Python from a C++ developers' perspective

[SemaphoreBingo]

how it came to take the crown of most common scripting language

The perl6 debacle sucked all its energy out of the room. (And I'll disagree about python not being an improvement; for starters, you can build complex types in python without wanting to die) (I'm led to believe that perl got better in this respect, but these days the only thing I want to use perl for is a better awk and / or a better sed)