Yeah, python is quite approachable, but it seems to me that this is now also its weak point: it now attracts the ever growing crowd of programming newbies, gene

Yeah, python is quite approachable, but it seems to me that this is now also its weak point: it now attracts the ever growing crowd of programming newbies, generating and solidifying weird/bad practices based on misunderstanding/lack of experience/zealotry (like the string/unicode mess, awkward handling of unix primitives, preoccupation with questions of "the correct style" or identity politics recently).