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Python (programming language)

General-purpose programming language / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation via the off-side rule.[34]

Quick facts: Paradigm, Designed by, Developer, First&... ▼
Python
Python-logo-notext.svg
ParadigmMulti-paradigm: object-oriented,[1] procedural (imperative), functional, structured, reflective
Designed byGuido van Rossum
DeveloperPython Software Foundation
First appeared20 February 1991; 32 years ago (1991-02-20)[2]
Stable release
3.11.3[3] Edit this on Wikidata / 5 April 2023; 2 months ago (5 April 2023)
Preview release
3.12.0b1[4] Edit this on Wikidata / 22 May 2023; 14 days ago (22 May 2023)
Typing disciplineDuck, dynamic, strong typing;[5] gradual (since 3.5, but ignored in CPython)[6]
OSWindows, macOS, Linux/UNIX, Android[7][8] and more[9]
LicensePython Software Foundation License
Filename extensions.py, .pyi, .pyc, .pyd, .pyw, .pyz (since 3.5),[10] .pyo (prior to 3.5)[11]
Websitepython.org
Major implementations
CPython, PyPy, Stackless Python, MicroPython, CircuitPython, IronPython, Jython
Dialects
Cython, RPython, Starlark[12]
Influenced by
ABC,[13] Ada,[14] ALGOL 68,[15] APL,[16] C,[17] C++,[18] CLU,[19] Dylan,[20] Haskell,[21][16] Icon,[22] Lisp,[23] Modula-3,[15][18] Perl,[24] Standard ML[16]
Influenced
Apache Groovy, Boo, Cobra, CoffeeScript,[25] D, F#, GDScript, Genie,[26] Go, JavaScript,[27][28] Julia,[29] Mojo,[30] Nim, Ring,[31] Ruby,[32] Swift[33]
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Python is dynamically typed and garbage-collected. It supports multiple programming paradigms, including structured (particularly procedural), object-oriented and functional programming. It is often described as a "batteries included" language due to its comprehensive standard library.[35][36]

Guido van Rossum began working on Python in the late 1980s as a successor to the ABC programming language and first released it in 1991 as Python 0.9.0.[37] Python 2.0 was released in 2000. Python 3.0, released in 2008, was a major revision not completely backward-compatible with earlier versions. Python 2.7.18, released in 2020, was the last release of Python 2.[38]

Python consistently ranks as one of the most popular programming languages.[39][40][41][42]