1.2 The Python Standard Library and Extension Modules

There is more to Python programming than just the Python language: the standard Python library and other extension modules are almost as important for effective Python use as the language itself. The Python standard library supplies many well-designed, solid, 100% pure Python modules for convenient reuse. It includes modules for such tasks as data representation, string and text processing, interacting with the operating system and filesystem, and web programming. Because these modules are written in Python, they work on all platforms supported by Python.

Extension modules, from the standard library or from elsewhere, let Python applications access functionality supplied by the underlying operating system or other software components, such as graphical user interfaces (GUIs), databases, and networks. Extensions afford maximal speed in computationally intensive tasks, such as XML parsing and numeric array computations. Extension modules that are not coded in Python, however, do not necessarily enjoy the same cross-platform portability as pure Python code.

You can write special-purpose extension modules in lower-level languages to achieve maximum performance for small, computationally intensive parts that you originally prototyped in Python. You can also use tools such as SWIG to make existing C/C++ libraries into Python extension modules, as we'll see in Chapter 24. Finally, you can embed Python in applications coded in other languages, exposing existing application functionality to Python scripts via dedicated Python extension modules.

This book documents many modules, both from the standard library and from other sources, in areas such as client- and server-side network programming, GUIs, numerical array processing, databases, manipulation of text and binary files, and interaction with the operating system.