> Python's success is entirely due to entry-level programming courses.
No, entry-level courses were in a mix of Scheme, C, and other languages until Java’s industrial ubiquity ended up in it becoming a popular choice, but not completely displacing the others. Then as Python (along with the broader class of dynamic OO scripting languages) became quite popular, Python got added to the mix, but, unlike Java, it fairly quickly displaced not only Java but a lot of what had been around longer in introductory courses.
Python’s industrial success drove its initial use in introductory courses, but doesn't fully explain it, as it doing what Java never did indicates.
I think the people teaching introductory courses find it less of a compromise to industrial popularity than they did with Java.
Python’s success is multifaceted, some of it is right-place right-time, a lot of it is the ecosystem it built because of that, but a lot of it is, I think, that it turns out to be a language that has been designed (both initially and in how it is been managed over time) to be a very good language for real people solving real problems, despite not adhering to any of what various typing and performance and paradigm purists like to posit as the essential features of a good language.
No, entry-level courses were in a mix of Scheme, C, and other languages until Java’s industrial ubiquity ended up in it becoming a popular choice, but not completely displacing the others. Then as Python (along with the broader class of dynamic OO scripting languages) became quite popular, Python got added to the mix, but, unlike Java, it fairly quickly displaced not only Java but a lot of what had been around longer in introductory courses.
Python’s industrial success drove its initial use in introductory courses, but doesn't fully explain it, as it doing what Java never did indicates.
I think the people teaching introductory courses find it less of a compromise to industrial popularity than they did with Java.
Python’s success is multifaceted, some of it is right-place right-time, a lot of it is the ecosystem it built because of that, but a lot of it is, I think, that it turns out to be a language that has been designed (both initially and in how it is been managed over time) to be a very good language for real people solving real problems, despite not adhering to any of what various typing and performance and paradigm purists like to posit as the essential features of a good language.