S. Lott: Why Python is not the programming language of the future -- a response

See https://towardsdatascience.com/why-python-is-not-the-programming-language-of-the-future-30ddc5339b66.

This is an interesting article with some important points. And. It has some points that I disagree with.

• Speed. This is a narrow perspective. numpy and pandas are fast, dask is fast. A great many Python ecosystem packages are fast. This complaint seems to be unsupported by evidence.
• Dynamic Scoping Rules. This actually isn't the problem. The problem is something about not being able to change containing scopes. First, I'm not sure changing nesting scopes is of any value at all. Second, the complaint ignores the global and nonlocal statements. The vague "leads to a lot of confusion" seems unsupported by any evidence. 
• Lambdas. The distinction between expressions and statements isn't really a distinction in Python in general, only in  the bodies of lambdas. I'm not sure what the real problem is, since a lambda with statements seems like a syntactic nightmare better solved with an ordinary, named function.
• Whitespace. Sigh. I've worked with many people who get the whitespace right but the {}'s wrong in C++. The code looks great but doesn't work. Python gets it right. The code looks great and works.
• Mobile App Platform. See https://beeware.org. 
• Runtime Errors. "coding error manifests itself at runtime" seems to be the problem. I'm not sure what this means, because lots of programming languages have run-time problems. Here's the quote: "This leads to poor performance, time consumption, and the need for a lot of tests. Like, a lot of tests." Performance? See above. Use numpy. Or Cuda. Time consumption? Not sure what this means. A lot of tests? Yes. Software requires tests. I'm not sure that a compiled language like Rust, Go, or Julia require fewer tests. Indeed, I think the testing is essentially equivalent.

I'm interested in ways Python could be better. 

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