> To refer back to the Eve announcement, to that scientist who has to rely on the sole Pythonista to get some kind of task done...why shouldn't the ambition be that that scientist learns some Python? Why is programming seen as some dirty work relegated to the lab nerd with an obsessive interest in closures and indentation, instead of being integral to the scientific process?

Because to many, programming is a industrial process that is kept deliberately obscure and obtuse by programmers who fear the loss of their power. Not as something that has a certain inherent amount of complexity to it. It's the same as people who hate doctors because they believe medicine is 99% fancy vocabulary.

To many such people, programs should be as simple as they look. So should everything else in life. I can only assume they have never looked under the hood of a car.