Applications of Python

Question

Hi,

What are some applications for Python that relative amateur programmers can get into? For example, Ruby has Rails for building web applications. What are some cool applications of Python?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can build web applications in Python. See the Django framework.

Besides that, here's a nice list.

Not particularly relevant, but interesting, is the fact that NASA uses Python.

Answer 2

"cool" is a state of mind. Hence cool applications depends on your definition of cool. A Ant colony simulation is cool, if you want to implement the theory.

Python, with its own and 3rd party libraries (batteries) has been applied in possibly all domains of day to day programming. My advise is, decide on the cool app you want to write and then see, what Python has to offer in that domain. If you are sufficiently satisfied, you can start coding. Good Luck!

Answer 3

Python is a general purpose programming language much like Ruby. It can be used for systems programming, embedded programming, desktop programming, and web programming. In short, it has about as much potential for "cool" projects as any other general purpose language.

Answer 4

Google App Engine has excellent support for developing -- and especially for deploying -- web applications in Python (with several possible frameworks, of which Django may be the most suitable one for "relative amateurs"). Apart from web apps, Blender lets you use Python for 3D graphics, Poser for apps involving moving human-like figures, SPSS for statistics, scipy and many other tools included in Enthought's distribution support Python use in scientific programming and advanced visualization, etc, etc -- the sky's the limit.

Answer 5

I like:

• Django, for web development
• PyQt4 for GUI programming
• pygame for games, input management etc
• PIL - python imaging library, it's not huge application, but really helpful and library imo
• also, Blender is an application scriptable in Python, so if you'd be into some 3D graphics, here you got it.

If you're making applications for windows and want to ship them easily, you can also look at stuff like py2exe.

Answer 6

I wasn't a programming amateur at the time, but using pygame was my first intro to Python.

Answer 7

One of the first bits of Python programming I ever did was to hack on the nicotine client for the Soulseek peer-to-peer network to add a '/g [query]' chat command to open the default browser and search Google.

Answer 8

Probably not the most general purpose example, but I learned Python when AutoDesk Maya adopted it as a secondary programming language to complement MEL (Maya Expression Language). By comparison, it was a god-sent.