Python is a programming language created by Guido Van Rossum in the late 1980s.
You might be surprised to learn that Python is 30 years old!
A common misconception is that Python is a scripting language. It’s used at companies from Reddit, to Netflix, to Dropbox.
This part is a bit of a stain on Python’s history. Python 3 was released 2008, and its adoption was slow. First and foremost because it took popular packages a fair amount of time to port over their code.
This debate is now over. Python 2 will reach end-of-life in 2020, meaning that important updates - including security updates - will stop being released. That’s why this course focuses on Python3 only.
Python the language is open source.
Python has a wide variety of applications such as:
Python has an incredibly rich fully featured standard library, as well as the PyPI Package Index for 3rd party packages, which as of February 2019 contains 167,107 packages.
Python is considered to be a “batteries included” language, because the standard library contains a majority of the libraries and packages you’ll need in a standard application.
The absolute best part about Python is the incredibly supportive community.
The biggest yearly conference is PyCon US with approximately 4000 attendees.
There are many local user groups worldwide, with many listed on this wiki.
There are many supportive groups for women and non-binary developers, such as PyLadies and DjangoGirls. These organizations have chapters in most major cities.