"What is the Terminal Velocity of an Unladen Swallow?"

This very quotable and hilarious scene comes from the famous Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Thousands, if not, millions of people around the world watch this movie again and again for its ridiculous antics and funny one-liners. So many people have watched this and other films produced by Monty Python and loved them so much that they have been greatly influenced by them.

A man born in the Netherlands by the name of Guido van Rossum was one such person. Most people do not know his name, but to those in the programming community he is quite the celebrity. Van Rossum is most famous for having created a programming language that has become widely used in almost every industry from finance to research and data science.

In December of 1989 over Christmas break, Van Rossum began thinking of how to take elements from C and from another popular programming language at the time, ABC, and combine them into one language. He started work on his pet project until he released the first version of his new language in 1991.

He gave his new language the name of Python as he was a big fan of another of Monty Python's films: Monty Python's Flying Circus. Python is now in its third major iteration and has only improved since its creation. It has allowed many companies and individuals to create simple and complex programs without having to spend too much time learning how to use a programming language. Python prides itself on being simple to learn, but powerful to use. As over 8 million programmers will attest to.

Just as Monty Python changed the world for the better with their humor, Van Rossum changed the world for the better with a programming language that has the best of both worlds of programming: Python is simple, and yet it can carry out complex tasks with great efficiency. Learn how to use Python today and help to make the world a better place.

--Kody Mitchell

keywords: software engineering, software, python, programming, software architecture, computer science, software development