When it comes to programming languages in the cloud, most languages are usable,
but there are a handful of languages that stand out from the rest.
Let's talk about one of those notable languages now - Python.
Python is not a new programming language. In fact, it's more than 30 years old.
Since technology tends to favor the new and shiny,
it might be surprising to see Python continue to grow in popularity.
But this goes to show that the design of the language has stood the test of
time, despite some rough patches along the way.
Python was created by Dutch programmer, Guido van Rossum,
and had its first release in 1990. Often,
programming languages are designed to accomplish one specific task and this
limits the uses of those languages. But Python is a multi-paradigm language.
Python is a great object-oriented programming language,
but if you would rather write programs in a functional programming style,
you can do that too.
This flexibility is one of the things that has led Python to being the go-to
language for so many fields and industries.
Let's compare Python to another popular and wonderful programming language -
Ruby. Ruby is used primarily for web development.
It can be used for other things, but for the most part,
it is used to create web applications because it has a great community,
frameworks, and libraries for doing so.
Python on the other hand is used for a boatload of different things.
Are you writing a script to clean up files on your computer?
Python can be used for that. Writing a web application? Python has you covered.
Working on a serverless project? Python is there for you.
Is data more your thing? No language is used in data science more than Python.
Teaching programming to kids and college students?
Python is a popular choice for this. Working on animation? Believe it or not,
Python is used by animators too. I think you get the point.
Of all of the programming languages that you're likely to come into contact
with,
you probably won't find a single one that is used by more non-programmers than
Python. There are many reasons why Python is so popular,
but one of the main reasons people first come to Python and stick with it is
because it has such a simple syntax. Traditionally,
the first program that a person writes in any language is "hello world",
which simply print some text to the screen.
Let's compare this using two different languages to demonstrate why Python
leaves such a good first impression on people,
encouraging them to stick with the language.
Here's the hello world program written in another widely used language, Java.
A lot is going on here. Why are there so many highlighted words?
As you can imagine,
someone new to programming could potentially be overwhelmed and confused by what
they're writing. Now let's look at Python's take on this same program.
With a single line and only one well-named function,
you can experience your first programming win and write some text to the screen.
Syntax isn't everything. And this example is overly simple, but in general,
this pattern holds true for most things that you'll try to accomplish in Python
when compared to many other languages.
The other big things that lead to the popularity of a language are the general
availability,
existing community and the availability of libraries to help you achieve your
goals.
The Python index has over 250,000 packages published to it that are
available for you to download and use in your projects. As for availability,
Python can run on nearly any device and operating system that is used today.
And that means you can write a program on your Windows machine and share it with
someone using a Mac and still have a good chance that it will run properly for
them. If you're on the fence about learning Python,
here's some information that might convince you to dive in.
According to the 2020 Stack Overflow Developer Survey,
Python is consistently loved by developers who are already using it,
and is the number one language that other developers wish that they were using.
According to that same survey and Indeed's salary calculator,
in 2020 the average Python developer in the United States made around
$118,000.
And Python has first-party support from all major cloud providers.
Interested in learning more?
A Cloud Guru has a variety of courses that will help you learn Python,
from the very basics to advanced usage,
to using it with your cloud provider of choice,
all in a hands-on way to make sure that what you're learning sticks.
Did you enjoy this video and want to see more?
Be sure to leave a like on the video and let us know in the comments what other
cloud programming languages you'd like to see us cover.