"I think his point is a bit deeper than "I don't like it". His point relates to the distinction Alan Kay makes [1] between programming languages which are either an "agglutination of features" or a "crystallization of style"."<p>Sorry, but this is flat out wrong.  I mean, Python's syntax is pretty consistent over all (aside from a few quirks).  Even still, Kay's archetypical example of a "style language" (Lisp) has <i>definitely</i> evolved more over the years than Python has.<p>The point isn't that the language has to be perfect.  It's just that it has to have a "feel" to it.  Python definitely has its own flavor (I mean idiomatic code is called "Pythonic" after all).  The other part of the Python philosophy is "practicality beats purity".  Therefore, there are times when the Python developers decided to just implement something practical and simple over something that's ideologically consistent.