part igetting started with python deciding how you can personally benefit from python ultimatelyyou can use any programming language to write any sort of application you want if you use the wrong programming language for the jobthe process will be slowerror pronebug riddenand you'll absolutely hate it -but you can get the job done of coursemost of us would rather avoid horribly painful experiencesso it' important to know what sorts of applications people typically use python to create here' list of the most common uses for python (although people do use it for other purposes)creating rough application examplesdevelopers often need to create prototypea rough example of an applicationbefore getting the resources to create the actual application python emphasizes productivityso you can use it to create prototypes of an application quickly scripting browser-based applicationseven though javascript is probably the most popular language used for browser-based application scriptingpython is close second python offers functionality that javascript doesn' provide (see the comparison at glyphobet net/essay/ for detailsand its high efficiency makes it possible to create browser-based applications faster ( real plus in today' fast-paced worlddesigning mathematicscientificand engineering applicationsinterestingly enoughpython provides access to some really cool libraries that make it easier to create mathscientificand engineering applications the two most popular libraries are numpy (org/and scipy (reduce the time you spend writing specialized code to perform common mathscientificand engineering tasks working with xmlthe extensible markup language (xmlis the basis of most data storage needs on the internet and many desktop applications today unlike most languageswhere xml is just sort of bolted onpython makes it first-class citizen if you need to work with web servicethe main method for exchanging information on the internet (or any other xml-intensive application)python is great choice interacting with databasesbusiness relies heavily on databases python isn' quite query languagelike the structure query language (sqlor language integrated query (linq)but it does do great job of interacting with databases it makes creating connections and manipulating data relatively painless