Understanding Why Python is So Cool
Many programming languages are available today. In fact, a student can spend an entire semester in college studying computer languages and still not hear about them all. (I did just that during my college days.) You’d think that programmers would be happy with all these programming languages and just choose one to talk to the computer, but they keep inventing more.
Programmers keep creating new languages for good reason. Each language has something special to offer — something it does exceptionally well. In addition, as computer technology evolves, so do the programming languages in order to keep up. Because creating an application is all about efficient communication, many programmers know multiple programming languages so that they can choose just the right language for a particular task. One language might work better to obtain data from a database, and another might create user interface elements especially well.
As with every other programming language, Python does some things excep- tionally well, and you need to know what they are before you begin using
- You might be amazed by the really cool things you can do with Python. Knowing a programming language’s strengths and weaknesses helps you use it better as well as avoid frustration by not using the language for things it doesn’t do well. The following sections help you make these sorts of deci- sions about Python.