About

BY VIVEK P B

GETTING STARTED WITH PYTHON

  • New to programming? Python is free and easy to learn if you know where to start! This guide will help you to get started quickly.
  • Python is a good programming language for beginners that continues to be a good programming language when you’re no longer a beginner.
  • What is Python?
  1. Python is a clear and powerful object-oriented programming language, comparable to Perl, Ruby, Scheme, or Java.
  2. Python is a simple and minimalistic language. Reading a good Python program feels almost like reading English, although very strict English! This pseudo-code nature of Python is one of its greatest strengths. It allows you to concentrate on the solution to the problem rather than the language itself.
  • Some of Python’s notable features:
    1. Uses an elegant syntax, making the programs you write easier to read.
    2. Free and Open Source: Python is an example of a FLOSS (Free/Libré and Open Source Software). In simple terms, you can freely distribute copies of this software, read it’s source code, make changes to it, use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things. FLOSS is based on the concept of a community which shares knowledge. This is one of the reasons why Python is so good – it has been created and is constantly improved by a community who just want to see a better Python.
    3. Interpreted:A program written in a compiled language like C or C++ is converted from the source language i.e. C or C++ into a language that is spoken by your computer (binary code i.e. 0s and 1s) using a compiler with various flags and options. When you run the program, the linker/loader software copies the program from hard disk to memory and starts running it.
    4. Python, on the other hand, does not need compilation to binary. You just run the program directly from the source code. Internally, Python converts the source code into an intermediate form called bytecodes and then translates this into the native language of your computer and then runs it. All this, actually, makes using Python much easier since you don’t have to worry about compiling the program, making sure that the proper libraries are linked and loaded, etc, etc. This also makes your Python programs much more portable, since you can just copy your Python program onto another computer and it just works!
    5. Extensible:
      If you need a critical piece of code to run very fast or want to have some piece of algorithm not to be open, you can code that part of your program in C or C++ and then use them from your Python program.
    6. Extensive libraries:
      The Python Standard Library is huge indeed. It can help you do various things involving regular expressions, documentation generation, unit testing, threading, databases, web browsers, CGI, ftp, email, XML, XML-RPC, HTML, WAV files, cryptography, GUI (graphical user interfaces), Tk, and other system-dependent stuff. Remember, all this is always available wherever Python is installed. This is called the ‘Batteries Included’ philosophy of Python.

Leave a comment