Having used Python and Perl professionally, I'd have to agree with really all of this. I just want to emphasize Python's niche in ML (since that's what I do wit

Having used Python and Perl professionally, I'd have to agree with really all of this. I just want to emphasize Python's niche in ML (since that's what I do with it mostly lately) - it was also helped by a large, early set of libraries specifically for ML that other languages either still don't have or are playing catch-up (Elixir), and its ease of use among academics, a lot of whom went straight from academia to industry.