Why is Python so popular?

Published 2021-12-28 21:54:16.0

Python has been a very popular programming language for a long time. This is mainly due to the easy-to-learn syntax and versatility. You can use Python in almost every area of software development. For example, you can work with:

Web development
Data science
Game development
And much more.

This also makes Python one of the hottest programming languages on the market. In this guide, you'll learn why Python is such a popular programming language.

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What is Python: Introduction

Python is a widely used general-purpose programming language. It was developed more than 30 years ago by the Dutch programmer Guido van Rossum. The goal of the Python programming language was to be a general-purpose language suitable for virtually anything. More importantly, the Python programming language should reduce syntax complexity. At that time, many other languages had and still have very complex syntax that is difficult to learn. The simplified syntax of Python should make it easy for anyone to start programming. Python has been very successful in achieving the above goals. Even 30 years after the first stable version, Python still dominates the world of programming. Python has been very successful in achieving the above goals. Today, Python is used in almost all areas of software development, from automation scripts to full-fledged software such as websites or games. In this guide, you will learn various reasons why Python has become such a popular programming language.

1. Beginner friendliness

Python is generally recommended as the first programming language to learn.

Python is easy to learn because of its English-language syntax.

Even if you've never programmed before, you'll probably have an idea of what the code below does:

if "Alice" not in queue: print("Alice is not in the queue")

Thanks to its simplified syntax, Python is much faster to learn than almost any other programming language.

2. Versatility

Python is a general-purpose programming language. The language is not only easy to learn, but also very versatile. You can use Python for almost anything, such as: B:

As you can see, there are many keywords on the list. Python is suitable for the most in-demand computer science skills. If you are in doubt about which programming language to learn, consider Python. You can do practically anything with it. Even better, it's the easiest language to get started with.

3. Great community and resources

Due to its popularity, Python also has one of the largest and most supportive developer communities out there. If you're not familiar with programming, you don't know how much time developers spend searching for answers on the Internet. Regardless of your programming skills, you will use Google a lot. Once a developer encounters a language-specific problem, they tend to ask the community. Needless to say, without the ability to quickly search for answers in the community, development would be very slow. Alone on Stack Overflow there were almost 2 million questions about Python. Of these questions, a whopping 1.3 million questions were answered.

Python is also a fairly old language. It was developed over 30 years ago. This has allowed the developer community to mature well. Nowadays you can find support on Python whether you are a beginner or an expert. You can look for help on:

Stack Overflow
Github
Youtube
Reddit
Quora
Medium

There are a lot of helpful Pythonists on each of these platforms who are willing to share information with you. There are also many bootcamps and courses for those who want to become job-ready developers within a few months. When it comes to the popularity of a programming language, community is very important. If a programming language lacks developer support, it will not catch on.

4. Great libraries and frameworks

Python has great libraries and frameworks for solving problems.

If you are new to programming, let me explain why this is important.

You won't get very far with a programming language and a code editor. Programming is not about reinventing the wheel and implementing everything from scratch.

Instead, you build the programs with ready-made components. In Python, these components are called libraries and frameworks.

These consist of useful code that you can reuse in your programs.

Some common frameworks and libraries in Python are:

Let's briefly introduce these to give you some context.

4.1. NumPy

NumPy is a popular data science library for Python. It is used to perform mathematical operations on arrays. The NumPy library has powerful data structures with guaranteed efficiency when calculating with arrays and matrices. It also provides a large collection of useful mathematical functions for manipulating these types of data.

4.2. Matplotlib

Matplotlib is a plotting and visualization library. It is commonly used in Python in general and then of course with the NumPy library introduced previously. Matplotlib is a great tool for visualizing data. You can draw all kinds of plots using Matplotlib's built-in functions.

4.3. SciPy

SciPy is a popular library for scientific computing in Python. The SciPy library consists of useful algorithms that build on the NumPy library. If you are familiar with linear algebra, you can use SciPy to find out:

Inverse of a matrix
Rank of a matrix
LU-Zerlegung
And much more.

4.4. Django

Python is a versatile language. You can even use it to create a website. However, this is not possible with native Python. Instead, you should use the popular website framework called Django. With the help of the Django framework, you can create fully functional websites of almost any type.

4.5. BeautifulSoup

In general, it is important to be able to retrieve data from a website programmatically. Python is also capable of this. With the help of the BeautifulSoup library, you can retrieve data from HTML and XML files from the Internet. This is useful in many ways. For example, in data science you can retrieve numerical data behind a URL. To keep it short, we won't introduce any other Python libraries or frameworks. However, there are literally thousands of them out there.

5. Automation made easy

To automate manual work using a computer, you can write small automation scripts. Unfortunately, completing even a small task can require a lot of work. This is not optimal. With Python and the large number of libraries and modules, you can easily automate almost any repetitive task. This frees up resources that can be used for the really important tasks. Python has become an industry standard for automation. Some developers who work with a language other than Python still use Python for their automation scripts. If you don't know what an automation script means in this context, here's an example. Imagine you have a PDF document or series of PDF documents and you want to convert them into audio files that you want someone to listen to. You can write a small automation script for this. With other programming languages this may not be as easy or even possible. However, thanks to the great Python libraries, this task can be easily automated.

6. Python works with the IoT

IoT or the Internet of Things refers to small and low-power devices connected to the Internet. Due to Python's versatility and flexibility, it will come as no surprise to you that Python has a strong presence in the IoT market. Popular IoT devices include:

Raspberry Pi
Intel Edison
Arduino

You can control all of these devices using Python and its IoT libraries. For example, you can write code to send and receive data over Bluetooth and the Internet. Due to limited capabilities, some of the IoT devices support MicroPython. MicroPython is an efficient subset of the Python 3 programming language. It is designed to run on IoT microcontrollers to save resources. Even though MicroPython is a subset of Python, it still offers the benefits of Python.

7. The first programming language to learn

So far, you've learned that programming in Python is both easy to learn and in high demand. For this reason, it is often the first programming language that students want to learn. This means more and more people are learning Python, making it even more popular.

8. Python is used in academic areas

In the academic world, Python has become the programming language of choice. This is because Python has a large number of applications in the most in-demand areas of computer science. Python is widely used in the popular areas of software development such as: b.

Artificial intelligence
Machine learning
Deep learning
Data science

Most university courses on these topics are taught entirely in Python. Also, universities tend to teach Python programming as a general introductory course to programming and software development.

9. Large companies use Python

If a programming language is used by a major technology company, it will become even more popular and trusted. Good examples of this are:

PHP is used by Facebook
Java , which is supported by Oracle and Sun
Visual Basic , used by Microsoft
C# , used by Microsoft

The Python programming language is supported by authorities such as:

Google
Facebook
Amazon Webdienste

Google, for example, has been using Python consistently since 2006. They even developed a Python course for aspiring developers. Of course, there are many other authorities that use Python, and the list is constantly expanding.

conclusion

Today you learned why Python is such a popular programming language. In short, Python is a general-purpose language that is easy to learn and use. Because of its popularity, there is a large and supportive community. Additionally, Python is supported by major companies such as Google, Amazon and Facebook. Python is recommended as the first programming language to learn due to its English-like syntax. Have fun programming!