mentioned that execution speed is the only major downside to python that' indeed the case for most python usersand especially for newcomers most people find python to be easy to learn and fun to useespecially when compared with its contemporaries like javac#and +in the interest of full disclosurethoughi should also note up front some more abstract tradeoffs 've observed in my two decades in the python world --both as an educator and developer as an educatori've sometimes found the rate of change in python and its libraries to be negativeand have on occasion lamented its growth over the years this is partly because trainers and book authors live on the front lines of such things--it' been my job to teach the language despite its constant changea task at times akin to chronicling the herding of catsstillit' broadly shared concern as we'll see in this bookpython' original "keep it simplemotif is today often subsumed by trend toward more sophisticated solutions at the expense of the learning curve of newcomers this book' size is indirect evidence of this trend on the other handby most measures python is still much simpler than its alternativesand perhaps only as complex as it needs to be given the many roles it serves today its overall coherence and open nature remain compelling features to most moreovernot everyone needs to stay up to date with the cutting edge--as python ' ongoing popularity clearly shows as developeri also at times question the tradeoffs inherent in python' "batteries includedapproach to development its emphasis on prebuilt tools can add dependencies (what if battery you use is changedbrokenor deprecated?)and encourage special-case solutions over general principles that may serve users better in the long run (how can you evaluate or use tool well if you don' understand its purpose?we'll see examples of both of these concerns in this book for typical usersand especially for hobbyists and beginnerspython' toolset approach is major asset but you shouldn' be surprised when you outgrow precoded toolsand can benefit from the sorts of skills this book aims to impart orto paraphrase proverbgive people tooland they'll code for dayteach them how to build toolsand they'll code for lifetime this book' job is more the latter than the former as mentioned elsewhere in this both python and its toolbox model are also susceptible to downsides common to open source projects in general--the potential triumph of the personal preference of the few over common usage of the manyand the occasional appearance of anarchy and even elitism--though these tend to be most grievous on the leading edge of new releases we'll return to some of these tradeoffs at the end of the bookafter you've learned python well enough to draw your own conclusions as an open source systemwhat python "isis up to its users to define in the endpython is more popular today than everand its growth shows no signs of abating to somethat may be more telling metric than individual opinionsboth pro and con python & session