Enterprise applications are essential components of every company. Research suggests that by 2021, the worldwide IT spending on enterprise software is expected to reach USD 556 Billion!
These are the applications that help employees complete or automate various tasks, such as data processing, customer support, and resource management. They help companies improve their productivity, reduce human-errors, provide better support to customers, and complete tasks efficiently.
However, with the proliferation of changing norms of the workplace, the complexity of enterprise applications is increasing every day. Developing an enterprise application is getting challenging.
To begin with, the applications should be scalable. Companies will grow; they will hire more resources and develop more products. The enterprise application should be able to support the company as it grows.
Secondly, enterprise applications must follow high standards of data and cybersecurity. Companies rely on enterprise applications to exchange a lot of confidential data. A slight breach could disrupt the company’s daily functions and even jeopardize their reputation.
Companies rely on multiple applications to complete their tasks. Some are recently developed, while some become legacy applications and redundant. It is, therefore, essential to develop applications that can integrate well with existing applications.
However, the biggest concern of enterprises is the speed of development. In a fast-paced environment, companies cannot afford to delay the process of developing software. They need a solution that can help them build, test, and deploy applications quickly.
With so many challenges in developing an application, companies will have to think of a technology that can effectively solve these challenges.
That’s where Python can be useful. Over 73.1% of users worldwide prefer to use it to develop applications. In fact, when Netflix surveyed its developers, most of them preferred using Python to develop applications.
So, what makes it so popular? We dig in to find out.
What Makes Python A Popular Choice For Enterprise Applications?
Technology giants like Google, Netflix, Microsoft, and Spotify are known to use Python to develop their applications. It has been able to meet the demands of these large enterprises, improve their operations, and offer a competitive advantage.
Spotify, for example, has used Python for 80% of its programming. The reason is simple – Spotify focuses on speed, and Python enables them to reduce time on app development. But the speed of development is just one advantage; let’s explore more.
- Easy prototyping
- Access to vast libraries of codes
For example, if a developer wants to work on Machine Learning features, they can use an opensource library called TensorFlow developed by Google. Python has one of the best developer’s communities where people post queries and get solutions to build world-class software with ease. Reddit, for example, is re-coded its website with Python because of its vast library.
Here’s what Steve Huffman, the CEO of Reddit, had to say about their decision to move to Python.
“There’s a library for everything. We’ve been learning a lot of these technologies and a lot of these architectures as we go. And, so, when I don’t understand connection pools, I can just find a library until I understand it better myself and write our own. Don’t understand web frameworks, so we’ll use someone else’s until we make our own…Python has an awesome crutch like that.”
- Easy integration with other languages
- Easy to learn and read codes
Another advantage is that Python codes are easy to read. They are as readable as English! So, even if a developer leaves the project, a new developer can easily understand the code and complete the task without delaying the completion of the project. The readable nature of Python also ensures that the debugging and code review occurs seamlessly.
“We initially chose to use Python because of its reputation for simplicity and practicality, which aligns well with our philosophy of ‘do the simple thing first,” says Min Ni, Instagram’s Software Engineer
- Works with DevOps
DevOps has become an integral part of almost every company’s culture. It helps companies to reduce silos between the teams and improve the speed at which the software is developed. Python is one of the primary technologies used in DevOps. Its flexibility enables companies to build and deploy enterprise applications faster.
Conclusion
Although the benefits of Python are well known, some companies still hesitate to adopt it. Partially, it has to do with the myths such as Python’s frequent run-time errors, underdeveloped database access layer, and its slow speed due to its use of an interpreter instead of a compiler. However, its benefits supersede its disadvantages, and developers prefer it for its robust yet simple programming language.
We believe that when it comes to developing enterprise applications, we must consider the opinion of programmers. What say?