Not necessarily for the data-science and machine-learning communities built around Python extensions like NumPy and SciPy, but as a general programming language.

Programming language Python is now firmly the second most popular programming language, for the first time knocking Java out of the top two places in RedMonk's language popularity rankings.

Despite a rocky transition from Python 2 to Python 3, developers are still flocking to the programming language.

As far as languages go, Python gives me the least headaches. Its elegant syntax and feedback to bugs makes it a good language for beginners to learn as an introduction to programming, which is ...