This weekend was a long one for me. Unfortunately, I caught a cold and had to stay at home for the whole weekend resting and waiting to feel better. While sitting and wondering what I could do (I wasn’t in a mood to work on anything), I decided to take a look at Python programming language. It’s been a while that I have developed a kind of interest to try this language but never had a chance to take some time out of a busy schedule. Many people were telling me good words about it, how elegant it is and how easy it is to write code using it, but I needed to try it to have my own opinion. Although I could only spend 2-3 hours during the whole weekend trying it, I would like to express my first impression of this language.
What I Liked
- There are plenty of learning resources. Although I could have started with a video tutorial, I chose to start with this tutorial by Google which seemed to me quite concise and straight to the point. It was showing all the important points without getting too much into details. Just what I needed.
- Coming from a programming background, I found it extremely easy to start coding immediately in python. The language syntax may seem odd in the beginning but the learning curve is smooth. It’s easy to grasp the python way of coding, although, it may take some time to forget putting the semicolon at the end of the line though.
- The language seems elegant and rich in features. It has most of the features found in other languages such as Java, C#, and PHP.
- The fact that you can write code in the command line was interesting to me.
- Working with lists and tuple structures was extremely easy and handy.
What I Did Not Like
- The fact that there are no curly braces and semicolons at the end of the line might cause a little headache for those of us who come with a background from the C line of languages (C++, Java, C#, PHP, JavaScript, etc.). Omitting semicolons looked easier to me than maintaining the lining of code to keep track of which code belongs to which block. After you get used to it, the whole code starts to look more elegant and easy to read.
- You can define variable names same as built-ins overriding system variables. I think this could be a big point of confusion for newcomers.
Summary
I admit, evaluating a programming language by spending three hours learning it is extremely hard and might lead to biased judgments. However, I write this review solely because of my positive impression with this language. I like learning new programming languages as almost each of them have good parts and practices from which we all might learn and benefit. Certainly, python has its share in this and in my opinion is worthy to give a try. For me, my next step should be to find an opportunity to use it in a real life web application and see the experience.
What is your experience with python? Share it with us.
*python logo image source: http://www.vizteams.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/python-logo-master.png
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