Not a true dichotomy though. I'm more productive in Rust then I am in Python, and I'm not currently spending time managing memory or doing pointer arithmetic (you can end up doing some of that where it's inescapable, eg cyclic data structures & embedded devices/interfaces that requires manipulating memory). Though YMMV as far as productivity goes. There are of course many languages that occupy a similar niche, this is just the one I happen to favor.
