Python Guide #0: Introduction
What is Python?
Python is general-purpose, high-level programming language. High-level meaning, that it is not as close to the metal as other languages. It abstracts a lot of work from the user, enabling developer to use fewer commands to achieve same effect. Python focuses on readability, that is why it is so beginner friendly.
Why Python?
There are many reasons why people choose to learn Python, especially as a first programming language.
1. Simplicity
Compared to most of other languages, Python is simple. Both in setup and in actual development.
2. Open source
It is maintained by community of developers. Its source code is available for everybody to see. Having so much eyes going over a project, there is less unpredictable behavior that might occur.
3. High-level
As I mentioned earlier, Python is a high-level programming language. It abstracts a lot of inner computer workings with simple commands. This way you can focus more on how your program works in terms of logic, instead of its interactions with machine. You can achieve great results with fewer lines of code, this way software development is faster.
4. Interpreted
Being an interpreted language, it does not have to be compiled. Commands from your Python script are being passed to interpreter, which executes them. This enables you to work on and debug your code faster, than with compiled programming languages.
5. A lot of available packages
To not invent a wheel from scratch, Python community gathered a lot of packages and libraries, which you can use in your projects.
6. Big and supportive community of Developers
Software that has a big community is good for beginners. Amount of guides, tutorials and answers on forums will accelerate the process of becoming software developer.
7. Profitable
Experienced Python developer can expect good financial rewards for their work. Market for Python coders is unsaturated and it will stay this way for a long time.
Real world applications
1. Web Developement
Probably most popular use for Python is web development. Web development frameworks make it easy to start server side projects.
Some of the more popular websites, that incorporate Python on their servers are:
- Quora
- Spotify
- Netflix
- Uber
2. Data processing
Python is the go to language when it comes to processing huge amounts of data. It offers packages, developed specifically for this task.
3. Machine Learning and AI
All the best Machine Learning libraries are available for Python:
- Tensorflow
- PyTorch
- NumPy
- SciPy
- Keras
- Pandas
4. Web Scraping
Python is used a lot when it comes to extracting data from websites, packages offered for this task are:
- requests
- BeautifulSoup
5. Automating scripts
With python you can automate many tasks on local computers, servers and in the web. How far you will go with automation is really up to your imagination.