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I was there when Perl and Tcl were the main actors, that is why VTK used Tcl originally.

Python dominates, because 25 years ago places like CERN started to adopt Python as their main scripting language, and eventually got used for more tasks than empowered shell scripts.

It is like arguing why C dominates and nothing else can ever replace it.

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I agree ability to use python to "script HPC" was key factor, but by itself would not have been enough. What really made it dominate is numpy/scipy/matplotlib becoming good enough to replace matlab 20 years ago, and enabled an explosion of tools on top of it: pandas, scikit learn, and the DL stuff ofc.

This is what differentiates python from other "morally equivalent" scripting languages.

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