Hi again Paul,
As for the second part of your question, the same goes for developing applications. Python has its pros and its cons when compared to other languages.
Compared to
Java, it's refreshing in that it's loosely typed, so it doesn't require declaring data types everywhere. Also, it doesn't have checked exceptions, so you don't need to handle exceptions unless they become a problem. Also, when working with classes, it's common to access fields directly instead of coding get and set methods. This saves a lot of coding that's typically not necessary. In general, this is all due to Python's
philosophy, which is different than Java's philosophy. And this leads to Python being able to provide more functionality with less code. This doesn't make Python better than Java, but it does make it nice for certain situations.
Thanks!
Joel