Python is a general-purpose, interpreted, object-oriented, and high-level programming language with dynamic semantics. It has efficient high-level data structures and a simple but effective approach to object-oriented programming. It is one of the most preferred programming languages by software developers due to its interpreted nature and its elegant syntax.
The success of Python lies in its simple and easy-to-learn syntax and the support of a wide variety of modules and packages that encourage program modularity and code reuse. Being an interpreted language, there is no compilation step, which makes the edit-test-debug cycle incredibly fast, paving the way to Rapid Application Development, the need of the hour. The support of object-oriented features and high-level data structures, such as generators and list comprehensions, makes Python a superior language for coding small scripting programs to more advanced game programming.
This book assumes that you have been acquainted with Python and want to test its capability in creating GUI applications. However, Python is easy to learn in just a week. If you already know programming, then learning Python will be like walking in the park for you. There are many resources available online and offline covering a wide range of topics. Being an open source language, Python is also supported by many programmers around the globe in the IRC system under the tag #python .
Tip
Python is named after the BBC show Monty Python's Flying Circus and has nothing to do with reptiles. Thus, making references to Monty Python skits in documentation is practiced and encouraged.
The Python newsgroup, comp.lang.python, and mailing list python-list at https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list will help you learn and explore Python.
Many of the modern programming languages are backed up by a set of libraries (commonly referred to as toolkits) to create GUI applications, such as Qt, Tcl/Tk, and so on. PySide is a Python binding of the cross-platform GUI toolkit Qt, and it runs on all platforms that are supported by Qt, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It is one of the alternatives to toolkits such as Tkinter for GUI programming in Python.
PySide combines the advantages of Qt and Python. A PySide programmer has all the power of Qt, but it is able to exploit it with the simplicity of Python. PySide is licensed under the LGPL version 2.1 license, allowing both Free/Open Source software and proprietary software development. PySide is evolving continuously, like any other open source product, and you are free to contribute to its development. Some of the applications, such as matplotlib, PhotoGrabber, QBitTorrent, Lucas Chess, Fminer and so on, certify the wide spread usage of PySide in the software industry.
PySide has also become an enabler of mobile development. Qt Mobility is a project that is creating a new suite of Qt APIs for mobile device functionality. The project Pyside Mobility is a set of bindings that allows Python to access the Qt Mobility API. The Qt Mobility API enables the developer to access the bread and butter of services provided by the underlying operating system that are essential for any mobile application. Learning PySide, you learn this for free. Without further ado, let's get hacking!