Page 132 - Computer Science V2.0 Class 11

11. Automatic garbage collection: Objects which are no longer accessible in a program are collectively called garbage,
and the process of deleting the inaccessible objects is called garbage collection. Python automatically carries out
garbage collection frequently.
12. GUI support: Rich libraries for Graphical user interface (GUI) enable the easy development of GUIs. These
applications can also be ported to other applications, libraries, and operating systems such as Windows, Macintosh,
and Linux. The Python libraries such as Tkinter help to develop such types of GUI support.

Which of the following characteristics is/are true about Python?
a. Case Insensitive
b. Free
c. Open Source
d. reusable
e. Portable
f. compiled

5.3 Shortcomings of Python

While Python has several useful features, it also has some shortcomings:
1. Slow Speed
Being an interpreted language, parts of the code may have to be interpreted multiple times. For example, if a
function is invoked several times in a program, it will be interpreted every time it is invoked. Thus, the execution
becomes slow as compared to compiled languages such as C++ and Java.
2. Memory Inefficient

Some features of Python make it memory-inefficient. For example, a new string object is generated every time a
concatenation operator is applied.

5.4 Downloading and Installing Python

Since the launch of the first version of Python (Python 0.9.0) in 1991, several versions have been released. These
versions differ from each other in their syntax as well as the semantics of various functionalities. All programs in
this book have been executed using Python 3.11.
To download and install Python, follow the steps given below:
1. Open any browser and type https://www.python.org/downloads/ in the address bar. (Fig 5.1)

Fig 5.1: Downloading Python

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