Origins of Python

Origins of Python

Learn where the Python programming language came from.

Python is a highly versatile language with many different functionalities. Python is what is known as a general-purpose programming language.

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General-Purpose Programming Language — a computer language that is broadly applicable across application domains, and lacks specialized features for a particular domain.

Creation

Python was designed by Guido van Rossum in 1991 and developed by the Python Software Foundation. Python was based on the ABC programming language, which Rossum also helped create! The goal of Python is to allow developers to use a lot fewer lines of code to express concepts. A funny thing is that Rossum wanted the language to have a mysterious and short name so he took inspiration from the BBC show 'Monty Python's Flying Circus'. Rossum stepped down as the leader of Python and worked at Google and then Dropbox for a bit. He currently works at Microsoft!

Guido van Rossum

Guido van Rossum is depicted above.

When Python was released, it already had many important and useful functionalities such as classes, inheritance, and exception handling (one of my favorites).

Conclusion

Python is a very useful language that is extremely easy to understand. That's what it's made for! Throughout the years, Python has evolved from a small-time language to one of the most popular programming languages in the world. Another fun fact is that a new package for Python was released and it's called pyscript. This allows you to run Python code in your browser just like Javascript! That's pretty advanced though, so it's best to start with the basics.

Citations

“History of Python.” GeeksforGeeks, 26 Nov. 2022, geeksforgeeks.org/history-of-python. Accessed 07 Oct. 2023.

“General-Purpose Language.” CodeDocs, codedocs.org/what-is/general-purpose-language. Accessed 07 Oct. 2023.