History of Python: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 08:42, 4 February 2009

Revision as of 15:32, 5 February 2009

Line 5:

Python was conceived in the late 1980s<ref name="venners-interview-pt-1">{{cite web|url = http://www.artima.com/intv/pythonP.html|title = The Making of Python|accessdate = 2007-03-22|publisher = Artima Developer}}</ref> by Guido van Rossum at [[National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science|CWI]] in the Netherlands as a successor to the [[ABC programming language]] capable of [[exception handling]] and interfacing with the [[Amoeba distributed operating system|Amoeba operating system]].<ref name = "faq-created">{{ cite web | url = http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general/#why-was-python-created-in-the-first-place | title = Why was Python created in the first place? | publisher = Python FAQ | accessdate = 2007-03-22}}</ref> Van Rossum is Python's principal author, and his continuing central role in deciding the direction of Python is reflected in the title given to him by the Python community, [[Benevolent Dictator For Life|''Benevolent Dictator for Life'' (BDFL)]].

Python 2.0 was released on 16 October 2000, with many major new features including a full [[Garbage collection (computer science)|garbage collector]] and support for [[unicode]]. However, the most important change was to the development process itself, with a shift to a more transparent and community-backed process.<ref name="newin-2.0">{{cite web|url = http://www.amk.ca/python/2.0/|title = What's New in Python 2.0|author = A.M. Kuchling and Moshe Zadka|accessdate = 2007-03-22}}</ref> Python 3.0, a major, backwards-incompatible release, was released on 3 December 2008<ref name="3.0-release">[http://python.org/download/releases/3.0/ Python 3.0 release]</ref> after a long period of testing. Many of its major features have also been [[backport]]ed to the backwards-compatible Python 2.6.<ref name="pep-3000">[http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3000/ PEP 3000]</ref>

==First publication==