Up until mid-2000s, no one had heard of Python. Then there was maybe ten years of “Whitespace? No!” But from say 2012 on there was a big movement of data science and education into Python and its general reputation was quite good.

Edit: the XKCD antigravity comic was December 2007, so pretty early on all things considered. PG’s Python Paradox was 2004.

> But from say 2012 on there was a big movement of data science and education into Python and its general reputation was quite good.

When Python became popular in education, particularly for first CS courses, is when the public criticism from Scheme, Java, and and C partisans really skyrocketed.

Yeah, it has had recently a generally good reputation. That doesn't mean that it has been untouchable and immune to criticism.

I’ll agree with that. I think it’s more that the criticisms of the loudest voices has shifted. Once it was “why use an obscure language” then “ugh whitespace” then “dynamic typing is bad” and now more “it’s jumped the shark.”

>Up until mid-2000s, no one had heard of Python

You'd be surprised. Python was used quite a lot in early 00s.

Ruby is the one that was a curiosity few used at that point, until Rails came.