Python was invented by Guido Van Rossum in 1990. Its first official version was published in 1991. Named by Van Rossum for his interest in the Monty Python movies, Python initially did not gain the same heavy support as Perl. Over time, however, the advocate count grew, and the comp.lang.python usenet group was founded in 1994. Unlike GNU, Python was originally released completely free; no stated or implied license accompanied it.

Just as with almost every other scripting language, one of the main goals of Python was rapid application development. As an interpreted language, Python requires an accompanying interpreter for script execution. At the time of publishing, two main interpreters existed for Python. The following sites contain detailed documentation on both interpreters and provide mechanisms for free downloads:

• www.python.org

• www.activestate.com

Python scripts can be written and executed on a long list of operating systems, including the gamut of Microsoft Windows platforms and numerous flavors of UNIX, Linux, and Mac.

Python is an object-oriented scripting language that provides the ability to create and use objects, classes, and their methods. Easy to embed and extend with other languages, it was designed to avoid ambiguity. Overall, Python is an extremely powerful language that is favored by companies such as Information Security, Bioinformatics, and Applied Mathematics. This popularity is accredited to the easy development application program interface (API), the ability to code low-level processes, the performance, and the socket design.