[adrianratnapala]

> My experience with this is that it is not the necessarily the language that makes it too complex

It's not that the language makes the project complex. It's that the projects are by a bit more complex than the language is cut out for.

> but the lack of training in proper software development...

Assuming training scientists etc. in proper software development is a good use of their time (it might be); then MATLAB is a blocker because it makes it hard/ugly to implement "proper" techniques.

Again Python fits the bill here, because its a pretty good language for novices to hack around naively in, while scaling smoothly to projects 5-10 times more complex. So that the naïf has some headroom.