Over the last few years, the Python programming language (named after Monty Python’s Flying Circus) has gained popularity and matured. More software is being developed with Python and more contributors are donating their time, talents, and energy to enrich the language (thanks in part to a move to Sourceforge). There’s a non-profit foundation that owns and promotes Python (the Python Software Foundation) and a core group of full-time Python architects (thanks to Zope Corporporation). There’s a formal process for changing the language (Python Enhancement Proposals, or PEPs) and an international society of companies that base their business on Python (the Python Business Forum, or PBF). All sorts of programs, from convenience scripts to large, complex systems (like Zope) are being developed in Python.
Guided by Python inventor and chief architect Guido van Rossum, Python has remained true to its basic tenets: be simple, clear, readable, powerful, and backwards compatible. Python syntax is clean and relies more on readable keywords than punctuation. Simple indentation indicates block structure. The language’s features are also general and regular: there are no context-dependent “conveniences,” and thus, no surprises. “Do the simplest thing that can possibly work,” one of the mottos of the Extreme Programming movement, is a Python mantra as well.
Python 2.2, the most recent revision, reinforces these basic principles. (For a good introduction to Python, see “Python: Yes, You SHOULD Be Using It” in the April 2002 issue, available…
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