The document provides an overview of the history and key aspects of the Python programming language. It discusses Python's origins in 1989 and growth in popularity. It also summarizes Python's main uses, features like object orientation and dynamic typing, comparisons to other languages like Perl, and getting started resources.

2. About two weeks of time off with no plans

3. Had it all in my head

4. Fat Mac with Lightspeed C on 20 MB hard drive

5. First code: a parser generator

6. Soon followed: a running program!

7. TIOBE Programming Community Index for March 2011 Position Mar 2011 Position Mar 2010 Programming Language Ratings Mar 2011 Delta Mar 2010 1 1 Java 19.711% +2.20% 2 2 C 15.262% -2.02% 3 4 C++ 8.754% -0.86% 4 6 C# 7.210% +2.95% 5 3 PHP 6.566% -3.34% 6 7 Python 5.737% +1.51% 7 5 (Visual) Basic 4.710% -1.86% 8 12 Objective-C 3.518% +1.55% 9 8 Perl 1.969% -1.85% 10 10 JavaScript 1.866% -0.78%

9. Not just a scripting language

10. Not just another Perl

11. Easy to learn, read, use

15. web programming (client and server side)

16. ad hoc programming ("scripting")

17. steering scientific applications

18. extension language

19. XML processing

20. database applications

21. GUI applications

22. education

24. NASA (several projects)

25. NYSE (one of only three languages "on the floor")

26. Industrial Light & Magic (everything)

27. Yahoo! (Yahoo mail & groups)

28. RealNetworks (function and load testing)

29. RedHat (Linux installation tools)

30. LLNL, Fermilab (steering scientific applications)

31. Zope Corporation (content management)

32. ObjectDomain (embedded Jython in UML tool)

33. Alice project at CMU (accessible 3D graphics)

34. More success stories at www.pythonology.com

36. Packages, modules, classes, functions

37. Exception handling

38. Dynamic typing, polymorphism

39. Static scoping

40. Operator overloading

43. More maintainable code

44. Fewer “magical” side effects

45. More “safety” guarantees

46. Better Java integration

48. Explicit is better than implicit.

49. Simple is better than complex.

50. Complex is better than complicated.

51. Flat is better than nested.

52. Sparse is better than dense.

53. Readability counts.

54. Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.

55. Although practicality beats purity.

56. Errors should never pass silently.

57. Unless explicitly silenced.

58. In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.

59. There should be one— and preferably only one —obvious way to do it.

60. Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.

61. Now is better than never.

62. Although never is often better than right now.

63. If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.

64. If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.

67. >>> help()

68. Indentation def foo(x): if x is not None and x == 0: bar() baz() else: qux(x) foo(x - 1)

71. Long integers

73. numbers.Complex

75. Unicode: u”unicode asdf”

77. Byte Arrays: bytearray()

81. User-defined methods

82. Generator functions

83. Built-in functions

84. Built-in methods

85. Class Types

86. Classic Classes

87. Class instances

89. Class instances

90. Files

92. Frame objects

93. Traceback objects

94. Slice objects

95. Static method objects

96. Class method objects

106. from sys import stdout, stderr

107. from os import system as hack_them_all

109. os

110. re

111. struct

112. os.path

113. pickle, cPickle, shelve

114. socket, select, threading