> Also, as Python illustrated, a language doesn't have to be interesting to be popular. Python was very interesting, or rather, Python is the thing in its inte

> Also, as Python illustrated, a language doesn't have to be interesting to be popular. Python was very interesting, or rather, Python is the thing in its interesting group that survived. Highly flexible scripting language with a "batteries included" library set is a very compelling sales pitch, even today. It was Perl but readable, and in this case simply being "readable" was interesting enough to cause it to win out (and also Perl's internal drama) > As Python also illustrated, a language can be opinionated and popular. Python's "style guide" is opinionated, but Python the language itself isn't that opinionated. Missing ++ & -- are about the only contentious "opinionated" aspects to it. You can fiddle with basically everything else however you want, though, and the language made adjustments to make that even more possible (eg, replacing the print keyword with the overridable print() function). Critically Python's standard library didn't really get any special treatment from the language. When a language lets the standard library or builtins do things that you can't, that's when it gets really questionable.