Python for your phone!
Perhaps one measure of something's popularity is whether it's available for cell phones. Well, Python passes that test, at least for Nokia Series 60 smartphones. That may say more about Nokia than about Python.
It seems the Series 60 had already supported C++ and Java, as well as perhaps other languages and tools via the Symbian operating system. Unlike C++ and Java, though, Python is an interpreted language and much better suited to running interactively on a phone. Nokia's official Python package takes advantage of this and allows you to enter programs directly on the phone using the keypad. While this is fairly painful, I'm not sure the same capability is even offered for C++ or Java. (The typical way to get a program into the phone is to create it on a separate computer and then transfer it electronically.)
For those Perl fans out there, it looks like there is also a Symbian version, but it may or may not be officially supported and is in a much less mature stage of development than Python for S60.
It seems the Series 60 had already supported C++ and Java, as well as perhaps other languages and tools via the Symbian operating system. Unlike C++ and Java, though, Python is an interpreted language and much better suited to running interactively on a phone. Nokia's official Python package takes advantage of this and allows you to enter programs directly on the phone using the keypad. While this is fairly painful, I'm not sure the same capability is even offered for C++ or Java. (The typical way to get a program into the phone is to create it on a separate computer and then transfer it electronically.)
For those Perl fans out there, it looks like there is also a Symbian version, but it may or may not be officially supported and is in a much less mature stage of development than Python for S60.