Python is an interpreted programming language developed in 1991 by Guido Van Rossum. This is the high language programming language used nowadays by most big companies like Google, Instagram, and others.
Some of pros and cons of python are described below:
Advantages of python
Open source
Python is an open-source language that mean it can be freely used and distributed everywhere. You can also contribute to this language if you have good programming skills.
Lot of libraries
This language has extensive internal and external libraries that can help you speed up your development work. You don’t need to write the code from the beginning, just use the libraries code.
Object oriented
A python is an object-oriented language i.e. it supports classes, objects, inheritance. You can extend any class or import code of any library easily.
Fast productivity
You can write less code and do more work. For example in doing machine language work you can use ‘NumPy’ and ‘SciPy’ libraries of python.
Integration with xml and database
You can easily work with XML and databases. The most common databases supported by python are PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite.
Easy to read
Python code is very easy to read just like you read the English language. There are no curly braces and indentation is compulsory that make the code more reader-friendly.
Portable language
You can write your code in one computer and run it on any other platform without changing the code. This is not the case with C++ because you need some code editing done before moving your code to another machine. You have to not include system-dependent features of python for high portability.
Good for scalable applications
You can build small applications and then scale them easily. There are all types of shared libraries available that can help your application to scale up.
Maintenance is easy and cost effective
Due to simple to understand code it is fast and easy to update the code. Large applications can be updated at a low cost as compared to other languages.
Asynchronous coding
You can write asynchronous code easily and it creates no problem in doing so. You will not get deadlocks or any other complexity.
Disadvantages of python
Slow in speed
As python is an interpreted language that means each line of code is executed at run time, which makes it slower. Some programming languages that are compiled and executed like C and C++ are much faster than python.
Not good database support
Some of the databases i.e. ODBC and JDBC are not fully supported by python and are under development.
Use high memory
Due to simplicity in code and learning, python on the other hand use high memory. If you want to scale up your application then do consider memory issue. This is due to the dynamic nature of the language that I explain next.
Dynamic in nature
As some of the variables are changed at a run time i.e. integer variable can be changed to string variable so it may create run-time errors. Due to dynamic nature, it also takes more time to execute the application code.
Bad at mobile development
You can build mobile applications in python but deploying and updating mobile applications on android and iOS is very hard and sometimes it is not possible to handle the errors and speed issue.
Learning other languages becomes hard
If you keep using python for a longer time and plans to shift to another language then it becomes harder for you to learn a new language. Python is a very simple language and is a little bit different in syntax than other languages like you not use curly braces and semicolon in python.
Application of python
The application of python is vast. Python is helping different type of industries including:
- Web development
- Desktop applications
- Business applications
- Web scraping applications
- 3d applications
- Image applications
- Data science
- Game development
- Enterprise applications
- Numeric and scientific computing
- Software development
- Embedded applications
- Machine learning
- Video and audio based applications
- Artificial intelligence
- Console based applications
What types of programs are created with python?
Python is a widely-used programming language in the world. Some of the big companies using python include:-
- Netflix
- Spotify
- Dropbox
- Uber
- Instacart
- Lyft