Python - Overview

Python is a high-level, interpreted, interactive and object-oriented

scripting language. Python is designed to be highly readable. It
uses English keywords frequently where as other languages use
punctuation, and it has fewer syntactical constructions than other
languages.

Python is Interpreted − Python is processed at runtime by

the interpreter. You do not need to compile your program
before executing it. This is similar to PERL and PHP.

Python is Interactive − You can actually sit at a Python

prompt and interact with the interpreter directly to write
your programs.
Python is Object-Oriented − Python supports Object-
Oriented style or technique of programming that
encapsulates code within objects.
Python is a Beginner's Language − Python is a great
language for the beginner-level programmers and supports
the development of a wide range of applications from simple
text processing to WWW browsers to games.

Python is an open-source and cross-platform programming

language. It is available for use under Python Software
Foundation License (compatible to GNU General Public License)
on all the major operating system platforms Linux, Windows and
Mac OS.

To facilitate new features and to maintain that readability, the

Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) process was developed. This
process allows anyone to submit a PEP for a new feature, library, or
other addition.

The design philosophy of Python emphasizes on simplicity,

readability and unambiguity. Python is known for its batteries
included approach as Python software is distributed with a
comprehensive standard library of functions and modules.

Python's design philosophy is documented in the Zen of Python. It

consists of nineteen aphorisms such as −

Beautiful is better than ugly

Explicit is better than implicit

Simple is better than complex

Complex is better than complicated

To obtain the complete Zen of Python document, type import this

in the Python Shell −

>>>import this

This will produce following 19 aphorisms -

Beautiful is better than ugly.

Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way t
 Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're D
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good id
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of tho

Python supports imperative, structured as well as object-oriented

programming methodology. It provides features of functional
programming as well.

Pythonic Code Style

Python leaves you free to choose to program in an object-oriented,
procedural, functional, aspect-oriented, or even logic-oriented way.
These freedoms make Python a great language to write clean and
beautiful code.

Pythonic Code Style is actually more of a design philosophy and

suggests to write a code which is :

Clean

Simple
Beautiful

Explicit
Readable

The Zen of Python

The Zen of Python is about code that not only works, but is
Pythonic. Pythonic code is readable, concise, and maintainable.
 Python - Features
Python is a feature rich high-level, interpreted, interactive and
object-oriented scripting language. This tutorial will list down some
of the important features of Python:

Features of Python
Let's highlight some of the important features of Python that make
it widely popular. Apart from these 10 features where are number of
other interesting features which make Python most of the
developer's first choice.

The following are the features of Python programming language –

1. Easy to Learn

This is one of the most important reasons for the popularity of

Python. Python has a limited set of keywords. Its features such as
simple syntax, usage of indentation to avoid clutter of curly
brackets and dynamic typing that doesn't necessitate prior
declaration of variable help a beginner to learn Python quickly and
easily.

2. Interpreter Based

Instructions in any programming languages must be translated into

machine code for the processor to execute them. Programming
languages are either compiler based or interpreter based.

In case of a compiler, a machine language version of the entire

source program is generated. The conversion fails even if there is a
single erroneous statement. Hence, the development process is
tedious for the beginners. The C family languages (including C,
C++, Java, C# etc) are compiler based.

Python is an interpreter based language. The interpreter takes one

instruction from the source code at a time, translates it into
machine code and executes it. Instructions before the first
occurrence of error are executed. With this feature, it is easier to
debug the program and thus proves useful for the beginner level
programmer to gain confidence gradually. Python therefore is a
beginner-friendly language.

3. Interactive

Standard Python distribution comes with an interactive shell that

works on the principle of REPL (Read – Evaluate – Print – Loop).
The shell presents a Python prompt >>>. You can type any valid
Python expression and press Enter. Python interpreter immediately
returns the response and the prompt comes back to read the next
expression.

>>> 2*3+1
7
>>> print ("Hello World")
Hello World
The interactive mode is especially useful to get familiar with a
library and test out its functionality. You can try out small code
snippets in interactive mode before writing a program.

4. MultiParadigm

Python is a completely object-oriented language. Everything in a

Python program is an object. However, Python conveniently
encapsulates its object orientation to be used as an imperative or
procedural language – such as C. Python also provides certain
functionality that resembles functional programming. Moreover,
certain third-party tools have been developed to support other
programming paradigms such as aspect-oriented and logic
programming.

5. Standard Library

Even though it has a very few keywords (only Thirty Five), Python
software is distributed with a standard library made of large
number of modules and packages. Thus Python has out of box
support for programming needs such as serialization, data
compression, internet data handling, and many more. Python is
known for its batteries included approach.

6.Open Source and Cross Platform

Python's standard distribution can be downloaded from

https://www.python.org/downloads/ without any restrictions. You
can download pre-compiled binaries for various operating system
platforms. In addition, the source code is also freely available,
which is why it comes under open source category.

Python software (along with the documentation) is distributed

under Python Software Foundation License. It is a BSD style
permissive software license and compatible to GNU GPL (General
Public License).

Python is a cross-platform language. Pre-compiled binaries are

available for use on various operating system platforms such as
Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Android OS. The reference
implementation of Python is called CPython and is written in C. You
can download the source code and compile it for your OS platform.

A Python program is first compiled to an intermediate platform

independent byte code. The virtual machine inside the interpreter
then executes the byte code. This behaviour makes Python a cross-
platform language, and thus a Python program can be easily ported
from one OS platform to other.

7. GUI Applications

Python's standard distribution has an excellent graphics library

called TKinter. It is a Python port for the vastly popular GUI toolkit
called TCL/Tk. You can build attractive user-friendly GUI
applications in Python. GUI toolkits are generally written in C/C++.
Many of them have been ported to Python. Examples are PyQt,
WxWidgets, PySimpleGUI etc.

8. Database Connectivity

Almost any type of database can be used as a backend with the

Python application. DB-API is a set of specifications for database
driver software to let Python communicate with a relational
database. With many third party libraries, Python can also work
with NoSQL databases such as MongoDB.

9. Extensible
The term extensibility implies the ability to add new features or
modify existing features. As stated earlier, CPython (which is
Python's reference implementation) is written in C. Hence one can
easily write modules/libraries in C and incorporate them in the
standard library. There are other implementations of Python such as
Jython (written in Java) and IPython (written in C#). Hence, it is
possible to write and merge new functionality in these
implementations with Java and C# respectively.

10. Active Developer Community

As a result of Python's popularity and open-source nature, a large

number of Python developers often interact with online forums and
conferences. Python Software Foundation also has a significant
member base, involved in the organization's mission to "Promote,
Protect, and Advance the Python Programming Language"

Python also enjoys a significant institutional support. Major IT

companies Google, Microsoft, and Meta contribute immensely by
preparing documentation and other resources.

More Features of Python

Apart from the above-mentioned features, Python has another big
list of good features, few are listed below −

It supports functional and structured programming methods

as well as OOP.
It can be used as a scripting language or can be compiled to
byte-code for building large applications.

It provides very high-level dynamic data types and supports

dynamic type checking.
It supports automatic garbage collection.
It can be easily integrated with C, C++, COM, ActiveX,
CORBA, and Java.