python the one laptop per child (olpcproject built its user interface and activity model in python netflix and yelp have both documented the role of python in their software infrastructures intelciscohewlett-packardseagatequalcommand ibm use python for hardware testing jpmorgan chaseubsgetcoand citadel apply python to financial market forecasting nasalos alamosfermilabjpland others use python for scientific programming tasks and so on--though this list is representativea full accounting is beyond this book' scopeand is almost guaranteed to change over time for an up-to-date sampling of additional python usersapplicationsand softwaretry the following pages currently at python' site and wikipediaas well as search in your favorite web browsersuccess storiesapplication domainsuser quoteswikipedia pageprobably the only common thread among the companies using python today is that python is used all over the mapin terms of application domains its general-purpose nature makes it applicable to almost all fieldsnot just one in factit' safe to say that virtually every substantial organization writing software is using pythonwhether for short-term tactical taskssuch as testing and administrationor for long-term strategic product development python has proven to work well in both modes what can do with pythonin addition to being well-designed programming languagepython is useful for accomplishing real-world tasks--the sorts of things developers do day in and day out it' commonly used in variety of domainsas tool for scripting other components and implementing standalone programs in factas general-purpose languagepython' roles are virtually unlimitedyou can use it for everything from website development and gaming to robotics and spacecraft control howeverthe most common python roles currently seem to fall into few broad categories the next few sections describe some of python' most common applications todayas well as tools used in each domain we won' be able to explore the tools python & session