What didn't he like about Python?
There are things about Python which are ugly, but the language is nice for being flexible, lacking surprises, having an ethos favouring readable code, and having a comprehensive set of libraries that are easy to use.
Python's famed readability takes a dip when you use libraries like Pandas or Tensorflow -- which awkwardly glue a whole new language onto Python -- but standard library Python is very common-sense and readable.
(Also, Python's OOP is awkward with object.f() meaning something different from f(object), when really they ought to mean the same thing. In Pandas, you sometimes have a function with the same name as a method, which behave subtly different from each other.)
Academic functional languages don't have most of those, and academia has no right to complain given that they've done little to rectify this.
There are things about Python which are ugly, but the language is nice for being flexible, lacking surprises, having an ethos favouring readable code, and having a comprehensive set of libraries that are easy to use.
Python's famed readability takes a dip when you use libraries like Pandas or Tensorflow -- which awkwardly glue a whole new language onto Python -- but standard library Python is very common-sense and readable.
(Also, Python's OOP is awkward with object.f() meaning something different from f(object), when really they ought to mean the same thing. In Pandas, you sometimes have a function with the same name as a method, which behave subtly different from each other.)
Academic functional languages don't have most of those, and academia has no right to complain given that they've done little to rectify this.