Introduction to Python

Python is an easy to learn, powerful programming language. It has efficient high-level data structures and a simple but effective approach to object-oriented programming. 

Python’s elegant syntax and dynamic typing, together with its interpreted nature make it an ideal language for scripting and rapid application development in many areas on most platforms.

The Python interpreter and the extensive standard library are freely available in source or binary form for all major platforms from the Python Web site, https://www.python.org and may be freely distributed. The same site also contains distributions of and pointers to many free third party Python modules, programs and tools and additional documentation.

The Python interpreter is easily extended with new functions and data types implemented in C or C++ (or other languages callable from C). Python is also suitable as an extension language for customizable applications.

Python is simple to use, but it is a real programming language offering much more structure and support for large programs than shell scripts or batch files can offer.

Python offers much more error checking than C and being a very-high-level language, it has high-level data types built in, such as flexible arrays and dictionaries. Because of its more general data types Python is applicable to a much larger problem domain than Awk or even Perl, yet many things are at least as easy in Python as in those languages.

Python allows you to split your program into modules that can be reused in other Python programs. It comes with a large collection of standard modules that you can use as the basis of your programs or as examples to start learning to program in Python. Some of these modules provide things like file I/O, system calls, sockets and even interfaces to graphical user interface tool kits like Tk. 

Python is an interpreted language which can save you considerable time during program development because no compilation and linking is necessary. The interpreter can be used interactively, which makes it easy to experiment with features of the language to write throw-away programs or to test functions during bottom-up program development. It is also a handy desk calculator.

Python enables programs to be written compactly and readable. Programs written in Python are typically much shorter than equivalent C, C++ or Java programs for several reasons. The reasons are given below.

• The high-level data types allow you to express complex operations in a single statement.
• Statement grouping is done by indentation instead of beginning and ending brackets.
• No variable or argument declarations are necessary.

·                                                                                                                                                           Python is Extensible.

      

     If you know how to program in C it is easy to add a new built-in function or module to the interpreter, either to perform critical operations at maximum speed or to link Python programs to libraries that may only be available in binary form (such as a vendor-specific graphics library). Once you are really hooked, you can link the Python interpreter into an application written in C and use it as an extension or command language for that application.