Among the most popular programming languages in the world, Python has gained its icon status in a very short span of time. According to the 2021 TIOBE Ranking based on the number of skilled engineers worldwide, courses and third-party vendors, Python ranks the 3rd place. It also takes the first position as the most wanted introductory programming language taught in universities or chosen by developers as a second language.
A Brief History of Python
Python was invented by a Dutch programmer Guido van Rossum in the late 1980s as a response to the ABC language. Despite the popular belief, Python is not named after the snake. It owes the name to the popular BBC comedy show “Monty Python’. These comedy series were high-ranked, creative and talked about everything, and Python was created with the same idea in mind. Guido van Rossum wanted his language to be unique and simple with a little bit of mystery. Indeed, Python has become a basic, universal language that can be used to perform any programming task, from DevOps to data science. It’s a great language for projects where you need to experiment and quickly bring the product to the market. Python has gone a long way from its first release in 1991 to its current version. Today, this open-source language with a huge community and numerous libraries still remains extremely powerful and advanced for a wide array of programming tasks.
Top Companies Using Python in Their Web Projects:
- Google. The guys from Google use Python extensively for system building, code evaluation and system administration tools. Python can also be found in several Google APIs.
- Instagram. The server side of the application is programmed in Python. They used the Django framework, and chose Python because of its reliability and simplicity.
- Spotify. As development speed is a big focus for Spotify, Python is exactly what the platform needs to succeed. It uses Python for backend services and data analysis.
- Pixar. Python is used for creating animated films.
- NASA. Its Workflow Automation System and more than 400 open-sourced projects were written in Python.
- Dropbox. The favorite project of Python developers. Not coincidentally, the Python’s creator worked there prior to his retirement. Dropbox uses Python in its desktop client.
- SurveyMonkey. Initially, this application was written using C#, later, due to poor performance, it was rewritten in Python. In addition to simplicity, among the advantages of Python, SurveyMonkey developers note convenient tools for testing and deploying applications as well as numerous libraries.
When Choosing Python Makes Sense
Remaining adaptive in today’s changing marketplace, Python will be a choice of priority if you need a fast and cost-savvy solution. That is why startups usually choose Python for web development. It’s crucial for them to create a working solution as soon as possible in order to present it to investors. And Python is able to speed up a development process with minimum resources. At CoventIT, we have experienced Python developers who are ready to fulfil the needs of your project and build a scalable and stable website or application. Depending on complexity and budget, we’ll ensure the best fit for you.
Python suits different types of web projects from simple to more complex ones. If talk about spheres of usage, then they are versatile:
- Web Development
Python is used to create web-based and mobile applications. To work with it, frameworks, like Pyramid, TurboGears, Flask, CherryPy or Django are used. They help simplify processing, accessing databases and creating HTML to display on custom pages.
- Process Automation
Python is great for creating small scripts to automate workflows. Everything due to its fairy simple syntax that makes scripting easy. Moreover, Python does not go through compilation before launching, which greatly facilitates the debugging process. For example, it’s possible to write quite a simple code that will "independently" work with your emails. If you need to sort or filter emails with certain keywords or phrases, the script will successfully cope with this task.
- Software Testing
Thanks to its simple learning curve, strong community and readability, QA automation specialists often use Python in testing. Python even has special unit-testing frameworks (for example, it’s possible to perform geolocation testing for mobile apps).
- Data Science
Python is one of the most used languages in data science. It is used to write machine learning algorithms and analytical applications. It serves data storage and cloud services. Furthermore, it also helps to parse data from the Internet. For example, in Google Python is used to index sites.
- Machine Learning
Due to its efficient ML packages, tools for visualizing results, Python is one of the top languages for AI projects ranging from chatbots and face/voice recognition to creating neural networks.
- Complex Computational Processes
This is the area where Python can easily compete with FORTRAN or C ++. A special NumPy extension written for mathematical calculations works great with different data sets and equations. Python can be handy not only for computation. With its help, it’s possible to create animated elements and draw objects in the 3D environment, while performing parallel calculations. Python allows visualizing the received data, fast image/video processing and their compression with the least loss of quality which is quite convenient for different types of projects: from an online store with a large number of images to more sophisticated websites.
- Games Production
Python is also used in the development of AAA class game projects, such as EVE Online, Battlefield 2, and World of Tanks. Often, in such cases, one of the project components is written in Python. That is, not the whole game or application, but some kind of module, for example, a server part.
- Graphical interface
By creating modern graphical interfaces in Python, you can easily adapt to the style of the OS in which the application is created. PythonCard and Dabo libraries are here to help developers facilitate the process of interface creation.
- System Administration
Python allows managing services of the operating systems Windows, Linux, etc. Thanks to this, Python opens up a lot of opportunities for creating portable programs. It's no secret that this language is used to write applications for system administrators. Thus, Python makes it faster to find and open files, launch applications, make calculations easier, and much more.
If you doubt which programming language to choose for your specific task, look at our “Python vs Go” and “Python vs PHP” comparisons.
The Benefits of the Python Programming Language
The sphere where Python fits best your requirements as a programming language is wide: gaming, web frameworks and various applications, web-resources, automation scripts. It is clearly one of the most adaptive and versatile. That, for sure, provides Python a larger advantage range. Here comes:
- Easy to code and more readable. Compared to C++ or Java, it is well-structured and if downloaded in seconds, can literally be coded in a matter of minutes.
- Extensive support libraries. To analyze the data, machine learning web and game development - all possible and imaginable libraries are at the service of Python. Some of the tasks are already integrated into these libraries that allow limiting the length of a code.
- Specialists are plenty. Why should it be marked as an asset? If the programmers' community is active and growing constantly, it contributes to the development of the language itself and its application. And you have one problem less: finding a good profi.
- Productivity. We have already mentioned that code is shorter in Python, meaning you can test out new ideas and build new prototypes quicker compared to other languages. Adding libraries of C++ is an unbeatable pro to boost your productivity and minimize the time spent on programming.
- Integrity. Being last, but not the least, this feature makes Python easy to be controlled through C, C++ and Java and can run various operating systems with the same byte code.
Though, it’s worth mentioning certain nuances for the applicability of Python in your particular project and if it can be applied for your solutions.
- Speed is one of them. The code written in C++ will clearly be faster than the same one produced in Python, as it is an interpreted language. But if speed is not the top requirement, then Python may be exactly what you need.
- Database restrictions. Such technologies like JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity) and ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) will seem more structured and developed, rather than Python access layers. But there always are solutions to perform smooth interaction of big data.
Takeaways
Whatever the pros and cons are, the core element of success is a close-knit professional team of developers that can assist you in building your website solutions. CoventIT is your right choice, if the options are many, but you are used to get the best out of everything.
In search of flexible, productive and integral decision Python is an exact combination of cost to quality solutions s in basically all types of web development.
