This. Jupyter notebooks, Matplotlib, Numpy, Spyder...all that made Python big again as ML and AI became the new hotness recently and the killer app for Python.

Outside AI, Python is a really good scripting language for both Linux and Windows. My entire industry seems to run off of Python for process automation and analysis. It really is a lingua franca in this space.

I agree. During my Maths + CS studies I've been using mainly MatLab and R, Andrew Ng's famous Machine Learning intro was also taught in MatLab/ Octave. But using just one „proper” general purposing language like Python instead makes way more sense, especially when building software from scratch. Need a custom ERP? Build one with django. A Web Server? Go with flask. Integrating some ML pipelines? Easy.