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Python is an advanced scripting language that is being used successfully to glue together large software components. It spans multiple platforms (including, but not limited to, Windows, Unix and Mac), and application domains. Python is an object-oriented language with high-level data structures, dynamic typing, and dynamic binding. Python has been around since 1991, and has a very active user community. For more information, see the Python web site. Like Tcl, Python is easily extensible with C/C++/Java code, and easily embeddable in applications. Many extensions already exist, including access modules for commercial databases, numerical libraries, graphics packages, and (on Windows) COM clients and servers. Python even uses Tk, the Tcl GUI toolkit, for a de-facto standard portable GUI toolkit. Unlike Tcl, however, Python supports object-oriented programming. Python programmers can create classes, use multiple inheritance, define methods, overload operators, and so on. Popular application domains for Python include web scripting, rapid development of GUI applications, and controlling scientific applications. For example, Lawrence Livermore National Labs is committed to replacing a home-grown scripting environment for its scientists with a Python-based one. As another example of a large Python applications, CNRI has developed Grail, a complete web browser written in Python.
Guido van Rossum is the author of the Python programming language. He started working on Python in 1990, while he was a researcher in distributed systems and multimedia applications at CWI, the Center for Mathemathics and Computer Science in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His previous experience in language design was as a member of the team at CWI that created ABC, an elegant teaching language, in the early 80s. Python attracted international attention and Guido was invited to the USA to work on Python as a guest researcher for the National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD. He is currently employed by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) in Reston, VA, where he is member of a team working on Python, mobile agent systems, and distributed web applications, and continues to be the "benevolent dictator" of the flourishing on-line community of Python users. |