Contents

Introduction 2
The Python Programming Language 2
History of Python 2
Features 4
Advantages and Disadvantages 5
Python vs. C 5
Summary 11
Bibliography 12

Introduction After comparing several programming languages, I have found many books and websites expressing how fast and efficient Python is. Further, many research papers describe the advantages of adding Python to computer sciences classes. For this reason I decided to study this language and compare it to one that I am familiar with, like the C language.
This paper contains the history of Python, from its creation until now. It shows the features that make Python so popular, and the differences between Python and other languages. Most importantly, it explains the four pillars that are the foundation of the Python programming language, which are to provide quality, increase productivity, portability, and integration. Through this paper illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of Python, by showing that, although an interpretative language such as Python will never be as fast as a compiled language like C, it will be more efficient and useful in a variety of cases.
The Python Programming Language
History of Python

Python (Software, 2011) is a relatively recent, object-oriented, interpreted scripting language created by Guido van Rossum at Stichting Mathematisch Centrum (CVI) in the Netherlands. According to Mark Pilgrim, Python is a successor of the ABC language and C (Pilgrim, 2004). It is interesting how fast in became popular when there existed already two powerful and general purpose programming languages such as C and C++. After the release of Python 1.6, the creator decided to work with commercial software developers, making it possible to use Python under the GNU Public License. Around 2000 Python became part of Digital Creations. Nowadays, Python is owned by Python Software Foundation which is a non-profit organization and Guido van Rossum is being employed by Google. The current versions of the software are Python 2.7 and Python 3.2. According to Lutz, the objectives of Python as a programming language are mainly to provide quality, productivity, portability, and integration for the programs (Lutz, 2006). Lutz describes these four terms and combines them to form Python’s philosophy. Software quality refers to how easy it is to write, understand, reuse, and modify a program written in Python. Python has a coherent design and reduced complexity. It supports structured, modular, and object-oriented design. Developer Productivity refers to the speed of development that Python provides. Its design has been optimized to reduce the size of the code, making it flexible and agile. The Portability of Python refers to the ability to use the same program without modifying for different environments like Windows, Linux, IBM mainframes, etc. Finally, the Component Integration makes Python a language designed for integration. It can call existing C and C++ libraries or use Java classes. It works with many other languages and their tools, allowing developers customization (Lutz, 2006). According to Mark Lutz nothing summarizes better the legacy in Python life that the standard library “this” module sort of Easter egg in Python written by Python core developer, Tim Peters.

Features

Since Python is an interpreted language it is not as fast as compiled languages like C or C++. However, the popularity of Python has dramatically increased because of its many features. Python does not need type declarations, making it a lot simpler, shorter, and flexible. Automatic garbage collection. High-level datatypes and operators. Runtime program construction, making it interactive and dynamic. Provides access to interpreter information. Compilation to portable bytecode, boosting the speed with it is needed. Built-in and third-party libraries, which provide a wide variety of functions and features. Open source software. Based in C, this facilitates C programmers to get used to Python.
Python has been developed directly from the C language. However, it also combines elements from C++, Modula-3, ABC, Icon, and other languages (Lutz, 2006).
Advantages and Disadvantages

All of the above features make Python a reliable language. Among its advantages is the ease of development in Internet applications, which are highly dynamic and complex, and need to easily interact with other platforms. Its routines can communicate with objects in other languages. It has built-in modules to handle flat file databases and provides interfaces to major commercial databases. It supports GUI programming and exception handling. It is portable and open source (Gupta, 2002). On the other hand, the biggest disadvantage when using Python is the execution time. Python is an interpreted language, as opposed to C or C++ which are compiled languages. Actually Python executes in a very similar way Java does. The Python source code is translated into “bytecode”, which is executed by the Python virtual machine. Although this process makes Python very portable, it also makes it slower than purely compiled languages. For this reason, Python is not the best choice when a program needs to do heavy processing duties and the execution time is a priority. However, Python can integrate to programs written in compiled languages.
Python vs. C

