Learning Python : Chapter 1
- Why do people use Python?
Software quality: Python code is designed to be readable, reusable and maintainable. It has support for object-oriented(OO) and function programming
Developer productivity: Code size is very less compared to C++ or Java code. Hence there is less to type, less to debug and less to maintain. It also runs immediately without the length compile and link steps.
Program portability: Most programs run unchanged on all major computer platforms(eg: No need to change the code between linux and windows machines)
Support libraries: Standard libraries and third party libraries. The NumPy extension is a more powerful equivalent to Matlab.
Component integration: It can easily communicate with other parts of an application. (eg: Python can invoke C and C++ libraries, can be called from C and C++ programs, can integrate with Java and .NET components, can communicate over frameworks etc.
2. Is Python a Scripting language?
Its commonly defined as an object-oriented scripting language.
But its a general-purpose programming language that blends procedural, functional and object-oriented paradigms.
Script and program are interchangeable.
But script refers to a simpler top-level file and program refers to a more sophisticated multi file application.
Ultimately, it all depends upon the developer and the application.
3. Does it have any downsides?
Execution speed is not always as fast as that of fully compiled and lower-level languages such as C and C++
4. Why the execution speed is low?
Generally, python is not compiled all the way down to binary machine code. Hence some programs may run more slowly in python.
The standard implementations of python compile source code statements to an intermediate format known as byte code and then interpret the byte code. Byte code provides portability as it is platform independent.
5. What are python’s technical strengths?
Python is an object oriented language.
Its class model supports polymorphism, operator overloading and mulitple inheritance
But also, OOP is an option in python. It supports both procedural and object-oriented programming modes.
In addition to procedural and object oriented paradigms, python also has built-in support for functional programming- maps, decorators, lambdas etc.
