zlacker

>>lumpa+(OP)
I was fresh at university, around 2001, and our mathematics professor introduced us to Python with NumPy/SciPy as an alternative to the commercial math tools. There aren't many events that changed my career as much as that. Being exposed only to compiled languages before that, it blew my mind. It was friendly, expressive and came with batteries included.

There was a huge sense of community around Python, that I didn't really see elsewhere in the programming world. It started with these scientific libraries. Python wouldn't be what Python is today without NumPy. It was nice to see in the last years the boost of the Python scientific community, with basically anything machine learning using Python as the DSL.

>>lukasl+7b1
In my university, we were given a choice to use either Matlab or Python for exercises in many advanced courses. We even got Matlab licenses for our personal computers. But since the smallest Matlab installation still came in at several GB and my personal computer was always full with games, I chose the python stack which came in at maybe 100-200 MB for all relevant packages, while nearly everyone else chose Matlab. None of them have ever used Matlab again after University and I still use Python all the time.