[ironmagma]

That is true, but the trick is how to separate the hype from the gold, which is almost as much superstition as science. I would disagree that Python didn't have a hype phase; there were comics like this[1] after all.

[1] https://xkcd.com/353/

[crdoconnor]

If you look at the Google trends for ruby on rails (where the hype is clear) it looks markedly different to python (steady trend).

I remember that comic - I think it coincided not with anything special happening in the python world, it was just when Randall Munroe learned python.

[antod]

Although I would say 2007 was close to the peak of Python bleeding "mindshare" due to the hype cycle of Ruby and Rails.

[ncmncm]

Very little money was ever spent hyping Python.

Python benefited enormously by contrast to Perl, despite being slower.

[ryanbrunner]

That's a function of when Python was popularized, where there was very little major corporate support for new open source libraries / frameworks. Ruby and Rails had their hype cycle around the same time, more or less on the back of a <50 employee company.

Nowadays, open source development has centralized far more on large public companies, so there's a lot more marketing effort being put on all the languages / frameworks / libraries out there.