I use Anaconda for package management on Ubuntu, which helps a lot, but it's still not my preferred programming language.
To eliminate the need for braces and semicolons, of course. It's part of what makes python so easy to read and write. Is it really such a problem?
I honestly can't imagine disliking python. It's my goto for anything where performance doesn't matter due to its unmatched ergonomics and vast libs. Golang comes close but for some reason having to implement really common and basic things yourself is part of the language's design philosophy. Plus it's compiled so you can't just drop into the interpreter for a slick one-liner.
What's your preferred quick and dirty scripting/programming langage?
It's definitely a preference, and Python has a lot of library support that the Ruby community doesn't (yet, hopefully), but grandparent's comment about headaches setting up Python with a simple project are pretty common.
Rarely do I encounter a Python project that "just works" - If your setup isn't exactly the same as the repo owner, and often even they don't even know why their setup is the way it is, then there's often a lot of fiddling and package adjustments needed. Not a deal breaker normally, but enough to make it more painful to quickly drop in and start experimenting with.