Python software

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that List of applications written in Python be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

The Python programming language is actively used by many people, both in industry and academia for a wide variety of purposes.

Contents

[edit] Educational uses of Python

As of 2007, Python is becoming more popular for teaching computer programming. Its strengths for teaching include its syntactic simplicity, flexible typing, and interactive interpreter.

Python uses fewer symbols than languages like Java and C. For example blocks inside loops and IF statements are indicated by indentation rather than curly braces ({}), and the end of a line does not have to have a semicolon. Some beginning students often have trouble initially with memorizing where curly braces and semi-colons go. With Python, students can skip memorization of formal syntax and move on to more practical applications. Similarly, with Java and C++, variables types must be declared before being used. That is not needed in Python which allows students to develop programs much more quickly.

The interactive interpreter is an extremely valuable aid to learning and experimentation. Learning-by-doing is about trying things out and seeing what happens. The faster you can get results from your experiment, the faster that learning produces results. Using the interactive interpreter in place of a compiler can be helpful with initially learning the language or even quickly learning a new library.

[edit] Software Using Python

  • Battlefield 2, a first person shooter that uses Python for its configuration scripts
  • Bazaar, a free distributed revision control system
  • BitTorrent, the original implementation and several derivatives
  • Blender, a popular open source 3D modeler
  • Chandler, a personal information manager including calendar, email, tasks and notes support that is currently under development
  • Civilization IV videogame and the newly released computer game uses boost.python to allow Python to access many parts of the game (including the style and content of all interface screens)
  • Django, an MVC (model, view, controller) web framework
  • EVE Online, a sci-fi massively multiplayer online roleplaying game
  • GRAMPS, an open source genealogy software
  • Mailman, one of the more popular packages for running email mailing lists
  • Maya, professional 3D modeler allows Python scripting as an alternative to MEL as of version 8.5
  • MoinMoin, a popular wiki engine
  • Morpheus, file-sharing client/server software operated by the company StreamCast
  • OpenRPG, a virtual table on which to play Role Playing Games over the internet
  • Plone, a user-friendly and powerful open source Content Management System
  • Portage, the heart of Gentoo Linux. An advanced package management system based on the BSD-style ports system
  • Robot Arena 2: Design and Destroy, an robot combat game
  • Solipsis, a system for massively shared virtual world
  • Trac, bug/issue tracking database, integrated with MoinMoin wiki and Subversion source version control
  • Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, a videogame, uses Python for game scripting
  • ViewVC, a web-based interface for browsing CVS and SVN repositories

[edit] Packages for Python

The Python Cheese Shop is the official directory of python packages.

  • matplotlib, an extension providing MATLAB-like plotting and mathematical functions
  • Numeric Python, a language extension that adds support for large and fast, multi-dimensional arrays and matrices
  • SciPy, a library of scientific and numerical routines
  • SimPy, a discrete-event simulation package;
  • BioPython, a Python molecular biology suite.
  • PyOpenGL, a package that allows 3D rendering using Python
  • Soya 3D, a high-level 3D game engine for Python
  • Pygame, python bindings for Simple DirectMedia Layer
  • Python Imaging Library, a module for working with images
  • PyGTK, a popular cross-platform GUI library based on GTK+; furthermore, other GNOME libraries also have bindings for Python
  • PyQt, another cross-platform GUI library based on Qt; as above, KDE libraries have bindings too
  • wxPython, a port of wxWidgets and a cross-platform GUI library for Python
  • PyObjC, a Python-Objective C bridge that allows one to write Mac OS X software in Python
  • CherryPy, a Python-powered web framework
  • Django, another Python-powered web framework
  • Topsite Templating System, another Python-powered web framework
  • TurboGears, a web framework combining CherryPy, SQLObject, and Kid
  • Zope_Object_Database a Python-specific object-oriented database
  • Cheetah, a Python-powered template engine and code-generation tool
  • mod_python, an Apache module allowing direct integration of Python scripts with the Apache web server
  • Quixote a framework for developing Web applications in Python
  • Twisted, a networking framework for Python

See more recommended modules at Useful Modules in the Python.org wiki.

[edit] Commercial uses

  • Google uses Python for many tasks including the backends of web apps such as Gmail and Google Maps and for many of its search-engine internals.
  • NASA is using Python to implement a CAD/CAE/PDM repository and model management, integration, and transformation system which will be the core infrastructure for its next-generation collaborative engineering environment.

[edit] Software directories

[edit] Python implementations

  • Python – The reference implementation, also known as CPython
  • Jython – Python coded in Java
  • IronPython – Python for .NET and Mono platforms
  • Stackless Python - Python with coroutines
  • Psyco - not an implementation, but JIT compiler for CPython
  • PyPy – Python coded in Python
  • Parrot – Virtual machine being developed mainly as the runtime for Perl 6, but with the intent to also support dynamic languages like Python, Ruby, Tcl, etc. Can currently execute a subset of Python
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../p/y/t/Python_software.html"