I'm in the minority, but the language that annoys me most is Python. Not because it's a really bad language--not at all! Rather, it is a mediocre language with weird semantics, warts and no redeeming features. That by itself is fine--there are many mediocre languages on this poll, some of which are worse than Python.
The real issue is how over-hyped Python is--everybody wants me to use it. I can avoid other unfortunate languages like PHP or even Java fairly easily, but everywhere I turn Python is basically shoved in my face.
It's also constantly heralded as a well designed language when most of it is anything but. I don't even think it's the best dynamically typed language--out of the ones I've any experience with, Scheme, Lua and even JavaScript (aside from the DOM and browser stuff) are nicer and more elegant. Python is bigger, more complicated and yet less expressive than any of these languages (especially Scheme).
It seems to share a philosophy with Java (we can't let programmers have anything they might possibly shoot themselves in the foot with!), which does not make for a language I would like to use.
As I've said, its faults are not unique. It's a sub-par language in a sub-par world. But for some reason it's elevated as the paragon of language design and used widely.
Of course, there are plenty of communities that do not like Python--it's only overrated in the HN sort of sphere. Low-level programmers like C and C++; enterprisey types like Java and C# and neither like Python. I am not interested in either community myself, however.
The one community that I am interested in, and that doesn't like Python either, is the programming language group. Comments on Lambda the Ultimate are much more critical of Python than comments on HN.
So yeah, I like Python less than even Intercal, simply because I've been forced to use the former and will never have to use the latter.
The real issue is how over-hyped Python is--everybody wants me to use it. I can avoid other unfortunate languages like PHP or even Java fairly easily, but everywhere I turn Python is basically shoved in my face.
It's also constantly heralded as a well designed language when most of it is anything but. I don't even think it's the best dynamically typed language--out of the ones I've any experience with, Scheme, Lua and even JavaScript (aside from the DOM and browser stuff) are nicer and more elegant. Python is bigger, more complicated and yet less expressive than any of these languages (especially Scheme).
It seems to share a philosophy with Java (we can't let programmers have anything they might possibly shoot themselves in the foot with!), which does not make for a language I would like to use.
As I've said, its faults are not unique. It's a sub-par language in a sub-par world. But for some reason it's elevated as the paragon of language design and used widely.
Of course, there are plenty of communities that do not like Python--it's only overrated in the HN sort of sphere. Low-level programmers like C and C++; enterprisey types like Java and C# and neither like Python. I am not interested in either community myself, however.
The one community that I am interested in, and that doesn't like Python either, is the programming language group. Comments on Lambda the Ultimate are much more critical of Python than comments on HN.
So yeah, I like Python less than even Intercal, simply because I've been forced to use the former and will never have to use the latter.