what is python

A general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that can also be used for web development.

We want to present a general purpose programming language, whose expansion and popularity is relatively recent. It is about Python, a commitment to simplicity, versatility and speed of development. Next we will see some essential notes on the language, basically extracted from the language home page that can be seen at

Python is a platform-independent, object-oriented scripting language, ready to run any type of program, from Windows applications to network servers or even web pages. It is an interpreted language, which means that the source code does not need to be compiled in order to run it, which offers advantages such as speed of development and disadvantages such as slower speed.

In recent years the language has become very popular, thanks to several reasons such as:

• The number of libraries it contains, data types and functions incorporated into the language itself, which help to perform many common tasks without having to program them from scratch.

• The simplicity and speed with which programs are created. A Python program can be 3-5 fewer lines of code than its Java or C equivalent.
• The number of platforms we can develop on, such as Unix, Windows, OS/2, Mac, Amiga and others.
• Also, Python is free, even for business purposes.

where did python come from

The creator of the language is a European named Guido Van Rossum. He has been designing Python for over a decade now, helped and motivated by his experience in creating another language called ABC. Guido’s objective was to cover the need for an easy-to-use object-oriented language that would be used to deal with various tasks within the programming that was usually done on Unix using C.

Python’s development spanned several years, during which he worked at various companies in the United States. In 2000 he already had a fairly complete product and a development team with which he had even partnered on business projects. He currently works on Zope, a content management platform and application server for the web, of course, written entirely in Python.

language features

General purpose

All kinds of programs can be created. It is not a language created specifically for the web, although among its possibilities is the development of pages.

Multi platform

Versions of Python are available on many different computer systems. It was originally developed for Unix, although any system is compatible with the language as long as there is an interpreter programmed for it.

interpreted

It means that the code must not be compiled before its execution. A compilation does actually take place, but it is done transparently to the programmer. In certain cases, when a code is executed for the first time, some bytecodes are produced that are saved in the system and that serve to speed up the implicit compilation that the interpreter performs every time the same code is executed.

Interactive

Python has a command line interpreter in which you can enter statements. Each statement is executed and produces a visible result, which can help us better understand the language and quickly test the results of executing portions of code.

Object Oriented

Object-oriented programming is supported in Python and offers in many cases an easy way to create programs with reusable components.

functions and libraries

It has many functions incorporated in the language itself, for the treatment of strings, numbers, files, etc. In addition, there are many libraries that we can import into programs to deal with specific topics such as window programming or network systems or things as interesting as creating compressed .zip files.

clear syntax

Finally, note that Python has a very visual syntax, thanks to an indented notation (with margins) that is mandatory. In many languages, elements such as braces or the begin and end keywords are used to separate portions of code. To separate portions of code in Python you must tab inward, placing a margin to the code that would go inside a function or loop. This helps all programmers adopt the same notations and everyone’s programs look very similar.

conclusion

Python is on the move and in full development, but it is already a reality and an interesting option for creating all kinds of programs that run on any machine. The development team is working in an increasingly organized way and they have the support of a community that is growing rapidly.

Some companies that use Python are Yahoo, Google, Walt Disney, NASA, Red Hat, etc. You can see more at

Although the documentation of this language is in English, little by little new pages appear that try to bring the language closer to Hispanic users. You can see more information about the language in our category in the search engine.