What is Python?

Python is an open source and high-level programming language designed by Guido van Rossum. Released in 1991, this programming language’s design philosophy aims at code readability, which is why it’s one of the easiest languages to learn.

In addition, Python is an object-oriented, reflective, functional, procedural, and structural language. All these approaches of Python help programmers write logical and clear code for projects of all scales.

As of now, there are three major versions of Python, Python 3 being the latest. It also supports a wide range of libraries to simplify writing the code.

Features

Python’s features are:

• Open source and free: Python is open source, and you can download its code for free to use and modify it for your projects.
• Easy to learn: Python is becoming popular because it’s easy to learn compared to other languages. Its simpler syntax uses plain English with less complexity. Hence, it’s developer-friendly and easy to code.
• Extensive libraries: Python’s standard library is extensive with rich modules and functions that help you complete your projects faster instead of writing code from scratch. You can find reusable code for processes like image manipulation, unit testing, CGI, and more. Examples include Django, Flask, NumPy, and SciPy.
• Extensible: Python is highly extensible with different modules to extend the core functionality. For example, you can add a programmable interface to an existing application.
• Object-oriented: Python uses object-oriented programming concepts, such as objects, classes, inheritance, data encapsulation, and more.
• Interpreted and easy to debug: Python executes code linearly, like Java, C, and C++. This way, there’s no need for compilation, and debugging becomes easy.
• Dynamically-typed: Specifying a variable type such as char, int, double, etc., is not needed in Python as it’s decided during code run time rather than at the start. As a result, it makes programming simpler and reduces many lines of code.
• Portable: Python uses portable code. So, you can use the same code across different platforms like Windows, macOS, Unix, or Linux.

Did you know that Python is the second most popular programming language (right behind JavaScript)? 🤓 

Where Is Python Used?

Python is a versatile programming language. You can use Python for a variety of purposes, including:

• Web development: Due to its efficiency, speed, and other positive aspects, Python is excellent for web development. With the availability of extensive libraries like Django and Flask, the process becomes much more manageable. Some popular companies using it for this purpose include Instagram, Reddit, Uber, and Spotify.
• Software development: Using Python, you can create software programs and applications running on your devices. Many Python packages, such as NumPy, Tkinter, SciPy, etc., simplify the software development procedures. You can also develop complex apps with scientific and numeric computing. A few biggies who use it for software development include Dropbox, PyChess, BitTorrent, Gramps, etc.
• Machine learning and artificial intelligence: From search engines and social media to chatbots and virtual assistants, algorithms are everywhere and powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence. Python’s exclusive libraries, such as SciPy, Seaborn, TensorFlow, NumPy, Pandas, etc., serve these purposes.
• Data Science: Python is used extensively in Data Science. It has plenty of related libraries and frameworks such as PyBrain, Bottle, Flask, web3py, etc., useful in data science to visualize and analyze large volumes of data and other purposes. It also helps in web scraping, which has become quite essential these days for businesses.
• Creating desktop GUIs: Due to Python’s modular structure, it works on various operating systems and lets you build desktop GUIs utilizing an efficient framework, module, or text processor, such as PyGUI, PyGtk, PyQt4, PyQt5, etc.
• Game development: You can develop games using Python libraries like PySoy (a 3D game engine based on Python). Games developed using Python are Disney’s Toontown Online, Battlefield 2, Frets on Fire, etc.

4 Benefits of Learning Python

Learning Python has several advantages for your career prospects. Let’s find out the answer to the question, “Why learn Python”?

1.Efficient in Development

Python is not only easy to learn and code, but it also accelerates the entire development process. It has a wide range of frameworks, packages, libraries, and modules that don’t require you to do everything from scratch.

You can also utilize reusable code to write the code faster with stability. It helps you automate standard processes and save time to focus on the logic and other vital aspects of web and software development.

2. Extremely Versatile

Python is a highly versatile language, which is one of the reasons behind its popularity and high usability. From small- to large-scale projects, Python works with the same efficiency. Apart from the uses mentioned above, developers use it for deep learning, data engineering, process automation, the Internet of Things (IoT), and more.

