And despite that, still a top 3 most popular programming language on the planet. And another in that top 3 is the universally-derided Javascript.

There's a lesson in there to learn. Its unfortunate that the people who need to learn it most likely won't.

It's important to note that JS has an unfair advantage in that if you want to write code that runs on the universal platform, you're forced to use either it or something that transpiles to it. Python reached where it was on merits alone.

(That said, JS is actually a very versatile and almost-great language, getting better all the time)

Python reached where it is because university CS programs which had previously been teaching Java reached for a new language.

Most universities I knew were still teaching Java well into python's rise to popularity a decade ago. Python got where it is by focusing on being simple, easy, and nice to use. Seriously take a look at PEP-20 sometime:

https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/

Things like "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it." just was such a breath of fresh air in language design.

I take it they didn't extend that to the package managers :)