Python 🐍
Before diving into writing Python code, it is important to understand a few things about the language. If you haven’t read the intro to python programming language blog, check that out first.
Open Source
The most important thing to know about Python is that it is an open-source language.
It means that the entire language is free to use and modify. You can download the source code of Python and modify it to suit your needs. This is one of the reasons why Python has a large community of developers.
“Source Code”? What is that?
Python is built using the C programming language. Which means that the source code of Python is written in C.
The source code is nothing but code written by the developers, which is then transformed into machine code (a .exe file for windows). The python code that you write, is read and executed by the Python interpreter (the .exe file).
Fun fact: There are a few other implementations of Python. For example, PyPy is a version of Python that is written in Python itself (Kinda).
But the Python that we will be talking about is the one that is written in C. Which is also known as CPython. It is the most popular and default Python used by everyone.
History of Python
Guido van Rossum created Python and first released it in 1991. It’s designed to be a language that is easy to read and write. The name Python comes from the British comedy show Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
It has nothing to do with the snake. 🐍 ❌
Versions of Python
The first version of Python was released in 1991. Python was a successor to the ABC language.
The first stable release of Python was released in 1994. This was Python version 1.0. Guido van Rossum continued to work on Python at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) and released Python 1.6 in 2000.
Python is always meant to be easy to use and easy to learn. It was created to make programming accessible to anyone with basic literacy in English and Mathematics and maybe some computer knowledge.
Python 2.0 was released in 2000. This was a major release that introduced new features like garbage collection and Unicode support. Soon python 2.1 was released in 2001. It is also the first version of Python that was released under the Python Software Foundation (PSF). The aim of PSF is to promote and support the growth of Python through continued collaboration and building a community.
Python 3.0 was released in 2008. This was a major release that introduced some breaking changes. The Python community was divided between Python 2 and Python 3 for a long time.
For a while, Python 2 and Python 3 were maintained simultaneously. But in 2020, Python 2 was officially discontinued, with the last python 2 version being Python 2.7.18. This means that there will be no more updates or bug fixes for Python 2. It was marked as End of Life (EOL).
Today Python 3 is the only supported and most widely used version of Python. Most Python 2 code has been ported to Python 3.
And hence forth whenever we refer to Python, we are talking about Python 3.
Early rise
Through time Python saw a huge boost in popularity through rise of web development frameworks such as Django (released in 2005) and Flask (released in 2010). It also because the go to scripting language.
By mid 2000s Python started gaining its way into schools and universities as it because a great introductory language for both students and teachers to learn and teach with ease.
A major contribution to its success can be given to its package manager (pip). Pip is python’s default package manger that allows developers to download and install libraries with a single command. Paired with the Python Package Index (PyPI), a central repository to store all amazing libraries, distribution and use of these libraries became very easy. Being Open Source, anyone has access to contribute, anyone, including you, can create a library and distribute it for other’s use.
Fun fact: In 1999 Tim Peters wrote 19 guiding principles for writing computer programs that influenced design of Python. These principles are today known as the “Zen of Python”.
Next Steps
Next, we are going to look at the python syntax and start writing code. Click here to continue.
