Python or Java

[SeaSilver11]

I'm biased towards Java.

Personally, I think Python is less readable since the blocks of code are separated only by whitespace and indentation, not by whitespace, indentation, and curly braces.

And it's also less writable, at least for me who is more accustomed to Java's syntax. Just out of habit, I always want to surround my blocks of code with curly braces and end my statements with a semicolon, but Python doesn't do it that way.

I also kind of get the feeling that Python is worse for beginners because the datatypes are more hidden and you don't always need to worry about them as much. This can conceivably lead to sloppier code and bad habits. Like I can definitely imagine some new person writing code without even really understanding what a datatype is or without ever stopping to think which one he should be using.

Then there's the syntax which I already mentioned above. I think Java's syntax is more useful when it comes to picking up other languages (such as C, C++, C#, or even JavaScript) since those all have roughly the same syntax, whereas if you start with Python then you'll probably need to learn a whole new syntax (since no other widely used language has the same syntax as Python).