Why is python so popular? It reminds me of a less flexible JavaScript, except a little cleaner feeling. However, the flexibility (functions are data, etc) is the main allure of JavaScript, besides it being required for web
What draws everyone to python? Why don’t people use c# or Java or c++ or some other language? What’s the killer benefit they get?
Numpy, scikit (learn/image), panda, and probably tensorflow (never used that one).
Tbf numpy+pandas is like using a mathlab that also have easy way to do http requests/web scraping, so there's that.
I didn't really do datascience in 6 years now (except that one time I demo'ed our jupyterlab+dask setup vs a classic Hadoop), but to me those are the clear reasons.
Also the first time I used python I was doing a CTF and had to add between 70 and 130 NOP (randomly) before the payload. I think I now could do that in perl and awk, but at the time it was a python one-liner and I do think python was the easiest to debug between the three, hence was the best solution.
Today, Python is popular because Python is popular.
It doesn't have any engineering merits of its own. But you also cannot compete against it on engineering merits. It doesn't matter if you do everything better in your language than how it's done in Python. Unless you find a way to make it popular, Python will stay popular and your language will fade into oblivion.
What was the initial seed that created this popularity? -- well, it seemed cool for nonsense reasons. The choice of Python was often reactionary, to spite those who chose Java. Python just happened to fill the niche of "what language should I write in if I think Java sucks?"
This had an appeal to better programmers of that time (early 2000s), and this made others believe that language was what made those better programmers better. The better programmers started to flee Python some 5-10 years later, but it had already enough momentum to attract lots of mediocre programmers, and before you knew it, Python started to be used everywhere, and while the quality of Python programmers consistently dropped, the popularity only grew.
So... if you are planning on a project for yourself, or for a group of skilled and motivated individuals -- there's no reason to choose Python, in fact, you'll come to regret it if you do. But, if your goal is to make a project in the context of an industry giant, then Python is a great pick -- you'll have an infinite stream of replaceable programmers, lots of 3rd-party libraries. You'll save a lot on developing the product. It won't be a high-quality one, but in this context nobody cares about quality anyways.
What draws everyone to python? Why don’t people use c# or Java or c++ or some other language? What’s the killer benefit they get?