March, 1997: Programming in Python

Mark Lutz, author of "Programming Python", spoke at the March 13 FRUUG meeting. He gave an introduction to the Python language and explored some of the reasons why many people are using Python as their scripting language of choice. Python is an interpreted, object-oriented, very-high-level language, which is freely available over the net, and runs on all major platforms (UNIX, Macs, MS-Windows, etc.). It combines a readable syntax and remarkably coherent design, with powerful programming tools. Among other things, Python sports:

• Dynamic typing (no type declarations)
• Easy to use built-in object types (lists, dictionaries, tuples)
• Support for "programming in the large" (classes, modules, exceptions)
• Seamless integration with C/C++ programs (extending, embedding)

The complete abstract from the talk is http://shell.rmi.net/~lutz/fruug.html