Python was conceived in the late 1980s in the Netherlands by Guido van Rossum at Centrum Wiskunde and Informatica, and its implementation began in 1989. It was designed with the following design principles: “beautiful is better than ugly”, “simple is better than complex”, and ”readability counts”. Since its formation, Python has steadily increased in popularity – according to the TIOBE Programming Community index, it has been a top 10 programming language since 2003. This is in part because Python has received frequent updates since its formation. Its most major updates were in October 2000 when Python 2.0 was released and in December 2008 when Python 3.0 was released, with many smaller updates along the way and since then. Today, Python 3.10 is the latest implementation, and is used by many large tech companies (Google, Yahoo!, NASA, Facebook, Amazon, Instagram, Spotify). Python continues to increase in its popularity among programmers. Python has been one of the most popular languages for decades now, and it is still increasing in popularity.
There are many reasons for Python's current popularity. It is a very versatile general purpose programming language – it is a scripting language, supports object oriented and functional programming, and can be used for just about anything. It was designed to be highly versatile via the use of packages, supporting an extensive number of libraries that streamline many different tasks that can be done with it. But despite its vast potential, Python is very easy to pick up for programmers of all backgrounds. By design, its syntax is very easy to learn, and is intuitive and readable for beginners. It is also dynamically typed, which makes it very forgiving for beginners. Furthermore, Python has an easy to use command line REPL that allows programmers to play around with it. Python will more than likely continue its long streak of popularity for these reasons and its regular maintenance.
You should consider picking up Python as a new programming language if you are looking to learn a versatile programming language that can be used in many different contexts and doesn’t have a narrow use case. A few common uses of Python where it thrives are: scripting for web (and other) applications, scientific computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, game development, information security. Furthermore, Python’s syntax is one of the easiest to pick up despite its versatility and power. So if you are a beginner programmer or just want to limit the headaches you’ll get while trying to learn your next programming language, Python is the language for you.