Why Python?

Python is a general purpose programming language. Although it is used for a wide variety of applications, Python is very suitable for developing web applications. It has a clean and elegant syntax, and is supported by a large library of standard and contributed modules, which covers everything from multi-threading to the zipping of files. The language's object-oriented model is especially suited for MVC style development.

Sooner or later, performance will become a major concern with web projects, and Python's runtime environment shines here, as it is known to be fast and stable. Python supports a wide range of web servers through modules, including the infamous Apache. Furthermore, it is available for all the major platforms: UNIX/Linux, Windows, and Mac. Python also supports a wide array of database servers, but you won't have to deal directly with them; Django provides a unified layer of access to all available database engines, as we will see later.

Python is free software; you can download and use it freely from http://python.org/. You are even allowed to distribute it without having to pay any fees. Access to the source code is available to those who want to add features or fix bugs. As a result, Python enjoys a large community of developers who quickly fix bugs and introduce new features.

Python is very easy to learn, and it is being adopted in many universities as the first programming language to be taught. Although this book assumes working knowledge of Python, advanced features will be explained as they are used. If you want to refresh your Python knowledge, you are recommended to read the official Python tutorial available at http://python.org/doc/ before continuing with this book.

To sum up, Python was chosen over many other scripting languages for this book for the following reasons: