I remember first learning about NLTK, not knowing the first thing about Python, or anything at all about natural language processing. And I could just "get it"

I remember first learning about NLTK, not knowing the first thing about Python, or anything at all about natural language processing. And I could just "get it". My lack of Python knowledge did not get in the way because it was like reading pseudocode. The language is so beautifully designed for the majority of the cases where you do any kind of algorithmic/math work. In fact, it may have been too beautifully designed. :-) From what I can see from comment threads [1], most people seem to want to use NLTK even if there are a lot of complaints about how it is too slow for production, and how there are much better alternatives for NLP when it comes to performance. I think people are attracted to it because of its simplicity. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7658977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7658977