5 Real Reasons to Learn Python
Whether you’re new to coding or a seasoned developer, you’ve undoubtedly heard the hype about Python. It’s been in existence since the 1980s, but only in last couple of years has this general purpose language finally become the new gold standard of computer programming. College courses are teaching it to freshmen, all the big companies use it (Google, Facebook, Mozilla, and Dropbox are just a few), plus it’s named after the old-school British comedy group Monty Python. What’s not to get excited about?
If you’re considering learning to code or if you want to future proof and modernise your existing programming skills, here are five undeniable reasons why you should choose Python.
Reason #1: Learn to Code Fast
This one works two ways; Python is both easy and quick to learn, and lightning fast to use. From the outset, the language was designed to be that way. It reads (almost) like plain English, and it has the unique quality of being super powerful and uncomplicated at the same time. Even better, Python code is often 3-5 times shorter than Java and 5-10 times shorter than C++.
For the beginner, that means you’ll be up and running in no time, building simple programs within minutes and more complex projects with just a couple of hours’ elbow grease. For the experienced programmer, Python will increase your productivity exponentially and make your life easier in ways you never would have thought possible. Anything that makes coding simple, fast, and fun is always going to be a winner if you ask us.
Reason #2: Make Money
Any advocate will tell you that Python programmers make big bucks, and none of them are lying. Remember when we mentioned earlier that a significant chunk of big companies use Python? Those big companies hand out fat pay cheques. And because Python developers are in very short supply and very high demand on the whole, the prospects for a brimming bank account – no matter where you work – are extremely good.
Python has consistently had the largest year on year job demand growth for the past few years – and that’s despite an overall downward trend in companies hiring IT professionals. The average Python developer salary in the US in 2016 was in excess of $100,000 (ranging from $103k – $107k, depending on the source), and if the current situation prevails that figure is set to rise even higher. Need we say more?
Reason #3: Get into Machine Learning
Python is powerful, flexible, simple to use and fast. It has become a popular language choice in many areas of tech, but none more so than computer science research. When combined with purpose-built numerical computation engines like NumPy and SciPy, Python has the ability to do complex calculations with just a single statement and function call.
Furthermore, libraries such as TensorFlow and Keras bring machine learning functionality into the mix. In short; that’s huge. Machine learning gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. Essentially it’s artificial intelligence, and it’s the next huge development in the tech world. Guess what the language of choice is for machine learning? Python.
Reason #4: Get into Start-Ups
Python is perfectly poised to help start-ups become raging success stories. Why? Well, start-up companies generally develop like so; they find a solution for a problem that their customers have; they build that solution as a ‘Minimum Viable Product‘ – the most basic but functioning product needed to solve the problem; they trial their prototype with their customers; they repeat the process until they’re left will a finished, fully functioning, customer-approved product.
What language lets you code quickly but build complex applications? Python! It doesn’t matter if the product is for the web, mobile, or even something non-app based. Python will find a way to make things better, and is the only choice for turning ideas into design iterations quickly and easily. If you like the excitement, fast pace and variety of start-up life, Python is for you.
Reason #5: Do Anything
By far the best reason to learn Python, no matter what your expertise level or career goals, is that you can literally do anything. Python is an ultra versatile language. It’s object oriented, general purpose, and as we’ve said many times already, easy and quick to learn. Learning Python can and will set you up nicely to adapt to any other language or environment. Web development, big data, scientific and mathematical computing, finance and trading, game development and even cyber security; whatever your interest, you can use Python to get involved.
Furthermore, this do-it-all language has a huge amount of resources, libraries, frameworks and environments backing it up. All are regularly updated and due to the increasing popularity of Python, continually expanding. So basically there’s never been a better time to learn Python – and if we’ve sold you on the idea, why not take a look at our wide range of Python online courses here.