IN DECEMBER 1989 Guido van Rossum, a Dutch computer scientist, set himself a Christmas project. Irked by shortcomings in other programming languages, he wanted to build his own. His principles were ...

According to one measure, Python is potentially on the verge of becoming the most popular computer programming language and joining C and Java as the only other languages to attain the top spot.

Python is so often the right tool for the job because of its simplicity – an aspect of the language dating back to its very founding. This same flexibility makes Python ideal for use by beginners, ...