Introduction

Python is a high level general purpose programming language.

What does that mean? It means that Python is designed to be really easy to develop with by using a very human readable language, and it has all of the tools needed to do nearly any programming task given to it. Python has been used in many applications, and is embedded in most 3D packages (such as Maya, Houdini, Softimage, and Blender), compositing packages (Nuke), and many other pieces of software used in the animation, VFX, and games industries.

The reason why it is so quick to develop in can be summed up in the example of the infamous "Hello World".

C++

// C++ Example
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
  std::cout << "Hello World!";
  return 0;
}

Python

print "Hello World!"

While C++ is arguably a faster language to for the computer to process, Python is usually faster for the developer to write. Another benefit is that Python is what is called an "interpreted language" vs C++'s "compiled language". This means that C++ will have to convert the source code into machine code before it can run, while Python will convert to byte code that Python will then interpret when ran. So, this lets a developer quickly build and test code in Python, but the drawback is that Python will run slower than C++.

Next Steps

Next thing we're going to do is install Python on your machine. If you already have Python, you can skip this step and go straight to the Python Types page.