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Questions and Answers
What is a distinctive feature of Python's design philosophy?
What is Python often described as due to its comprehensive standard library?
Who began working on Python in the late 1980s?
When was Python 2.0 released?
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What title was bestowed upon Guido van Rossum by the Python community?
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What was the initial end-of-life date set for Python 2.7?
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Which Python implementation continues to support Python 2?
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What was the reason for expediting security updates in 2021 and 2022?
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What is the current stable release of Python as of October 2023?
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What new feature was added in Python 3.11?
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Study Notes
Python Overview
- High-level, general-purpose programming language
- Emphasizes code readability with significant indentation
- Dynamically typed and garbage-collected
- Supports multiple programming paradigms: structured, object-oriented, and functional
History
- Invented by Guido van Rossum in the late 1980s as a successor to ABC programming language
- First released in 1991 as Python 0.9.0
- Python 2.0 released in 2000, Python 3.0 released in 2008 (major revision, not completely backward-compatible)
- Guido van Rossum was the lead developer and "benevolent dictator for life" until 2018
- Steering Council elected in 2019 to lead the project
Releases
- Python 2.7.18 released in 2020, last release of Python 2
- Python 3.0 and later releases include the 2to3 utility for translating Python 2 code to Python 3
- Python 2.7's end-of-life was initially set for 2015, then postponed to 2020
- Currently, only Python 3.8 and later are supported (security issues were fixed in e.g. 3.7.17, the final 3.7.x release)
- PyPy, an unofficial Python implementation, continues to support Python 2 with backported security updates
Security Updates
- Security updates were expedited in 2021 and 2022 due to security issues in all Python versions
- Python 3.9.13 release announced that the 3.9 series would only receive security fixes in the future
- Releases made in 2022 due to potential denial-of-service attack: 3.10.7, 3.9.14, 3.8.14, and 3.7.14
- As of October 2023, Python 3.12 is the stable release, and 3.12 and 3.11 are the only versions with active support
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Description
Learn about Python, a high-level, general-purpose programming language that emphasizes code readability and supports multiple programming paradigms.
