How has Python remained so popular?

In 1991, the Python programming language was created. It is a dynamically typed object oriented language that is often used for scripting and web applications today. It is usually paired with frameworks such as Django or Flask on the backend.

Since its creation, it's still extremely relevant and one of the most widely used programming languages in the world. But why is this the case? Today we will look at the reason why the Python programming language has still been extremely popular over the last couple of years.

Used by bigger companies

Python is widely used by bigger technology companies. When bigger tech companies (think companies such as Google) use Python, the engineers that work there also use it. If the developers use Python at their jobs, they will take it to their next job and pass the knowledge on. In addition, Python continues to be used organically when these developers use their knowledge of this language in any of their personal projects they have as well, futher spreading its usage.

Plenty of styles are not used

In Python, whitespace is important, but in other languages such as JavaScript and C++ it is not. The whitespace is used to dictate the scope of the statements in that indent. By making whitespace important it reduces the need for things like braces and semicolons in your code.

That reduction alone can make your code look simpler and cleaner. People are always more willing to try a language that looks and feels cleaner, because it seems easier to learn psychologically.

Variety of libraries and third-party support

Being around as long as it has, Python has plenty of built-in functionality. It has an extremely large standard library with plenty of things that you can use in your code.

On top of that, it has plenty of third-party support libraries that make things even easier. All of this gained functionality allows programmers to focus on the more important logic that is vital to their application's core functionality. This makes programmers more efficient, and who doesn't like efficiency?

Object oriented

As mentioned earlier, Python is an object oriented programming language. Due to it being object oriented, more people are likely to adopt it because object orient programming allows developers to model their code very similar to real world behavior.

Built-in testing

Python allows you to import a package called unittest. This package is a full unit testing suite with setup and teardown functions. Having this built in, it is something that is stable for developers to use to test their applications.

Readability and learnability

As we mentioned earlier, the whitespace is important, therefore we do not need brackets and semicolons. Also Python is dynamically typed so it is easier to create and use variables while not really having to worry about the type.

All of these topics could be difficult for new programmers to learn. Python makes it easier by removing some of the difficult parts and having nicer looking code. The reduction of difficulty allows people to choose Python as their first programming language more often than others. (This was my first programming language.)

Well documented

Building upon the standard libraries and the vast amount of third-party packages, the code in those applications is usually well documented. They tend to have plenty of helpful comments and tons of additional documentation to explain what is happening.

From a developer stand point this is crucial. Having great documentation can make or break a language's usage for me.

Multiple applications

To top it off, Python has many applications it can be used in. It can be used to develop games for fun, web applications to aid businesses, and data science applications. The wide variety of usage attracts more and more people to Python, because when you learn the language you now have the power of versatility. The scope of applications is vast.

With all of these benefits, who wouldn't consider Python as their next language of choice? There are many options out there, but Python tends to be superior when it comes to readability, support, documentation, and its wide application usage.

About the author

Antonio Cucciniello is a Software Engineer with a background in C, C++ and JavaScript (Node.Js) from New Jersey. His most recent project called Edit Docs is an Amazon Echo skill that allows users to edit Google Drive files using your voice. He loves building cool things with software, reading books on self-help and improvement, finance, and entrepreneurship. Follow him on twitter @antocucciniello, and follow him on GitHub here: https://github.com/acucciniello.