Occupying the podium among the giants of the market, Python conquered programming with its mature structure, reference and humor
Many things happened simultaneously in the world during the decade of 70, mainly in technology: suffice it to say that the first email was sent in 1971, by Ray Tomlinson. What also happened was the debut of the humorous television sketch, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, on the British BBC in 1969. This small television event influenced generations, including — yes — programmers.
You You must have already caught the reference with the topic of the article, right? In 1991, twenty years later, influenced by the surreal scripts of the English series, Guido van Rossum decided to name the language he was developing in honor of humor: then Python appears.
A historical fact that unites comedians, technology and programmers.
30 years of technology, humor and community
In a nutshell and following their definition, Python is an interpreted programming language , interactive and object-oriented. In theory it is a language that combines speed with dynamic and strong typing, “easy-to-read”.
This is just the surface of the technology, since there are factors that have influenced its growing use in the programming market.
Exactly in the middle between JavaScript and Java, Python occupies the podium among the giants that the market is looking for, and has conquered programming with its mature structure — of more than 30 years — reference, humor and community.
Obvious way to solve the problem: math and philosophy
The entire philosophy of technology is based on Zen of Python, a collection of 19 principles that influence the design and experience of programming using the language.
“Beautiful is better than ugly, explicit is better than implicit, simple is better than complex”.
Guido van Rossum worked on language from the 80s until 2018, when he left the project. Before creating Python, Guido was part of the ABC language development team in the Netherlands. According to him — and based on the demands of the time — there are three fundamentals that guided him in the development of Python: readability, extensibility and maintainability.
The core philosophy of the technology is based on the phrase: “there must be one – and preferably only one – obvious way to solve the problem”.
Data science and machine learning
According to the 2020 HackerRank Survey, 49.5% of companies are looking for programmers with Python among skills, second only to JavaScript, with 53.6%.
There is no doubt about Python’s reference within the community and the market, however, there are certain niches that are worth mentioning about the usability of the technology and its ecosystem. Despite being recognized for working well with other languages and having a wide use, including web development, Python has conquered, over the last decade, a dedicated space within data management in social networks and machine learning.
Popular choice
In 2017, Python caught the attention for being considered the fastest growing language within the community, according to Stack Overflow. Their conclusion was that there was a growth of technology in the data science, machine learning and academic research sectors, just look at the number of questions related to Pandas, library for data manipulation and analysis.
As a consequence of this, Python-based web development frameworks such as Django and Flask have also grown. Several reasons explain the preference, among them the philosophies mentioned above. If you want to know more about Stack Overflow’s numbers, just check out their 2019 survey.
Knowledge and baggage
Programming is complex and nothing is that simple.
The only things that are advantageous, in all situations , is the knowledge and baggage of information you’ve accumulated over time. The history of technology does not stop.
