| Python: Why Python? | - Big data with Python

You may have heard that Python is gaining in popularity, but did you know it’s now the most popular introductory teaching language in U.S. universities. It’s the fourth most popular language according to an IEEE survey, behind old classics Java, C, and C++; Python is easy to use, powerful, and versatile, making it a great choice for beginners and experts alike.

Python's readability makes it a great first programming language — it allows you to think like a programmer and not waste time understanding the mysterious syntax that other programming languages can require Python is a powerful, flexible, open source language that is easy to learn, easy to use, and has powerful libraries for data manipulation and analysis. Its simple syntax is very accessible to programming novices, and will look familiar to anyone with experience in Matlab, C/C++, Java, or Visual Basic. Python has a unique combination of being both a capable general-purpose programming language as well as being easy to use for analytical and quantitative computing.

For over a decade, Python has been used in scientific computing and highly quantitative domains such as finance, oil and gas, physics, and signal processing. It has been used to improve Space Shuttle mission design, process images from the Hubble Space Telescope, and was instrumental in orchestrating the physics experiments which led to the discovery of the Higgs Boson (the so-called "God particle").

Every sector of business is being transformed by the modern deluge of data. This spells doom for some, and creates massive opportunity for others. Those who thrive in this environment will do so only by quickly converting data into meaningful business insights and competitive advantage. Business analysts and data scientists need to wield agile tools, instead of being enslaved by legacy information architectures.

Python is easy for analysts to learn and use, but powerful enough to tackle even the most difficult problems in virtually any domain. It integrates well with existing IT infrastructure, and is very platform independent. Among modern languages, its agility and the productivity of Python-based solutions is legendary. Companies of all sizes and in all areas — from the biggest investment banks to the smallest social/mobile web app startups — are using Python to run their business and manage their data.

Benefits of Python

Python is a dynamic object-oriented programming language that can be compared with Java and Microsoft's .NET-based languages as a general-purpose substrate for many kinds of software development. It offers strong support for integrating with other technologies, higher programmer productivity throughout the development life cycle, and is particularly well suited for large or complex projects with changing requirements. Python is the most rapidly growing open source programming language. According to InfoWorld its user base nearly doubled in 2004, and currently includes about 14% of all programmers.

Python is being used in mission critical applications in the world's largest stock exchange, forms the basis for high end newspaper websites, runs on millions of cell phones, and is used in industries as diverse as ship building, feature length movie animation, and air traffic control.

Integration

Of all types, including Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). Python makes it easy to develop Web services, can invoke COM or CORBA components, calls directly to and from C, C++, or Java code (via Jython), provides powerful process control capabilities, implements all common internet protocols and data formats, processes XML and other markup languages, can be embedded as a scripting language, and runs from the same byte code on all modern operating systems.

Network intensive applications

And complex multi-protocol network applications can be built on Twisted, a development framework well suited to running large numbers of concurrent network, database, and inter-process communication links within the same process.

Web development

from simple CGI scripting to high-end web application development with mega-frameworks such as Django and Turbogears, the Zope application server, Plone content management system, Quixote web application framework, or an even a home-grown solution based on Python's extensive and easy to use standard libraries. Python provides interfaces to most databases, powerful text processing and document processing facilities, and plays well with other web technologies.

Numeric and scientific applications

make use of the Python Imaging Library, VTK and MayaVi 3D Visualization Toolkits, Numeric Python, ScientificPython and many other tools available for numeric and scientific applications. Many of these are supported by the Enthought Python Distribution.

Application scripting

is a snap with Python's tight integration with C/C++ and Java. Python was designed from the ground up to be embeddable and serves as an excellent choice as a scripting language for customization or extension of larger applications.

Software Testing

benefits from Python's strong integration and text processing capabilities, and Python comes with its own unit testing framework.

Desktop development

using wxPython, PyQt, or PyGtk for high-quality GUI applications. Protect your investment by basing on open technologies, with deployment to most operating systems. Support for other GUI frameworks, such as MFC, Carbon, Delphi, X11, Motif, and Tk, is also available.

Prototyping

in Python is quick and easy, and often results in development of the final system in Python. The agile nature of the language, and the ease of refactoring code makes for rapid development directly from the initial prototype.

The Open Source Advantage

Because it has been developed as open source by thousands of contributors from around the world, Python is very well designed, fast, robust, portable, and scalable. With an uncluttered, easy-to-learn syntax and well-developed advanced language features, Python often exceeds the capabilities of comparable commercially available solutions.

The open source license for Python allows unrestricted use, modification, and redistribution of the language or anything that is based on it, commercially or otherwise. Full source is available and there are no license costs. Support is available for free, from a rich set of internet-based resources, and from organizations in the business of providing paid support to Python users.

The best way to learn new things is to take a practical approach of the things you want to learn. Here is a fragment of code that demonstrates how to build a print “Hello world” and a simple addition in Python: