If you’re fed up with having to untangle needlessly complex syntax and you’re looking to increase your productive output as a programmer, Python should be your number one programming language to consider learning. Of course, there’s more to it than that.
Today, we’re going to go over what the language allows you to accomplish and why it’s such a popular choice in development circles.
What is Python?
Python is an object-oriented programming language that can also be used for procedural tasks. Unlike the likes of C, it’s an interpreted language, but what it sacrifices in performance, it makes up for in user-friendliness and virtually non-existent learning curve. If you can read basic English, the syntax reads quite similarly – you’ll find it’s quite keyword-based.
The key advantages of Python
Among the many reasons to love Python you will find:
User-friendly syntax
Pretty much self-explanatory.
A supportive community
In case there’s something that you just can’t seem to wrap your head around, you can count on a knowledgeable, helpful, and supportive community that’s got your back, helping you out with concrete code examples.
Hundreds of libraries
A way to expand upon Python’s core functionality (we’ll get to that in a minute).
Machine learning support
Machine learning, big data, and AI are the big tech buzzwords, so if that’s what you’re after, Python covers that as well.
Choose from several libraries that expand upon its core functionality
There are several libraries that come bundled with the basic installation, including Tkinter that you can use to build basic graphical user interfaces. Other notable default libraries are time (a module for mandatory breaks in the script), random (a random number generator), JSON (for handling JSON strings), and so forth.
You can use the command-line interface to install other modules on demand with PIP. For instance, to install NumPy, an essential package for scientific computing, you’d simply open your CMD (or terminal if you’re using Linux) and type in the following:
pip install numpy
It’s as simple as that and installing most other popular libraries follows the same concept. Below, we’ll list some of the ones you’ll find most useful:
TensorFlow: for machine learning
BeautifulSoup: for web scraping
Pillow: for image manipulation
Pygame: for game development
Kivy: for front-end interface development
Matplotlib: for data visualization
What are some of its latest features?
When making the jump from Python 2 to Python 3, the most notable change was more emphasis on AI and machine learning. There were also numerous improvements in integer division and Unicode support.
The latest version is Python 3.11 and it comes with faster code execution, a simpler approach to asynchronous code, more informative error tracebacks, improved type variables, and more.
Conclusion
As you can see, there’s a lot you can accomplish with Python, ranging from web scraping and all the way to data science, machine learning, image manipulation, and even game development. In fact, many online pokies in Australia were developed in Python, so it’s certainly a powerful and comprehensive programming language suitable for high-end commercial projects.
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