Real World Instrumentation with Python

The Python Programming Language

Now that you have (hopefully) at least installed Python, we can take a quick tour through some of the main features of the language.

Python is an interpreted language. More accurately, it is a bytecode compiled interpreted language. What this means is that Python performs a single-pass conversion of program text into a compact binary pseudolanguage referred to as bytecode. This is what is actually executed by the interpreter, which is itself a form of virtual computer that uses the bytecode as its instruction set. This approach is common with modern interpreted languages, and if the virtual machine and its instruction set are well designed and optimized, program execution can approach some respectable speeds. Python is highly optimized internally and demonstrates good execution speeds. It will never be as fast as a compiled language that is converted into the raw binary machine language used by the underlying physical processor itself, but for most applications the speed difference is of little concern. This is particularly true when one considers that nowadays the typical processor (the CPU, or central processing unit) in an average PC is running at between 1 and 3 gigahertz (GHz). Way back in time when a CPU running at a speed of 30 megahertz (MHz) or so was considered fast, code efficiency and program execution speed were much bigger concerns.

If you are new to Python, or even if you aren’t, the book Python Pocket Reference by Mark Lutz (O’Reilly) ...