What is unique about Python?

[D H]

Kay Schluehr wrote:
> gsteff wrote:
> 
> 
>>So I'm wondering, what is
>>innovative about Python, either in its design or implementation?  Or is
>>its magic really just in combining many useful features of prior
>>languages in an unusually pleasant way?
>>
>>Greg
> 
> 
> The latter.
> 
> http://www.python-in-business.org/ep2005/download.cpy?document=8599
> 
> As Guido described in his presentation Python is a decendent of ABC
> developed at the university where he studied.
> 
> Here is some material about the primary motivations of ABC:
> 
> http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/abc/language.html
> 
> Python seems to proof that eclecticism can be done right. 

Python has as much resemblance to ABC as an airplane does to a car.
The design principles used by ABC (like colons at the end of lines)
may have a certain justification in the context of ABC, but you cannot
simply transfer that justification to python.
ABC is designed specifically and entirely to be beginner-friendly. 
Python is not.