That said, its versatility could be due to the massive number of functions, methods, frameworks, and libraries it supports. And Python’s readability, popularity, and usability have further encouraged many more libraries, making the language more user-friendly.

3. Demand for Python Developers

The demand for Python developers is increasing in the market with its popularity and usage in emerging technologies. It finds use in business services, insurance, aerospace, retail, banking, finance, info-tech, consulting, healthcare, and hardware, just to name a few.

The top companies using Python are Google, NASA, YouTube, Quora, IBM, HP, Qualcomm, and Dropbox. And they also hire Python developers frequently.

In 2021, the average salary of Python developers in the US is $110,840 annually. So, learning Python can be rewarding for your career.

4. Supportive Community

Although there’s official Python documentation available, sometimes you may get stuck, especially if you are a beginner. At this time, a supportive community is something that can help you. Fortunately, Python has a vast community of developers you can turn to in case of doubts or questions.

You can find online forums such as Stack Overflow, open source communities, and local meet-ups to explore the language. In addition, there are lots of courses, tutorials, websites, and other resources dedicated to Python (some of which we’ll discuss in this article).

 

Fullstack Web Development

Introduction to Bootstrap

Bootstrap is a free and open-source collection of tools for creating websites and web applications. It is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JavaScript framework for developing responsive, mobile-first websites. It solves many problems which we had once, one of which is the cross-browser compatibility issue. Nowadays, the websites are perfect for all the browsers (IE, Firefox, and Chrome) and for all sizes of screens (Desktop, Tablets, Phablets, and Phones).

Reason to choose Bootstrap:

·       Faster and Easier Web-Development.

·       It creates Platform-independent web-pages.

·       It creates Responsive Web-pages.

·       It’s designed to be responsive to mobile devices too.

·       It’s Free! Available on www.getbootstrap.com

·       You can quickly create multi-column layout with pre-defined classes.

·       You can quickly create different types of form layouts.

·       You can quickly create different variation of navigation bar.

·       You can easily create components like accordions, modals, etc. without writing any JS code.

·       You can easily create dynamic tabs to manage large amount of content.

·       You can easily create tooltips and popovers to show hint text.

·       You can easily create carousel or image slider to showcase your content.

·       You can quickly create different types of alert boxes. 

 

History of Bootstrap

Bootstrap was developed by Mark Otto and Jacob Thornton at Twitter. It was released as an open source product in August 2011 on GitHub.

In June 2014 Bootstrap was the No.1 project on GitHub.

Advantages of Using Bootstrap

If you have had some experience with any front-end framework, you might be wondering what makes Bootstrap so special. Here are some advantages why one should opt for Bootstrap framework:

• Save lots of time — You can save lots of time and efforts using the Bootstrap predefined design templates and classes and concentrate on other development work.
• Responsive features — Using Bootstrap you can easily create responsive websites that appear more appropriately on different devices and screen resolutions without any change in markup.
• Consistent design — All Bootstrap components share the same design templates and styles through a central library, so the design and layout of your web pages will be consistent.
• Easy to use — Bootstrap is very easy to use. Anybody with the basic working knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript can start development with Bootstrap.
• Compatible with browsers — Bootstrap is created with modern web browsers in mind and it is compatible with all modern browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.
• Open Source — And the best part is, it is completely free to download and use.

Websites that were built with a lot of CSS and JavaScript can now be built with a few lines of code using Bootstrap. Bootstrap comprises of mainly three components:

·       CSS

·       Fonts

·       Javascript

How to use Bootstrap 4 in a Webpage

There are two ways to include Bootstrap in the website.

• Include Bootstrap from CDN link.
• Download Bootstrap from getbootstrap.com and use it.

Bootstrap Grid System

Bootstrap grid system provides the quick and convenient way to create responsive website layouts. The latest Bootstrap 4 version introduces the new mobile-first flexbox grid system that appropriately scales up to 12 columns as the device or viewport size increases.

The Bootstrap Grid System Has 3 Main Parts: CRC

When working with the Bootstrap 12 column grid you have to keep in mind the order of elements and that there are always three parts: a Container, a Row, and any number of Columns. CRC.

