object-oriented, and functional programming.
Dutch programmer Guido van Rosum started working on the Python programming language in the late 1980s, and the language was first released in 1991 as Python 0.9. Since then, many versions have been released. Python 2.0 was introduced in 2000 with new features including list comprehension and a reference-counting garbage collection system. Python 3.0, a major overhaul of the language, was released in 2008. Python 2 was discontinued in 2020 with version 2.7.18.
In the three decades since its inception, Python has performed very well and is one of the fastest growing programming languages. Today it is used in web development, web application development, artificial intelligence, machine learning, operating systems, mobile application development, data analysis, data visualization, and video games. What makes Python dominate the list of popular programming languages? Many reasons have contributed to this. We discuss them in detail in the following sections.
Why is Python so popular?
- Easy to learn and use: With a simple visual format and use of English keywords where other languages use punctuation, Python is an easy language to read. Here, curly braces are not used to separate blocks, and even semicolons after expressions are rarely used. Also, compared to C or Pascal, there are far fewer exceptions to the syntax and not many special cases. All this makes Python a very easy language to use and learning Python is easy too. In fact, Python code can be written easily and executed much faster than other programming languages, making it an ideal choice for beginners and those new to programming. And because it’s an interpreted language, it also helps you to quickly change its codebase, which in turn contributes to Python’s popularity among developers.
- Rich library and frames: As companies prefer it and have a large support community to get started with, Python now offers a rich (and often open-source) variety of libraries that developers can use, especially in the early stages of development. Many of these Python libraries have specific uses: for example, Matplotlib is used for drawing charts and graphs; SciPy for engineering, science, and math applications; Beautiful Soup for parsing HTML and XML; NumPy for scientific computing, Django for server-side web development, NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) for natural language processing (NLP), and Scikit-learn for machine learning applications. Apart from that, there is no shortage of cloud media services that offer cross-platform support through tools like libraries.
- Strong and supportive community: Supporting a strong community is a key factor, and Python has done well on that front. In fact, there is a wealth of documentation, tutorials, and video tutorials available for those working with the Python language. Python developers of all skill levels can really enjoy the support needed to improve the language, which in turn makes it a popular starting point for new programmers. It is very common for students to study computer science through Python, which is also used for in-depth research projects. Thanks to the progressive and active Python community, any problem can usually be resolved in no time, ensuring that overall project development is not hampered.
- Flexibility, efficiency, reliability and speed: Python has earned a reputation as an efficient, reliable, and much faster language than most modern languages. Today it can be used in almost any type of environment, which is always a huge advantage it enjoys. So a developer can work on a mobile app, a desktop app, develop a website or program hardware and Python will be a good programming language for a project.
- Incredible flexibility: Python is great for experimentation, and that’s mainly because it’s so flexible. Anyone who speaks Python can actually step out of their comfort zone to try and build something new with it. No other programming language really offers that kind of flexibility and freedom.
- Great technical support: If big tech companies support programming languages, it will definitely grow even faster. You will see them in dozens of cases today; be it PHP is supported by Facebook, Sun, Visual Basic and C# by Microsoft and Java by Oracle. Similarly, Python also enjoys great tech support: some big companies, actually. Google, Facebook, and Amazon Web Services are the leading names that support programming languages and use them extensively in their projects. For example, Google has been working with Python since 2006 and continues to use the programming language for many of its applications and platforms. Apart from that, Google also invests a lot of time, effort, and money into learning and succeeding with Python; so far there is also a portal only for Python. As a result, the list of support tools and documentation is growing rapidly, making Python easier for developers to use.
- Usability and popularity in the fields of Big Data, Machine Learning and Cloud Computing: Currently, Python is the most popular programming language in data science (including data analysis) after R; This language is also widely used in research and development. Organizations working in new and promising areas – such as big data, machine learning (ML)/artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning, and cloud computing – typically use Python to transform and improve their processes and workflows.
- Automation: Armed with its tools, modules, and libraries, Python also offers more convenience for automation developers. They typically enter only a few lines of code (and for a short time) to automate tasks, including automating software testing.
- Python, language of choice: As the reasons above show, Python is currently in great demand in various fields and is becoming the programming language of choice for several programmers and students. In fact, Python is an essential part of today’s data science courses. Knowledge of Python is a big plus on a programmer’s resume and opens up many opportunities for the candidate.
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