What is Python?

Over Christmas 1989, a Dutch programmer named Guido van Rossum started a side project. He'd been working on a language called ABC and liked the ideas behind it, but it had limitations that frustrated him. Over the break, he built something new. He named it after Monty Python.

That side project became the most used programming language in the world.

What made it take off is readability. Guido cared about code being easy to read, not just write. The result looks almost like English:

names = ["Alice", "Bob", "Carol"]
for name in names:
    print(f"Hello, {name}!")

# Hello, Alice!
# Hello, Bob!
# Hello, Carol!

Most people can follow that before they've learned any Python.

What it's used for

Python is a general-purpose language: not built for one specific thing, but useful across a wide range of problems. It powers Instagram and Spotify. It's how researchers train AI models, how data scientists work through messy data, and how engineers stitch systems together quickly. NASA uses it. So does the film industry.

It's not the right tool for everything though. Mobile apps are better served by Swift or Kotlin. Anything that needs raw speed (games, system software) belongs in C or Rust. But for the range of problems most developers deal with day to day, Python covers a lot of ground.

Why Python

Python stays out of your way. The syntax is clean, the feedback is fast, and you can build something that works before you feel like you know what you're doing. That's a good feeling, and it keeps you coming back.

What you build with it is up to you. Scripts that save you hours of repetitive work, web backends, data analysis, automation, the tooling that powers most of modern AI. The language doesn't box you into one corner, so wherever your interests take you, it tends to follow.

Python is worth learning if any of this sounds like you:

• You just want a practical first language that opens a lot of doors
• You want to automate things and write scripts to streamline tasks
• You're interested in data, whether that's analysis, visualisation, or machine learning
• You want to build web backends or work with APIs
• You're curious about how AI tools work at the code level

If any of that resonates, you're in the right place. Let's get into it!