Python

Python is a generalized programming language used for everything from web development (Django and Flask) to game development, and for scientific and numerical computation. See Python.org/about/apps/.

Python is really useful for data wrangling and scientific computing in general because it emphasizes simplicity, readability, and modularity.

To see this, take a look at a Python implementation of the hello world program, which prints the words Hello World!:

Print("Hello World!")

To do the same thing in Java, another popular programming language, we need something a bit more verbose:

System.out.println("Hello World!");

While this may not seem like a huge difference, extra research and consultation of documentation can add up, adding time to the data wrangling process.

Python also has built-in data structures that are relatively flexible in the way that they handle data.

This contributes to Python's relative ease of use, particularly when working with data on a low level.

Finally, because of Python's modularity and popularity within the scientific community, there are a number of packages built around Python that can be quite useful to us in data wrangling.