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Introduction to a High-Level Programming Language

Characteristics​

  1. General purpose Interpreted
  2. Interactive
  3. Object oriented
  4. High level programming language
  5. Supports functional and structured programming methods
  6. Can be compiled to byte-code for building large applications
  7. Very high-level dynamic data types and supports dynamic type checking
  8. Supports automatic garbage collection
  9. Can be easily integrated with C, C++, COM, ActiveX, CORBA, and Java
  10. Scripting language
  11. Source code available under GNU General Public License (GPL)
  12. Dynamically typed language (means that the type (class) of a variable is only known when the code runs)

Created by Guido van Rossum in 1985-1990

Features​

  1. Easy to learn
  2. Easy to read
  3. Easy to maintain
  4. A broad standard library
  5. Interactive mode
  6. Portable
  7. Extendable
  8. Databases
  9. GUI Programming
  10. Scalable

Facts​

In Python, integer precision is limited only to the constraints of your hardware, Python is well-capable of interpreting literally millions (and even billions) of bits of precision.

import sys

sys.maxsize

sys.float_info

Python autopromotes from int to long int if the value is large

Running

python test.py

Creating executable

chmod +x test.py

./test.py

Like​

  • Positional and Keyword Arguments in a function
  • Concise (not verbose)
  • Grow with the programmer
  • List Comprehensions
  • Default values for arguments in functions