 

For example:

table > tr > td is like .container > .row > .col-sm-6

Container – .container or .container-fluid

This is the parent container that determines if the columns should be full-width or not.

Row – .row

A horizontal wrapping container for the series of columns it contains. It essentially clears the floated columns

Column – .col-*-*

A column is a vertical division similar to a table cell. This is where your content goes and has built-in margin to the left and right to prevent text and images from touching each other. The default grid uses floating divs to achieve the horizontal columns.

 

Bootstrap 5 Breakpoints

Columns also have grid tiers which tell the columns how they should look at different breakpoints. In the example below I used .col-sm-6 which essentially says, “When the browser window is 576px or higher make this column span 6 of the 12 columns. For anything below 576px make it full width.” So when you declare a grid tier you are saying make it this size for the specified tier and up.

Bootstrap 4 includes predefined grid classes for quickly making grid layouts for different types of devices like cell phones, tablets, laptops and desktops, etc. For example, you can use the .col-* classes to create grid columns for extra small devices mobile phones in portrait mode, similarly you can use the .col-sm-* classes to create grid columns for small screen devices like mobile phone in landscape mode, the .col-md-* classes for medium screen devices like tablets, the .col-lg-* classes for large devices like desktops, and the .col-xl-* classes for extra large desktop screens.

The following table summarizes some of the key features of the new grid system.

 

Above table demonstrates one important thing, applying any .col-sm-* class to an element will not only affect its styling on small devices, but also on medium, large and extra large devices having screen width greater than or equal to 540px, if a .col-md-*, .col-lg-* or .col-xl-* class is not present. Similarly, the .col-md-* class will not only affect the styling of elements on medium devices, but also on large and extra large devices if a .col-lg-* or .col-xl- class is not present.

Now the question arises how to create rows and columns using this 12 column responsive grid system. The answer is pretty simple, at first create a container that acts as a wrapper for your rows and columns using the .container class, after that create rows inside the container using the .row class, and to create columns inside any row you can use the .col-*, .col-sm-*, .col-md-*, .col-lg-* and .col-xl-* classes. The columns are actual content area where we will place our contents. Let's put all these things into real action. Let's see how it actually works:

Bootstrap Containers

In bootstrap, container is used to set the content’s margin. It contains row elements and the row elements are container of columns. This is known as grid system.

There are two container classes in bootstrap:

1.    .container

2.    .container-fluid

 

Let’s look at each of the above two class in details with examples:

·       .container: The .container class provides a responsive fixed width container.

In the below example, the div with class “container” will have a fixed left and right margin and will not take the complete width of it’s parent or the viewport.

 

<!-- Bootstrap container class -->

<html>

<head>

  <title>Bootstrap Container Example</title>

  <!-- Add Bootstrap Links -->

  <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/css/

   bootstrap.min.css">

  <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js">

</script>

  <script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/js/bootstrap.min.js">

</script>

</head>

<body>

    <!-- Since we are using the class container, the below

        div will not take complete width of it's parent. -->

    <div class="container bg-success text-light" >

      <h1>Beta-Labs</h1>

      <p>Complete Tutorial for Web Developers</p> 

    </div>

</body>

</html>

       .container-fluid: The .container-fluid class provides a full-width container which spans the

entire width of the viewport.

In the below example, the div with class “container-fluid” will take-up the complete width of the viewport and will expand or shrink when ever the viewport is resized.

<!-- Bootstrap container-fluid class -->

<html>

<head>

  <title>Bootstrap Container Example</title>

  <!-- Add Bootstrap Links -->

  <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/

    css/bootstrap.min.css">

  <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js">

  </script>

  <script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/js/bootstrap.min.js">

  </script>

</head>

<body>

   <!-- Since we are using the class container, the below

        div will not take complete width of it's parent. -->

        <div class="container-fluid bg-success text-light" >

            <h1>Beta-Labs</h1>

            <p>Complete Tutorial for Web Developers</p> 

        </div>

</body>

</html>