I've heard all 3 spoken.

I've heard it at pycon and at the local python user's group. I've seen it on blogs for years.

I heard it more often circa 2010 when I was active in my local python user group. Usage has definitely waned along with some more of the cute aspects of pythonic culture, like referring to pypi as the cheese shop. I think it's because more and more companies started hiring specifically for python, and it became something developers were forced to use, as opposed to something that people chose to use because they loved it.

I'm a big Python advocate. I'd never call myself a "Pythonista" if asked to describe myself, but I do see "Pythonista" as something that describes me.

In this sense, as someone who is casually interested in learning Rust, the title "From Pythonista to Rustacean" told me this repo is very relevant for me! :)

There isn't a productive -ista suffix in English; it occurs in loanwords, or words created to ironically mimic a foreign language in the Romance family ("fashionista").

The -ista suffix in some European languages which have it is not universally feminine.

  English                    Slovak                       Italian
                        (m)         (f)              (m)          (f)

  fascist             fašista     fašistka         fascista     fasciste
  racist              rasista     rasistka         razzista     razziste

See here: https://www.etymonline.com/word/-ist

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ista

The -ista suffix from Latin, where it is a masculine, appearing in that form in a number of Romance languages, and in French as -iste, is masculine. The English -ist comes from the Latin -ista.

You assume wrongly, Pythonista has been in use for both genders for a long time (more than a decade).