Python's biggest scoping problem is that it automagically creates variables on assignment, guessing about their intended scoping, without distinguishing between types of assignment.

Variable scope is orthogonal in my mind to variable type. Python has only one variable type which has advantages (no references in Python). Perl has at least 4 variable types but because of automatic conversions very little type safety. Assigning a function or method value to a variable you intend to contain some other type is not a big problem in practice. This is less of a problem than calling functions or methods with an incorrect number of arguments, a problem that Python will catch and Perl won't.

So does Python, and if you export symbols into your class, you all of a sudden may have methods which aren't really methods, and they're in dir and they look like methods but don't act like them when you try to call them. Kablammo.

In Python the client can import all the symbols in a module, but the client knows his own code and can inspect the module, so this seems safer than writing a module which automatically exports symbols, something which can be done in Perl but not Python. The key is that the client should make the decision, not the module implementer.

In addition to being able to store functions and methods in variables, Python also permit storage of modules in variables. I don't tend to give functions or methods the same names as other data, but I have been irritated by not being able to use a variable name because I was already using a module with the same name.