The history of programming languages dates back to over seventy years since the development of computers. Computers are not only playing a growing role in traditional scientific computing but are also widely used in other fields. The world of computing technology is fast-changing as numerous world’s leading tech firms compete to introduce the most innovative ideas. As a result, the comprehension of programming languages is becoming more necessary. Even students at the elementary levels are currently beginning to learn programming languages, making computer languages all the more relevant. A computer language helps people to speak to the computer in a language that the computer understands. As a consequence, programming is at the heart of technological innovation that is in use today. The paper discusses python computer language.
A Brief History of Python Computer Language
Python language first appeared in 1991 as a successor for ABC language. Python project was created by Guido van Rossum who was by then a lead developer. Python version 2.0 was launched in 2000 and included features such as garbage collection and list comprehensions by means of reference counting (Shukla & Parmar, 2016). Come 2008 and python version 3.0 was launched, with the most critical adjustments being that the language was not backward-compatible and any code made in python version 2.0 was required modifications first before it can run on python version 3.0. The update and release of python 2.0 versions were discontinued early this year – 2020, no more security patches will be expected for python 2.
Purpose of the Language
Python is a high-level, interpreted, and general-purpose language. The language emphases are on the readability of the code as programmers and developers can leverage whitespaces. In addition, the language utilizes an object-oriented and language constructs approach with the goal of aiding programmers to compose logical codes that are clear for both small-scale and large-scale projects. Again python is both garbage-collected and dynamically typed. As a result, the language supports various paradigms, including object-oriented, functional programming, and structured programming. Python was designed to be highly extensive instead of having all its functionalities built into its core (Alyuruk, 2019). As a result, this compact modularity has made python more preferred as a method of adding programmable interfaces to existing applications.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Python Language
Python language is among the few top-most popular programming languages of 2019. Python continues to be popular, thanks mainly to its role in data science and teaching. The advantages of python are also outstanding—some of the benefits associated with python programming, including a comprehensive standard library for reference. Python’s syntax is very clear, and it is not even a free-form language (Dierbach, 2014). The second feature is that python’s extensibility is reflected in its modules, which have the richest and most powerful class libraries in the scripting language. However, python also has some of the weaknesses of interpreted languages. The first disadvantages are that Python programs run slower than programs developed using programming languages like Java, C, or C++. Again, the open-source nature of python means that the python language cannot be encrypted.
The Application of Python Programming
The most crucial application of python is that it is universally embedded in a scripting language, which is a firm foundation on which numerous web frameworks and automation tasks, including 3D software applications. In addition, python can be used to complete the activities of the desktop tools of program and data calculations. Python elasticity makes it possible to develop apps that are compatible with various operating systems, including Android OS.
Numerous Python interpreters are available for various operating systems making python computing language a reliable, robust, and efficient language for use in different platforms. In addition, a world community of programmers develops and maintains a free, and open-source reference implementation called CPython. Also, Python Software Foundation, which is a not-for-profit consortium, directs the resources for the development of both Python and CPython (Bogdanchikov & Zhaparov, 2013). Python programming has been used to create numerous software programs that are doing well in the technology niche, such as YouTube, Google, Reddit, Instagram, Spotify, Dropbox, and Quora.
Conclusions
To sum up, computers are no longer everyone’s previous impression of the desktops or servers but has evolved into the objects around us everywhere. For example, phones, tablets, laptops, and devices that many people don’t realize are all computing devices. Other devices such as TV sets, microwave oven, car, even a small robot that children play with have computing capabilities. The development of computer programming language is developed with the development of computer hardware, and programming language is an indispensable tool to shape the computer from the development history of computer language—the more advanced the language, the closer to people’s thinking convenient to use. Therefore, the development of computer language in the future is bound to be more accessible to human beings and closer to human life.
References
Alyuruk, H. (2019). Chapter 1—Introduction to R and Python. In H. Alyuruk (Ed.), R and Python for Oceanographers (pp. 1–21). Elsevier. Web.
Bogdanchikov, A., & Zhaparov, M. (2013). Python to learn programming.Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 423, 1–5. Web.
Dierbach, C. (2014). Python as a first programming language. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 29(6), 153–154.
Shukla, X. U., & Parmar, D. J. (2016). Python – A comprehensive yet free programming language for statisticians.Journal of Statistics and Management Systems, 19(2), 277–284. Web.