The relaxed rule enforcement is very difficult for beginners to understand. After one has experience with other languages, we kinda understand that every language is gonna have at least one crufty WTF corner, but beginners will become really confused at the behavior like the infamous "Wat talk" [0] demonstrates.

Even Python has some quirks beyond the usual monkeypatching madness that can occur, e.g. with regards to name scoping.

I'm honestly not sure what could fit here that isn't a LISP dialect (which I think is pedagogically the right choice, but is usually impractical unless one is sure that one wants to do "hardcore" CS stuff, vs. using coding as merely a tool in another field).

[0] https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat