Just to further this sentiment, and perhaps even more worrisome, is how easily a language, even one as well established as Python, might fall out of favor. The fact that JavaScript usage is becoming ubiquitous as a scripting language was an example mitsuhiko was using of the challenges Python faces. Sure, the Python team can't stop that from happening, but they can stop pretending Python 3 is going to work just as soon as everyone gets on board with it. Hint: developers will adopt it when there are good reasons to use it and here the argument is that doing things more correctly (and consequently making life harder) is not a good enough reason when it comes to real world applications (Jinja2, Werkzeug, Flask, etc)
My objection to the idea that JS will so easily replace Python is that if you apply the same degree of analysis to JS that is causing you to reject Python, JS fares far worse. At least Python addresses the encoding issue, JS strings are far stupider, more dangerous, and require you to do a lot more of the paperwork if you can't assume an external environment that takes care of it for you (the browser, in this case). The next generation of JS fares somewhat better, if it is implemented according to the spec (and there quite a gulf betwixt a spec and an implementation), but when will you start being able to use that?
Try implementing even a medium-sized project in both Python and JS and tell me JS is a serious replacement, let alone for the large ones.
Armin mentioned JS as an example of a language that could come and be favorable to developers contra Python.
Like clojure, or something else. Indeed, as a newcomer to Python I wanted to pick up python 3 from the start, but went back to python 2 becuase of poor library support.
If in the future people still decide to go with what works, they might as well go with a completley different language, that just works, not becuase it is the correct way.
I doubt JS will ever replace Python and I doubt that is what Armin believes. That doesn't mean it cannot hurt Python significantly in terms of popularity and market share.
If JS gets to improve in the future, so does Python. Again, apply the same standards in both cases, which is my real point. Ranting about "accounting only the positives of one alternative and only the negatives of the other" is a bit of a hobby of mine. You can make anything look good or bad that way, but that appearance has no relationship to truth. You can't make good decisions that way, but people do it surprisingly often.
Also, encoding was one example. I could rant for hours about the ways in which Python is more suitable than JS(-of-today) for medium-or-greater sized projects.
