Many refer to Python as a scripting language. I heard it again last week. It came from an accomplished computer science professor and colleague. This comment was borne of ignorance: He has little experience with Python.

While there is no universal definition of a scripting language, calling Python a scripting language is ignorant. Python is the underlying language for a web framework (Django) that powers monster sites like Instagram and Pinterest. Python has major libraries like numpy and NLTK. The features of Python are too numerous to list but certainly they greatly exceed those of a language typically called a scripting language.