4 Features of Python 3.9 That You Can’t Take Your Eyes Off

Python is one of the most popular programming languages in the world. It is widely popular for a plethora of tasks due to its flexible nature and ease of use. Python has also managed to beat other programming languages such as Java, which were once upon a time, the world’s favorite. In fact, the extent of its popularity has grown so much that people are looking at it even for python web development.

However, the most significant contribution of Python is in the domain of research and development. Owing to a flexible approach and rigorous libraries, it is widely used in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Apart from this, Python is basically open source in nature, which means anybody can make a contribution to the programming language as and when they eish. This is providing a lot of opportunities to the scientific community to make their contributions to Python as the need emerges. Moreover, this is also giving opportunities to small businesses and developers who find new features every now and then to leverage for their purposes.

Right from the time Guido van Rossum laid the foundation of Python almost two-decade back, little did he know that it would one day overthrow Java to become the most widely used programming language. But, here we are now, watching Python take over a wide number of industries with its motivating features and vast and widespread community.

New Version, New Features

A new version of Python was recently unveiled to the world, with lucrative features and amendments that were long-awaited. Even though Python’s latest version 3.9 was in the beta testing for a long time, it will be soon made available for the world to use and leverage for their own interests. Until then, if you are excited to move ahead and use the new version you can download the beta and start exploring.

However, it is not advisable to develop large scale applications or make it the foundation of enterprise software, when it is still in the beta version. As exciting as it might sound, wait for the full release of Python 3.9 which will be a stable version. Another reason why you must not hop onto developing your applications on the beta version is that it is still under fixes and updates. Beta versions are released to test the response to particular features or changes made to an application, software, or programming language.

As the parent organization received feedback from the people using the beta version, they move onto working on those and making the changes as required. Once the stable version is released it means that all the feedback received during the beta tests has been incorporated and it is free from bugs and crashes.

So in case if you’ve been too excited with Python 3.9 and its beta release, it is advisable that you go and check the official document upon its final release. And this is because the parent organization will be making changes to it to enhance the capabilities and stability of the current version. But, as we wait for the full release, there are still some pretty cool features that Python has rolled out in its latest version. You might want to check out those and keep an eye to leverage them in the long run.

Keep an Eye on These Features

Dictionary Union Operators

The dictionary union operator is one of the most anticipated features of Python’s version 3.9. It has a sleek syntax and helps developers work effortlessly between multiple dictionaries. For example, if you have two dictionaries in Python called X and Y and you need to merge them to make it into one. For this purpose, you can now use the union operator and merge X and Y in minimum steps.

Here’s an example of how you can do that-

x = {'zero': 0, 'one': 1}
y = {'nine': 9, 'ten': 10}

z = x | y

z will be

{'zero': 0, 'one': 1, 'nine': 9, 'ten': 10}

Type Hinting

One of the most useful features of python is that it is a dynamically typed programming language. This means we don’t have to specify types while writing our code. While this a huge relief at times, it can also become cumbersome. Especially if multiple teams are working together, Python’s flexibility becomes more of a malarkey. To avoid this, Python 3.9 facilitates specifying the type of our input type as ‘int’ With the help of this, the Python editor catches the crux of the problem easily. Type hinting can be used everywhere and especially with its clean syntax it has become easier than ever.

Two New String Models

While this feature might not be as awaited as the other features, it is still worth mentioning, which is why it makes it to our list. String methods have been added in Python 3.9 to make them remove the added prefixes and suffixes. Let’s say that you write Hello and want to remove the prefix He from the word. Here is what you can do

"Hello".removeprefix("He")

The output would look like- "llo"

New Python Parser

Python right now uses the LL1 grammar, which is parsed using the LL1 parser. In other words, the parsing happens from left to right, top to bottom, by analyzing just one token at a time. At a granular level, this creates huge complexity. Therefore, the new parser is aimed to solve this. While it might not make much sense to use the features now, it is expected to be a huge turning point with the evolution of Python.

While the features sound exciting, we can only know all that Python 3.9 has in store once the final version rolls out. Until then, feel free to test the beta version and express your views on the latest features.