We often think of a Python as a famous dangerous snake. In this article, we will be looking at it from a software development perspective. So what exactly is Python? Simply put: it is a popular programming language, which is similar to a human language – like English or French – but it is used to communicate with computers. Software developers, also sometimes known as coders or programmers, write computer software in programming languages to tell a computer what to do.
Python is a high-level programing language. This means that it’s closer to human language and further from machine language. The advantage of this is that it’s easy to read and simple to implement. It is also open source – free to use, even for commercial applications.
In addition, Python is a good programming language for beginners. As a high level language, it makes it easier for a programmer to focus on what to do instead of how to do it. Writing programs in Python takes less time than in other languages, such as C/C++.
Another interesting aspect of Python is that it is an interpreted language; interpreted languages do not need to be compiled to run. This means that a program called an interpreter runs the code (in this case, the Python code) on any kind of computer, which means it can be used more efficiently and runs much faster.
Python is used by hundreds of thousands of programmers in many areas, including web development, desktop graphical-user-interfaces, scientific computing and even network programming. Some of the most popular applications of Python are Youtube – Youtube’s core functionality is written in Python, and Dropbox – Python powers the largest cloud storage platform, which we use on a daily basis to sync, store and share almost anything. Python also boasts some powerful web frameworks such as Django, which is the engine behind popular websites such as Instagram, The New York Times and the likes.
Thinking of getting ahead of the competition with a career in software development? Learning Python would be a good place to start. Hyperion Development offers a range of Python courses, from beginner to advanced. These courses are internationally recognized and can land you some of the hot jobs in software development in South Africa.
