If you believe the TIOBE index, the popularity of python peaked around 2008-2009 and then slid to a low around 2014-2015 -- and now it's more popular than it's ever been.
I don't. I don't think anyone else should either. TIOBE counts number of hits returned by a weighted selection of search engines when you search for "<language> programming" - it's a useless metric.
That's mostly due to the popularity of Python in machine learning like projects. It's ideal for plumbing and Numpy/Tensorflow and CUDA bindings make it fast enough for real work.
I don't. I don't think anyone else should either. TIOBE counts number of hits returned by a weighted selection of search engines when you search for "<language> programming" - it's a useless metric.