as we've seen in this bookpython is multifaceted tooluseful in wide variety of domains what can we say about python to sum up herein terms of some of its best attributesthe python language isgeneral purpose object-oriented interpreted very high level openly designed widely portable freely available refreshingly coherent python is useful for both standalone development and extension workand it is optimized to boost developer productivity on many fronts but the real meaning of python is really up to youthe reader since python is general-purpose toolwhat it "isdepends on how you choose to use it in the final analysis hope this book has taught you something about pythonboth the language and its roles beyond this textthere is really no substitute for doing some original python programming be sure to grab reference source or two to help you along the way the task of programming computers will probably always be challenging perhaps happilythere will continue to be need for intelligent software engineersskilled at translating real-world tasks into computer-executable format least for the foreseeable future after allif it were too easynone of us would get paid no language or tool can obviate the hard work of full-scale programming entirely but current development practice and tools make our tasks unnecessarily difficultmany of the obstacles faced by software developers are purely artificial we have come far in our quest to improve the speed of computersthe time has come to focus our attention on improving the speed of development in an era of constantly shrinking schedulesproductivity must be paramount pythonas mixed-paradigm toolhas the potential to foster development modes that simultaneously leverage the benefits of rapid development and of traditional languages while python won' solve all the problems of the software industryit offers hope for making programming simplerfasterand at least little more enjoyable it may not get us off that island altogetherbut it sure beats bananas and coconuts in the final analysis