Python is a popular high-level programming language that is designed for creating applications of various types. These include web applications, games, desktop programs, and work with databases. Python has become quite widespread in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence research.
The Python language was first announced in 1991 by Dutch developer Guido Van Rossum. Since then, this language has come a long way in its development. In 2000, version 2.0 was released, and in 2008, version 3.0 was released. In spite of such large gaps between versions, there are constantly being released versions.
The main features of the Python programming language:
- Scripting language. Program code is defined in the form of scripts.
- Support for a wide variety of programming paradigms, including object-oriented and functional paradigms.
- Program Interpretation. Scripting requires an interpreter that runs and executes the script.
- Executing a program in Python is as follows. First, we write a script in a text editor with a set of expressions in the given programming language. We pass this script to an interpreter for execution. The interpreter translates the code into intermediate bytecode, and then the virtual machine translates the resulting bytecode into a set of instructions that are executed by the operating system.
- It’s worth noting here that although formally the interpreter’s translation of source code into bytecode and the virtual machine’s translation of bytecode into a set of machine instructions are two different processes, they are actually combined in the interpreter itself.
- Portability and platform-independence. It doesn’t matter what operating system we have – Windows, Mac OS, Linux, we just need to write a script that will run on all these operating systems as long as the interpreter is available
- Automatic memory management
- Dynamic typing
Python is a very simple programming language, it has a concise and at the same time quite simple and clear syntax. Accordingly, it is easy to learn, which is one of the reasons why it is one of the most popular programming languages for learning. In particular, in 2014 it was recognized as the most popular programming language for learning in the United States.
Python is also popular not only for learning, but also for writing specific programs, including commercial ones. This is in no small part why there are many libraries written for this language that we can use.
In addition, this programming language has a very large community of programmers, on the Internet you can find on this language a lot of useful materials, examples, get qualified help from experts.
