It's about the different ways the language allows you to shoot yourself in the foot.
I worked on large Python, C++, Java & Go services. I have 10y+ of experience with the first 3. C++ allows you to write incomprehensible code (even to the experienced C++ devs) and justify its existence (because of the performance gains). But you need to be a top expert to write a compileable code of that type. I'm comfortable with diving in any C++ codebase except for the libraries like std, boost, abseil, folly, etc. Most of the code there is absurdly difficult to comprehend.
On the other hand Python leads in the ways a junior dev can introduce hell in the code. Especially if the team doesn't rely on the strict type check. I have seen horrors.
I was bewildered when I realized that working with JavaScript with type checks (Closure compiler) was insanely more productive and smooth than working with Python (before the type checks).
That's why Java won the enterprise world. It takes an effort to make a mess in Java (but people still manage). Go is in a similar place.
A 20 KLOC Python program is not more complicated than the 100 KLOC C program performing the same function. Quite the contrary. But if you're comparing 100 KLOC of C to 100 KLOC of Python, the Python program may seem unwieldy.
But when you come across 500 KLOC of C, then you say "wow this is big" and you're forewarned that this is going to be unwieldy. You may underestimate the 100 KLOC of Python. That's all I'm saying.
I worked on large Python, C++, Java & Go services. I have 10y+ of experience with the first 3. C++ allows you to write incomprehensible code (even to the experienced C++ devs) and justify its existence (because of the performance gains). But you need to be a top expert to write a compileable code of that type. I'm comfortable with diving in any C++ codebase except for the libraries like std, boost, abseil, folly, etc. Most of the code there is absurdly difficult to comprehend.
On the other hand Python leads in the ways a junior dev can introduce hell in the code. Especially if the team doesn't rely on the strict type check. I have seen horrors.
I was bewildered when I realized that working with JavaScript with type checks (Closure compiler) was insanely more productive and smooth than working with Python (before the type checks).
That's why Java won the enterprise world. It takes an effort to make a mess in Java (but people still manage). Go is in a similar place.