Python 3.6 – Has it redefined web development?

Python 3.6 is the biggest ever release by Python, and it starts its enhancements from where Python 3.5 left. Released in December 2016, the world is going gaga over the new release, as the enhancements help improve speed and performance of your website without compromising on the quality or, the way you have construed your website.

Python 3.5 was the first ever release that aimed at making the framework easy to use, and convenient, while being faster and efficient in development. This release was also the first to add syntax in a static checking tool defining quality in all aspects of development. With the new version 3.6, you will see high-speed programs which can be statically compiled. Now that’s a first we suppose. While 3.5 released a few features, the v3.6 has enhanced them further to improve developer’s capabilities, and enhance Python web development as a process.

Let’s have a quick look at some of the enhancements offered by Python 3.6

Asynchronous Functions
This feature was first released with Python 3.5, and this new version aims to enhance it further. async and await were merely decorative functions in earlier Python releases. This has been modified with the release of 3.6. You can easily use them within generators and comprehensions to improve the speed of processing, thus leading to quicker and better outputs. Let us detail it out for you a bit.

When you are reading from a network socket, the processing time ideally is high. This is what Python aims to reduce with the new release. Even in the earlier releases, developers could offer functions that worked asynchronously without really coming in each other’s way. So what has changed in 3.6? The way it is being done, and where all this can be used.

You have two keywords await and async that weren’t used earlier; now they can be used to conduct the functions asynchronously within major Python parts namely generators and comprehensions. Generators are basically list that can be viewed on demand, rather computed when you need them. If you use async with these generators then you would be able to view the lists when certain external conditions are met, thus automating the view. So, if you want to delay the view or want it to be viewed after certain time, then it is possible with these two keywords.

With comprehensions, you can assemble the data in your website in a structured format, say lists or directories. When you use the keywords async or await leads to append the output of the function aiter which in turn lists out the details in an asynchronous fashion. You can use it within functions such as lambdas for a better view or, to condense the list view in certain cases.

To ensure asynchronous reading of the network socket, as mentioned earlier, you will need to use the function asyncio from the library. While await and async are new, they don’t replace asyncio, just change the way asyncio will be used hereon.

Speed & Memory: The Impressive Enhancements
For a developer, enhancements in speed and memory play an important role in choosing a framework. While Python has been a great platform when it comes to speed and memory usage, the v3.6 has come with some impressionable enhancements.

CPython is the default Python implementation, and the v3.6 has introduced some improvements for this new version. The idea is to make runtime faster and the memory usage economical, without compromising on backward compatibility of the platform.

Python as a framework has been pretty slow in the past, and the version 3.6 aims to improve this aspect. In the past increasing the speed or performance of Python meant you had to compromise on backward compatibility, as the two were linked. In 3.6, the idea is to improve quality of development through performance & memory enhancements, which does not compromise on the existing good in the framework. Best part is that developers can make small changes in their existing code to initiate these improvements.

How has Python 3.6 introduced performance improvements? The new Python framework has introduced bytecode parsing enhancements, has staged efficient directories and has enabled faster calling of functions.

You can compile the Python scripts in a way that the bytecodes are cached, and speed enhancements are initiated. Basically, the bytecodes have been optimized for faster parsing. Some of the enhancements include 16 bit bytecode format, more opcodes, simplified opcodes and simplified interpreters.

If you migrate to the newer version of runtime, you can enable all these enhancements, and increase performance of website development. Faster calling of function is the other enhancement, which has been aimed at increasing the speed of CPython. While the improvements aren’t really major, it will definitely add up to quality of development. Dict type has been redefined in Python 3.6. A compact version of the dictionary has been introduced which leads to reduced usage of the memory. In fact, you can see a 25% reduction in memory usage by the introduction of dict type.

The changes are indeed impressive for this new version.

Other Enhancements
Among the other enhancements made with Python 3.6 is the frame evaluation API which can be integrated with your base framework to allow third party applications to be part of your website, and help evaluate the code. This add-on allows you to evaluate the code using external methods i.e. using a JIT machine code or the currently incorporate CPython interpreter. With this API, you can enhance the performance of the JITs for CPython.

A new module secrets has been introduced with Python Development Services . This has been introduced to improve the security of your website on Python. With this module, you can simplify the cryptographically generated pseudo-random numbers to improve account authentication, tokens and other aspects that demand security within the website. If you are using Linux based system, os.urandom() blocks the system till you initialize the urandom entropy pool. This aims to improve security on Linux systems.

These are the major enhancements Python has received with the new version 3.6. Not only have the enhancements improved the security and quality of development but also raised the speed and performance bars. Now, you can increase efficiency of development without compromising on backward compatibility, and reduce the application memory usage.