Wholeheartedly agree. I'm a self taught programmer who programs to get things done rather than just doing programming for fun (I started in ML/data science field). That way, my code often resembles the caricature of these hacky codebases alluded above. And I'm well aware of it.
I often have arguments about utility of Python with my more technically solid engineer friends who keep telling me "Python doesn't scale" etc. And I often come back to the same point you highlighted: is the particular hell worth the result? For 85-90% of the cases the answer is resounding yes.
For nimble teams, startup projects, internal tools : most of the code is often thrown away eventually. Python's beauty is that the language quickly gets out of the way. Everyone then is forced to focus on complexity of the business domain, "does the code solve the business problem". The architecture/scale/speed problems will eventually arrive with Python. But most purist engineers overestimate how soon it will come. At most of the failed startup attempts I was part of, the PMF problem was more pressing to solve than software constraints.
Early days of YouTube, Dropbox, Instagram (and maybe OpenAI too) are big testament to this. I've made my peace these days by not fighting to prove Python is the best language etc. If someone tells me "Rust beats Python" kind of argument: I say I agree, wish them luck and focus on shipping things.
tl:dr; Python is still the best choice to "quickly deliver value and test your business hypothesis".
I often have arguments about utility of Python with my more technically solid engineer friends who keep telling me "Python doesn't scale" etc. And I often come back to the same point you highlighted: is the particular hell worth the result? For 85-90% of the cases the answer is resounding yes.
For nimble teams, startup projects, internal tools : most of the code is often thrown away eventually. Python's beauty is that the language quickly gets out of the way. Everyone then is forced to focus on complexity of the business domain, "does the code solve the business problem". The architecture/scale/speed problems will eventually arrive with Python. But most purist engineers overestimate how soon it will come. At most of the failed startup attempts I was part of, the PMF problem was more pressing to solve than software constraints.
Early days of YouTube, Dropbox, Instagram (and maybe OpenAI too) are big testament to this. I've made my peace these days by not fighting to prove Python is the best language etc. If someone tells me "Rust beats Python" kind of argument: I say I agree, wish them luck and focus on shipping things.
tl:dr; Python is still the best choice to "quickly deliver value and test your business hypothesis".