iirc part of pandas’ popularity was that it modeled some of R’s ergonomics. What a time in history, when such things mattered! (To be clear, I’m not making fun of pandas. It was the bridge I crossed that moved me from living in Excel to living in code.)

I learned about pandas with R in my class way back when. At the time, it seemed like magic. In a sense, it still does, but things evolve.