This section will contrast Python and the C language. As this paper already mentioned, Python is based primarily in C. However, there are many distinctions between those languages. To begin, C is a compiled language and the execution time of programs written in C is shorter than the ones written in Python. The syntax is very similar, with only small differences. For instance, there is no use for brackets in Python. C is widely used because it is a great general purpose language and has been around for a relatively long time. On the other hand, Python does not require declarations type and it is easier to learn and simpler to code than C. Moreover, while C uses a modular design and does not support object-oriented programming, Python offers support for structured, modular, and object-oriented programming. In order to contrast the difference between C and Python I will present the source code for a program with the same goal written in both languages. This simple program opens a file called SortList.txt, reads every line within the file, sort that list, and generate another file called Sorted.txt with the sorted list from the previous file. The first source code presented is in C language. The first lines are needed to include the libraries that the program will use. The following lines are the prototypes of the functions that I have created. Right below it is the main function, which is the first thing to run. In this case main is calling the function “getListfromFile()”. This function opens the file containing the list and by using the while loop assigns the lines to a two dimensional array, then it calls another function to sort the list.

The sort function has a complexity of 〖O(n〗^2) and it manipulates the two dimensional array by using string functions like strcmp and strcpy. Finally the control returns to the getListfromFile() function which will generate a new file called Sorted.txt and input the sorted list into that file. This program has a complexity of 〖O(n2〗^ ) defined by the sort function. Furthermore, it is long and complex to code. The next program has been coded in Python and the goal is the same. However, the way Python approach the problem is different. As I have mentioned before, there is no need for variable declarations and it supports high-level data types, such as lists. For this reason, there is no need to create a linked list or a multidimensional array like in C. Although Python already has a sort function built-in—which would make the program only 5 lines long—I have written a procedure to sort a list in order to show what Python’s code looks like. The first few lines define the sort function “sorting(A)” which has a list as a parameter. The program begins by opening a file and storing the information in a list called “lines”. Then the sorting function is called in order to sort the list “lines”. Finally an output file is created where the already sorted list will be saved. The complexity of this program is also 〖O(n〗^2) defined by the sort function as well. However, it is obvious how much simpler and more elegant this codes look compared to the program in C. The automatic garbage collection, the absence of declarations, and the simplicity of the code makes Python a great language for beginner computer science students.

Summary

After comparing these two programs, the simplicity and elegance of Python is exposed. This paper has shown all the features present in Python as long as the four pillars of this language, which are to provide quality, productivity, portability, and integration. For all of these reasons, Python has become very popular, even though C and C++ were already in the market. It has become widely used in the internet field, where everything needs to be updated constantly, so the need for an easy and flexible programming language is high. The capability to integrate makes Python a tool for any kind of system. Its flexibility allows Python programs to approach problems in different ways.
Although Python, as an interpreted language, will never be as fast as C, it is great for systems where processing and time execution are not the main priority, but portability, flexibility, and simplicity are.

Bibliography
Agarwal, K. (2011, 04 20). Python Puts a Squeeze On Java for CS0 and Beyond. Retrieved 04 20, 2011, from acm.org: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1360000/1352393/p49-agarwal.pdf?key1=1352393&key2=2821873031&coll=DL&dl=ACM&ip=66.76.114.150&CFID=19642553&CFTOKEN=96788716
Gupta, R. (2002). Making use of Python. New York: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
Leping, V., Lepp, M., Niitsoo, M., Tonisson, E., Vene, V., & Villems, A. (2011, 04 20). Python Prevails. Retrieved 04 20, 2011, from acm.org: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1740000/1731833/a87-leping.pdf?key1=1731833&key2=4160783031&coll=DL&dl=ACM&ip=66.76.114.150&CFID=19642553&CFTOKEN=96788716
Lutz, M. (2006). Programming Python. Sebastopol: O'Reilly.
Pilgrim, M. (2004). Dive Into Python. Mark Pilgrim.
Snyder, R. (2011, 04 20). Introducing Python Programming Into The Data. Retrieved 04 20, 2011, from acm.org: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1410000/1409910/a1-snyder.pdf?key1=1409910&key2=3331873031&coll=DL&dl=ACM&ip=66.76.114.150&CFID=19642553&CFTOKEN=96788716
Software, P. (2011, 04 20). Python Programming Language – Official Website. Retrieved 04 20, 2011, from Python: http://www.python.org/