The New Frontier of Programming Certifications

What is Python?

Python is a computer programming language often used to build websites and software, automate tasks, and conduct data analysis. Python is the most popular and used programming language around the globe right now. 

Who Uses Python Today?

Financial institutions, tech companies, government agencies, and more look for developers who use Python to develop websites, applications, games, etc

Some companies, like Netflix, Facebook, and Reddit have even released open-source Python frameworks and libraries for outside developers to use. Every company uses Python a bit differently. 

What is Python used for?

Python is a general-purpose language, which means it’s designed to be used in a range of applications, including data science, software and web development, automation, and generally getting stuff done. 

In this blog, I will share Python facts.

Python is Older Than Java.

Python is a high-level, interpreted programming language. It was invented back in 1991, by Guido Van Rossum. Python is an object-oriented programming language. Its language constructs and object-oriented approach help programmers write clear, logical code for various projects.

Java is a high-level, object-oriented programming language developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems in 1995. Java has a syntax similar to C and C++ but with low-level difficulties.

Python is the older of the two languages. As of 2022, Java is 27 years old and Python is 31 years old. Python came to the limelight around the 2010s while Java was in the spotlight from the beginning.

Python has multiple variants.

Python programming has different variants for different scenarios.

• CPython is the original Python implementation, the one you will probably use daily, and that you can download officially from python.org. Its name comes from the fact that the Python code is compiled to bytecode using C.

• Jython- Jython is an alternative implementation that uses Java, instead of C, to obtain the bytecode. This enables this bytecode to run in the JVM, the Java Virtual Machine, like other languages such as Kotlin, Scala, or Java itself.

• Cython is a compiler that enables the writing of C extensions for Python, usually with the goal of making it more efficient. Unlike the previous examples, is not a different implementation: it uses CPython to run the Python code. It can be considered a superset of Python, as it contains all its functionality and adds extra C capabilities on top of it.

• PyPy, we have another Python implementation like CPython or Jython. The interesting point of this implementation is that it is implemented in… Python itself (yes, probably this blew your mind, so click here to read more – https://dev.to/alexgascon/cpython-cython-pypy-an-introductory-guide-to-the-different-python-variants-i4h)

Python was a Hobby project.

In the late 1980s, was that time when working on Python started. Soon after that, Guido Van Rossum began doing its application-based work in December of 1989 at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands. It was started as a hobby project because he was looking for a project to keep him occupied during Christmas. 

The language was released in 1991. When it was released, it used a lot fewer codes to express the concepts, when we compare it with Java, C++ & C. Its design philosophy was quite good too. Its main objective is to provide code readability and advanced developer productivity.

Python is Named After a TV Show.

The inspiration for the name came from BBC’s TV Show – Monty Python’s Flying Circus, as he was a big fan of the TV show, and also, he wanted a short, unique, and slightly mysterious name for his invention hence he named it Python!

If you read the Python documentation, you will see many examples that are inspired by the Monty Python comedy series: There are mentions of spam, eggs, lumberjacks, and knights, among other things (these being references to the show): https://docs.python.org/3/library/pprint.html

Big Companies Using Python

Many big names use (or have used) Python for their products/services. Some of these are:

• NASA

NASA, or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, primarily uses Python in their Workflow Automation System (WAS) for shuttle mission planning and data management. 

NASA also uses Python for a number of other projects which can be found on their website

• Google

Python is one of Google’s official server-side languages, along with C++, Java, and Go. 

Peter Norvig, former director of research at Google and maintains that, “Python has been an important part of Google since the beginning, and remains so as the system grows and evolves.”

According to Brainstation.io, Google has backed Python from almost the very beginning. Early on, the founders of Google decided to use Python whenever they could and only use C++ where they couldn’t use Python. So C++ was used where memory control was imperative and low latency was desired. For everything else, Python enabled ease of maintenance and relatively fast delivery.

• Facebook

Facebook uses Python for production engineering. Over 21% of Facebook code is written in Python. The simplicity of the language allows Facebook engineers to easily interact with their APIs and speed up their engineering process by using libraries. They also use it to maintain libraries and infrastructure, hardware imaging, a binary distribution, and operational automation.

• Netflix

Python is used through the “full content lifecycle,” from security tools to its recommendation algorithms, and its proprietary content distribution network (CDN) Open Connect. Most of the network devices at Netflix are managed by Python-based applications. These applications take up tasks like maintaining an inventory of the devices. 

• Uber

Uber’s engineers primarily write in Python, Node.js, Go, and Java. They started with two main languages: Node.js for the Marketplace team, and Python for everyone else. These first languages still power most services running at Uber today.

The Python Coding Specialist certification replaces the need for python coding challenges during an interview. This certification proves that an individual can apply the necessary skills to code in Python, the world’s most popular programming language.

*Alessandro Macri’ CEO at Knowledge Pillars

The Benefit of a Python Certification by Knowledge Pillars

The Knowledge Pillars Python programming language certification ensures a match between the workforce demand and supply in the industry. 

We offer industry-leading certification and practice materials that support young professionals to become industry-recognized. From the entry-level which is the coding practitioner level, straight to the intermediate level, which is the coding specialist, and then the final level of expertise which is the coding expert level, Knowledge Pillar provides the needed certification to prove your skills.