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COMPUTER SOFTWARE APPLICATION - CITS
Features, Setting Up Path Basic Syntax, Comments, Variable
Python is a feature rich high-level, interpreted, interactive and object-oriented scripting language.
Features of Python
There are some important features of Python programming language...
1 Easy to Learn
This is one of the most important reasons for the popularity of Python. Python has a limited set of keywords. Its
features such as simple syntax, usage of indentation to avoid clutter of curly brackets and dynamic typing that
doesn’t necessitate prior declaration of variable help a beginner to learn Python quickly and easily.
2 Interpreter Based
Any Programming languages is either compiler based or interpreter based. Python is an interpreter based
language. The interpreter takes one instruction from the source code at a time, translates it into machine code and
executes it. Instructions before the first occurrence of error are executed. With this feature, it is easier to debug
the program and thus proves useful for the beginner level programmer to gain confidence gradually. Python
therefore is a beginner-friendly language.
3 Interactive
Python prompt >>> works on the principle of REPL (Read – Evaluate – Print – Loop). You can type any valid
Python expression here and press Enter. Python interpreter immediately returns the response and the prompt
comes back to read the next expression like this >>>.
Example 1:
>>> 2*3+1
7
Example 2:
>>> print (“Hello World”)
Hello World
The interactive mode is especially useful to get familiar with a library and test out its functionality. You can try out
small code snippets in interactive mode before writing a program.
4 MultiParadigm
Python is a completely object-oriented language. Everything in a Python program is an object. However, Python
conveniently encapsulates its object orientation to be used as an imperative or procedural language-such as C. Python
also provides certain functionality that resembles functional programming. Moreover, certain third-party tools have been
developed to support other programming paradigms such as aspect-oriented and logic programming.
5 Standard Library
Even though it has a very few keywords (only Thirty Five), Python software is distributed with a standard library
made of large number of modules and packages. Thus Python has out of box support for programming needs
such as serialization, data compression, internet data handling, and many more. Python is known for its batteries
included approach.
6 Open Source and Cross Platform
Python’s standard distribution can be downloaded from https://www.python.org/downloads/ without any restrictions.
In addition, the source code is also freely available, which is why it comes under open source category.
Python is a cross-platform language. Pre-compiled binaries are available for use on various operating system
platforms such as Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Android OS. A Python program can be easily ported from one OS
platform to other.
7 GUI Applications
Python’s standard distribution has an excellent graphics library called TKinter. It is a Python port for the vastly
popular GUI toolkit called TCL/Tk. You can build attractive user-friendly GUI applications in Python. Examples are
PyQt, WxWidgets, PySimpleGUI etc.
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CITS : IT&ITES - Computer Software Application - Lesson 120 - 137