Python has been around for years (since the late 80’s, I was surprised to discover, although not in mainstream use until much more recently). I have used it occasionally for very simple scripts, usually where the larger ‘ecosystem’ of the project I’m involved with has also been Python-based.
However, it’s now becoming clear that Python has broken through as a mainstram language in the scientific community, and also specifically in computer vision and AI. OpenCV – my main area of work – has a good Python binding.
Time to learn this language more deeply then, I think. I have shied away from it a little until now, on the basis that C/C++ are bound to be faster for compute-intensive tasks such as vision. However, initial tests show that the Python binding is roughly as fast (perhaps because it is exactly that – a binding, to the core of OpenCV which is still C/C++). It may be the case that C/C++ will remain faster when much of the functionality of the application is above the OpenCV level – but if the application is mainly just calls to OpenCV, then perhaps C/C++ doesn’t have such an advantage.
I will be creating some test apps in both languages as way of learning Python, and will post comparitive results here in due course.