Introduction to Python

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Introduction to Python
For anyone serious about pursuing and growing in
a career in IT, a basic question that roils
the mind is this which is the best programming
language to learn? Most people who want
answers to this question tend to get slightly
confused, because they would have heard
about multiple languages, such as Java, Python,
PHP, etc. It is in selecting that one truly apt
programming language to learn that the challenge
lies.
Even learners who are fully aware of the benefits
of most programming languages are in a
fix about choosing the one language they should
learn, and also about the best ways to
learn a programming language.
It is very important for the students to make the
right choice from the start as it will take a
lot of time and effort to master any given
programming language. While selecting any
programming language to learn, students need to
consider few aspects such as

The difficulty level of a programming language
you are willing to learn

The skills you already know that align with a
programming language

Reasons you want to learn a programming language.
Every programming language has its advantages as
well as disadvantages. A language that
is perfectly suited for developing a certain
types of applications might not fit for
developing other types.
So, keeping the debate aside of which programming
language is good to learn among all,
here in the following discussion we will focus
towards understanding what is Python
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programming language and what are its benefits.
At a later stage of this blog, we will
discuss different reasons to learn Python.
In the upcoming discussion we will focus on the
following topics

What is Python?

Python 2 VS Python 3

History of Python

Features of Python

Reasons to learn Python in 2020

Advantages of Python

Applications of Python.
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Initially, let us discuss what is Python
What is Python? This is one of the most asked
questions these days in the technology space.
The answer is, Python is one of the powerful
programming languages that is high-level, open-
source, and most commonly used for web
development, scientific and mathematical
application development, etc.
One of the great advantages of this programming
language is it provides excellent library
support and has a large developer community. It
also provides easy integration with web
services and GUI-based desktop applications.
? Did You Know? Python is one of the 9
programming languages that influenced
the design of JavaScript.
Python is fast, easy-to-use and the most
preferred programming language for developing
projects by many companies such as YouTube,
Instagram, Pinterest, and Quora, etc. Because
of its excellent features, Python is considered
an easy to learn programming language for
beginners and is also sophisticated enough for
experienced professionals to use.
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Apart from web development and desktop app
development, Python is extensively used in
the Data Science field and is used for developing
Machine Learning projects. Because of
its huge popularity, many IT professionals are
learning this programming language to build
their career as a Python developer.
Python 2 v/s Python 3
Having understood what is Python, let us start
exploring the different versions of Python,
such as Python 2 and Python 3. Later we will look
at the major differences between them.
Python 2 Python 2 has been the more popular
version. This version released in the year
2000 and made the code development process very
easy compared to its earlier versions.
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Python 2 is a more transparent and inclusive
language development process than its earlier
versions.
Python 2 has implemented technical details of
Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP). Python
2.7 or Python 2.7.20 is the last version of
Python 2 and is no longer under development and
in the year 2020, it will be discontinued.
Different versions of Python and their release
dates are as follows

Python 2.0 October 16, 2000

Python 2.1 April 17, 2001

Python 2.2 December 21, 2001

Python 2.3 July 29, 2003

Python 2.4 November 30, 2004

Python 2.5 November 19, 2006

Python 2.6 October 1, 2008

Python 2.7 July 3, 2010
Image source Guru99
Python 3 Python 3 is an improved version. It was
released in the year December 2008. This
version was released with the aim of fixing the
errors that existed in Python 2. Many
companies are switching towards Python 3 version.
This version provides huge library
support.
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Different versions of Python 3 and release dates
are as follows

