as discussedthis book won' devote much space to python fundamentalsand we'll defer an abstract discussion of python roles until the conclusionafter you've had chance to see it in action firsthand if you are looking for concise definition of this book' topicthoughtry thispython is general-purposeopen source computer programming language it is optimized for software qualitydeveloper productivityprogram portabilityand component integration python is used by at least hundreds of thousands of developers around the world in areas such as internet scriptingsystems programminguser interfacesproduct customizationnumeric programmingand more it is generally considered to be among the top four or five most widely-used programming languages in the world today as popular language focused on shrinking development timepython is deployed in wide variety of products and roles counted among its current user base are googleyoutubeindustrial light magicesrithe bittorrent file sharing systemnasa' jet propulsion labthe game eve onlineand the national weather service python' application domains range from system administrationwebsite developmentcell phone scriptingand education to hardware testinginvestment analysiscomputer gamesand spacecraft control among other thingspython sports remarkably simplereadableand maintainable syntaxintegration with external components coded in other languagesa multiparadigm designwith oopfunctionaland modular structuresand vast collection of precoded interfaces and utilities its tool set makes it flexible and agile languageideal for both quick tactical tasks as well as longer-range strategic application development efforts although it is general-purpose languagepython is often called scripting language because it makes it easy to utilize and direct other software components perhaps python' best assetthoughis simply that it makes software development more rapid and enjoyable there is class of people for whom programming is an end in itself they enjoy the challenge they write software for the pure pleasure of doing so and often view commercial or career reward as secondary consequence this is the class that largely invented the internetopen sourceand python this is also the class that has historically been primary audience for this book as they've often relayedwith tool like pythonprogramming can be just plain fun to truly understand howread onthough something of side effectmuch of this book serves as demonstration of python' ideals in action in real-world code as we'll seeespecially when combined with toolkits for guiswebsitessystems programmingand so onpython serves as enabling technology preface xxxix