Python for decision makers and business leaders Transcripts
Chapter: Welcome to the course
Lecture: A very brief history of Python
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Let's take just a quick moment and have
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a very, very brief history lesson.
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We'll talk about a brief history of Python.
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Python was created back in 1990
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by this guy named Guido van Rossum.
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He's been involved in the Python space ever since
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and he's still involved today.
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Let's look at a timeline.
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So, 1990, Python was released.
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Guido actually started on it maybe 2 years before that.
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In 2000, we have Python 2.
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This was a big improvement to Python coming out.
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In 2005, one of the most popular web frame works, Django
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appeared, and really put Python on solid ground
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in the web development space.
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Since then there have been many, many others
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such as: Flask, Starlette, Pyramid, and so on
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and we'll talk about those, but this was one of the first
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major, major web frame works.
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In 2008, Python 3 came out, and this turns out
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to be more controversial than you might think
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and this is the reason I put
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those two timelines on there.
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Many of the folks had built their code and their
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libraries, and projects on Python 2
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and were reluctant to change.
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The actual change was not that big
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but the consequence of those things that needed changed
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well, that turned out to be pretty huge.
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For a long time in the Python community
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there was this divide of people sticking to the old stuff
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and the progress being done on the newer, modern Python
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Python 3, luckily that's solved.
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That is basically a done issue, except for
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legacy code these days.
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In 2012, as we'll see later, the data scientists
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moved to Python en masse.
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For whatever reason, they just hit critical mass there
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and tons of data scientists already coming over
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and it became an incredible area of growth for Python.
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There's many, many, many libraries and tools
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for data scientists, and it's one of the more popular
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areas where Python is used these days.
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But there's a clear inflection point around 2012
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when this happened.
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I'm not actually sure what it was that triggered it
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or precipitated it, but, there it is on the timeline.
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Finally, why is this Python 2/3 being not a debate anymore?
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Because, in 2020, Python 2 will be end of life.
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No security fixes, no updates, no more support, it's done.
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There'll probably be places like Red Hat, potentially
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where you can go and pay for commercial extended support
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but it's kind of like saying, Hey, should we stick
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or maybe move to Windows XP or Windows 95?
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No, and people are also not moving to Python 2.
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It's pretty much settled.
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Like I said, the reason I bring this up
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is if this is a hesitation for you, this 2 versus 3 thing
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it's gone. Really, all the modern libraries are on Python 3.
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It's Python 2 that's being left behind.
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So, here's a quick history of Python.