Python 3.0 December 3, 2008

Python 3.1 June 27, 2009

Python 3.2 February 10, 2011

Python 3.3 September 29, 2012

Python 3.4 - March 16, 2014

Python 3.5 September 13, 2015

Python 3.6 December 23, 2016

Python 3.7 June 27, 2018

Python 3.8.1 December 18, 2019.
Some of the key differences between Python 2 VS
Python 3
SL.No
Basis of comparison
Python 2
Python 3
Python 2 version got released in the year 2000.
Python 3 version got released in the year 2008.
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Release Date
In Python 2, print is treated as
statement instead of a function.
In Python 3, print is explicitly treated
as function.
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Functional point
Here, whenever two integers are divided, it
always gives integer value only.
Here, whenever two integers are divided, will get
float value if required.
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Division of integers
Python 2 xrange() is
Python Range() function has been introduced
to perform iterations.
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Iterations
used for iterations.
In Python 2, Exception argument can be enclosed
in notations.
In Python 3, Exception argument should be
enclosed in parenthesis.
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Exceptions
The above description provides you some valuable
information about the major differences
between the Python 2 and Python 3 versions.
Before you choose a particular version of
Python to develop your project, it is recommended
to be well aware of all the available
packages you need or you want to use because both
these versions have similar kinds of
syntax but they are not entirely compatible.
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A brief history of Python
The foundation for Python programming language
was laid by Guido Van Rossum in the late
1980s. Later, he published the first version of
this programming language in the year 1991
at the CWI in the Netherlands.
This programming language was developed with
great features of dynamic typing, classes,
dynamic data types, etc. Python is derived from
many other languages such as ABC, Modula-
3, C, C, etc. The idea of developing this
programming came to the developer when he was
working with a group on an interpreted language.
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? Did You Know? Python is one of the official
programming languages that are
used at Google.
Later, in the year 1994, Python 1.0 version was
released, with new features such as lambda,
map, etc. Subsequently, Python language kept
getting updated with subsequent releases of
different versions.
Python 2.0 version got released in the year 2000
with several improvements, and Python 3.0
version was introduced in the year 2008 that
included several simplifications compared to
Python 2.0. This version is helping the
programmers to develop projects very easily.
Presently 3.8.1 released on December 18, 2019, is
the latest version of the Python as of
January 2020.
Features of Python
Having known a brief history of the development
of Python, let us discuss some of its
features. Python is emerging as one of the most
in-demand programming languages within
the technology world. Many companies are
considering this programming language as their
preferred choice while working on software
projects.
Have you ever wondered what makes this
programming language so important? It is because
this programming language has some prominent
features.
The following are some of the prominent features
of Python
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Let us next look into each of the features
individually

Simplicity Python programming language is known
for its simplicity. In comparison
to other programming languages, Python is
considered one of the easiest languages
to learn. The syntax of this programming language
is very simple and it can easily be
understood.

Platform independent Python is a
platform-independent programming language. It
means Python can run equally easily on a variety
of platforms like Windows, Linux
and Unix, and many more. So, there is no need to
write a separate code for each
Operating System, as the same code can run on
multiple platforms.
? Did You Know? An Economist article notes that
40 of American schools
now offer lessons in Python, up from 10 in 2013
- source

Open source The one useful feature of Python is
that it is open-source. Using the
Internet, anyone can easily download and use
Python.

High-level language This is one key feature of
Python. This means no necessity for
programmers to remember the system architecture
and they also not required to
manage memory as well.

Interpreted Python is an interpreted programming
language. It means interpreter
executes the code line by line at a time, making
debugging easier.

Library support Large set of Python libraries
are available to programmers that
help them to easily write the code. A large set
of libraries means that there is no need
for programmers to write a code for every single
thing.

Embedding properties Python allows the code of
other programming languages to
be embedded, thus making it a more powerful
programming language.
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Object-Oriented concept Python supports
Object-Oriented concept. This feature
provides a lot of flexibility for the developers
to easily develop projects.
Advantages of Python
Now that we have understood the different
features of Python programming language, let us
discuss some of its advantages.

Easy to learn Python is a developer-friendly and
is considered as very easy to learn
specially for beginners. Since this programming
language follows clear structural
specifications for writing the program, it
becomes easy for developers to read and
develop the project.

Presence of third party modules The advantage of
using Python is that it contains
a large number of third-party modules that help
it to interact with most of the other
languages and platforms.

Provides numerous IDEs IDEs stands for
Integrated Development Environment.
These Python IDEs contains several tools that
help in developing and testing the
software. Python provides numerous IDEs such as
Pycharm, PyDev, Rodeo etc., which
help the developers to easily build the
projects.
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It is free of cost Python is open source and
freely available programming language.
You can download Python from its official web
address and use it.

Improved productivity Python programming
language is simple, easy to learn,
object-oriented and provides a large number of
libraries to developers, etc. all of
which contribute to the increase in productivity.


