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@<George V>, @<Louis F> & @<Will J>
Lightweight history of Python.
@<George V>
Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language.
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the language's core manifesto philosophy is summarized in the document "The Zen of Python" (PEP 20), which includes aphorisms such as:
- Beautiful is better than ugly.
- Explicit is better than implicit.
- Simple is better than complex.
- Complex is better than complicated.
- Readability counts.
TS; RE python -c import this
Python was conceived by a Dutch chap called Guido van Rossum (him 👉) way back in the [late] 1980s as a successor to the ABC programming language.
Guido began the implementation solo in 1989.
Python really is sort of the next version of ABC with all the things that were great about ABC retained, and all the things I thought were not so successful in ABC removed...
~ Guido (probably)
P.S. the language was named after Monty Python's Flying Circus!
Python's first public release was 1991-02-20 (which pretty ancient for a programming language.).
This is Python, an extensible interpreted programming language that combines remarkable power with very clear syntax.
This is version 0.9 (the first beta release), patchlevel 1.
Source: https://www.tuhs.org/Usenet/alt.sources/1991-February/001749.html
I don't know...
...I wasn't writing code quite yet!
I was 7 years old.
Introduced things such as:
- Improved OS support for Mac and Windows 💻
- List Comprehension 🎡
- Named and keyword argument unpacking e.g.
f(*args, **kw) - Import renaming/aliasing e.g.
import name as othername - Introduction of
IndentationError🙌
Never 2. Shedders don't let Shedders use Python 2.
~ TDS Engineering Handbook
This is the current major version of the language.
I think that, honestly, the mistake that all us of in the Python core and actually the whole Python community, the mistake we made was underestimating Python's popularity.
~ Guido (again), innit
If in doubt, use 3.9 (latest supported across AWS, Azure and GCP).
Latest stable release (correct at the time of writing) is 3.11.4.
Present day Python from a total newbie's perspective.
@<Louis F>
- Just 12 months ago I knew NO Python.
- I had NEVER used it before.
- My background was Microsoft using C# and SQL Server.
I'm thrust onto a project where we're using Python (and only the standard library).
I was ripped from my cosy, capitalist Microsoft bubble.
Literally the worst.
- Clean M1 Mac
- Conflicts with pre-installed Python
- Packages and other bits not working on M1
- Updates required to XCode Command Line Tools
- Homebrew got buggered
- Fudging
~/.zshrcwith environment variables
This part of the process still SUCKS in my opinion. It shouldn't take me half a day to fix all this crap.
Using Python for the first time meant A LOT of learning. Here's some of the stuff I learned...
- No curly braces!
- No semi-colons!
- WHERE IS THE MIS-INDENTED LINE?!
The process of importing my first module:
- That module definitely exists.
- That module most definitely exists.
- THE MODULE MOST DEFINITELY EXISTS YOU STUPID THING.
- Oh, the
initfile only has one_at the start...
This took me bloody ages but was an absolute saviour.
Definitely one of those things where reading doesn't help too much.
Thanks to George for spending hours sitting with me and helping me learn this.
Eventually one day, it clicks.
Make sure you do all of your tinkering in a venv.
I learnt this the hard way.
This feature is ace!
It's like Linq but miles easier to remember how to do.
Great for grabbing things from lists (and stuff) without having loops all over.
Pretty much swallows up arguments that aren't declared as positional arguments.
SUPER useful for creating instances of model objects when you're reading in data.
What are my thoughts on the old snake now?
Mentioned before but this bit sucks.
Would maybe put me off using Python if was a complete beginner.
No matter what you need, there's a package for it... that's great!
Whether they're any good or not, different question.
Having pip and access to whole world of stuff is great.
Don't reinvent the wheel!
Once it's installed, Python is super quick to start developing with.
It's great for fiddling with things or if you need to write a quick script to automate a rubbish task or something.
Much more lightweight than C#.
- I am a Python convert
- It's only becoming more popular
- Coding classes that used to teach Java are now teaching Python
- There genuinely is (or seems to be) a package for everything
- It does not take long to pick up this language
- Installing Python is so bad
A look at what's in store for Python
@<Will J>
Python is still growing in popularity and has a wide variety of uses:
- Data processing
- AI and ML
- Education
- Web and APIs
- Web scraping
- Game development
- IoT / Raspberry Pi
- Scientific computing
Why is it the go to language in the classroom?
- Simple to read
- Versatile
- A package for everything!
- Used after education
Guido doesn't think it's likely.
2 to 3 was such a pain that it will be avoided at all costs.
Underlying changes to C under the hood might force it in the far future though.
source: Q&A with Guido van Rossum, Inventor of Python
- Here to stay
- PyData
- Get learning!
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