What is Python?

Python is a high-level, general purpose programming language, designed to be easy to read, learn and apply to a variety of contexts and applications. A key feature of Python is its use of English syntax and whitespace indentation to structure the code: an increase comes after certain statements, and a decrease indicates the end of the current block. Thus, a program's visual structure represents its semantic structure. Python is also interpreter-based, which allows for code to be immediately run and tested in a compiler - a feature that is especially useful for beginners who can immediately see the outcomes of their code.

Another key feature of Python is that it is module-based: rather than building all of its functionality into its core, Python was designed to be highly extensible via modules or libraries (1). This allows it to remain simple in design while building complexity and extensibility through incorporating additional code libraries.These features allow Python to be used for a variety of programming applications while also being easy to learn and implement.

Lastly, part of the Python culture is that it was intended to be fun to use - this is reflected in its name, which was a tribute to the British comedy group Monty Python. The core principles, as summarized in The Zen of Python (2), give a further sense of the language, and includes some of the following:

• Beautiful is better than ugly
• Explicit is better than implicit
• Simple is better than complex
• Complex is better than complicated
• Readability counts

Although it was developed over 30 years ago, Python continues to grow in popularity and is adopted by many diverse communities as a low-barrier entry to programming. Digital preservation is one of these communities that benefits from this accessible and versatile language.

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1. Python (programming language) - Wikipedia. Accessed 2023-05-29.
2. Zen of Python - Wikipedia. Accessed 2023-05-29