Publisher's Synopsis
The programming language Python was conceived in the late 1980s, [1] and its implementation was started in December 1989[2] by Guido van Rossum at CWI in the Netherlands as a successor to the ABC (programming language) capable of exception handling and interfacing with the Amoeba operating system.[3] Van Rossum is Python's principal author, and his continuing central role in deciding the direction of Python is reflected in the title given to him by the Python community, Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL).[4][5] Python was named for the BBC TV show Monty Python's Flying Circus.[6] Python 2.0 was released on October 16, 2000, with many major new features, including a cycle-detecting garbage collector (in addition to reference counting) for memory management and support for Unicode. However, the most important change was to the development process itself, with a shift to a more transparent and community-backed process.[7] Python 3.0, a major, backwards-incompatible release, was released on December 3, 2008[8] after a long period of testing. Many of its major features have also been backported to the backwards-compatible Python 2.6 and 2.7.[9] In February 1991, van Rossum published the code (labeled version 0.9.0) to alt.sources.[10] Already present at this stage in development were classes with inheritance, exception handling, functions, and the core datatypes of list, dict, str and so on. Also in this initial release was a module system borrowed from Modula-3; Van Rossum describes the module as "one of Python's major programming units."[1] Python's exception model also resembles Modula-3's, with the addition of an else clause.[3] In 1994 comp.lang.python, the primary discussion forum for Python, was formed, marking a milestone in the growth of Python's userbase.[1] Python reached version 1.0 in January 1994. The major new features included in this release were the functional programming tools lambda, map, filter and reduce. Van Rossum stated that "Python acquired lambda, reduce(), filter() and map(), courtesy of a Lisp hacker who missed them and submitted working patches."[11] The last version released while Van Rossum was at CWI was Python 1.2. In 1995, Van Rossum continued his work on Python at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) in Reston, Virginia whence he released several versions. By version 1.4, Python had acquired several new features. Notable among these are the Modula-3 inspired keyword arguments (which are also similar to Common Lisp's keyword arguments) and built-in support for complex numbers. Also included is a basic form of data hiding by name mangling, though this is easily bypassed.[12] During Van Rossum's stay at CNRI, he launched the Computer Programming for Everybody (CP4E) initiative, intending to make programming more accessible to more people, with a basic "literacy" in programming languages, similar to the basic English literacy and mathematics skills required by most employers. Python served a central role in this: because of its focus on clean syntax, it was already suitable, and CP4E's goals bore similarities to its predecessor, ABC. The project was funded by DARPA.[13] As of 2007, the CP4E project is inactive, and while Python attempts to be easily learnable and not too arcane in its syntax and semantics, reaching out to non-programmers is not an active concern.[14] Here are what people are saying about the book: This is the best beginner's tutorial I've ever seen! Thank you for your effort. -- Walt Michalik The best thing i found was "A Byte of Python," which is simply a brilliant book for a beginner. It's well written, the concepts are well explained with self evident examples. -- Joshua Robin Excellent gentle introduction to programming #Python for beginners -- Shan Rajasekaran Best newbie guide to python -- Nickson Kaigi start to love python with every single page read -- Herbert Feutl perfect beginners guide for python, will give u key to unlock magical world of python
