Python is one of the most popular and fastest growing programming languages in the world today. First released in 1991 by its creator Guido van Rossum, Python has evolved over the decades from a simple scripting language into a versatile, robust, and efficient language capable of powering large applications. Let’s take a look at the origins of Python and how it has developed into what it is today.
Creation of Python at CWI
Python was first conceived in the late 1980s by Guido van Rossum at the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) in the Netherlands. Van Rossum had been looking for a hobby programming project to keep him occupied during the quiet holiday period at the end of 1990. He decided to develop a new scripting language that would be more advanced than shell scripting, yet easier to learn than more powerful languages like C. The goal was to create a practical, all-purpose language good for automation tasks and system administration.
Van Rossum named his new language “Python” after the popular BBC comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Python 1.0 was released to alt.sources in February 1991.
Early development under Guido van Rossum
In the early days of Python, van Rossum continued as its sole developer and released updated versions from the CWI offices. While Python gained some early adopters in the first few years after its debut, it was still relatively unknown outside academic circles.
The early Python versions already had many of the key features that would come to define Python – significant whitespace, dynamic typing, an interactive console, exception handling, modules and packages system, and Python’s simple yet iconic import of this syntax.
Growth in popularity in the 1990s
During the second half of the 1990s, Python’s userbase started expanding rapidly. More people were discovering its benefits as an interpreted, object-oriented, and high-level programming language. Python had good integration abilities for C and C++ applications, allowing it to be used for scripting or connecting components. By the late 1990s, Python was being adopted by major organizations like NASA and Google.
Release of Python 2.0 in 2000
A major milestone was the release of Python 2.0 in 2000, which added many new capabilities that took Python from a simple scripting language to an efficient general-purpose language competing with the likes of Perl, Tcl, and Ruby. Important additions in 2.0 included full garbage collection, Unicode support, list comprehensions, and a new modular packaging and component system.
The packaging system in particular helped establish a vibrant ecosystem of third-party Python libraries and modules. It laid the foundations for the Python Package Index (PyPI) hosting thousands of reusable packages today.
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Transition to Python 3.0 in 2008
By the mid-2000s, changes and new functionality were getting harder to add into the existing Python 2.x codebase originally created in the early 1990s. Van Rossum announced plans for a major Python 3.0 rewrite with a clean foundation to support future growth.
Python 3.0 introduced several breaking changes like a new Unicode string model and new versions of built-ins like print and exec. This enabled cleaning up a lot of old “cruft” from early Python versions. Unfortunately, it hampered compatibility with the huge existing codebase of Python 2.x.
The transition process to Python 3 was gradual, taking over a full decade. Python 2.7, the last major 2.x version, finally lost official support in 2020. Today Python 3 is in active use across industries and education.
Release of modern Python versions
In the 2010s and beyond, Python development has focused on incremental evolution guided by PEPs (Python Enhancement Proposals). Modern versions have introduced useful additions like:
– F-strings in Python 3.6 – simplified string interpolation
– Async IO framework in Python 3.7 – for asynchronous, non-blocking programming
– Type hints in Python 3.5 – improved code analysis and tooling
– Walrus operator in Python 3.8 – convenient assignment inside expressions
Performance and multiprocessing support have also improved steadily with each new Python release.
Use in web development
One major arena where Python gets extensive use today is in web development. Python’s standard libraries include powerful tools like HTTP networking, JSON parsing, and HTML generation out of the box. Third party libraries like Django, Flask, and Pyramid have enabled Python to become one of the most popular server-side languages on the web.
Python’s synchronous capabilities combined with the new async IO support also make it well suited for modern web architectures using asynchronous events and non-blocking IO.
Use in data science and AI
Another prominent application area driving Python adoption over the last decade is data analysis and machine learning. Python’s libraries like NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, scikit-learn, and TensorFlow have turned it into the number one choice for data science disciplines. Python’s flexibility, interactivity through Jupyter notebooks, and ease of use gives it a distinct advantage over lower-level languages like C/C++ and Java in this domain.
As data analysis grows across industries, Python is becoming essential knowledge even for non-computer science roles. Its popularity amongst professional data scientists also keeps increasing year over year according to surveys.
Future development possibilities
Python has demonstrated remarkable vitality and earned a solid, respected position in the programming landscape over 30+ years of existence. Guido van Rossum has stepped back from direct control, letting the Python Steering Council direct core development. But active evolution continues under PEP leadership with upcoming features like pattern matching, new typing capabilities, and faster bytecode execution.
With its large talent pool, vibrant ecosystem, scalability to multiple application domains, integration abilities and sheer programmer productivity, Python is poised to remain a dominant force in the programming world for many years. Its future looks brighter than ever as it continues benefitting both programmers and organizations.