Python Basics

2021 was a year of celebration for one of the most popular programming languages (according to Stack Overflow) as it turned 30. We are talking about Python of course.
Its story begins in 1989 around Christmas and Guido van Rossum thought about a holiday project on which he could use his spare time. As his current occupation required him to code in C, he pondered about creating a language that wasn’t that time-consuming and more contributing to his workflow. The idea was to create a scripting language that should be a descendant of the ABC language to make it more appealing to Unix and C developers. And as Guido is a fan of the British comedy troupe Monty Python, a name for the language was found quickly. And after discussing the idea with his manager at his workplace to release it as open source, he published the source code of the Python interpreter to alt.source in February of 1991. Thenceforth the triumphal procession of Python began.

So, what defines Python and how can it benefit you and your development process? First, the syntax is quite simple. If you understand the English language, you should be able to comprehend most of the commands used in Python. Speaking about syntax, it enables developers to code programs with fewer lines than with some other languages. Python also works on different platforms like Windows, Mac, Linux, Raspberry Pi etc. This platform independence promises flexibility and makes your application reusable. If you are a fan of experimenting, Python also got you covered as it runs on an interpreter system that allows your code to be executed as soon as it is written which helps a lot with prototyping. When it comes to machine learning it’s also widely used as it can handle big data and perform complex mathematics.

Now for some open-source projects you might want to use when coding with Python. First, there is TensorFlow, which is an open-source repository to find many libraries and models related to deep learning. When working on web-apps take a look at Flask, a lightweight WSGI web application framework. It is designed to make getting started quick and easy, with the ability to scale up to complex applications. It began as a simple wrapper around Werkzeug and Jinja and has become one of the most popular Python web application frameworks. Another interesting project would be Google Images Download. This is a command line python program to search keywords/key-phrases on Google Images and optionally download images to your computer.

Python 2 is still quite popular, but it doesn’t receive any updates other than security ones. So, if you are interested in starting to code with Python, make sure to use Version 3 as it’s the one with the most recent utilities. To get started just click here for a beginners tutorial.

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