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I still love languages like Scala and Python and I still want Linux for most of my web servers, but the gaps are closing and the game is getting really interesting. If you are ignoring Microsoft, you may get caught by surprise.

The funny part is, MS is no longer trying to pretend that the world ends at its bubble - .NET is nice, but not all people like it, and it's not perfect for everything; and that's okay. So, for example, you can do Python using Microsoft tools and on Microsoft platforms (and yes, it is all open source under sane licenses like AL 2.0). At the same time, a Microsoft employee is one of the core CPython maintainers, and is basically responsible for the official Win32 releases. Expect more of that kind of thing in the future.

(full disclosure: I am a developer on the PTVS team)

It should be noted that there are things for which Linux is simply better suited for whatever reason, and in that case Microsoft does not shy away from that, either. In particular, have a look at Microsoft job postings for PyCon. These are all for backend development, where backend is Linux/Docker, for the simple reason that 1) there's no Windows equivalent to lightweight containers, and 2) IPython users generally expect a Unix-like environment with shell etc.

(Full disclosure: I am a Microsoft employee on the same team that posted these job openings.)

People have no right to not be offended. They need to get over it and learn some tolerance.

I'm not quite sure where you get this right to be not offended thing. It's a private event, so we're not dealing with restriction from the government. In fact, PyCon has a code of conduct (that's since been revised/clarified). That's the entire reason that PyCon staff escorted the two men out of the conference.

From the updated PyCon code of conduct:

All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks.

Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees. Behave professionally. Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for PyCon.

Attendees violating these rules may be asked to leave the conference without a refund at the sole discretion of the conference organizers.

She thinks she has the right to post their pictures and quote a private conversation in public, but they're wrong for making a dirty joke (which wasn't directed or told to her) in private conversation?

I'm not sure where you're getting the impression that this was a private conversation. It was a setting where they were expected to be quiet, and they weren't. They shouldn't have been talking in the first place, and instead they were talking loud enough for others to hear and exchanging inappropriate jokes. Per Richards' blog post, the speaker was talking about inspiring the next generation of coders. If the two guys were so disinterested that they needed to have an off-topic conversation, or in need of so much privacy... they should have gone elsewhere. Yeah Richards was talking as well (responding to someone else's remarks). Were I there that would have done two things: 1.) annoyed the hell out of me 2.) served as an indication that whatever I say will be heard by other people. In fact, from the blog post, the jokes were a response to a public conversation between Richards and someone else. These two guys (should have) had zero expectation of privacy.

So you didn't even bother to look into SciPy, but you "know Python isn't designed to handle powerful scientific computing". This will come as a surprise to all the scientists using SciPy for powerful scientific computing.

http://conference.scipy.org/proceedings/
http://andy.terrel.us/blog/2012/09/27/starting-with-python/
https://us.pycon.org/2012/schedule/presentation/463/

I'm not even going to try to persuade you. Have fun with Matlab and have a nice life.

Well, it seem that the Youtube part of Google certainly still uses Python quite a bit.
https://us.pycon.org/2012/schedule/presentation/128/

At Pycon 2007 in Dallas I saw a lightning talk demonstrating how electronic voting could be secure in just 293 lines of code.

However the bottom line is that you shouldn't trust any voting system. What you should have is an auditing system where you can do recounts. The less moving parts or the fewer lines of code you have the easier it will be to audit a system.

I saw an XO up close and personal at Pycon 2007. Ivan Krstic gave some very interesting talks about the device. It is very well engineered and they put a lot of thought into it. I can see why Intel and Microsoft are up in arms over it. The XO is the opposite of bloat. It is intended to operate in a very decentralized environment and with minimal support.

One of my complaints was that we could not buy them here, but now thanks to the Give One Get One program that is no longer a problem. They originally only intended to sell them to governments in large lots. I didn't think that was the best business model. There are other models for NGO's they could follow. Modeling it after the BOGO light was a smart move.

Some of you might be interested in a recent Presentation / Screencast given by Kevin Dangoor (creator of the TurboGears Python web framework) given at this year's Pycon. Although he does talk a bit about TurboGears, most of the talk is tips and examples on how to add functionality using Ajax without confusing users.

Google's always been pretty open about heavy Python use. There is fairly interesting presentation by Greg Stein about Python at Goole here (audio only).