Learning Python - Mark Lutz [28]
Chapter Summary
And that concludes the hype portion of this book. In this chapter, we’ve explored some of the reasons that people pick Python for their programming tasks. We’ve also seen how it is applied and looked at a representative sample of who is using it today. My goal is to teach Python, though, not to sell it. The best way to judge a language is to see it in action, so the rest of this book focuses entirely on the language details we’ve glossed over here.
The next two chapters begin our technical introduction to the language. In them, we’ll explore ways to run Python programs, peek at Python’s byte code execution model, and introduce the basics of module files for saving code. The goal will be to give you just enough information to run the examples and exercises in the rest of the book. You won’t really start programming per se until Chapter 4, but make sure you have a handle on the startup details before moving on.
Test Your Knowledge: Quiz
In this edition of the book, we will be closing each chapter with a quick pop quiz about the material presented therein to help you review the key concepts. The answers for these quizzes appear immediately after the questions, and you are encouraged to read the answers once you’ve taken a crack at the questions yourself. In addition to these end-of-chapter quizzes, you’ll find lab exercises at the end of each part of the book, designed to help you start coding Python on your own. For now, here’s your first test. Good luck!
What are the six main reasons that people choose to use Python?
Name four notable companies or organizations using Python today.
Why might you not want to use Python in an application?
What can you do with Python?
What’s the significance of the Python import this statement?
Why does “spam” show up in so many Python examples in books and on the Web?
What is your favorite color?
Test Your Knowledge: Answers
How did you do? Here are the answers I came up with, though there may be multiple solutions to some quiz questions. Again, even if you’re sure you got a question right, I encourage you to look at these answers for additional context. See the chapter’s text for more details if any of these responses don’t make sense to you.
Software quality, developer productivity, program portability, support libraries, component integration, and simple enjoyment. Of these, the quality and productivity themes seem to be the main reasons that people choose to use Python.
Google, Industrial Light & Magic, EVE Online, Jet Propulsion Labs, Maya, ESRI, and many more. Almost every organization doing software development uses Python in some fashion, whether for long-term strategic product development or for short-term tactical tasks such as testing and system administration.
Python’s downside is performance: it won’t run as quickly as fully compiled languages like C and C++. On the other hand, it’s quick enough for most applications, and typical Python code runs at close to C speed anyhow because it invokes linked-in C code in the interpreter. If speed is critical, compiled extensions are available for number-crunching parts of an application.
You can use Python for nearly anything you can do with a computer, from website development and gaming to robotics and spacecraft control.
import this triggers an Easter egg inside Python that displays some of the design philosophies underlying the language. You’ll learn how to run this statement in the next chapter.
“Spam” is a reference from a famous Monty Python skit in which people trying to order food in a cafeteria are drowned out by a chorus of Vikings singing about spam. Oh, and it’s also a common variable name in Python scripts....
Blue. No, yellow!
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Python Is Engineering, Not Art
When Python first emerged on the software scene in the early 1990s, it spawned what is now something of a classic conflict between its proponents and those of another popular scripting language, Perl. Personally, I think the debate is tired and unwarranted today—developers