Python

Overview

Python is a free, open-source, high-level, general-purpose interpreted programming language, known for its concise syntax, readability, and wide applicability, suitable for both beginners and professional developers. Created by Guido van Rossum in 1991, Python is currently maintained by the Python Software Foundation (PSF) and hosted on python.org and GitHub, under the PSF license (compatible with GPL). Python supports multiple paradigms (object-oriented, functional, procedural), runs on platforms such as Linux, Windows, and macOS, and is widely used in web development (Django), data science (Pandas), machine learning (TensorFlow), automation scripts, and education.

History and Development

• Origin:
  • December 1989: Guido van Rossum began developing Python at CWI in the Netherlands as a successor to the ABC language, aiming for simplicity and scalability.
  • February 1991: Python 0.9.0 released, including modules, exceptions, and lambda expressions.
• Development Timeline:
  • 1994: Python 1.0 released, adding list comprehensions and the standard library.
  • 2000: Python 2.0 introduced garbage collection and Unicode.
  • 2008: Python 3.0 released, breaking backward compatibility and improving strings and syntax.
  • 2020: Python 2.7 ended support; 3.x became the only version.
  • 2023: Python 3.11 optimized performance (10-60% speedup).
  • October 7, 2025: Python 3.13.0 released, introducing a JIT compiler (10-30% performance improvement), incremental garbage collection, and a free-threaded mode.
• Community and Support:
  • Maintained by PSF and hosted on python.org and GitHub (see Web Result 0).
  • Multilingual support (English/Chinese), documentation includes official tutorials, PyPI, and 10,000+ YouTube tutorials (see Web Result 2, Web Result 3).
  • Reddit users say "Python 3.13 is the ultimate tool for data science."
• Open Source License:
  • PSF License, compatible with GPL, allowing commercial and open source use.

Key Features

Python is characterized by its concise syntax, rich libraries, and cross-platform support, making it suitable for various development scenarios. Here are its key features:

1. Concise Syntax
   • Indented code blocks reduce parentheses, resulting in high code readability.
2. Standard Library and Ecosystem
   • Built-in 200+ modules (os, sys, json, http), PyPI provides 400,000+ packages.
3. Cross-Platform Support
   • Supports Linux/Windows/macOS, allowing the same code to run on multiple platforms.
4. Multi-Paradox Programming
   • Supports object-oriented (classes), functional (lambda), and procedural (scripting) programming.
5. Performance Optimization
   • Python 3.13 introduced a JIT compiler and incremental garbage collection, improving performance by 10-30%.
6. Hardware Compatibility
   • Minimum: 1 GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM.
7. Security and Privacy
   • Open source PSF: transparent code, community review.
8. Development Support
   • Supports IDEs (Geany, VS Code), debugging (pdb), and package management (pip).

Advantages and Limitations

Advantages

• Simple and easy to learn: Intuitive syntax, learn in 30 minutes.
• Rich ecosystem: PyPI 400,000+ packages, superior to Ruby.
• Cross-platform: Linux/Windows/macOS, superior to PowerShell.
• Strong community: 10,000+ tutorials, active on Reddit and Stack Overflow.

Limitations

• Slower performance: Interpreted language, slower than C++.
• Weak mobile support: Not as good as Java.
• Comparison tools:
  • Java: Enterprise-grade, high performance.
  • R: Specialized in statistical analysis.

Summary

Python is a free and open-source high-level programming language. Version 3.13.0 (October 7, 2025) introduces JIT and Free-threaded modes. Compared to Java (enterprise-grade) and R (statistics), Python excels in simplicity and ecosystem, but its performance is slightly inferior.