Introduction to Versions of Python
Python is the broadly used website or web-based application development process, which is recognized for its object-oriented features like higher efficiency, exceptional performance, reliability, etc. Since 1994, Python has been released in various versions, like Python 1.0, Python 1.5, Python 1.5.2, Python 1.6, Python 2.0, Python 2.0.1, etc. The list of the final release of Python versions are Python 2.7.13 released on 17 Dec 2016, Python 3.5.3 released on 17 Jan 2017, Python 3.6.10 released on 18 Dec 2019, and Python 3.8.2 released on 24 Feb 2020.
Guido Russom invents python. Python has limitless capabilities. If we see the code of python, it is very easy to understand. It does not use curly braces every time to define the particular scope. Instead, it used spaces. Generally, as per the convention, four spaces are used to describe the particular scope in python. We generally refer to two python versions, i.e. 2.x and 3.x. by 2020, python 2.x is getting over. All the support is not provided further. So, it is good practice to start with the 3.x version. The current version of python is 3.7.3, as I am writing this. And 3.8 is under development.
Python 2 V/S Python 3
As a newcomer, everybody asks one question whether to learn python 2 or start with python 3. And the answer is Python 3. Because both are mostly the same, only some new features got added in python 3. If you knew Python 2 and wanted to get python 3, you can do it easily.
The difference is like in Python 2; you print something like below:
print “Hello World!”
But in Python 3, we are adding parenthesis to print statement as below:
print(“Hello World!”)
There is no hard and fast rule to select one of them, but yes as per my opinion, you should go ahead with Python 3.
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How to install Python?
If you are on MAC/ Linux, then it already has python install in your machine. But what if you are on the window? For the Windows operating system, you need to install Python.
You can visit the official site https://www.python.org. Then go to downloads. And install the latest version as per your requirement.
Python 3
Python 3 is an improved version. It supports Unicode characters. If we dive some integer, it gives exact output. Earlier in python 2, we get a rounded value for the same. Most of the IT companies switching towards python3. It gets faster with every newer version. Also, Python has big library support for python3. Companies like Facebook, Instagram are using Python 3 as their language. The most important thing to make a note is Python 2.7 will not be supported after 2020.
Is there any need for Python2 then?
- Yes, you can’t say it’s fully vanished. Some companies are still stuck to python 2.7. There are using some libraries which are not fully supported by python 3. If you follow to code using Python 3, you need to learn python 2.7. Even if you are using 2.7 versions, don’t worry. Because all the code we write in python older version can be easily upgraded to the newer version of python.
- Now we have seen a lot of things related to the python version. Now you have decided to learn python. But the next question is where to start. How to plan your python learning? Don’t worry today; I am going to share with you some of the learning material. First thing, there are a lot of things available online for free. for python first, you need to check whether it is on your machine or not.
You can check this with the following command.
- Go to your command prompt or terminal if you are on MAC.
- write “Python” and simply enter
- You will get the message with version no of python and some information.
- Suppose it does not exist on your machine. Then you will get a message like ‘python’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
- If you don’t have one, install it with some simple installation steps mentioned above from python’s official site.
Versions Python2 and Python3 can be used on the same machine?
Yes, if you have a requirement for both, then you can use both versions on the same system. But, every time you work on a particular project at that time, you need to remember the version you are working on. It would help if you avoided conflicts between the two versions.
If by default, Python 2.7 is there, then you need to get python 3 explicitly.
Future scope of Python
- We can say that Python is having an endless scope because today, in every area, python is working as a helping center. Python is everywhere in Big data, web designing, automation, AI, machine learning, etc., and these technologies are the future of IT.
- Python has a lot of community support. And many programmers grow with this support very quickly. If you stuck somewhere, you could find the way by these communities out there. Python is designed in a way that makes some lines of code in a single line. Programmers love to write this way.
Let’s see the following two examples.
Python code:
Print (“Hello World!!!”)
Java Code:
class Abc{
public static void main(String[] args){
out.println(“Hello World!!!”);
}
}
As you can see, Python is straighter to write the code. Python is an interpreted language, so it takes less time to run. Python is one of the favourite programming languages amongst all programmers. And one most popular thing about Python it can be integrated with other languages easily. For Python to work with Java, we have Jython.
You can learn this language on its official site. Also, you can register online for the different python tutorials.
Conclusion
If you want to start your programming career, you can start with a language like Python. This is the language that has got tremendous love amongst all the programmers. You will get bright career opportunities with Python.
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This is a guide to Versions of Python. Here we discuss the Introduction, Python 2 V/S Python 3, How to install Python, etc. You can also go through our other suggested articles to learn more–
