Features of Python – Explore the essence of Python
If you already know Java or C# or C++ (or if you’re not from a programming background), why should you learn Python?
The answer is simple. Due to the outstanding features of Python programming.
Python Features
Let’s discuss some important features of Python Programming Language:
1. Easy Language
Python is an easy language. It is easy to read, write, learn and understand.
- Python has a smooth learning curve. It is easy to learn.
- Python has a simple syntax and Python code is easy to understand.
- Since it’s easy to understand, you can easily read and understand someone else’s code.
- Python is also easy to write because of its simple syntax.
Because it is an easy language, it is used in schools and universities to introduce students to programming. Python is for both startups and big companies.
2. Readable
The Python language is designed to make developers life easy. Reading a Python code is like reading an English sentence. This is one of the key reason that makes Python best for beginners.
Python uses indentation instead of curly braces, unlike other programming languages. This makes the code look clean and easier to understand.
3. Interpreted Language
Python is an interpreted language, meaning that it executes code line by line, making it easy to test and debug. It comes with the IDLE (Interactive Development Environment), which provides an interactive interpreter that follows the REPL structure (Read-Evaluate-Print-Loop). This structure allows you to write a line of code, execute it immediately, and see the output, making it ideal for experimentation and learning. If an error occurs, Python displays the entire stack trace, helping you quickly identify and fix issues in your code.
4. Dynamically-Typed Language
Python is not statically-typed like Java. You don’t need to declare data type while defining a variable. The interpreter determines this at runtime based on the types of the parts of the expression. This is easy for programmers but can create runtime errors.
Python follows duck-typing. It means, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.”, allowing objects to be used based on their behavior rather than their explicit type. This flexibility can speed up development but requires careful testing to avoid unexpected type-related errors.
5. Object-Oriented
Python is primarily an object-oriented programming language but supports both functional and object-oriented programming, giving developers flexibility in their approach. In Python, everything is treated as an object, including data types and functions, making it easy to create complex data structures. It embraces core OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) concepts like inheritance, which allows classes to inherit attributes and methods from other classes, and polymorphism, which enables objects to be treated as instances of their parent class.
This combination of features makes Python a versatile language for building large, maintainable applications with reusable code. The ability to switch between object-oriented and functional programming as needed also makes it ideal for diverse programming tasks.
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6. Popular and Large Community Support
Python has one of the largest communities on StackOverflow and Meetup. If you need help, the community will answer your questions.
They also already have many answered questions about Python.
7. Open-Source
Python is open-source and the community is always contributing to it to improve it. It is free and its source code is freely available to the public. You can download Python from the official Python Website.
8. Large Standard Library
The standard library is large and has many packages and modules with common and important functionality. If you need something that is available in this standard library, you don’t need to write it from scratch. Because of this, you can focus on more important things.
You can also install packages from the PyPI (Python Package Index) if you want even more functionality.
9. Platform-Independent
Python is platform-independent. If you write a program, it will run on different platforms like Windows, Mac and Linux. You don’t need to write them separately for each platform.
10. Extensible and Embeddable
Python is extensible. You can use code from other languages like C++ in your Python code.
It is also embeddable. You can embed your Python code in other languages like C++.
11. GUI Support
You can use Python to create GUI (Graphical User Interfaces). You can use tkinter, PyQt, wxPython or Pyside for this.
Python features a huge number of GUI frameworks available for it to variety of other cross-platform solutions. It binds to platform-specific technologies.
12. High-level Language
Python is a high-level language and C++ is mid-level. It is easy to understand and closer to the user. You don’t need to remember system architecture or manage the memory.
Summary
So now we know that Python is an interpreted, high-level and general-purpose programing language . It’s design philosophy emphasizes code readability with its notable use of serious whitespace. It is also scalable. These were some important features of Python.
I hope that our article was fruitful to you and has helped you to choose your path.