What Was The Reason Behind The Development Of Python?

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Python is a widely used general-purpose, high-level programming language. It was initially designed by Guido van Rossum in 1991 and developed by Python Software Foundation. It was mainly developed for emphasis on code readability, and its syntax allows programmers to express concepts in fewer lines of code.

In the late 1980s, history was about to be written. It was that time when working on Python started. Soon after that, Guido Van Rossum began doing its application-based work in December of 1989 at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) which is situated in the Netherlands. It was started firstly as a hobby project because he was looking for an interesting project to keep him occupied during Christmas. The programming language in which Python is said to have succeeded is ABC Programming Language, which had interfacing with the Amoeba Operating System and had the feature of exception handling. He had already helped to create ABC earlier in his career and he had seen some issues with ABC but liked most of the features. After that what he did was really very clever. He had taken the syntax of ABC, and some of its good features. It came with a lot of complaints too, so he fixed those issues completely and had created a good scripting language that had removed all the flaws. The inspiration for the name came from BBC’s TV Show – ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’, as he was a big fan of the TV show and also he wanted a short, unique and slightly mysterious name for his invention and hence he named it Python! He was the “Benevolent dictator for life” (BDFL) until he stepped down from the position as the leader on 12th July 2018. For quite some time he used to work for Google, but currently, he is working at Dropbox. 
The language was finally released in 1991. When it was released, it used a lot fewer codes to express the concepts, when we compare it with JavaC++ & C. Its design philosophy was quite good too. Its main objective is to provide code readability and advanced developer productivity. When it was released it had more than enough capability to provide classes with inheritance, several core data types exception handling and functions. 

Following are the illustrations of different versions of Python along with the timeline. 

The two of the most used versions has to Python 2.x & 3.x. There is a lot of competition between the two and both of them seem to have quite a number of different fanbases. 

For various purposes such as developing, scripting, generation, and software testing, this language is utilized. Due to its elegance and simplicity, top technology organizations like Dropbox, Google, Quora, Mozilla, Hewlett-Packard, Qualcomm, IBM, and Cisco have implemented Python. 

Python has come a long way to become the most popular coding language in the world. Python has just turned 30 and just recently at pycon22(python conference) a new feature was released by Anaconda foundation it’s known as pyscript with this now python can be written and run in the browser like javascript which was previously not possible, but it still has that unknown charm & X factor which can be clearly seen from the fact that Google users have consistently searched for Python much more than they have searched for Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump, Tom Cruise, etc. 

Python is a widely used general-purpose, high-level programming language. It is widely used by developers in various domains, from web development to Machine Learning. However, Python has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Let’s see some limitations of Python programming language.

Cons of Python Programming

  • Python is Slow at Runtime
  • Mobile Application Development
  • Difficulty in Using Other Languages
  • High Memory Consumption
  • Not used in the Enterprise Development Sector
  • Runtime Errors
  • Simplicity

Python is Slow at Runtime

Python is an interpreted language and is slow compared to C/C++ or Java. Unlike C or C++ it’s not closer to hardware because Python is a high-level language. As we all know compilation and execution help to work normally, but in this case, the execution of Python takes place with the help of an interpreter instead of the compiler as we have seen that Python code is executed line by line, which causes it to slow down. Speed is a focal point for the project required by any programmer. On the other hand, it can be seen that it is fast for many web applications too. 

Mobile Application Development

However Python is strong in desktop and server platforms, that is it is an excellent server-side language but for mobile development, Python is not a very good language which means it is a weak language for mobile development. It is very rarely used for mobile development. This is the reason very few mobile applications are built into it like Carbonnelle, which is built in Python. 

Difficulty in Using Other Languages

The Python lovers become so accustomed to its features and its extensive libraries that they face problem in learning or working on other programming languages. 

High Memory Consumption

For any memory intensive tasks Python is not a good choice. That is why it is not used for that purpose. Python’s memory consumption is also high, due to the flexibility of the data types. 

Not used in Enterprise Development Sector

Python is a robust programming language with minimal stress and worries. But, this language is highly insecure and can be used only at one’s own risk. There are some limitations of Python with database access. In comparison to the popular technologies like JDBC and ODBC, it is found that Python’s database access layer is a bit underdeveloped and primitive. It acts as a major barrier when big enterprises look for a language that ensures smooth interaction of complex legacy data. However, the enterprises that need smooth interaction of complex legacy data, the Python database access layer is not applied. That is, it is less often applied in huge enterprises. 

Runtime Errors

One of the major drawbacks of this language is that its design has numerous issues. Python programmers face several issues regarding the design of the language. This language requires more testing and also it has errors that only show up at runtime this is because the language is dynamically typed. 

Simplicity

Python is a simple programming language which is also the biggest disadvantage. It can indeed be a problem. Its syntax is very simple which makes a programmer more of python person and because of which they might feel code of harder language like Java unnecessary. It concludes that with its late-binding dynamic models and extensive libraries, shifting to a new language from Python gets difficult as the user finds it difficult to adjust to its vulnerable nature and taking everything on a light note.
 

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