Why python?

As absurd as it sounds is basically, in my opinion, because it is really easy to write it! That is to say is human readable! (E.g.: for element in list:)

Furthermore, is the time you spare with testing, compilation problems, etc!What it could take you 1 hour with C++, you dont need more than 10minutes with Python...

It has some problems though! Since it is interpreted it will never be as fast and performant as directly compiled code! Moreover, the lack of type definition can generate some unexpected problems during execution! For that I have a trick...I just put a letter in lower case before the variable to indicate the type to myself (s for string, i for integer, t for tuple, d for dictionaries, o for objects and so forth)

You can use Python for writing portable code between multiple OS, no need for recompilation. Basically everything can be implemented in Python, in the scientific community it is used mainly as a glue code, meaning you keep your computer intensive tasks in C++ or Fortran and use Python for gluing the pieces.

If you want to see more, check the python website:

http://www.python.org/about/apps/

It's a dynamic programming language that runs on all major platforms and has good libraries.

The code tends to be clean and readable.

(This applies to ruby as well).