[manpreets7]

Python holds a strategic middle ground. It's far more productive, expressive and concise than the traditional procedural and OO languages. Although not as expressive and elegant as the new FP languages like Clojure and F#, the latter lack massive libraries and modules that have been written for Python. That makes them useless for any 'real' work.

Python is seeing some heavy use by the scientific community due to tools like NumPy, matplotlib, libsvm and what not. Good luck finding that range of independent libraries for a new FP language. I am not dropping Python in the near future, but I am watching.

[mattdw]

Clojure can use (with very little mismatch) any available Java/JVM libraries.

F# can use anything available for the CLR/.NET.

Libraries are not really an issue.