PythonSyntax works for me because of : *lack of braces - I often forget them or lose them in other languages *smallest amount of typing - many other languages seem verbose to me *whitespace - indentation as block delimiting makes it easy for me to read. *Really intuitive syntax for returning multiple objects from a function. *Array slice notation (yes we ''know'' Python wasn't the first) ''I don't suppose that there is any chance of an ObfuscatedPython Contest, is there?'' *Actually, there is, but it mostly involves lambdas and using both tabs and spaces. Mmm... who can guess what the following code prints? print (lambda x:"print %s(%s)"%(x,repr(x)))('(lambda x:"print %s(%s)"%(x,repr(x)))') Neat, but not surprising. I like this old one from TimPeters a=range(1,11);(eval('a.'+[].__methods__[-2])()or a) ''Just how old would that be? '__methods__' appears not to exist in Python 2.3...'' Maybe the following works in newer Python: a=range(1,11);(eval('a.'+dir([])[-2])()or a) and of course ... #!/usr/local/bin/python -- -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-in-4-lines-Python from sys import*;a=argv;[s,p,q]=filter(lambda x:x[:1]!= '-',a);d='-d'in a;e,n=long(p,16),long(q,16);l=(len(q)+1)/2;o,inb=l-d,l-1+d while s:s=stdin.read(inb);s and map(stdout.write,map(lambda i,b=pow(reduce( lambda x,y:(x<<8L)+y,map(ord,s)),e,n):chr(b>>8*i&255),range(o-1,-1,-1))) Wear that on a t-shirt in asia and you're stylin'! ''Oops, is this wiki now a munition?'' Nah, they relaxed the export prohibitions. ---- See PythonWhiteSpaceDiscussion, PythonVsRuby