Python's ordered arguments mixed with out of order labeled arguments is worse IMO: Tell me arguments in this order. Or not... I mean, you could just tell me which they are. Wait, I got two of these... F*ck this, I quit
(1) Un-named arguments come before any named arguments and should be passed in order (this is familiar to programmers in almost any mainstream language).
(2) Named arguments can then follow, in whatever order.
The interface is awkward however in that in other languages you would overload the function or pass a data structure, or reference of one, to manage additional optional parameters when you didn't want the extra arguments explicitly listed.
Python is a popular language and there are a ton of contributors who have developed third party packages. Unfortunately, these are not always well written or maintained and it can be easy to stumble across a bad one when looking for useful things. It's never fun to debug code in an unfamiliar language.
Perl is well known for it's multitude of idiosyncrasies, this is one of the reasons why it can be frustrating to programmers who have better experience in more modern or rigidly structured languages.