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Comment by j_baker | Hacker News Reader

I think that Python "fixes" reliance on language features. Sure, Python has a lot of neat features compared to say C# or Java, but as a dynamic language it really isn't anything that great.

But Python is probably the best example in recent history of a language that made it big not because it was anything radically new or innovative, but because it has a great standard library and a solid, mature implementation.

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Agreed. In many ways, Python is the most "boring" of the modern dynamic languages, in the sense that it trades exciting features and hip syntax for predictability and elegance. So it gets a lot of the productivity, conciseness, and power of other dynamic languages without nearly as much cognitive dissonance for people familiar with C or Java.

I was going to say that Python fixes in programming languages whatever Markdown fixes in other plain-text markup syntaxes. But thinking about it, you're right -- it fixes the tendency of other languages to invent special syntax to represent standard, frequently used concepts. Python follows the conventions you might use when sketching out an idea on a napkin, and takes each convention to its logical, parser-friendly conclusion.

There are few language features that would be hard to succinctly express in a line of pseudocode. ("If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.")

Result: straightforward, algorithmic code looks like pseudocode, and any code that uses special language features really pops out -- if you see an at-sign or double-underscores, you know something Python-specific is happening.

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