Why Does Python Make a Difference?

Why Does Python Make a Difference?

Only skilled and experienced programmers were previously able to build
mobile applications using C++ or Java. As a result, many people often
gave up early or never really started.
The emergence of Python for S60 offers a crucial turning point, as it
brings the Python programming language to the mobile space. This makes
mobile development approachable for many new developers that were
previously excluded.
Python for S60 can drastically reduce development time; it allows
development with completely free and open tools and reuse of open
source code modules. This can potentially lower costs and other barriers
to entry for first-time developers of mobile applications.
With Python running on Symbian OS, the short development cycle
gives a shortcut from the inspiration of an idea to its implementation.
It makes rapid prototyping on the mobile platform easy and efficient by
wrapping complex, low-level technical details in simple interfaces.
In recent years, the processing power and memory capacity of smartphones
have drastically advanced which have made it possible to run an
interpreted language such as Python on such devices.
Modern smartphones offer a rich set of features, including WiFi,
camera, sound recording and networking that could easily be combined
and used for new types of applications. As this book shows, Python for
S60 makes accessing these features extremely convenient, letting you
focus on your own application idea instead of on the intricacies of the
platform.

The mobile space and the Internet are rapidly converging. Client–server
solutions can be developed quickly in Python for S60 in combination
with a web services back end, such as Django or Ruby on Rails, or using
a custom server, which could also be implemented in Python. Being able
to use a single agile language, and even some of the same code, on both
the client and the server is a great benefit. Chapter 8 deals with advanced
topics in networking, such as peer-to-peer communication and turning
your mobile phone into a web server. Chapter 9 is dedicated to combining
web services, such as Yahoo! Maps and Flickr, with Python for S60.