I don't even know if it's "fashion" as much as an industry that only knew that java 1.2 wasn't going to be the path forward if you wanted to develop with speed.

I don't even know if it's "fashion" as much as an industry that only knew that java 1.2 wasn't going to be the path forward if you wanted to develop with speed. There was no guarantee python or php were going to be the winners. I think it does speak to the amount of labor that goes into making a language viable as an option, though. Java had paid labor. Tcl didn't have enough unpaid labor to succeed while python did.