I disagree. I mean sure, you can write something akin to functional programs in python, but the language as a whole is "mutability first" to a very large degree

I disagree. I mean sure, you can write something akin to functional programs in python, but the language as a whole is "mutability first" to a very large degree. From almost every language I have used, I find python one of the furthest from my idea of functional programming (which means different things to different people). Which, in my mind, also makes it a pretty darn useless ML. It is a fine language on its own, but understanding it in terms of lisp (or even worse, scheme) or, say, standard ML is a not very useful. I think a good exercise regarding this is trying to write YOUR-FAVOURITE-LANGUAGE in ANOTHER-LANGUAGE. Writing idiomatic scheme in standard ML is surprisingly straightforward. Writing scheme in python is awful, regardless of functools.