Extendable Python can be extendable to other
programming languages is one of the
big advantages of this programming language. Some
of the code can be written in
languages like C or C. This helps to build
projects easily.
5 Reasons to learn Python in 2020
As you have gained some knowledge about Python
programming language, now let us see 5
prominent reason why you need to learn Python
programming language in the year 2020.

High paying salaries Python developers are one
among the highest paid
employees of the present IT market. Based upon
the location and projects, many
companies are willing to pay high salaries for
Python developers. According to
ZipRecruiter, as of January 9 2020, the average
annual salary for Python
developers in the United States is 113,878.

Very popular Python is now one among the most
popular programming languages.
Pythons popularity can be identified using TIOBE
programming community index.
According to this, Python is one of popular
programming languages. The below table
shows the popular ratings of 5 different
programming languages.
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Rank in January 2020
Rank in January 2019
Programming
Ratings
language
1
1
Java
16.896
2
2
C
15.773
3
3
Python
9.704
4
4
C
5.574
5
7
C
5.349

Best suited for beginners Since Python follows
a very easy coding structure, it
can be one of the easy programming languages to
learn for new starters. As Python
provides lot of IDEs and libraries, beginners
can easily start building their own
projects.

Used for Data Science Python is an open source
and an easy to learn programming
language makes it one of the preferred choice for
many developers to consider it
while working on their Data Science projects.
Another step forward is because this
programming language provides rich set of
libraries that makes the job of Data
Scientists very easy.

Has an active community Python programming
language has advantage of having
global community with millions of Python
developers. Here developers belonging to
various levels from beginner to expert can take
help of community whenever needed.
Different applications of Python
Having understood the top reasons for which one
needs to learn Python, let us see some of
its application.
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1) Web applications Python can be used
efficiently to develop web application. It
provides
some libraries to handle protocols such as HTML
and XML, JSON, Email processing, etc. Some
Python frameworks such as Django can be helpful
for the developers to design and develop
web applications.
2) GUI based desktop applications Python
provides libraries such as Tkinter that helps
to develop GUI based desktop applications. Some
other tools such as wxWidgets, Kivy can
also be used to create applications on several
other platforms.
3) Business applications Python also enables the
developers to build business applications
like ERP and e-commerce systems. Python
programming language provides features such
as scalability and extensibility that helps to
build such business applications.
4) Scientific and Numeric applications Python
can be effectively used to build scientific
and numeric applications. It provides some
libraries and packages such as SciPy, Pandas,
iPython etc.
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5) Game development If you want to become a game
developer, you should choose to learn
Python programming language, because it provides
a lot of flexibility to develop games. Some
libraries such as PySoy and PyGame provide the
features required to develop games.
6) AI and ML projects Python programming
language is widely used by many organizations
to develop Artificial Intelligence and Machine
Learning projects. This programming language
provides lot of flexibility for developers while
building their AI and ML projects. Some of the
frameworks that can be used for these projects
are Tensorflow, Scikit-learn NLTK, etc.
Conclusion We hope that the discussion we have
made above has given our readers a
fairly good introduction to the world of Python.
By looking at the good scope of python
programming language, many IT professionals are
looking for a career change towards being
a Python developer.
No matter whether you an experienced IT
professional or are a new entrant to the
programming world, you can take a look at these
online courses that contains a bundle of
Python courses designed for professionals
belonging to various levels of the IT career.
If you feel something more needs to be discussed
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10 Key Takeaways
? Powerful - Python is a powerful programming
language that is used to develop
numerous applications
? Objected Oriented Python is an Objected
Oriented programming language that
helps the developer to build projects easily
? Release date First version of Python
released in the year 1991 at CWI in the
Netherlands
? Platform-independent Python is platform
independent, which means it runs
equally on all platforms like Windows, Linux, etc.
? Easy to learn Python is considered one of
the easiest programming language to
learn
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? Numerous IDEs Python provides a large
number of IDEs like PyCharm, PyDev,
etc. to develop projects
? Used for Data Science Python is one of the
most preferred languages to work for
Data Science projects
? Game development Python supports game
development. Some frameworks such
as PySoy and PyGame are used in game development
? Library support Python provides a rich set
of libraries that helps developers in
building projects
? Higher salaries Python developers are one
among the highest paid professionals
in the IT market.