[p_l]

Python 2 -> 3 transition is probably considerable part of why it's becoming less ubiquitous.

Especially considering how a major distro[1] that defaulted to Python 2.7 only just was dropped by many[2] - but not all, because some "heroes" jumped at the last moment to provide binary compatible support options

[1] CentOS 7

[2] Especially if you wanted to be in any case acceptable to sell to FedRAMP-requiring or similar clientele, but in Europe NIS 1 (already in force) and NIS2 (starts enforcement this year) ban software that is post end-of-support

[dagw]

Python 2 -> 3 transition is probably considerable part of why it's becoming less ubiquitous.

What do you mean? I've been using python since 1.5 and it is more ubiquitous today than it has ever been at any other time in the past.

[p_l]

BLUF: It's definitely more ubiquitous in terms of general use, but I find it becomes less ubiquitous as in "always available on a Linux system" and increasingly painful.

I remember Python around 2.2 becoming ubiquitous and "obvious" option as "better than perl and also certainly available". Python people would even trash talk other communities for not being able to "just download the libraries from distro repo" or needing specific versions whereas you at worst grabbed updated python for your distro.

(The following is a somewhat chronological rant)

Fast forward few years and me getting out of university which for various reasons was (apparently blissfully) Python free. In between we get through the "huge"transition from Ruby 1.8 to 1.9/2.0 (had to help professor update coursework even).

The 2->3 transition interrupted that, and I am suddenly facing that a) python3 actually got released b) despite several years, it's not even guaranteed default c) you now have to explicitly use python3 or python3 in shebangs because you don't know what version of python is default d) virtualenv wtf e) there's still new code being written depending on py2 f) the library situation can be a maze.

Since I mainly worked as "DevOps" person, not a python programmer, I get to deal with increasingly borked python deployments. Suddenly authors names in comments cause deployments to fail on servers but work on dev machines as well as mine. Took long to figure, the same code working when connecting over SSH vs not working when started by systemd shows it's python deciding encoding by locale and barfing on 8bit characters (including utf-8).

Virtualenv, increasingly necessary multiple python versions, all driving increasing replacement of python in admin/management tooling. Chef and Puppet (finally) laughing from their omnibus setups at ansible exploding depending on what python is default on target distro and people who pushed ansible confused because "it only uses SSH, there's no agent". Even more movement to Golang because of static binaries.

Virtualenv becomes the effective default, forget about installing packages through distro (subjective take, I know, this is a vibe I know it's still possible).

Python 2 goes EOL and out of support but it's still default on distros used by paying customers (this changes - but not fully - this year on June 30th... Thanks to government regulation - thanks Obama /s)

I now mostly see python deployed with not just batteries but the whole jungle included (Docker). If it's s good container it doesn't have a complete copy of development environment.

Increasing mess with packaging. Distros reducing python dependencies, system python increasingly seems mostly for use only by OS components. Python equivalents of rbenv/rvm increasingly suggested as "right tool". Package build items exploding because transitive rust deps.

Customers sometimes demanding OS installs without Python. Increasingly encountering distros with no python at all.

Python packaging still feels worse today than rubygems were a decade ago.

Finally increasingly suggesting to prospective projects that benefit/cost of python goes below 1.

I used to love python back in 2002-2006 timeframe. Rails making it so damn easy to handle some projects and finally starting to grow Lisp (thanks to a detour through Haskell due to XMonad) made me look away. Even "ML ecosystem" mostly gives me more reasons to rant against Python (Tensorflow packaging as PIP wheel makes me problems even when I am going to use Python.

So, yeah, lots of code in Python, ubiquitous python jobs. Retreat from "write your tool in python, it will be easy to distribute, every distro effectively preinstalls python unless it's some LFS or Slackware weirdo"