Last week I have written a Python script purely relying on the stdlib. Basically a coworkers shell script had to be adjusted to account for newer datafiles I was processing and I am not that experienced with shell script magic. I typed down 15 lines of Python code only relying on the std lib and was happy, it ran on the server's 2.x Python without an issue. This is the primary selling point of a larger std. library.

But, I do wonder whether it needs to grow. Python is in a stage where adoption of new std library features is inherently slow, not only in third-party libraries like twisted, but also in applications, even if they use newer Python versions.

What kills Python here is that it is most commonly bundled with the linux distribution or the OS (true also on mac). This reduces cycle times drastically. Compare this to newr language platforms that people like to install in newer versions on older platforms quite regularly.

Some recent additions would be fine additions at an early stage of language development, but surely not for Python.