Python, a developer`s perspective

How it relates to the peculiarities of the language

This programming language is often called "python", which is incorrect, because the profession of a web developer in Python was named not after the snake, whose Russian name sounds like that, but in honor of the once popular British show "Monty Python" (source: dataframe reset_index).

And the name was given for a reason: the creator of the language, Guido van Rossum, originally planned it in order to get a funny - that is, not boring - powerful, but easy-to-learn tool. Unlike typical languages ​​of the time, Python does not use compilation. That is, the text of the program before launching is not translated into machine code before execution, but is translated line by line, which significantly saves time at the end of writing the code, when the C ++ programmer will be compiling. But this is where the differences from the standard programming language only begin, not end.

Guido van Rossum

First, Guido van Rossum insisted from the very beginning that the program code in his language should be understood as "ordinary English". And this is really good: knowing English, even at an intermediate level, it will be much easier for anyone to start using Python. For most programming languages, the code is noticeably farther away from regular English. Secondly, he proceeded from the need to make a language for performing simple daily tasks intended for people who have a shortage of time to program in C ++ and similar traditional languages - see more here Python.

Python story

Initially, the language itself was not considered by van Rossum as something really big: he saw in it just a private tool for writing small programs. In 1990, there were few of them, and operating systems, text editors and the like were written in completely different languages ​​of the older generation.

In the 1990s and 2000s, like mentioned in https://python.engineering/data-science-from-scratch-first-principles-with-python/, the situation gradually changed. It turned out that Python is much better suited for a number of small tasks: the main thing is that it was more suitable for solving a whole range of tasks of the then rapidly developing Internet - from the simplest processing of search queries (from the same Google) to more and more complex ones. Today, Dropbox, Pinterest and Reddit are also powered by it - as well as Instagram and much more.

By the way, from the very beginning the ideology of Python is open source, that is, many resources that use it in their work are constantly posting new samples of open code, which allows even a novice programmer in this language to see how it works for “big players”.

Today, 30 years after the release of the "frivolous" language named after the comedian, it is already obvious: such a powerful and long-term growth would not have been possible without it having significant advantages over traditional players, the same languages ​​of the C family and many others.