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Programming Python, 3rd Edition
book

Programming Python, 3rd Edition

by Mark Lutz
August 2006
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
1600 pages
51h 46m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Programming Python, 3rd Edition

Signs of the Python Times

It’s been an exciting decade in the Python world. Since I wrote the first edition of this book in 1995 and 1996, Python has grown from a new kid on the scripting-languages block to an established and widely used tool in companies around the world. In fact, today the real question is not who is using Python, but who is not. Python is now used in some fashion in almost every software organization—whether as a tactical tool for quick tasks or an implementation language for longer-range strategic projects.

Although measuring the popularity of an open source, freely distributed tool such as Python is not always easy (there are no licenses to be tallied), most available statistics reveal exponential growth in Python’s popularity over the last decade. Among the most recent signs of Python’s explosive growth are:

Users

In 1999, one leading industry observer suggested that, based on various statistics, there were as many as 300,000 Python users worldwide. Other estimates are still more optimistic. In early 2000, for instance, the Python web site was already on track to service 500,000 new Python interpreter downloads by year end in addition to other Python distribution media. Python is also a standard preinstalled item on Linux, Macintosh, and some Windows computers today and is embedded in various applications and hardware.

Today, the best estimates, based on developer surveys and network activity, suggest that there are likely between 750,000 and 1 million ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596009259Supplemental ContentErrata Page