[Python-ideas] Towards harmony with JavaScript?

[Jason H]

Before I done my firesuit, I'd like to say that I much prefer python and I rail on JS whenever I can. However these days it is quite common to be doing work in both Python and Javascript. Harmonizing the two would help JS developers pick up the language as well as people like me that are stuck working in JS as well.

TIOBE has Python at 5 and JS at 8 https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
Redmonk: 1 and 1, respectively http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2017/06/08/language-rankings-6-17/
PYPL: 2 and 5 respectively http://pypl.github.io/PYPL.html

While JS is strongly for web (Node.JS, Browsers) and Python has a weak showing (Tornado, Flask), Python is very popular on everything else on the backend where JS isn't and isn't likely to be.  The I'm making point is not to choose a 'winner', but to make the observation that: given that the tight clustering of the two languages there will be considerable overlap. People like me are asked to do both quite frequently. So I'd like a little more harmony to aid in my day-to-day. I have just as many python files as JS files open in my editor at this moment.

There are several annoyances that if removed, would go a long way.
1. Object literals: JS: {a:1} vs Python: {'a':1} 
   Making my fingers dance on ' or " is not a good use of keystrokes, and it decreases readability. However a counter argument here is what about when the a is a variable? JS allows o[a] as a way to assigned to a property that is a variable. Python of course offers functions that do this, but for simple objects, this would very much be appreciated.
   The point here is this is

2. Join: JS: [].join(s) vs Python: s.join([])
   I've read the justification for putting join on a string, and it makes sense. But I think we should put it on the list too. 

3. Allow C/C++/JS style comments: JS:[ //, /* ] vs Python #
   This one is pretty self-explanatory.

Some might want even more harmony, but I don't know the repercussions of all of that. I think the above could be implemented without breaking anything. What I do know is that 85% of my friction would be removed if the above were implemented.