Did they write python correctly though? If you vectorize your algos well enough to exclusively use numpy scipy and never use python loops then python is really really fast (not because python is fast but because numpy/scipy is fast)
Exactly. That's why I say that the speed argument is a bit obsolete by now. We can have the best of the two worlds with python! Elegance/simplicity and speed.
The focus on the speed of execution also downplays two other important aspects of python: speed of writing code and possibility to visualize results easily. As a theorist these two aspects outweigh any argument in favor of Fortran. The only serious competition to python for me is mathematica.
The truth is, any language other than Fortran/C is slow for any serious high-performance-computing task (which is not the same as everyday back-of-envelop calculations and plotting).
