> Those little 20-500 line scripts were just so much more fun in Python than anything else though

It's notable that you've written this in the past tense. These kinds of scripts don't seem to be a focus for Python any more.

In fact, I recently heard as justification for a new Python feature: "it helps us with our 100-million-line Python codebase". The language has become extremely complex as it prioritizes the needs of a few teams writing millions of lines over millions of developers each writing relatively few lines.

The reason is that the design team are all working on these large codebases and, understandably, mostly focused on what makes their own lives easier. I was hopeful that in the transition from a BDFL-based governance system to a Steering Council, we would see a larger variety of experience and opinions designing the language. Instead, I don't think there has ever been a single scientist, finance worker etc on the Steering Council - it's always software developers, almost always employees of large software companies.

I’m curious what about the language is getting more complex. Any examples? The ecosystem definitely seems to be getting much more complex, but the language itself hasn’t evolved dramatically since type hints that I can remember.