Python (KK English pronunciation :/ paɪθən /), is an object- oriented computer programming language literal style by Guido van Rossum invention at the end of 1989 , the first public release issued in 1991. Python syntax is simple and clear , with rich and powerful class library. It is often nicknamed glue language , it can easily produce a variety of modules to other languages ​​( especially C / C + +) to easily linked together . A common application scenarios , the use python program to quickly generate prototypes ( and sometimes even the final program interface ) , and then some of them special requirements , with more appropriate language rewriting , such as 3D gaming graphics rendering module , speed requirements very high , it can be rewritten in C + + .

Python is an interpreted , object-oriented , dynamic data type of high-level programming language. Since the early 1990s, since the birth of the Python language , it has gradually been widely used in the processing system management tasks and Web programming. Python has become one of the most popular programming languages ​​. January 2011 , it was named the 2010 TIOBE language programming language list. Since after 2004 , python 's usage is linear growth .

Since the Python language is concise , easy to read and scalability in a foreign country doing scientific computing with Python increasing number of research institutions , the University has adopted a well-known professor of Python programming courses. As an introductory course in computer science and programming MIT lecture on the use of the Python language . Many open source scientific computing package provides Python call interface , such as the famous computer vision library OpenCV, three-dimensional visualization library VTK, medical image processing library ITK. The Python -specific extension library for scientific computing even more, such as the three great classical scientific computing extensions : NumPy, SciPy and matplotlib, they were Python provides a fast array processing, numerical computation and graphics. So many of the Python language and its extensions posed development environment is very suitable for engineering, scientific personnel to deal with the experimental data , charting , and even the development of scientific computing applications.

Speaking of scientific computing, will first be mentioned herein may be MATLAB. However, in addition to a number of highly specialized MATLAB toolbox can not substitute outside , MATLAB most commonly used functions can be found in the corresponding extension libraries in the Python world.

And MATLAB compared with Python for scientific computing has the following advantages :

* First , MATLAB is a commercial software and expensive. The Python is completely free , many open-source library for scientific computing provides Python call interface . Users can install Python and the vast majority of free extensions on any computer .

* Second, compared with MATLAB, Python is easier to learn a more rigorous programming language. It allows users to write more readable, maintainable code.

* Finally , MATLAB primarily focused on engineering and scientific calculations. However, even in the field of computing , but also often encounter file management, interface design , network communications and other needs . Python has a rich and extensive library , you can easily complete a variety of advanced tasks , developers can use Python to achieve complete various functions required by the application .