java vs. python

With all the blogs and things I read, I still don't read enough; I just stumbled across a year-old post by Bruce Eckel, author of the excellent "Thinking in Java", about Java vs. Python:

That case includes the regular argument that people are just as productive in Java as they could be in Python, an argument which is almost universally made in the abstract, without any direct experience in both languages. I have regular experience in both languages, and the result is always: if you want to get a lot done, use Python. The testing doesn't come, as Pixel argues, with special hand-testing, but by using the actual data that you're trying to manipulate. You just get there faster, and start finding the real problems, using real data, faster. I have this experience over and over.

And the kinds of problems I solve are only theoretically solvable using Java. It would take at least 5-10 times longer to do it, and that assumes you wouldn't give up or get lost first. For example, you could translate something from Python, but it would be much easier because you had the Python design as a roadmap, and the resulting code would still be much bigger, messier, and (a big point of argument, since people regularly claim that the more verbose Java is easier to maintain because it's so much more explicit) harder to maintain.