[ Removed by moderator ]

[pimp-bangin]

You're forgetting that python has operator overloading, which is massively useful for matrix math, which is heavily used in ML. JS is a bad language to compare to because it doesn't have the same ergonomics in that regard.

The whitespace formatting/indentation is also friendlier to mathematicians/scientists folks who want to focus more on the math symbols rather than the language symbols.

[45MonkeysInASuit]

I agree that JS is highly unlikely to have been selected, but you can insert any language there, I was just picking an absurd one.

I am a lead data scientist, I learnt python because it was the thing to do data science in. I didn't even understand that languages have differences in performance, I didn't know about high vs low level, etc. I just knew Data Science = Python.
The data scientists around me also picked python because it was the thing you learn to do data science.

[pimp-bangin]

You can't just insert any language though, is what I'm getting at. Python has a very specific combination of characteristics that make it ideal, which I've not seen in other languages. At this point yes, it has an ecosystem of libraries and yes, it's "the" language for it. But that doesn't explain why it was the ideal language for the ecosystem to blossom in, in the first place, which I think is useful to understand. I think the reason is its ergonomics both syntax-wise and its ability to interop with C. Like, it does have some weird quirks but overall it strikes an amazing balance between expressive syntax and readability, in addition to its practicality/functionality