The world of Programming Languages Part - 2

Hi=)

So, today I am gonna continue with the previous theme i.e. exploring The World of Programming Languages !!

Q. What’s on today’s menu ?

1. How about Python !!

Yes, funny enough, this is the name of a programming language and quite a famous one at that.

Let’s touch up a bit on history. Actually there has been a slow but steady move towards abstractness, remember last time we talked about how tedious it would be to tell the computer about every tiny little detail regarding the memory and tiny little operations.

Well, it’s tedious for programmers too and that’s the reason why people have made constant efforts to change programming languages so that they may focus more upon the problem at hand rather than being bogged by the details of execution.

And it would be pretty safe to say, I think, that being able to deal with “floating points” i.e. the numbers which have fractions with them like 1.23 or 3.234 etc and the support for various languages characters  have been  major themes in the design of the “new age “ languages.

Consider the two codes for printing the simple statement “Hello World” on the computer screen.

BTW don’t fret about these codes, just skim over them, a glance perhaps.

C code

1. # include
2. # include

     3.   use namespace std;

     4.   int main() {

     5.   printf(“ Hello World “);

     6.   return 0;

     7. }

And now for the same job in Python

1. print(“ Hello World”)

And that’s that !!

See, most modern languages have made it dirt-easy to do the most basic of tasks, routines in the languages but a major pay-off of making programming languages smarter is that they have become slower so much so that these languages themselves are implemented in C/C++ so as to speed up the entire system..

Now, where is Python used. Well, this is the most glamorous point about Python.

1. YouTube
2. Dropbox
3. Google
4. Quora
5. Bittorrent

And there are many, many more such well-known applications of Python.

Now, the basic difference between Python and C/C++ is that the former is an interpreted language while the latter one is a compiled one. In simpler language this means that the  “customer service” of Python is quite prompt whereas that of the C/C++ is more likely to give every tiny little detail that you may possibly require.

However, as beginners we don’t need to develop websites with Python, or hack someone’s computer;) but walk down the much trodden path of doing some standard programs and get to
“know “ Python on more intimate terms.

BTW, you remember that scene in the movie “The Social Network” when  the Mark has organized a Code Jam to hire some people. You know what languages they were coding in ?

It was Python !!

Though they were using it at a much more advanced level, something that’s near the horizon from our perspective.

Hey, I have some useful links regarding Python which I really think that you should check out and if you already are won over by Python then these links would be lifesavers for a beginner.

> Learn Python

> Python Org

> Learn Python the Hard Way

Personally, I think that it’s like learning to walk. First steps are always supposed to be the most difficult ones and it only gets easier after that. So, let’s end this post on this note and the next time I am gonna talk about yet another language that has a  completely different design philosophy.

TIll then,

Happy Coding !!

Himanshu Sharma=)