Python is one of the most popular free open source languages used for commercial and hobbyist robotics and is also one of the main languages used by social media companies like Youtube, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram etc. They say that Python is used a lot at Netflix for its machine learning applications which keep track of its massive amounts of information about what shows that you watch and might want to watch etc.
Ir was written in 1991 by Guido van Rossum and the name was a reference to the popular BBC tv show at the time “Monty Python flying circus”.
Python was actually written using the C language.
Technically it is called a high level, interpreted, object oriented language that is easier to learn than other languages like C or C++ since you don’t have to declare certain things in your program and worry about memory managent which can be tricky.
It is extremely popular with the Raspberry pi computer community and almost anybody doing robotics.
It technically does not need a compiler but people often use the words compiler and IDE to be the same thing.
You can go to the main website Python.org to learn more about it or download an IDE (integrated development environment) or a compiler to work with it.
Some popular names for Python IDEs or compilers are PyCharm, PyDev, Thonny, Jupyter Notebook, Sublime Text, Atom, Spyder, Wing, Visual Studio Code
(under construction August 13, 2021)