I've been using Python since around 1996. Back then I had used, or was still using, C, C++, Turbo Pascal, Delphi, BASIC (groan) and assembler. Python was so mu

I've been using Python since around 1996. Back then I had used, or was still using, C, C++, Turbo Pascal, Delphi, BASIC (groan) and assembler. Python was so much more high-level than all these other languages that it was staggering. It was pretty weird to use it at first. Where are all the declarations? What are these "lists" and "dictionaries"? You mean I can just stick any old thing in an object or even a class? Etc. Soon it became obvious how much more powerful this new language was, and I enjoyed replacing reams of Pascal/C code with a few lines of Python. I tried to use it at work too, but failed because it was considered "unmaintainable" by the powers that were (this was around 1999-2000). Of course, this just fueled the feeling of having an obscure but superior language rebelling against the big evil statically typed empire. :-) Anyway, this used to be some of the appeal of Python. I suppose it still applies to some extent, although since then, Python has been passed left and right by languages that are more powerful, more flexible, more functional, more "fun", and whatnot. Nowadays there seems to be a meme going around claiming that e.g. Ruby is fun and flexible, while by contrast Python is boring and conservative. It wasn't always like that. I distinctly recall people discovering Python and exclaiming that "programming is FUN again!". Then again, all of these things are in the eye of the beholder, mostly. If you don't like Python, no big deal, especially if you have both lower-level (C, C++) and higher-level (Lisp) languages at your disposal. (Personally, I used to think that Ruby was butt-ugly and uninteresting... these days, I have taken more of a liking to the spirit of the Ruby community, which (perhaps ironically) reminds me of Python's in the 1990s.)