casesyou can witness the effect of program change nearly as fast as you can type it of coursedevelopment cycle turnaround is only one aspect of python' ease of use it also provides deliberately simple syntax and powerful built-in tools in factsome have gone so far as to call python executable pseudocode because it eliminates much of the complexity in other toolspython programs are simplersmallerand more flexible than equivalent programs in other popular languages it' relatively easy to learn this brings us to the point of this bookespecially when compared to other widely used programming languagesthe core python language is remarkably easy to learn in factif you're an experienced programmeryou can expect to be coding small-scale python programs in matter of daysand may be able to pick up some limited portions of the language in just hours--though you shouldn' expect to become an expert quite that fast (despite what you may have heard from marketing departments!naturallymastering any topic as substantial as today' python is not trivialand we'll devote the rest of this book to this task but the true investment required to master python is worthwhile--in the endyou'll gain programming skills that apply to nearly every computer application domain moreovermost find python' learning curve to be much gentler than that of other programming tools that' good news for professional developers seeking to learn the language to use on the jobas well as for end users of systems that expose python layer for customization or control todaymany systems rely on the fact that end users can learn enough python to tailor their python customization code onsitewith little or no support moreoverpython has spawned large group of users who program for fun instead of careerand may never need full-scale software development skills although python does have advanced programming toolsits core language essentials will still seem relatively simple to beginners and gurus alike it' named after monty python okthis isn' quite technical strengthbut it does seem to be surprisingly well-kept secret in the python world that wish to expose up front despite all the reptiles on python books and iconsthe truth is that python is named after the british comedy group monty python--makers of the bbc comedy series monty python' flying circus and handful of later full-length filmsincluding monty python and the holy grailthat are still widely popular today python' original creator was fan of monty pythonas are many software developers (indeedthere seems to be sort of symmetry between the two fields python & session