Python - the programming language also for programming beginners

Python is a programming language. The aim of this universal programming language is to promote a concise yet readable programming style.

History of development

The programming language Python was developed in the early 1990s. It was developed by Guido van Rossum at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica in Amsterdam. Already during the development Guido van Rossum attached great importance to the standard library that is actually available in Python today. This library was optimized in the following versions and is now very manageable and still easily extendable. Today Python is considered the successor to the programming language ABC and was developed with the aim of replacing it. This programming language was actually intended for the operating system Amoeba. Later a new goal was defined. And that was to use Python for Programming provide above all for clarity and simplification of programming. The English comedy troupe Monty Python was the name sponsor for this programming language. Therefore you can find some allusions to world-famous sketches on the Flying Circus in the documentation of the programming language. Python 1.0 was released as full version in January 1994. In the time from 1995 to 2000 several Updates. These were sequentially named 1.1 and 1.2, etc. On October 16, 2000, a new version of the programming language - Python 2.0 - was released with new features such as a fully functional garbage collection and support for Unicode. The successor version, Python 3.0, was released on December 3, 2008. It ultimately included some profound changes, such as the removal of redundancies in instruction sets. Since earlier versions are partially incompatible with Python 3.0, updates for Python 2.7 will continue to be made available. The current version, Python 3.5, was released on September 13, 2015.

What does Python offer?

The programming language Python offers a whole range of libraries. The modules from a standard library are always maintained. Weaknesses, which Python of course also shows in some areas, can thus be avoided. Another characteristic of Python is that the precompiled PYC files are automatically recreated. This is the case if the corresponding PY file has changed in any way. Python also offers the user a simple development environment, IDLE. Therefore no additional editor needs to be installed. Python also offers a huge community, since this programming language is right is widespread. You can therefore get answers to questions within minutes if you have chosen the right community. But thanks to the extensive standard library, it is also easy for a programmer to simply automate many problems. There are also numerous packages for this programming language in the Python package index. The programming language Python can also be used without problems for commercial projects. To learn Python it is possible to participate in a workshop or seminar. The programming language can be learned within a short time. This programming language does not force its user to a single programming style. It is possible to choose the best and most suitable paradigm for each programming task.

Who can use Python?

This programming language is particularly suitable for beginners, i.e. for people who are programming for the first time. Thanks to the simple structure used for Python, this programming language is easy and quick to learn. The programming language is equally suitable for someone who wants to create a small script or rapid prototyping. Python is also suitable for use in large projects. And it is even possible for several developers to work on the same project at once. The programming language Python is platform independent. That means it runs on Linux, as well as on Unix and the other numerous Unix systems, as well as on Mac and Windows. The purchase of an extra platform is therefore not necessary.

The code

In this programming language, for example, the code is not structured by curly brackets, but by indentations. This was once proposed by Peter J. Landin and also named by him, namely off-side-rule. Although the indentations are allowed by a block - and usually desired - for optical highlighting, they are not prescribed in principle in this programming language. This is an advantage especially for programming beginners. However, it should be noted that the indentations are designed in the same way throughout the entire programming text. Mixed use of tab characters and spaces leads to problems.